Tian Yunzi’s celestial echo reverberated throughout the ancient God Realm, cascading from peaks adorned with iridescent snowflakes to the farthest reaches of existence. His colossal form, now a raging tempest of obsidian mist, surged toward Wang Lin, fueled by bitter resentment and maddening despair. He couldn’t accept it. He had patiently endured countless eons, an endless cycle of rebirths, only to see it all crumble at this fateful moment. Wang Lin, with his cunning deception, had outwitted them all, even the mighty Tian Yunzi. The truth, once shrouded in mystery, now revealed itself: it wasn’t Wang Lin’s dream, but the very Dao of Lu Mo that had orchestrated this grand deception. A profound absurdity gripped Tian Yunzi’s heart, a sensation that threatened to shatter his sanity.

As the spirit of the Realm Compass, he had witnessed Wang Lin’s countless reincarnations within its confines, his repeated arrivals and eventual dissolutions. Then, in that final, pivotal moment, he had witnessed Wang Lin shatter the compass. With his final breath, Tian Yunzi emerged, liberated from his prison. In that exultant instant, he had roared to the heavens, consumed by delirious joy. He knew not his origins, for his memory began in a distant, forgotten age when he first awoke as the spirit of the Realm Compass. Nor did he know who had forged this powerful artifact.

Lost and adrift within its intricate mechanisms, he watched Wang Lin arrive, a pawn in the cosmic game of reincarnation. He saw him fade away, time after time, until finally, he was released. Freedom. The very word coursed through his veins, a sweet elixir promising release from his eternal imprisonment. He yearned to seize it, to break free from the confines of the compass. Thus, he craved dominion; he desired to possess Wang Lin!

In his twisted perception, the denizens of the Immortal Astral Continent were but phantoms, illusions, while Wang Lin alone possessed true substance, a corporeal form. He resolved to seize it, for he believed that by merging with Wang Lin’s flesh, he would transcend his current limitations and become a true cultivator of the Transcendental Realm, forever free from his role as a mere spirit within the compass. Though sometimes, in quiet moments, he felt himself to be not only a spirit but also the guardian of the compass. His every action was driven by the insatiable thirst for freedom! He dreamt of the day when he would unravel the enigma of his existence, seeking out the being who had condemned him to this role. With Wang Lin’s body as his own, the Realm Compass would become his ultimate weapon, a treasure he, as its spirit, knew better than any other. Beyond its immense power, the compass offered something more precious: a passage from the Reverse Realm!

The genesis of the Realm Compass remained a mystery, a forgotten echo in his mind. He knew not its creator, just as he knew not his own origin. But he vowed to find answers, once he had tasted true freedom. Yet now, Wang Lin’s words had shattered his carefully laid plans, extinguishing all hope and leaving behind only despair, rage, fear, and bitter regret.

Driven to madness, he lunged towards Wang Lin, the inky black mist screaming as it rushed forward. In that fleeting moment, as he closed the distance, he saw a subtle smile grace Wang Lin’s face. Wang Lin raised his right hand, gazing upon the onrushing darkness, and with a gentle wave, declared, “When I mastered Reincarnation, I had already touched the heavens.” As his hand moved, the raging mist recoiled, dissipating before his very eyes in a crackling display of energy.

“I cannot accept this! Wang Lin, I cannot accept this!” Tian Yunzi’s agonizing wail echoed through the realm. The fading mist twisted and churned, finally coalescing into a monstrous head, bearing a visage quite unlike the twisted being he had become. It was a handsome, middle-aged man with a five-pointed star emblazoned on his brow, within which a spectral crane struggled against its ethereal cage. But the vision was fleeting, an instant before the man’s head dissolved, drawing the remaining darkness with it and transforming into a gargantuan black crane. The sable bird cried out to the heavens, a mournful shriek as it hurled itself once more at Wang Lin!

In the instant of its approach, Wang Lin’s eyes flashed with frigid light. He took a single step forward and snatched the crane by its throat. The black crane thrashed, its cries echoing through the realm. Wang Lin’s eyes narrowed, and his grip tightened. A deafening boom resonated through the ancient land, shaking the very foundations of the God Realm, and the sky above turned ashen. The black crane imploded.

Tian Yunzi’s consciousness fragmented, his mind unraveling with the destruction of his avian form. As his final shreds of awareness flickered, long-forgotten memories surfaced, thoughts he believed to be nonexistent. “Dao Morning Tea… my home…” Tian Yunzi whispered, his consciousness dissolving into oblivion. His crane body scattered into countless wisps of black gas, within which a single strand of grey smoke detached and sped away towards the bridge that connected to the heavens.

