The nightmares came on the third night after the healing.
Rhen had been cultivating in his room — the Pure Yang realm opened vast new territories of the Heavenly Heart Unfettered Art, and he'd been exploring them with the careful thoroughness of a man who'd waited 112 years for this. His Chi Sea had transformed into a sea of liquid fire, dense and responsive, and the divine energy that flowed through it carried the flavor of both Oath bonds: Suyin's steady warmth, Mingxue's sharp edge.
But when he closed his eyes to deepen his meditation, the Eternal Vow showed him something that wasn't his.
A face. Young — nineteen, maybe twenty. Golden-haired, sharp-featured, with the arrogant bearing of noble birth softened by something uncertain underneath. The face was speaking, but Rhen couldn't hear the words. Only the fear.
**[Memory fragment detected. The Primordial Star Realm embedded residual impressions in your qi during your visit. This is the memory of Jian Tianshan — the cultivator you encountered there. Warning: the memory is fragmentary and may be disturbing.]**
The vision sharpened.
Tianshan was kneeling in a dark room. Not the Primordial Star Realm — somewhere else. A room with stone walls and a single lantern, its light casting long shadows. Across from him sat a figure in black robes, face hidden by a hood. The figure's qi was suffocating — even through the memory, Rhen could feel it pressing down on Tianshan like a physical weight.
"The Fate Fragment must be retrieved before the next cycle," the hooded figure said. The voice was male, cultured, carrying the authority of someone who was not accustomed to being questioned. "The Supreme Yin Dao Body cannot be allowed to awaken. If it does, the convergence becomes possible."
"Master, I tried—" Tianshan's voice was thin. Afraid. "The realm's guardian—"
"You didn't try hard enough. Your brother holds the Yuanyang Sect's Solar Supreme title. Use the resources available to you. Enter the realm, retrieve the fragment, and bring it to me."
"And if someone else—"
"No one else can use the trial route. It requires the Eternal Vow to navigate, and the Vow has been dormant for centuries." The hooded figure leaned forward. The lantern light caught the edge of a jaw — old, weathered, a face Rhen couldn't see clearly enough to identify. "Do this, and your place in the Sect is secured. Fail, and you are of no further use to me."
The memory fractured. Jumped forward. Tianshan in the Primordial Star Realm, fighting through the outer ruins, golden hair matted with blood. He'd taken the direct path — through the guardian's territory, not through the trial route. He was wounded, desperate, pushing past beasts that a Chi Sea cultivator shouldn't have been able to handle. The desperation fueled him. He was more afraid of the hooded figure than of the guardian.
Then Rhen was there. In the memory, he saw himself — the older version, before the full rejuvenation, white-locked and lean. Their fight. Brief, ugly, two Chi Sea cultivators scrabbling over a prize that one of them needed to survive and the other needed to appease a master who would kill him for failure.
Rhen had won. Taken the fragment. And then—
The hooded figure appeared.
Not physically. A projection — a spiritual imprint transmitted across whatever distance separated the Primordial Star Realm from the mortal world. The black robes, the hidden face, the crushing qi. The projection materialized behind Tianshan, who was on his knees, bleeding, beaten.
"You failed," the projection said.
"Master, please. I can try again. The next cycle—"
"The fragment is taken. There is no next time."
Tianshan's eyes widened. "Master—"
A hand extended from the projection. Fingers pale, long, adorned with a single ring — dark metal, carved with symbols that Rhen's Eternal Vow suddenly, violently recognized.
**[WARNING. Ring identified: Celestial Altar Assembly judge's seal. Wearer's identity: a presiding elder of one of the Five Sacred Sects. Sect unknown. The ring grants authority over the Assembly's screening process.]**
The hand touched Tianshan's forehead. The boy — because he was a boy, really, nineteen years old and in over his head — screamed. His qi erupted from his body, torn out of him by force. His golden hair went white. His skin cracked. He aged forty years in two seconds, the lifespan ripped from his body like pages torn from a book.
He collapsed. Dead before he hit the ground.
The projection spoke one more word. Not to Tianshan. To the room. To whoever might find the body.
"Waste."
The memory ended.
Rhen opened his eyes. He was in his room in the Lian compound. His hands were shaking. His cultivation was stable, but his mind was racing — the fragments of Tianshan's memory arranging themselves into a pattern that made the world sharper and more dangerous.
Someone had sent Tianshan to retrieve the Fate Fragment. Someone who knew about the Supreme Yin Dao Body, about the Eternal Vow, about the trial route that required the Vow to navigate. Someone who wore a Sacred Sect elder's ring and could kill a Chi Sea cultivator by touching their forehead.
And that someone had wanted to prevent the Supreme Yin Dao Body from awakening. Not protect Suyin — prevent her.
Because if the Supreme Yin awakened, "the convergence becomes possible."
