The morning sun had barely begun to crest over the Azure Flame Mountains, casting long golden rays through the thin mists that curled around the Skycloud Pavilion's spires. Yet the pavilion grounds were already alive with movement. Bells rang from the central pagoda, summoning elders and core disciples alike. Orders were dispatched, scrolls unfurled, formations activated. The sect was shifting into a war-footing, as per Pavilion Master Yun Tianji's decree.
Li Yi stood silently atop one of the inner peaks, his robes fluttering in the crisp mountain wind. The sky above was clear, but the heaviness in the air belied the calm. A great shift had begun—and deep within him, his bloodline stirred.
Ever since he had faced the masked abyssal emissary and obtained the fragment of the divine seal, his cultivation had undergone rapid change. His Qi had condensed, spiritual senses heightened, and a fire-like energy coiled within his dantian that didn't belong to any known technique in the Xuan Realm.
Current Cultivation:
Realm: Spirit Foundation
Stage: Peak Tier
Normally, this level of progression would take elite cultivators years. For Li Yi, it had taken barely weeks.
But even that felt too slow.
A faint disturbance in the wind drew his attention. He turned his head.
From the distance, a group of disciples flew in on flying swords, cloaks bearing the insignia of Skycloud Pavilion's Inner Guard. At their head was a woman draped in flowing indigo robes, her features graceful but severe.
Li Yi recognized her immediately—Elder Mo Ruyan, Commander of the Inner Guard and one of the few female cultivators in the Pavilion who had reached the Nascent Soul Realm.
She landed gracefully before him, her gaze sharp.
"Li Yi," she said. "You're being summoned to the Vault of Echoes. There is something Pavilion Master Yun believes only you can retrieve."
Li Yi bowed slightly. "Then I'll prepare immediately."
"No preparation," she said curtly. "You leave now."
Without another word, she turned and leapt into the sky. Li Yi followed, sword flashing beneath his feet as they soared into the sky.
—
The Vault of Echoes was an ancient forbidden zone beneath the main mountain, sealed by generations of Pavilion Masters. Said to house remnants of celestial artifacts, ancient cultivation scrolls, and battle relics from the war with the Abyss, the Vault had not been opened in over three hundred years.
As Li Yi and Elder Mo descended into the depths of the Pavilion, torchlights began to flicker with runes. Giant stone doors marked with beast totems loomed ahead. Elder Mo stepped forward, pressing her palm against a circular indentation at the center.
A pulse of Qi rippled through the air. The doors slowly groaned open.
Inside was a cavernous chamber of black stone, stretching far deeper than it should have been possible. Floating platforms moved in rhythmic patterns above the abyss, each bearing weapons, scrolls, or artifacts sealed in glowing runes.
As they stepped inside, Elder Mo stopped.
"You'll go alone from here. Your presence alone has activated the Vault's core. Pavilion Master suspects your bloodline is resonating with the central seal."
Li Yi looked at her sharply. "What exactly am I retrieving?"
"A sword," she said simply. "One once used by a celestial general during the final war against the Abyss. It has slept here ever since… waiting for someone it deems worthy."
Li Yi nodded and stepped forward.
The air changed.
With each step he took, the Vault's glow shifted, the floating platforms drawing away as if guided by unseen will. Runes lit beneath his feet, responding to the blood in his veins. Finally, at the very center of the Vault, a solitary sword hovered in mid-air above a dais carved of obsidian and star-crystal.
It was unlike any blade he had seen.
The sword had no hilt guard—its entire length was a single seamless flow of blackened steel etched with ancient celestial script. A crimson eye pulsed at the base of the blade, half-closed, as if slumbering.
As he approached, the air grew colder. Not the chill of winter—but the oppressive sensation of standing at the edge of a cliff into another world.
The moment his hand touched the hilt—
BOOM!
A blast of spiritual force erupted outward, shattering the surrounding runes. A torrent of visions flooded his mind: cities burning, divine armies clashing with monsters of void and fang, stars torn apart by claws blacker than night. And at the center—a group of five masked figures, standing at the boundary of realms, calling down a storm of destruction.
One of them turned toward him. The same mask. The same presence. The same abyssal aura.
The blade screamed.
Li Yi's hand bled, veins glowing golden-red as the blade tried to resist.
But he did not let go.
"Submit," he muttered through clenched teeth.
The runes on the blade flared. Then—
Silence.
The blade stopped shaking.
The eye at the base opened fully—revealing a golden iris encircled in flame.
The sword accepted him.
At once, its true name echoed in his mind:
> "Starforged Calamity—Heavenbreaker."
And with it, came power.
His spiritual sea expanded. The flow of Qi in his meridians doubled in volume. The flames within his core burned purer, brighter, evolving. At that moment—
Li Yi broke through.
New Cultivation: Core Formation Realm – Early Stage
He dropped to one knee, gasping, the sword hovering loyally beside him. When he stood again, his aura had transformed. No longer a promising prodigy—he now radiated the pressure of a rising cultivator poised to challenge the heavens.
—
Outside the Vault, Elder Mo raised her head as the sealed chamber trembled slightly. A gust of Qi erupted from the doors, and she stepped back.
A moment later, they creaked open.
Li Yi emerged, calm, holding the black sword casually by his side.
She looked him over. "You… broke through."
He nodded. "The sword—Heavenbreaker—it chose me."
A rare glint of admiration flickered in her eyes.
"I'll inform Pavilion Master Yun immediately."
Before she could leave, a talisman on her waist pulsed.
She snapped it open and her expression darkened.
"There's been a massacre," she said grimly. "One of our allied sects—Azure Serpent Hall—was wiped out overnight. No survivors. Only a single message carved into the sect gate."
She showed it to him.
Carved into the wood in blood:
> "The Abyss Remembers."
Li Yi's grip on Heavenbreaker tightened.
"Where?"
"Eastern border. Near the Deadwood Sea."
"I'll go."
Mo Ruyan stared at him. "You just broke through. You need to consolidate your realm—"
"There's no time," he interrupted. "The abyss isn't waiting. Neither can I."
She hesitated, then nodded. "Then I'm going with you."
—
By dusk, Li Yi and Mo Ruyan soared across the eastern skies, the mountains beneath them replaced by dense jungles and barren plains. The land grew darker, emptier. They passed villages abandoned, fields untended, and wildlife eerily silent.
When they arrived at the gates of Azure Serpent Hall, the truth struck harder than rumor.
The entire sect grounds were scorched, blackened. Buildings reduced to ash. Cultivators—some Core Realm, some higher—lay strewn across the courtyards, their Qi cores shattered, eyes wide in eternal shock.
The message was real.
"The Abyss Remembers."
But there was something else.
Li Yi knelt beside a corpse. His fingers touched the remnants of black smoke still leaking from the man's forehead.
"Demonic imprint," he said. "They weren't just killed… they were harvested."
"For what?"
He looked up, eyes cold.
"For war."
As the night deepened, the stars vanished behind a curtain of storm clouds. Thunder rolled across the horizon.
Far in the distance, deep within the Deadwood Sea, a flicker of abyssal flame danced.
And a voice, low and ancient, echoed in Li Yi's mind.
> "Soon… you will remember us too, child of fire."
He stood, Heavenbreaker at his side, his aura blazing like a pyre.
If the abyss was coming—
He would burn it down.