Emberfire Scorching the Elder Ruins Karmic Flame flowed between ten thousand Emberfire Spires. The moment Xuan's Chrono Dust touched the ground, azure fire ignited beneath his boots—the Elder Law's instinctive rejection of "temporal disruption." Before him, Zhu Li's Emberkeeper Heart-Lantern flickered erratically at her chest, its wavering light revealing fragments of the Sky-Cleaving: Non-Calamity Records. The words "Flux Fragment lies at the Emberfire Altar's core" shimmered faintly within its pages, pulsing with the rhythm of the Karmic Flames.
"These spires devour cultivators' reincarnation seals," Zhu Li murmured, tracing a spire's surface. Her Emberfire Sigils resonated with ancient Pangu-scorch glyphs, unleashing layered memory fragments—Primeval cultivators petrified in terror before turning to amber; Ancient mutants consumed by unwillingness. All sealed within Karmic Flame's cycle. "The Flux Fragment rewrites reincarnation's path. It isn't mere time-law. It's the 'Choice Calibration' Pangu left upon Sky-Cleaving."
I. Time's Guillotine in the Reincarnation Labyrinth
Before Zhu Li finished, twelve Emberfire Spires abruptly rotated counter-clockwise. An immense Time Dial materialized on the ground. Xuan felt his meridians regressing—Core Formation cultivation collapsing back to Qi Refining. This was the Elder Karmic Flame's "Cycle Rewind," designed to excise mortal cultivation legacies. Worse, translucent figures emerged within distant flames—each clad in scales like his own, yet perfected versions from divergent timelines.
"Residue of Time. You dare tread the Samsara Wheel tainted by chaos?" The lead figure spoke with the scent of charred destiny. "We are the Elder Emberfire Priests. By the Cocoon Spirit's decree, you remain trapped at the cycle's origin point."
Xuan gripped the Sky-Cleaving Axe, only to see the Stillness and Chaos Fragments on its blade dim within the Karmic Flame. Zhu Li reacted instantly—biting her tongue, she painted an Emberkeeper Blood Oath upon the wick: "Disrupt the Dial's hands with Chrono Dust! They are 'Choice Enforcers' born of Karmic Flame—forcing all to repeat Pangu's failure!"
II. The Emberkeeper's Forbidden Price
The moment Zhu Li's oath took form, the Heart-Lantern erupted with solar brilliance. Within its light hovered the phantom of Zhuyin, the First Emberkeeper—dragging a chain forged from ten thousand warrior souls: the Starlight Battle-Chain, woven by generations of Emberkeepers who sacrificed their spirits to defy the Elder cycle.
"By my three Hun-souls and seven Po-souls—Awaken the ten thousand Ancestral Souls!" Zhu Li's voice shredded like breaking glass. Her silver hair greyed instantly, each strand disintegrating into starlight. "Xuan! Shatter the Dial's Karmic Anchor!"
Seizing the moment, Xuan channeled Chrono Dust into the axe. A phantom Time Dial materialized upon its blade. As he struck the "Pangu Ghost Shadow" at the Dial's center, three branching timelines tore through the void: Primeval Eternal Stasis, Ancient Chaotic Devouring, and the nascent third path—Symbiosis Unformed.
"So the Flux Fragment's true purpose... is allowing branched timestreams..." Xuan's scales phased between crystal lattice and living tissue, finally stabilizing into translucent chronomatter. "The Elder Law isn't reincarnation—it's the Cage of Selection, crafted by the Cocoon Spirit to imprison all beings!"
III. Causality Resonance of the Flux Fragment
At the instant of his epiphany, the Emberfire Altar's core revealed itself—a bronze timepiece floating amid Karmic Flame. At its center pulsed the Flux Fragment, its surface engraved with stellar trajectories from Pangu's primordial act—each trajectory mapping a possible future.
"Residue! You believe you break our cycle?" The Emberfire Priests' bodies dissolved into a million Karmic Flame tendrils lunging at Xuan's mind. "We've woven cocoon threads through your timeline! Pangu's failure is your fate!"
In the critical breath, Zhu Li ignited her final spirit to trigger "Starlight Return to Embers." Shards of the Heart-Lantern fused into Xuan's brow—granting him a glimpse of the Cocoon Spirit's truth: The Three Antiquity Wills were but three threads spun by the entity, and the Flux Fragment? The very wedge Pangu once wielded to sever them.
