“In the end, the price of truth is not paid in gold—but in blood, memories, and time. If one must fall, let it be not in fear, but in the strength of the final defiance.”

  I. The Weight of ChoiceAduin stood at the precipice of a moment he knew could either save or destroy everything. His chest tightened as the flickering nterns cast long shadows on the stone walls, the oppressive weight of Jiang Qimei's presence suffocating every breath he took.

  Yu Xiaoqin’s form y suspended in the cocoon, her face pale, her eyes pleading for salvation. She had given him one command—Run—and yet, here he was, standing still, defying it. Not out of recklessness, but because of something far deeper, far darker: hope. Hope that he could change the future, even if it meant sacrificing everything he had fought for.

  Jiang Qimei’s lips curled upward, her smile a thin mask of wicked amusement.

  "You're quite stubborn for someone so close to death, Aduin," she said, her voice silky and venomous. "But then again, I expect no less from the st bearer of the Ninth Fme. You’ve survived where others would have perished long ago. Yet here you stand, so full of defiance, even when faced with the truth."

  Aduin’s hand clenched around the Rot-Bone Dagger. He could feel the heat of the Ninth Fme flickering inside him, the seal beginning to respond to the Matron’s presence. The Sutra thrummed with power, but it also seemed… more alive, more insistent than before. The more he resisted, the stronger it became.

  “I will not give you the Ninth Fme,” Aduin growled, his voice hoarse, but unwavering. “You want it, but it’s not yours to take.”

  Qimei chuckled softly, a sound like gss shattering.

  “Ah, that stubbornness,” she mused, her voice dripping with amusement.

  “Such a fine trait, but it will be your undoing. You see, you’ve been marked by the Fme from the beginning. The truth is, you have no choice. You cannot escape it.”

  Aduin’s mind raced. He remembered the way he had learned to summon the Ninth Fme—the way it had consumed him, body and soul, when he first tapped into its power. The ancient, forbidden Sutra had been more than just a cultivation method. It was a trap. A curse.

  Qimei stepped closer, her presence radiating a dangerous, otherworldly force.

  “This world is built on truths. Do you know what that means?” Her eyes glowed with an unsettling light. "The Lantern Citadel is not merely a pce of exile, Aduin. It is a prison of truth, where time bends and spirit is fractured. And you—you are the key. The only key capable of unlocking it."

  Aduin’s blood ran cold as he took a step back, his mind struggling to process her words. Time and spirit—bending? The thought twisted in his gut, but it didn’t stop him from speaking his truth.

  “I refuse to be your pawn,” he spat. “You can’t control me.”

  Qimei’s smile widened, but there was no humor in it. It was a smile full of promise, a promise of destruction, of unraveling.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  With a flick of her wrist, the air around them thickened, rippling with energy. The nterns fred to life, their light so blinding that Aduin had to shield his eyes. His body tensed, every nerve alive with the anticipation of the inevitable battle to come. He could feel the Ninth Fme thrumming within him, eager to fight, eager to burn.

  But it wasn’t the fight that worried him.

  It was the truth.

  II. The Lanterns' CurseThe Citadel shifted.

  The stone walls vibrated with an eerie hum, and the space around them warped, expanding and contracting. Time bent in unpredictable ways, and Aduin felt the very essence of reality begin to unravel. His thoughts fragmented as the air thickened, the nterns casting shifting shadows.

  The Matron of the Lantern Sect extended her hand, and the ground beneath Aduin's feet began to crack, glowing lines of spiritual threads running across the stones like veins of light.

  “The truth is a weapon,” Qimei’s voice echoed.

  “And you’ve come to cim it. But like all weapons, it cuts both ways. You will face the consequences of wielding such power.”

  Suddenly, everything stopped.

  Aduin’s heart hammered in his chest as the space around him froze. Time itself seemed to bend and ripple, caught in the grip of the Lantern Matron's power. He could no longer feel the familiar pulse of his own energy, nor the warmth of the Ninth Fme. Instead, he felt the weight of eternity pressing down on him, trapping him in the moment.

  “Now,” Qimei's voice purred, “you will see what truth truly means.”

  Aduin’s mind screamed as memories—his own and those of countless others—flooded his consciousness. He saw himself as a child, back in his homend, Midgard, surrounded by faces he had long forgotten. His family. His friends. The peaceful days before he had been drawn into the world of cultivation.

  But as he looked closer, he saw shadows in those memories—fragments of something darker, something he had buried deep within himself.

  The fmes. The death.

  The truth.

  Suddenly, his memories distorted. The familiar faces blurred and twisted into grotesque figures, their eyes empty. The shadows in his past came to life, cwing at him, dragging him back to the horrors he had tried to escape.

  “No!” Aduin shouted, trying to break free from the phantoms of his past. “This isn’t real!”

  “Ah, but it is,” Qimei said, her voice full of cold satisfaction.

  “This is your truth, Aduin. The one you’ve been running from. The one that defines you.”

  His head throbbed, and the pain in his chest surged as memories of his earliest training emerged—his first taste of the Rot Sutra, the curse that bound him to the Ninth Fme. The horrors he had witnessed. The people he had lost.

  “I was a tool,” he whispered, his breath ragged. “A weapon used by the very forces I tried to escape.”

  Qimei’s smile deepened, and for a moment, it seemed as though the entire world was closing in on him. The Citadel, the nterns, the very fabric of time and spirit—all of it was her. The Matron of the Lantern Sect was not merely a master of spiritual arts. She was a guardian of truth, a living embodiment of the very force that kept the world in bance.

  And in that moment, Aduin realized that the Ninth Fme—the power he had sought to control, the power that had consumed him—was never meant for him. It was a force that belonged to her.

  III. The Breaking PointThe ground trembled beneath Aduin’s feet, the walls beginning to crack as the very essence of reality unraveled. The Lantern Matron’s eyes glowed brighter, her power becoming a crushing weight upon Aduin’s body.

  “You will accept your pce, Aduin,” she intoned, her voice like the distant ringing of bells.

  “You will accept the truth of the Ninth Fmeor you will perish.”

  He felt the truth pressing in on him—like an endless flood of memories, of choices he had made, of lives he had taken. His hands trembled, his breath shallow. The Rot Sutra pulsed in his chest, burning him from within.

  “I… I don’t want this,” Aduin gasped, his voice breaking. “I don’t want the truth.”

  But Qimei’s ughter echoed through the Citadel.

  “You’ve already accepted it,” she whispered. “Whether you like it or not.”

  In that instant, Aduin realized that the only way to escape the Citadel was not through strength, nor through force, but through acceptance. The Ninth Fme was never meant to be controlled. It was a curse—one that could not be undone, only accepted.

  His vision blurred. His mind spun.

  And then—

  The world shifted again.

  Epilogue: The Eye That Sees AllAduin awoke.

  The Lantern Citadel was gone. The stone walls. The nterns. Qimei.

  Everything.

  He was standing in a pce that was neither here nor there, a realm outside of time. Shadows flickered around him, but there were no faces, no voices—only silence.

  But then, in the silence, he heard it.

  A voice.

  Familiar.

  Faint.

  “Aduin…”

  His heart skipped a beat.

  He spun around, but no one was there.

  “Aduin, listen carefully.”

  It was her voice. Yu Xiaoqin.

  “The Lantern Matron… she’s not what you think.”

  And then, as quickly as it had come, the voice faded.

  Aduin fell to his knees, panting.

  “Xiaoqin…”

  The ground beneath him began to crack.

  And a new truth was born.

  [TO BE CONTINUED...]