The Scorched Sky
1. The Smoldering Battlefield
The world was burning.
Chen Zhen moved through the inferno like a phantom, the golden flames of Matriarch Lian Hua carving destruction across the sanctuary. The air shimmered with heat, warping reality itself, yet he barely felt it. His body pulsed with raw power, a perfect storm of Void, lightning, and fire struggling for dominance within him.
The Matriarch floated above the battlefield, her phoenix wings spread wide, radiating an unbearable intensity. Her presence was an unshakable truth—one of absolute authority.
"Tell me, anomaly," she called over the storm, "do you feel it? The weight of your existence?"
Chen exhaled slowly, his hands clenched into fists. His skin still burned from her last attack, but the Void within him devoured the lingering embers, his wounds sealing almost instantly.
"I feel fine."
A lie.
The Nexus shard in his chest pulsed erratically. Visions flickered in the corners of his mind—fractured futures, endless possibilities splintering off from every choice he made. One where he won. One where he lost. One where he was never here at all.
"Your power is stolen," Lian Hua continued, her tone shifting. "You wield the soul of my son, the storm of my enemies, and the hunger of something that should never have been. Tell me, Chen Zhen—who are you?"
A simple question.
An impossible answer.
Chen cracked his neck. "The guy who's going to survive this."
The Matriarch sighed. Then she raised her hand.
And the sky fell apart.
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2. The War of Flames and Shadows
A golden tempest descended upon him. It was not fire as mortals understood it—it was divine, ancient, a force that erased rather than burned. The sanctuary's walls disintegrated, the earth beneath them liquefying into molten slag.
Chen didn't run. He couldn't.
Instead, he met the inferno head-on.
With a snap of his fingers, the Void unfurled around him, swallowing the golden fire in waves of absolute darkness. His glaive materialized in his grip, humming with the combined might of his fractured soul. Lightning crackled along the blade's edge, phoenix fire licked its core, and the Void pulsed hungrily at its heart.
He struck.
The impact shattered the air.
Matriarch Lian Hua blocked with a single hand, her fingers wrapping around the glaive's edge. Flames coiled around her, consuming the darkness, warping its shape, forcing it to bend to her will.
Chen twisted his weapon, channeling all three energies at once. The conflicting forces roared against one another, the storm and fire trying to outconsume each other, the Void devouring both indiscriminately.
The Matriarch's eyes flickered. "Fascinating."
Then she pushed.
Chen flew backward, slamming into the ruined sanctuary wall, dust and stone collapsing around him. His lungs seized, his vision blurred, and the Nexus shard screamed in protest.
Above him, Lian Hua landed gracefully, untouched by the destruction she had wrought. "You think yourself untethered from fate," she mused. "But I see the strings. And I will cut them."
She lifted a single finger.
The flames in the sky coalesced.
And the world burned.
---
3. The Nexus Awakens
The heat. The pressure. The overwhelming certainty of annihilation.
Something inside Chen snapped.
The Nexus shard pulsed.
And time stopped.
The battlefield faded into a realm of shifting shadows, endless reflections of what could be. Matriarch Lian Hua stood frozen mid-strike, her flames suspended like golden sculptures in the empty void.
A voice slithered through the abyss.
"You are not ready."
Chen turned, his body weightless in the frozen moment. His reflection flickered in the void—not just one, but dozens, hundreds, each with different eyes, different weapons, different fates.
The clone stood among them.
"This battle is not meant for you yet," the clone murmured. "You are incomplete. Your soul, fractured. Your power, borrowed. You stand at the precipice of something far greater than you understand."
Chen scowled. "And what? You want me to run?"
The clone's eyes darkened. "No. But if you fight her now, you lose. Not just the battle. Not just the war. You lose yourself."
The Nexus shard pulsed again, showing him a single path. One that didn't end in death.
"Choose."
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4. The Escape and the Hunt
Reality resumed.
Chen twisted at the last moment, letting the flames graze his side rather than consume him whole. Pain erupted through his body, but he didn't falter.
Instead, he ran.
The Matriarch's flames chased him, her expression unreadable as he blurred through the ruins, his every step carving paths through the shattered remnants of the sanctuary.
Julong appeared beside him in a flicker of motion, his robes singed but his eyes sharp. "Took you long enough to figure it out."
"Shut up and move."
They vanished into the darkness, the Lou Clan's forces hot on their heels.
Above them, Lian Hua did not give chase.
She simply watched.
"Run, little anomaly," she whispered. "You cannot escape what you are becoming."
And behind her, the rift widened.
A new presence stirring within its depths.
Something worse than the Matriarch herself.
Something waiting for him.
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