Zhu Fan tried to sever his connection with the spiritual world. The sudden disconnection tore at his soul, and the pain dragged him deep into his memories. Time, however, had no true meaning for the gods. Worse still, the person before him was the Goddess of Time herself. He had no other choice but to submit.
The world trembled, and the World Tree roared. From the ends of existence, space was ripped apart, and thousands of shadows poured into the spiritual realm. The World Tree withered. The River of Time overflowed, swallowing everything in its path. Souls, once free, were imprisoned in the void. Zhu Fan, alone, bore witness to all this destruction.
His heart clenched, and his soul screamed in agony. After thousands of years, he felt true pain again. This anguish drove him to imprison his memories within the Gu. Whenever his purpose blurred, he would gaze into those memories, a reminder of why he chose to live like mortals.
In that world, immortality meant a lifespan of about a thousand years. The immortals aged more slowly, but death came for them all in time. Cultivation extended a human's lifespan and offered deeper insight into the universe, life, and the heavens, but not everyone could reach the realm of immortality. Zhu Fan, however, had walked this path for four thousand years, far beyond the limit of most. Yet human limitations meant his mind could only hold five hundred years of memories.
Thus, he used the Memory Gu, not just to seal his thoughts but to surpass human constraints. Through rigorous mental training, he had forced his mind to comprehend four thousand years of life, though it was a burden he often regretted.
As he severed his connection with the inner world of the Gu, a tremor reached him—not physical, but spiritual. Sweat soaked his body, veins bulging with the strain of the severing, and part of his cultivation slipped from him like water through his fingers. His heart pounded wildly, but beneath that, something else stirred. His heightened senses screamed at him. The fluttering of a butterfly's wings, the spinning of a spider's web, a drop of water falling from a crack in the ceiling, a snake slithering in the earth beneath him—all these things reached him, but there was more.
Faint at first, but then sharper, he felt the presence of five figures in the distance. At the end of the road leading to the temple, four armed individuals and a child—a boy, perhaps eleven years old—lay hidden in a pit, blood seeping from a deep wound on his arm. His breathing was weak, desperate.
Zhu Fan's teeth clenched. He had seen such scenes before—long ago, when he had been an emperor. The senseless violence, the slaughter of the innocent. He knew these cries of anguish well, but he could not guess the reason behind this attack. Murim had always been a wilderness where only the strong survived—until they were inevitably hunted by the stronger.
These scenes, though familiar, cut deeper than they once did. The child's ragged breath echoed in his mind, stirring memories he had locked away within the Gu. Memories of a time when he, too, had been powerless. Faces blurred in his mind—faces of those he had failed to protect long ago. Rage surged through him, mingling with regret. He was no longer an emperor, no longer bound by those chains, but he could not stand idly by. Not again.
The killing intent within him flared, dark and furious, his eyes burning like two fierce, crimson embers. The weight of time and tragedy settled over him.
"If Murim desires chaos," he muttered, his voice cold, final, "then I will deliver judgment."
In his eyes, the red glow intensified, and in the distance, the village lay waiting. His stage was set.