The clouds had turned silver.

  No sun. No moon. No wind.

  Just silence… and a stillness that even the birds refused to break.

  Far above the Scarlet Cloud Pavilion, a crack appeared in the sky—thin, vertical, precise.

  Like a blade had parted the heavens themselves.

  From it stepped a figure draped in white robes that billowed without wind. No face. No aura. No footsteps.

  But even the earth beneath him seemed to cower.

  “I have come,” the figure said, voice like wind through bones,

  “for the one who calls himself Xinghua.”

  Elder Zhenmu’s face turned gray the moment he saw the intruder.

  “White Phantom,” he whispered. “The Blade of the Profane Court. The one who severed the North Sea Immortal Sect’s guardian beast with a single stroke. A Celestial Prime… perhaps more.”

  The Pavilion disciples stood frozen.

  Li Fan stepped forward.

  His voice cut through the silence: “I’m here.”

  The Phantom tilted its head, almost curious.

  “You are not as I remember. Smaller. Dimmer. But still… burning.”

  The Starforged Blade shimmered in Li Fan’s hand.

  “You remember me.”

  “Every star remembers the one who tried to erase them,” the Phantom replied. “Let us see what remains of the Emperor.”

  It should have been a massacre.

  A Celestial Prime versus a boy who hadn’t yet reached Core Formation.

  But cultivation was only one kind of strength.

  Legacy was another.

  And memory, in this case, was a weapon sharper than any blade.

  The Phantom struck first—his blade didn’t move, but reality shifted.

  Mountains in the distance cracked.

  Elder Zhenmu cast up ten layers of protective formations—only three survived.

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  Li Fan raised the Starforged Blade.

  The moment the Phantom’s strike arrived—

  “First Form: Heaven’s Divide.”

  He slashed, and the world split—the Phantom’s attack cut in half, redirected harmlessly into the sky.

  Gasps erupted from the watching Pavilion.

  The Phantom’s silence deepened. His robe fluttered once.

  A thousand slashes filled the sky.

  Each came from a different angle, forged from threads of space itself.

  Li Fan closed his eyes.

  “Second Form: Starveil Mirage.”

  A ripple of light surrounded him.

  Each strike passed through like waves through mist—reflected, echoed, deflected.

  One slash even returned, forcing the Phantom to move for the first time.

  The Phantom raised both hands now.

  From his body erupted a celestial domain—twisting skies, black stars, and chains of golden bone.

  “I bring the Court’s Judgment,” he intoned.

  Li Fan’s eyes glowed silver.

  His spirit energy surged.

  And for the first time, a third seal within him cracked.

  A memory burst free: the final moment before his fall—when he stood alone against the nine.

  “Third Form: Echoes of the Broken Crown.”

  His blade rose.

  And behind him, nine broken thrones shimmered into view.

  One by one, they detonated.

  The Phantom’s domain shattered like glass.

  And his voice cracked for the first time.

  “That… technique… was sealed. Only the Emperor—”

  “I am the Emperor,” Li Fan whispered.

  And struck.

  The Phantom fell.

  Not dead—but bleeding energy, his robes torn, his form flickering.

  He gazed at Li Fan, hollow.

  “You have… awakened. But not fully.”

  He looked at the sky. “They will come. All of them. Even the chained ones. Even the ones you betrayed.”

  “The Court remembers.”

  And with that—he vanished.

  Leaving only a single white feather behind.

  Silence.

  Then, an uproar.

  Disciples knelt. Elders stared. Even Yue Xian seemed to breathe slower.

  Li Fan returned to his room, blade in hand, blood on his palm.

  He did not smile.

  He did not speak.

  Because he felt it now—the world turning.

  “That was only the first,” he said.

  “Seven more remain.”

  “And none of them fear the sky.”