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Ao Guang's eyes blazed white—beyond rage, beyond grief, into something colder and more terrible.
His tail, vast as the river itself, struck the sea.
And the waters rose.
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From the shore to the mountains, waves devoured the land.
Ships overturned like toys. Fields vanished beneath the surge. Temples—stone and sacred—drowned beneath the weight of divine fury. The cries of the living were swallowed by thunder, and the thunder itself seemed to weep.
The manor shook. Stone cracked. The world tilted on the edge of its own ending.
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"You'll destroy everyone!" Li Jing shouted, his voice lost to the wind.
But Ao Guang heard. He simply did not care.
"Then let all the mortal lands weep as I have wept!" the Dragon King roared, and the words were not threat—they were *vow*.
The flood roared forward—unstoppable, divine, and furious.
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Nezha's mother clung to him, her fingers digging into his arms as if she could anchor him to the earth by will alone.
"Run, my son! Go to the mountains! The gods can't reach you there—"
He smiled faintly, and the sadness in it was older than any child should carry.
"No place can hold what I am, Mother."
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In that instant, Nezha understood.
Not through prophecy.
Not through divine command.
But through love—and guilt, and the memory of his parents' unwavering faith in him.
He turned to the heavens.
The crimson silk coiled around his arms shimmered with light—the divine sash he was born with, now burning like a thousand sunsets.
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He knelt before his parents, his voice steady though tears cut through the rain on his cheeks.
"Father. Mother."
Li Jing's hand fell from his sword. Lady Yin's breath caught.
"You gave me life when Heaven called me an abomination. You saw a son when gods saw a weapon. For that…" His voice softened, trembling at the edges. "…let me return what was never mine to keep."
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Madam Yin shook her head, stumbling forward. "Nezha, no—*please*—"
But he had already begun.
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The red sash rose into the air, dancing like a serpent of flame. It wrapped around his chest, his limbs, his throat—not cruelly, but reverently, as if it too mourned what it must do.
Each strand of silk drew light from his body, his soul unraveling thread by thread.
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Ao Guang's roar faltered.
For the first time, the Dragon King saw not a murderer—but a boy willing to pay for sins that were born of power, not of malice.
"No," the dragon whispered, his voice breaking like waves on stone. "Stop this… You're—"
"Too late," Nezha said. His voice was calm, almost gentle. "Heaven won't let me stay."
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The ground split.
The river stilled.
The storm bowed.
And with a final breath—calm, almost human—he looked toward his mother.
"I know you feared what I am… and yet, you loved me anyway."
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The sash blazed.
Light consumed him.
When it faded, only the red silk remained, fluttering gently on the wet ground—a relic of sorrow, a promise undone.
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The waters fell silent.
Ao Guang's vast body sank beneath the clouds, his rage hollowed into silence. He turned away from Chentang Pass without another word. The sea withdrew with him, leaving wreckage and ruin—and an unbearable stillness.
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Li Jing fell to his knees, his hands empty.
Madam Yin knelt beside the crimson silk and pressed it to her heart. It was still warm.
"My son," she whispered. "My little thunder."
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Above them, the heavens cleared.
No sunlight came through—only a pale, endless gray, as if the sky itself mourned.
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Night fell.
The river, once violent, now mirrored the moon with eerie calm.
No ripples. No wind. Only reflection.
Beneath that reflection, deep in the quiet between worlds, something stirred.
A spark.
A whisper of lotus light blooming in the dark.
A promise not yet broken.
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**End of Part II — The Price of Flame**
*He gave his flesh for theirs.*
*The dragon withdrew in grief.*
*And beneath the waters, something new began to grow.*
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**End of Chapter V: The Flood of Heaven**
*He came home covered in blood. They washed his hands and called him theirs.*
*He confessed his guilt. They held him anyway.*
*For one night, love was enough.*
*Then the sea came calling, and he answered with his life.*
*But death, it seems, is not always the end.*
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