Wang Lin watched as it vanished into the ethereal void beyond the bridge. The grey smoke carried no trace of Tian Yunzi’s essence. Wang Lin’s eyes flickered, but he showed no surprise, as if he had anticipated the existence of this ethereal strand. He spared it only a glance before turning his attention to the dissipating black gas. He outstretched his right hand, and with a powerful grip, he arrested its expansion. The gas began to recoil, drawn back towards his palm, where it condensed into a fist-sized orb. The orb pulsed with vibrant, shifting colors, an exquisite tapestry of nine hues.

“The origin of a Realm…” Wang Lin gazed at the orb in his palm, his calm demeanor replaced by a sudden excitement. He inhaled deeply, and with a flourish of his left hand, a coffin materialized. He…
He stood before the coffin. Within lay a woman, not extraordinarily beautiful, but possessing a gentle grace. Her eyes were closed, and she lay still, as if locked in eternal slumber. “Wan’er…” he whispered. He had vowed, “If fate itself steals you away, I shall wrest you back from its cold grasp!” Wang Lin’s fingers traced the woman’s pale cheek, tears streaming down his face, each drop a burning testament to his grief, tracing a path to her lips. “I have done it! Wan’er, millennia have passed, yet I have finally done it!” His voice softened with a tenderness that belied his immense power. He gently pressed a swirling orb of nine iridescent colors onto her brow. He watched, motionless, as it was absorbed into her flesh, time itself seeming to hold its breath. A rare tremor of apprehension flickered across his features. Wang Lin, the unflinching cultivator, was terrified. He bit his lip, his gaze fixed upon her. “Wan’er, awaken… Please, awaken… Open your eyes, gaze upon me once more…” He gently stroked the raven strands of Li Muwan’s hair, his pleas a whispered mantra. Their fateful meeting on the turbulent seas of the Sea of Devils had been ordained across lifetimes, a bond unbreakable, a memory unforgotten. Her frail voice, a desperate plea for aid, her eyes wide with a haunting uncertainty, had pierced the darkness of his secluded path. Wang Lin, concealed and fleeing in the depths, had hesitated, then lifted his head. Had he not, perhaps their destinies would have diverged, lost forever in the endless currents of fate. Those years amidst the Sea of Devils, the moment he opened his eyes to behold her slender figure silhouetted against the cavern entrance, fragile yet resolute, had resonated deep within his soul. The words had tumbled from his lips without conscious thought, a primal urge: “Be silent, I will lead you to vengeance…” Upon the Azure Dragon Array, her lifeblood had painted each scale as she sacrificed herself, crafting a jade amulet of salvation. Her pallid face had pierced his heart with sorrow, but burdened by the weight of a blood-soaked vendetta, he could only force his eyes shut, commanding himself to forget. Yet, within the hallowed halls of the Cloud Sky Sect, as the ethereal notes of her zither drifted through the air, and he watched her solitary form silhouetted in the moonlit pavilion, a profound melancholy swirling around her, Wang Lin knew he could not forget. “My left hand clutches the fleeting fate of the Sea of Devils, my right, the endless meditation of a lonely century…” “Wan’er, open your eyes, awaken…” His voice cracked with unshed tears. “And Ping’er, too, shall rise again. You will love our child…” “Time waits for no one, yet I… when will you return to lead me home?” “Wan’er, I am Wang Lin, your husband. Let me lead you home…” The tears flowed freely now, a torrent unleashed after millennia of restraint. He gazed upon Li Muwan, the culmination of his ancient yearning. He remembered the warmth of their valley home, the echo of her figure turning back to smile, a tapestry of cherished memories woven into the very fabric of his being. He could not, would not, forget, not until the day he witnessed her vibrant hair turn to silver, her beauty fading, her life slowly ebbing away. In the final, breathless moment of her passing, Wang Lin’s heart had been pierced by an agony he had never known. He had raged against fate, refusing to accept her departure. He would reclaim her! To possess again what had been lost, even if it meant stirring the slumbering echoes of the past, even if it meant treading once more through the abyss of sorrow… he would endure it all without regret. “Wan’er… Awaken… Wan’er…” Wang Lin wept, his tears falling upon the face of the sleeping woman. “I overturned the heavens themselves to set your inverted image right.” “I reversed the flow of the cosmos, so that the sky could no longer obscure the light of your awakening eyes.” “I shattered the infinite void to forge a path… that you might find your way home.” “Wan’er, I am your husband, and I command you to open your eyes, to awaken!” Wang Lin roared to the heavens, his voice raw with despair. Long moments passed, but the woman within the coffin remained still, her eyes closed. This, Wang Lin could not, would not, accept! “…Do not cry…” In the wake of his desolate cry, a delicate hand, radiating warmth, slowly rose and touched Wang Lin’s face. He shuddered, lowering his gaze to see eyelashes flutter and then lift, revealing the soft luminescence of eyes he thought he had lost forever. Within those depths, he saw the enduring tenderness of millennia, and a heartrending pity that stirred his soul.