"ZHU LI!" Roaring, Xuan plunged the Sky-Cleaving Axe into the bronze dial. Stillness Frost froze the Karmic tendrils' regeneration; Chaos Disorder tangled causality lines; Flux released the Dawn's First Glimmer at Creation. When the triune light flooded the altar, the bronze timepiece detonated with thunderous fury. The Flux Fragment dissolved into light—merging at last with the Sky-Cleaving Axe.
IV. Primordial Symbiosis of Three Antiquities
The moment the Sky-Cleaving Axe solidified whole, the Karmic Flames across the Elder Ruins flickered out for the first time. Xuan traced the new Flux Vein winding along the axe blade—a serpentine river of light symbolizing time's infinite potential. Even more astonishing: ancestral spirits long trapped in flame coalesced into physical forms.
"We... remember..." An Elder ancestor touched his chest in wonder, where a Karmic Seal had branded him. Now, it gleamed as an Emberfire Sigil. "Reincarnation isn't fate... just the script forced by the Cocoon..."
Zhu Li collapsed into Xuan's arms. Her Emberkeeper Sigil faded, yet relief shone in her eyes: "The final page of the Sky-Cleaving: Non-Calamity Records says... Pangu deliberately left the Three Fragments after Creation. Not for power. To give every era... a choice..."
Karmic Flames resurged in the distance—yet now they birthed not priests, but the Cocoon Spirit's blurred silhouette. Xuan tightened his grip on the axe, feeling the true fusion within: Stillness Frost lost its icy bite; Chaos Disorder shed its frenzy; Flux Light abandoned blind recursion—forming instead a delicate symbiosis loop.
V. Manifestation: Realm-Breakthrough
"Primordial Chaos Tempering—complete!" Xuan's low growl resonated. Across his skin surged intricate symbiosis patterns: ice-scales interlaced with flesh meridians; meat fibers glittering with time streams; while the core Emberfire coalesced them all. This was the ultimate form of Cocoon-Breaking Nine Heavens' penultimate stage—a microcosmic symbiosis cosmos birthing within him.
Zhu Li struggled upright, pointing at a starmap materializing above the altar: "The Flux Fragment isn't just time-law. It's Choice Law... allowing the Three Antiquities their first coexistence..." Her gaze fixed on the map's chaotic edge, where a collapsing cocoon pulsed. "The true pivot of the Great War? Making every being believe they may choose their own Law."
Aftermath:
Standing in the ruins, Xuan studied the complete Sky-Cleaving Axe. Its blade's notorious notch was no flaw now—but Pangu's Choice Gap. Deeper in the altar, Zhu Li discovered Zhuyin's final testament: "When Three Antiquity Fragments resonate—the Cocoon Spirit's threads fray. Yet true emergence begins only when beings release their fixation on 'Perfect Law.'"
Before departing, Xuan imbued the Emberfire Spires with the axe's triune light. Petrified reincarnation seals suddenly sprouted divergent choices: some chose hibernation within flame; others departed carrying Emberfire sparks; some even attempted cultivating herbs to quench Karmic Flames with living flesh. These tiny choices seeded the later Great War's mass awakening.
Zhu Li buried shards of her Heart-Lantern at the altar's base. There sprouted Emberfire Grass—foliage glowing and dimming at its own discretion. This became the first symbiotic crystallization of Three Antiquity Laws, the prototype for San-Yuan City's later Symbiosis Wall. She knew her spirit-burn debt loomed, yet prioritized Xuan's axe-forging time.
"Next," Xuan gazed toward chaotic storm-clouds gathering at the Three Antiquity border, "we face the Laws themselves. But now... symbiosis is possible."
Zhu Li nodded, her chest-sigil flickering back to life—weathered, yet resolute: "Remember. What the Three Antiquity Wills fear isn't power—but choice. When any mortal dares say, 'I choose otherwise,' the Cocoon Spirit's threads unravel."
Within the Elder Ruins' lingering Karmic Flames, Flux Light tore through darkness—illuminating Xuan and Zhu Li striding toward the Great Antiquity War. No longer a weapon of destruction, the Sky-Cleaving Axe had become a Symbol of Choice—cleaving not merely physical barriers, but mortal delusions of "Absolute Law." And this—this was the critical foreshadowing that would later move ice-cultivators to shed their masks of perfection, and flesh-abominations to renounce their devouring instincts... in the war to come.