The wind no longer smelled of incense and cedarwood.
It reeked of raw bark, damp earth, and the scent of something primal—freedom, perhaps, but with the bite of isolation. Zhen Hu stood at the base of the Eastern cliffs, beyond the Dawnyu Sect's outer conservation border, where no protective wards hummed, and no disciples dared tread.
The sect gates had shut hours ago. They did not creak. They slammed.
His footsteps broke no silence, for there was none. The world around him breathed in ways he hadn't heard before—feral and vast.
He dropped to one knee, hands trembling, as the pressure of the last days caught up to him. Aelira stood a few paces behind him, silent. Her golden aura dimmed to a pale flicker.
"I expected rage," he murmured. "Tears. Maybe denial."
She said nothing.
"I feel… hollow. Like something sacred got cut out."
Still silence.
His fingers dug into the dirt, feeling the texture of the wild, untamed land. "They all looked at me like I was a curse. Even my own father. I thought—maybe—I was proving something by telling the truth."
He coughed, and blood came up.
Aelira moved swiftly, kneeling beside him. "The backlash is setting in. The suppression wards in the tribunal chamber did more than bind you—they delayed the consequence of channeling something you shouldn't have been able to."
Zhen Hu looked at her, eyes now glazed with exhaustion. "How long do I have?"
She hesitated.
Then said quietly, "If your body continues to reject the Nytherion surge... a year, maybe two. Your core is destabilizing. You've touched something meant for the Transcendent… or beyond. But your foundation lies in Aethonix."
He closed his eyes. "So I either die slowly… or break into the Ascendant Realm."
"No," she said, voice firm. "You don't just break into the Ascendant Realm. You claw your way through the marrow of your soul. You rebuild your Conservation Base from ash. You carve your Intent into the heavens and force the world to acknowledge it."
Her words stung because they were true.
Zhen Hu had glimpsed something in that battle with Vyrinth—something vast and ancient that had possessed him. Something even Aelira feared. And now, the mere echo of that power gnawed at him, unraveling his cultivation path from within.
He sat in silence for a while.
Birds cried somewhere overhead. The forest below pulsed with unfamiliar ZEN threads—twisted, primal, dangerous.
"I don't even know what Intent to claim," he muttered. "Death? Ruin? What kind of path is that?"
Aelira turned to face him, her expression unreadable. "It isn't about what you are. It's about what you will become."
He looked at her sharply. "You're speaking differently."
"I'm no longer shielding you from the truth."
A rustle came from behind the trees. Zhen Hu snapped to attention, but Aelira raised a hand. "It's only the night. Let it listen."
Zhen Hu stood, steadying himself. "If I want to live… if I want to master Nytherion… I need to survive what's coming."
"You'll need a new training ground," Aelira said. "You'll need to seek places where death lingers and life decays—Nytherion is cultivated through entropy. You'll need to face the consequences of every breakthrough."
Zhen Hu's fingers twitched. His ZEN core flickered again. He could feel it—how unstable it had become. Like broken glass trying to hold stormwater.
"I have two years," he whispered, "to reach the Ascendant Realm."
Aelira stepped beside him.
"Or less."
For the first time, Zhen Hu felt the weight of true cultivation—the price of walking a path that did not belong in the scrolls. A path that rejected the comfort of sects and elders. A path that fed on decay, not light.
But he also felt something deeper.
Resolve.
He turned toward the horizon, where black mountains cut through the skyline like scars.
"I'll make the heavens kneel if I have to," he said.
Aelira smiled—sadly, but with pride.
"Then let's begin your descent into rebirth."