The wind outside the Tomb of Echoes had changed.
It howled now—not as a whisper, but as a warning.
Wang Lin stood beneath the open sky once more, his body trembling with barely contained energy. The knowledge of the Tenth Cycle surged within him, too vast, too ancient, and too wild to be contained by a mortal frame. His veins glowed faintly, his pupils shifting like molten silver as remnants of a forgotten age bled into the present.
Lian Hua stepped beside him, her voice hushed. "You've changed."
"I had to," Wang Lin said. "The Tenth Cycle isn't a path. It's… a reckoning."
Jin Tao, leaning on his short blade, frowned. "That blast of light just painted a target on us the size of a mountain. If the Temple didn't know where we were before…"
"They know now," Wang Lin finished grimly.
They didn't have to wait long.
From the far horizon, the clouds parted—not with thunder, but with silence. A void formed in the sky, a bleeding wound in reality itself. Through it descended a figure clad in robes stitched with pale fire, a mask of cracked porcelain concealing their face.
The air grew heavy.
Birdsong ceased. Trees stilled.
Even the wind knelt.
Lian Hua went pale. "That's not just a Reclaimer…"
"No," Wang Lin said, voice calm. "That's a Herald."
The figure hovered above them, voice emotionless but vast.
> "Bearer of the Tenth Cycle. You stand in violation of the Celestial Accord. Surrender your soul, and your death shall be painless."
Wang Lin stepped forward. "I refuse."
The Herald tilted its head. Then moved.
It was fast—faster than thought. One moment it floated, the next it struck the earth like a falling star, sending a shockwave across the canyon. Jin Tao was blown back, blood leaking from his mouth. Lian Hua blocked the force with her blade, her feet gouging trenches in the stone.
Wang Lin did not move.
The moment the Herald's hand reached for his chest, he raised his own—and absorbed the blow.
The Abduction Path flared to life, siphoning the essence of the Herald's attack and twisting it. Space distorted, and for a heartbeat, it looked as if the very laws of reality bent around Wang Lin.
He countered.
The force struck the Herald mid-chest, tearing the porcelain mask in half. Beneath it was a face both human and not—eyes filled with swirling galaxies, lips stitched shut with threads of divine command.
"I see now," the Herald said, voice cracked and fractured. "You are not his successor."
Wang Lin narrowed his eyes. "Then what am I?"
The Herald's mouth split open far too wide, and from it poured chanting—a forbidden mantra, ancient and suffocating. The skies above began to fracture. A divine seal fell from the heavens like a falling moon, aimed to crush them all.
"Move!" Jin Tao shouted.
But Wang Lin didn't move.
He absorbed the chanting.
The Tenth Cycle within him stirred—and answered.
Flames of reversed time ignited around him, burning upward. The divine seal slowed, then reversed midair, shattering like glass against an unseen wall.
The Herald recoiled.
"You've awakened it," it hissed. "The cycle that should never have returned. The final echo."
Wang Lin stepped forward.
A single motion. A single palm.
The Abduction Path surged—and with it, he seized a fragment of the Herald's power.
His voice was steady. "You wanted my soul? Come and take it."
The world warped. The canyon floor rose and twisted. Light and shadow bent around Wang Lin as he invoked a technique unseen since the fall of the Celestial Age:
> Cycle Severing Palm.
His strike tore through the Herald like a blade of destiny, unraveling its form. The figure screamed as its body fragmented into ash and echo.
The battle ended as quickly as it began.
Silence fell.
Jin Tao stumbled forward, mouth agape. "Remind me to never call you 'kid' again."
Lian Hua looked at Wang Lin with something between awe and fear. "That was a Herald…"
Wang Lin looked down at his hands. They trembled—not from fear, but from the power that now lived in him. The Tenth Cycle was only beginning.
He closed his eyes.
> "Mo Xie… you created this war. I will end it."
From high above, far beyond sight, another eye opened.
And in a golden temple nestled between realities, a voice whispered:
> "The Tenth Child has awakened. Prepare the Divine Reapers."