The sky was broken.
Veins of crimson light pulsed across the heavens like bleeding cracks in a dying mirror, casting the land below in a somber hue. Mountains crumbled in the distance. Starfire rained like tears from the firmament. The very air trembled as if mourning what was about to occur.
At the peak of the Sanctum of Threads, where no mortal had ever dared to stand, a man knelt alone amid shattered pillars and torn pages. His robes were torn, his left arm hung uselessly at his side, and his once-golden eyes had dulled to a stormy silver.
But still, he smiled.
He held in his hand an ancient tome — no thicker than a palm, yet heavier than the world. Its cover was blank, unmarred by time, yet the energy it emitted could unweave reality itself.
This was the Eternal Tome of Origin.
A relic lost to the ages. A book said to predate the birth of laws, of spirit, of life. A book that could read the flaws in all things — techniques, artifacts, realms, even fate itself. He had spent three decades in solitude unlocking its secrets, studying every inkless page as lines of ethereal gold slowly etched themselves into it.
And now, he had reached the final page.
Rui Xuan, the Heaven's Apex Monarch, the Uncrowned Lord of the Twelve Realms, had deciphered it at last.
"I can fix the flaws in the Heavenly Cycle itself," he whispered, voice barely audible. "No more false paths. No more broken bloodlines. No more divine manipulation... I can free them all."
But as the final glyph glowed upon the page — the last sigil required to awaken the Tome's true form — Rui Xuan felt it.
Killing intent.
A dozen of them. No... more.
He rose, slowly, warily, placing the tome in front of him. "So it is true," he said, almost amused. "You feared the book more than the corruption it reveals."
From the shadows of the collapsing sanctum, figures emerged — cloaked in divine armor, wielding weapons that shimmered with primordial essence.
The Twelve Rulers. His former allies. Those who had once bled beside him to unite the scattered heavens.
"Forgive us," said the First. His voice trembled — not from sorrow, but conviction. "You crossed a line, Rui Xuan. This book... it is not meant for our kind."
"The flaw," said Rui, turning his head slightly, "is not in the book. It's in us."
They didn't answer. They moved.
The first strike came from the left — a thunder spear piercing his already-wounded arm. The second from behind — a blade of void essence slicing into his spine. Rui Xuan coughed blood, staggering forward as celestial chains erupted from the ground and bound him in place.
Still, he refused to fall.
"You... could've asked," he muttered, blood running down his lips. "I would've shared it freely. I always meant to."
"You would have undone everything," the Sixth said. "You would've shattered our reign."
"So be it."
The Tome pulsed.
A golden glow erupted from it, resisting their seals, trembling in the presence of Rui's dying spirit. As his vision blurred and his body failed, he placed one final hand — bloodied, broken — upon the open page.
"Then let my failure... be a new beginning."
His blood soaked into the paper. The glyphs lit with a blinding light.
BOOM!!.
The rulers stepped back instinctively as the Tome surged upward, spinning as it released a ring of radiant energy that shattered the collapsing sanctum's remnants. The sky split open — not from violence, but from awakening.
The book floated high above Rui Xuan's corpse, glowing with an ethereal brilliance the likes of which the world had never seen.
And then — it descended.
It merged into his chest, burning through flesh and soul alike, before vanishing entirely.
Silence followed.
Where once stood a man who challenged the heavens, there was now only a lifeless body in the ashes of a forgotten truth.
---
Time passed.
Years became centuries. Centuries became millennia. Millennia blurred into legends.
The names of the Twelve Rulers became canonized in temples.
The name Rui Xuan was struck from history.
The Eternal Tome of Origin was dismissed as myth.
But fate, as always, is flawed.
100,000 years later…
Under the shadow of the Forgotten Sky Range, in a backwater village untouched by sects or empires, a child was born.
He did not cry.
He did not move.
He did not breathe.
Until — his mother's tears landed on his chest.
A golden glyph shimmered behind his eyes.
The midwife dropped her tools, gasping.
The child drew his first breath — and the heavens stirred for the first time in ten millennia.
No one noticed the invisible tome now cradled in his soul.
No one knew that an ancient power had reawakened.
No one remembered the name Rui Xuan.
Not even Rui himself.
But the Tome did.
And it had waited long enough.
---