The Garden of Equilibrium within Chaos-Citadel still held the warmth of recent victory when frostflowers of cold blue bloomed along the Golden Fissure Sigils on Xuan's wrists. Zhu Li's Starfire Lantern snuffed out without warning, its wick solidifying into an ominous hourglass swirling with ghostly light. Within its sands drifted countless broken chains – fragments of memories shackled by Samsara's Mandates. Xing Tian's grip tightened convulsively on his Sky-Cleaving Axe; dark crimson rust, like dried blood, seeped from the Pangu War Glyphs etched upon the blade.
"The Samsara Matriarch… She's forged a new cage within a tributary of Time's River," Xuan's voice resonated with the hum of his trembling sigils. His Fissure-Gold Gaze pierced Chaos, revealing the northwest void where grains of Time coalesced into a colossal hourglass blotting out the sky. Its surface crawled with twisted curse-glyphs; each grain sealed a spirit's most unbearable past. "This time… she forces us to face our sins."
Stepping into the Temporal-Sands' Bizarre Realm shattered all sense of time. Xuan's body involuntarily regressed, manifesting the ragged look of his first days in Chaos twenty years prior. Zhu Li's silver hair instantly whitened; her Starfire Lantern reverted to its earliest, pitifully dim state. Xing Tian's chaotic-clay form disintegrated and reassembled, clad once more in the blood-soaked armor of his days as a Blood-River Lieutenant.
"Welcome to the Purgatorium." The Samsara Matriarch's remnant manifested from the hourglass core. Her form was an amalgam of countless spirit's penitent faces, each shedding tears of bitter regret. "Mirror-Wheel's perfection and Blood-River's devouring were clumsy tools. Only drowning you in the depths of your sins is a punishment worthy of gentleness." A flick of her sleeve split the ground; chains forged of compacted guilt erupted, shackling the trio's ankles.
Zhu Li struggled furiously, only to see her Starfire radiance siphoned by the chains, fueling her own prison. "These chains… are wrought from OUR regret!" Her eyes reflected unbearable scenes: fleeing helplessly as a child; wavering beneath Mirror-Wheel's perfecting light within the Sanctum.
Xuan's Golden Fissure Sigils cracked under the chains' pressure. He was forced to confront his deepest terror: What if he'd succumbed in Mirror-Wheel's armor? What if he'd failed to tame the Devouring Heart-Core? The citizens of Chaos-Citadel doomed by his protection. "These aren't real!" He spat Chaotic blood onto the chains, provoking only fiercer backlash.
Xing Tian's Sky-Cleaver slipped from nerveless fingers. His chaotic-clay body shook violently. Deliberately buried memories surged like a flood: pushing dissidents into the Blood-River as a lieutenant; his reckless fury causing Zhu Li's near-fatal wounds on their journey to break free. "No… Impossible…" He collapsed to his knees, a low moan escaping his Spine Shard.
The Samsara Matriarch's laugh was dank mirth. "Behold! Vermin crushed beneath the weight of sin. Time exists solely as a punishment. Your quest to break Saṃsāra? Merely fleeing your crimes." She gestured; temporal flow within the Bizarre Realm accelerated wildly. Before their eyes, wrinkles etched faces, joints stiffened – they aged visibly.
As guilt threatened to drown Xuan, a strange luminescence flared within his wrist's sigils—resonance with Chaos-Citadel's Symbiosis Oak! Countless voices surged into his mind-sea: the one-eyed smith's gratitude for the freedom to forge; the lame poet reciting verses of praise in his honor; the dumb girl signing her unwavering trust. "WE BELIEVE IN YOU!" That collective shout cracked the chains of sin binding his heart.
"HELL YEAH!" Xing Tian roared, surging upward. Vines on his axe-haft blazed. "Granddad's past IS mud! But he's Chaos-Citadel's BREAKER-OF-HEAVENS SMITH now!" He slammed fists onto the ground; Pangu War Glyphs erupted, shattering the shackles at his feet.
Zhu Li's Starfire Lantern reignited. Its wick focused into countless memory-sparks. "Starlight Flame: Memory Retrieval!" She cast the sparks across the Bizarre Realm. Faces of the penitent spirits took on new colors: remembrance of redemption; courage found at the moment of Chrysalis-Breaking. Like infectious illumination, they spread, cracking the hourglass surface like fractured ice.
Seizing the opening, Xuan triggered "Chaos Dao Body: Sin Reversed!". Golden Fissure Sigils became barbed vines, lashing back to coil around the Samsara Matriarch's phantom. "Sins aren't cages! They are the rungs of the ladder that made us stronger!" He slammed the Core of Choice into the hourglass's core. Multifold Dao Glyphs clashed violently with Time-Sands. "True Saṃsāra is rebirth through remembrance!"
The Samsara Matriarch shrieked. Her form frayed at the edges. Still, she fought: Time-Sands reversed with desperate fury, trying to hurl them back into their darkest moments. But Xuan, Zhu Li, and Xing Tian burned brighter within the temporal torrent, their Dao Glyphs interweaving into a shield defying Time's corrosion.
Brilliance poured from the Core of Choice, flooding the Bizarre Realm.
BOOM!
The hourglass exploded. Spirits imprisoned within the Time-Sands erupted free. Their bodies bore the dual marks of Time and Memory, yet the weight of sin vanished. The Samsara Matriarch's remnant dissolved. Before vanishing entirely, a flicker of release crossed her ephemeral face: "Perhaps... I was the one trapped... in my own wheel..."
Amidst the shattered sands of Time, Xuan found Pangu's stele once more: "*Sin marks not an end; it is the Mirror. Reflecting past darkness, it shows the path to future light.*" As the glyphs ignited, joyful resonance pulsed from Chaos-Citadel's Symbiosis Oak. Citizens aged by the temporal onslaught shed years, vitality restored.
Yet deep within Chaos, the remnants of the Mirror-Wheel Matriarch and Blood-River Patriarch gathered. They observed the Temporal-Sands' ruinous fallout, eyes alight with scheming. "Alone, we falter against them," the Mirror-Wheel Matriarch's phantom shimmered. "But if the Three Archaic Remnants were to unite…" The Blood-River Patriarch's ichor bubbled with savage anticipation. A greater catastrophe brewed within the shadowed deeps.
The remnants of the Temporal-Sands' Bizarre Realm dissolved into a luminous rain of stars, each carrying a spirit's memory of rebirth. Xuan, Zhu Li, and Xing Tian stood amidst the baptism of aftermath. The truest crucible still lay ahead. Yet they knew: so long as they held trust and dared to hope, no Wheel of Saṃsāra remained unbreakable.