Cerqin’s eyes opened slow as winter buds. She tried to lift a hand, but her body felt lead-heavy. Thick iron-and-ash stench flooded her nose. Her focus drew tight; a char-black human shape hovered before her.
“Is this a dream…”
Then came a wave, shredded by screams and hammered by a roaring bellow, sound piling like storm surf.
She forced herself upright, inch by inch, dread clinging like damp cloth. This scene, this taste in the air—it was familiar.
It was the night an evil dragon razed her home.
It was the root that kept knotting in her sleep, the thorn around her spirit.
She raised her hands and stared at her small, tender fingers, pale as new shoots.
“How old was I… then?”
Her whisper fell like dust. Thought cleared, layer by layer.
“If I’m not wrong, Qianli speared through my chest… and then—”
She stalled, mind snagging; the thread after that turned misty and torn.
“Did I die? Or is this a dream?”
Dizziness rolled in like a slow tide. Cerqin slipped back into sleep.
…
“How is she?”
Spring Tide asked, anxiety pricking like rain, eyes on the Sanctuary bishop of the imperial city.
After leaving the palace, Spring Tide had sprinted back to the Sanctuary. She arrived to the blow: Cerqin had been assassinated.
Ninexiao exhaled, set her hands aside. The other two in the room, Silver Luan and Aileaf, stepped in close.
“She’s basically fine. That vial saved her life. Her heart-meridian was shredded in an instant; the body dropped into death. The soul shouldn’t have stayed.”
Ninexiao, Sanctuary’s bishop in the imperial city, was a lush-browed elder sister type, her presence firm yet gentle, polish with a touch of warmth.
In Spring Tide’s memory, her mentor, Archbishop Mingxi, had called Ninexiao a woman like a mother.
Worth noting, Ninexiao was of the same generation as Archbishop Mingxi, unlike most Eastern District city bishops. Strictly speaking, Spring Tide should call her Senior Aunt.
Knowing Cerqin would live, the three let out held breaths. That she’d be attacked at all—and by Qianli under Negative Energy’s control—was beyond anyone’s guess.
But the death White Thought foresaw did not come to pass.
Ninexiao looked at them, her face tightening, gravity settling like a stone.
“Foreseeing the future is dangerous—deadly when you do it often.”
White Thought wasn’t here. After wielding his ability multiple times, he was resting in the next room.
“Foresight meddles with fate. Even if Baiju’s limits are mild, the cost isn’t zero.”
She turned to Spring Tide. Spring Tide’s shard of memory counted as foresight, of a sort—so fine-grained it felt like crossing time.
In truth, she had crossed time.
Once Spring Tide retold the palace’s news word for word, Ninexiao could see the shape of it.
The Holy Dragon Empire’s royals did possess a time-type artifact—the Needle of Time.
It could reverse time, though under brutal conditions. Ninexiao didn’t know the details. Yet Spring Tide’s memory only surfaced after time itself was reversed.
Why Cerqin held future memories too remained fuzzy. Thinking it through, Spring Tide guessed it tied to the city’s flood of Negative Energy.
Time’s power brushed Cerqin for some reason. Through emotion’s power, Cerqin’s Love God brushed Spring Tide in turn.
That was Spring Tide’s hypothesis.
“In short, frequent meddling with fate is courting disaster. Spring Tide, don’t let that girl use it at will. Fate bites back.”
“Okay…”
Spring Tide nodded. Peeking at tomorrow is dangerous by nature. Cerqin being attacked was a backlash from the altered future; originally, she herself was the target.
“Next, the matter of Negative Energy… In the imperial city it’s thin, a film on the air, hard to sense.”
Negative Energy isn’t mana; it scrambles mental probes. If the energy’s too thin, even high-tier practitioners struggle to detect it.
As for why Qianli was taken over by Negative Energy, that was still under investigation.
“Using Negative Energy to control people is too dangerous. We don’t yet know its impact on high-tier practitioners. I’ll call in experts from other factions.”
Ninexiao fell silent, thoughts folding like paper. Spring Tide’s intel, the emperor’s stance, the black-cloaked man of Ultimate Evil, the citywide pressure of Negative Emotion, the Needle of Time—everything urgent.
But one point even she found baffling.
“And then, the world’s falsehood…”
She had heard the old tales: some holders of God-given abilities could, in rare states, commune with the gods.
“I’ll pass this to Mingxi through special channels. Her ability fits handling things this bizarre.”
Archbishop Mingxi of the Eastern District bore the bloodline ability Prisoner of Fate, a power strange and secret.
Even within the Sanctuary, few knew details.
As a friend, Ninexiao was one of the informed few.
Prisoner of Fate could, in some sense, deduce fate itself—closer to fate than simple foresight.
Spring Tide nodded. These knots wouldn’t loosen by brooding on her own; best to hand them to someone who could actually untie them.
In the days that followed, Cerqin still didn’t wake. Aileaf had given her a top-tier tonic to stabilize life the moment it happened.
The damage to her heart-meridian, and the wounds from Negative Energy, were fully repaired.
But when the flesh drops into death, the soul scatters like smoke. Even that short span left its mark on her spirit.
They took turns by Cerqin’s bed, watching, warding, whispering like night lamps.
The imperial capital remained clouded. Ninexiao ordered Nuns and Divine Officers below high-tier to stay inside.
Against a force that could puppet minds through Negative Emotion, they held a taut line.
With powerful magic items, they finally managed wide-area, real-time monitoring of Negative Emotion.
It bled resources like an open vein, but there was no other way.
Through those days, Ninexiao moved between factions, and reopened contact with the palace. About a week later, the whole city went into lockdown.
The Negative Energy veiling the imperial city thinned, then shredded, then faded.
The world seemed to settle, smooth water after storm. Yet the black-robed man of Ultimate Evil vanished like mist.
In a Sanctuary meeting room, Ninexiao held a dossier from the emperor, brows knotted like tangled thread. The guesses about the world’s falsehood—and the Needle of Time—shocked even her.
“If this gets out… the world will riot.”
A knock sounded. Ninexiao slid the papers away, then called out:
“Come in.”
Spring Tide pushed the door. Her aura was unsteady, like a lantern in wind.
“About to break through?”
Spring Tide nodded. In these days—maybe from the Needle of Time’s reversal, maybe from that odd state where she could absorb Negative Energy to recover—her grasp of the Phantom God had deepened.
Even as Negative Energy thinned and dispersed, her Phantom God lasted longer, and drained less with each breath.
“For holders of God-given abilities, a breakthrough is unlike others.”
From Tier 6 to Tier 7 wasn’t just sturdier flesh; it was a deeper comprehension of the ability itself.
High-tier is the realm of true talent.
History holds many records of God-ability holders. Few ever broke through to become high-tier practitioners.
It wasn’t lack of talent.
It was sheer difficulty.
“I can feel chains…”
“Chains?”
“Mm. Time-chains coiled around my soul. I don’t know if it’s the Needle of Time, or my ability…”
“Come here. Let me look.”
Ninexiao’s brows pinched tight.
Breaking into high-tier, liberating a bloodline ability shouldn’t ripple the soul. The emperor’s notes on the Needle of Time didn’t mention anything like that.
