Xī Zǐfèng, her vermillion lips bitten in a silent plea, drifted towards the celestial orb shimmering with raw, untamed spirit energy – a xiu zhen star. Her eyes were sealed, yet no tears flowed. The wellspring of her sorrow had run dry centuries past, bled out over eight hundred long years.

Slowly, the power within her stirred, a gentle luminescence blooming around her like a dying ember. From her very essence, a tendril of her primordial spirit unwound itself, a whisper of divine consciousness reaching out to the xiu zhen star ahead. The world upon it had been emptied, stripped bare of mortal and cultivator alike.

In an instant, her spirit tethered itself to the star, binding her to its ancient heart. Her face, already pale as starlight, tightened with grim resolve. With a choked gasp, she wrenched her spirit outward, pulling at the very fabric of the celestial body!

A thunderous roar echoed through the void as the xiu zhen star shuddered. Its languid rotation faltered, checked by the force of her will. Yet in that moment of suspended motion, a surge of raw, untamed power erupted, a backlash of cosmic magnitude that slammed against Xī Zǐfèng’s spirit.

Crimson blood splattered from her lips as the tether of her soul shattered, ripped apart by the star’s indignant defiance. Her face now a mask of agony, she staggered back, retreating dozens of paces. Summoning her shattered spirit, she wove another silver thread of consciousness and hurled it once more against the xiu zhen star.

The roar intensified, the star trembling violently, as if poised to break free from its ancient orbit. But the backlash was even more ferocious this time, a tidal wave of power that obliterated Xī Zǐfèng’s spirit a second time.

With this second, devastating blow, her essence crumbled, her very soul recoiling within her. More blood erupted from her lips, her body trembling, her eyes glazed with despair. Even her immortal frame seemed on the verge of collapse.

“Worthless!” The sneer ripped from the lips of the Thunder Immortal Palace envoy, a man etched with the arrogance of power. He strode past Xī Zǐfèng, his sleeves billowing, his own spirit reaching out to grasp the xiu zhen star. With a guttural roar, the celestial body began to tremble, slowly breaking free of its millennia-old path.

“Move the star!” The envoy’s voice boomed, his arms outstretched as if embracing the immense weight of the world.

As if at a pre-arranged signal, a hundred cultivators surged forward, silver threads of power extending from their fingertips, weaving a glittering net around the xiu zhen star. Together, they strained, pulling with all their might.

Only one, an aged scholar with weary eyes, paused beside Xī Zǐfèng. He sighed, drawing a vial from his pouch. “Xī Zǐfèng, my friend,” he murmured, offering the potion. “I, too, once served within the Thunder Immortal Realm…”

Xī Zǐfèng accepted the vial with a silent nod of gratitude. Within it lay precious elixirs, a treasure from the heavens. She swallowed them down, hastening her healing. In these eight centuries of sorrow, those who had once been sworn brothers of the Xī family had offered less comfort than these former compatriots of Wang Lin’s Thunder Immortal Realm. Without their aid, her path would have been far more arduous.

“What are you waiting for? Get over here and pull!” The envoy’s voice cut through the air, laced with venom. “Useless trash! Blessed with beauty, yet determined to destroy it! If you had yielded to my desires, none of this would be necessary!”

“My Lord Envoy,” the old scholar protested, unable to hold his tongue. “Xī Zǐfèng has sworn her oath to the Thunder Immortal Palace. Though her cultivation falters, her station is equal to our own. She has been weakened by her attempts to move other stars. Must you torment her so? Allow her to rest, I beseech you!”

The envoy’s eyes narrowed, fixing the scholar with a cruel gaze. “Do you dare question my will?”

The scholar, his cultivation only in the nascent stages, felt the crushing weight of the envoy’s power descending upon him. Yet he stood his ground, his chin held high. “Even now, you must surely know of her enduring affection for Him. When He stood among us, would you have dared speak to her so?”

The words struck the envoy like a physical blow. Fury flashed in his eyes, mingled with a deeper unease. He knew to whom the scholar spoke. The one who, in the War of the Immortals, had commanded such respect, such awe, even from those who were in the Yang Soul stage.

He dared not show disrespect in front of that man. Especially in the battle of the Star Domain, that man had completely risen, and his prestige shook the two star domains of the Rotian Alliance. In front of him, the envoy felt like an ant.

“He is gone,” the envoy snarled, his voice barely a whisper. “He may even be dead…”

The scholar scoffed, cutting him off. “And what if he returns?”

The envoy fell silent, the question hanging heavy in the air. After a long, tense moment, he snorted, waving his hand dismissively. “Enough! Xī Zǐfèng, you as well! Move the star!”