**[Convergence: unknown term. Insufficient data. Possible reference to the Four Innate Dao Bodies prophecy — if all four converge, an event of catastrophic significance occurs. The Supreme Yin Dao Body is one of four. The other three are unaccounted for.]**
Four Innate Dao Bodies. Supreme Yin, Supreme Yang, Primordial Water, Primordial Fire. Rhen had one partner with the Supreme Yin. If the Sacred Sects feared the convergence of all four, that meant—
The Severed Meridian Curse wasn't random cruelty. It was prevention. Someone had poisoned Suyin in the womb to stop one quarter of a prophecy from manifesting.
And they'd sent a boy to clean up the loose ends, and killed him when he failed.
---
Rhen told the Ancestor first.
He owed him that. The old man had given him the entry token, the cultivation chamber, the information about the forbidden zone. He deserved to know what Rhen had found.
The Ancestor listened in his underground chamber, amber eyes steady, hands on his knees. When Rhen finished describing the memory — Tianshan, the hooded figure, the ring, the mention of convergence — the Ancestor sat in silence for a long time.
"Jian Tianshan," the Ancestor said finally. "Second son of the Jian family. Affiliated with the Yuanyang Sacred Sect. His elder brother is the current Solar Supreme — one of the most powerful young cultivators in the Five Sects."
"His master killed him to prevent information from reaching me."
"His master killed him because he'd become a liability. The Sects don't tolerate failure, and they tolerate witnesses even less." The Ancestor's voice was flat. Practiced. The voice of a man who'd spent four centuries watching the powerful dispose of the weak. "The ring you describe is a Celestial Altar Assembly judge's seal. Only the presiding elders of each Sacred Sect carry them. That narrows the master's identity to five people."
"Can you identify which one?"
"Not from a memory fragment. But the mention of convergence is... concerning." The Ancestor stood. Paced the small chamber — three steps in each direction, the path worn into stone by centuries of the same movement. "The Four Innate Dao Bodies haven't existed simultaneously in ten thousand years. The last time all four were active, the Primordial Empress used their combined power to achieve the True God realm. The Sacred Sects sealed her afterward."
"They're afraid of a second Empress."
"They're afraid of someone unsealing the first one." The Ancestor stopped pacing. His amber eyes found Rhen's. "If all four Dao Bodies converge, the seal on the Celestial Altar weakens. If the seal weakens enough, the Primordial Empress walks free. The Sects have spent ten thousand years preventing that. They curse babies. They murder prodigies. They harvest spiritual bodies for longevity elixirs. All to maintain a seal that keeps one woman locked in a prison she doesn't deserve."
Rhen's chest tightened. The Eternal Vow pulsed — a warmth that felt almost like agreement.
"Suyin's curse was placed by a Sacred Sect elder to prevent the Supreme Yin Dao Body from manifesting," Rhen said. "But I broke it. The Dao Body is awake now. Which means—"
"Which means they'll come for her. Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon. The Sects have watchers in every kingdom. When they learn what happened here, they'll send someone."
"How long do we have?"
"Months, if we're lucky. Weeks, if the elder who cursed Suyin is actively monitoring the situation." The Ancestor sat again. Heavy. The weight of four centuries pressing on a body that cultivation kept young but couldn't keep light. "You need to be stronger. Much stronger. Pure Yang realm won't protect Suyin from a Sacred Sect elder."
"The Celestial Altar Assembly," Rhen said. He'd read about it in the texts Suyin had shown him. "It happens every five hundred years. When's the next one?"
"Months from now. The timing is not coincidental — the Sects use the Assembly to screen for special spiritual bodies. It's a hunting ground disguised as a competition."
"Then we need to be there."
"You need to be there *strong enough to survive it.* The Assembly admits cultivators under twenty-four. Your rejuvenation may qualify you under the age barrier, but your cultivation needs to be at least Pure Yang peak to hold your own."
"How do I get to Pure Yang peak in months?"
The Ancestor looked at him. Then at the door, through which the compound continued its daily business of being a family that had no idea what was coming.
"The same way you've gotten everything else," the Ancestor said. "Through the Oath. Deepen your bonds. Advance your partners. The deeper the love, the greater the power." His mouth twisted — not quite a smile. "It's an ironic cultivation path for a world that rewards cruelty. Perhaps that's why it works."
Rhen left the underground chamber and walked into the afternoon. The compound was alive with normal sounds — servants cooking, disciples training, the distant ring of Mingxue's sword against a practice dummy.
Normal sounds. Normal life. And somewhere out there, a Sacred Sect elder with a judge's ring was going to learn that the baby he'd cursed sixteen years ago had been healed by a man who shouldn't exist.
Rhen touched the white lock of hair over his eye. The one remnant of who he'd been.
He had months. Maybe weeks. And the only weapon he had was the truth — because the Oath wouldn't let him have anything else.
The training yard echoed with the sound of Mingxue's sword, and Rhen went to find her. They needed to talk. About Tianshan. About the Sects. About a convergence that scared immortals badly enough to murder children.
The conversation wouldn't be comfortable.
None of the important ones were.
