The wind beyond the cave howled—not with weather, but with intention.
Feng Mo stepped outside, the horizon unnaturally still.
The trees were frozen.
Birdsong gone.
Even the clouds refused to move.
"What is this?" Ling Xue asked.
Feng Mo's pupils narrowed.
"A Karmic Lock. Reality's way of warning me… something not bound by this world is searching."
From within his Requiem Space, the Calamity Lotus pulsed once—then bent toward the sky, as if bowing to a higher force.
Then it whispered.
"The Rift calls. The memory you rejected… waits beyond."
The Rift Between Fate and Origin
The Primordial Rift was a place most cultivators only heard of in myths. Said to be older than the continents, it was a gash left in reality by the fall of the Ancient Immortals—a crack where time, space, and karma melted together.
It was also where the original Requiem Tree once bloomed… and died.
Feng Mo and Ling Xue traveled east, following the map hidden in Yun Lian's second letter.
Their destination:
The Maw of Silence — a canyon where all sound vanished and gravity pulled in reverse.
They arrived at midnight.
A swirling tear of violet-blue lightning hovered above a jagged altar.
"That's the entrance?" Ling Xue whispered.
Feng Mo nodded.
"That's not a gate. It's a wound."
Crossing the Threshold
As Feng Mo stepped forward, the Calamity Lotus bled violet light.
His body trembled—not in fear, but resonance.
This place remembered him.
Or someone like him.
"You don't have to follow me," he told Ling Xue.
She scoffed.
"I didn't betray death to watch you walk into it alone."
They leapt into the Rift together.
The world shattered.
The World Beyond Logic
Feng Mo opened his eyes.
He stood on a sea of inverted stars.
Each breath tasted like rusted time.
The sky spun backward.
Lightning struck without thunder—then turned into screaming faces.
Here, karma flowed in reverse.
Your future judged your present.
Your regrets rewrote your power.
"I need to hold onto who I am."
From his shadow, the Requiem Tree appeared—no longer bound to his soul realm.
It stood behind him like a divine totem, veins pulsing, whispering ancient names.
And then he saw them.
Dozens of silhouettes—half-formed, featureless—standing on distant floating islands.
One among them stepped forward.
A robed figure with three glowing eyes and a halo of broken stars.
"The current bearer of the Calamity Lotus…"
"You are not the first to try and rewrite fate."
"We are what remains of those who failed."
Trial of the Rift: The Failed Bearers
They attacked without warning.
Feng Mo raised his glaive, barely deflecting a strike that shouldn't exist—blades of memory, spears of undone karma.
Ling Xue fought beside him, but the Rift blurred her image. Her strikes echoed with delay, her wounds replayed over and over.
"This place is trying to make me forget who I am…"
He slammed his palm into the inverted sea.
Soulroot Domain — Stabilize Identity Field!
A burst of soul-force centered around him, anchoring his mind and halting the unraveling.
The failed bearers roared, their voices like cracked bells.
But Feng Mo felt something beneath them.
A pulse.
A heartbeat.
From deep within the Rift.
"There's something below all of this," he whispered.
"The origin of the Requiem…"
Revelation in the Depths
With a final slash of karmic flame, Feng Mo cut through the last failed bearer.
They didn't bleed.
They didn't fall.
They simply wept… and turned into petals.
One of them whispered:
"If you make it to the end… don't become us."
Then, silence.
The island cracked and sank.
Feng Mo and Ling Xue dropped with it—into the heart of the Rift.
---
They landed in a place with no horizon.
A forest of black Requiem Trees, twisted, dead, and howling silently.
In the center was a throne of bones and mirrors, vines wrapped around its base.
Sitting on it…
A man.
Or the corpse of one.
Clad in robes of gold ash and black thread.
His face was burned away—except for the eyes.
And they were Feng Mo's.
---
To be continued…
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🌌 Chapter 17 Summary:
Feng Mo is guided by the Calamity Lotus to enter the Primordial Rift, a realm where karma, time, and identity collapse.
Inside, he and Ling Xue face the Failed Bearers—past Vessels of the Requiem who couldn't endure the power.
Feng Mo resists the Rift's identity-warping effects using Soulroot Domain and presses deeper.
At the core of the Rift, he discovers a throne—and a corpse with his own eyes, hinting at an ancient origin or future fate.