The scholar glared at the envoy but said nothing more, joining the other cultivators in their arduous task.

Xī Zǐfèng, her silence unbroken, abandoned her attempt to heal. With gritted teeth, she extended a silver thread of her own spirit, tethering herself to the xiu zhen star. Together, they moved forward, inching across the heavens.

At the forefront of the formation, the envoy’s face remained a mask of thunderous displeasure. The scholar’s words had unsettled him, sowing seeds of fear within his heart. *What if he returns?* The question echoed within his mind, refusing to be silenced.

The line of nearly a hundred souls, connected to the groaning star, moved slowly forward, disappearing into the distant void.

But they had not traveled far when a figure emerged from the starlit expanse ahead. A solitary figure draped in white, with hair like spun moonlight, moved unhurriedly through the cosmos.

Though his pace appeared measured, each step spanned vast distances. To the straining cultivators, he was but a fleeting blur, followed by an almost suffocating pressure, as if a mountain had been dropped upon their chests. Just as suddenly, the feeling vanished, and the white-clad figure was gone.

They were all shaken, fear in their eyes. The leading cultivator, with confusion in his eyes, remained stunned.

Before they could even process what they’d experienced, a soft voice echoed out of the void.

“Hm?”
The voice, soft as a sigh, reverberated through the assembled cultivators, a tremor that struck their very souls. A hundred faces paled, and a unanimous retreat began.

Xizi Feng trembled violently. Though the sound was but a gentle inquiry, to her it was as if the heavens themselves were collapsing. Her spirit quailed under its weight.

An instinct to look up seized her, but she fought it down, burying her face deeper. She retreated, melting into the throng of lesser warriors, a tangle of emotions driving her to remain unseen.

As the echo of that gentle sound faded, the white-clad figure that had vanished moments before materialized once more before them, a celestial apparition in the star-strewn void. His gaze swept across their ranks.

None could bear to meet his eyes. He radiated a blinding light, a sun made flesh, too brilliant for mortal sight.

The foremost amongst them, a middle-aged man of considerable power, felt his heart stutter in his chest. Under that gaze, his very being seemed to freeze. His nascent soul cowered within, daring not to stir.

The weight of that gaze was tangible, a vise upon his throat, a shackle on his spirit. He knew, with chilling certainty, that a single thought from this being could shatter his body and obliterate his soul.

He was in the presence of something beyond comprehension, something that transcended their mortal understanding!

“S-Senior…” The man, the highest in cultivation yet closest to the ethereal figure, found himself kneeling in the void, his voice a trembling whisper.

The white-clad figure was none other than Wang Lin.

He had paid scant attention to the gathering until a fleeting sense stirred within him. He had glimpsed, within their ranks, a familiar face – a woman who, long ago, had harbored a tender affection for him.

Had she remained as she was, Wang Lin would have moved on. But what he saw now twisted his heart with a sharp pang. His gaze pierced through the fleeing forms, singling out the woman who sought to hide, her head bowed, her face a mask of pallor, her body a trembling reed.

Though she hid her face, he could not miss the ghastly network of scars that marred her flesh. A profound silence settled over Wang Lin.

Xizi Feng bit down on her lip. Eight centuries had passed; she had believed her tears long spent, dried to dust. Yet now, in this agonizing moment, two crystalline trails escaped her eyes, carving paths down her cheeks. They did not flow straight, but were diverted, swallowed by the deep trenches of her ravaged skin.

She longed to disappear, to shield herself from his gaze. A tempest of conflicting emotions churned within her, so different from the woman she once was.

She would rather wither in solitude, until death claimed her, than be seen like this, in her wretched state, her beauty defiled, by the one she once admired.

More tears flowed, unrestrained now. Her head sank lower, her body recoiling, retreating, retreating… retreating to the farthest reaches of the cosmos, to a place where she could be forever unseen, where she could silently touch the memories etched upon her heart, where she could quietly wipe away the tears she had thought she had forgotten how to shed.

“…Xizi Feng… I am Wang Lin…” He watched the woman retreat, and spoke the name softly. The years blurred; the months and days were lost. But he remembered the radiant face, the smiling countenance that had once looked upon him from the crowd…

The slow passage of time, the creeping sorrow that had once graced her gaze.

The very utterance of his name sent a shockwave through the assembled cultivators. The middle-aged man at the forefront turned ashen, his heart seeming to cease its beat. His very soul threatened to shatter, his spirit rent asunder by the power held within that single name.

Wang Lin!

A name that had once echoed through the heavens, striking fear and awe in equal measure!

“I am not Xizi Feng… You mistake me, Senior…” The retreating woman’s voice was a fragile tremor, the sound of a cornered creature. Her lip trembled as she spoke the desperate lie.