Lagrange-3 Debris Field – 10 hours 12 minutes after the Red Lotus massacre
The Heavenly Forge Ark is not a ship.
It is a wound in space that never scabbed over.
Four thousand years ago it fell here, half a continent of living star-iron and dragon bone wrapped in chains of tribulation lightning that still spark with the same fury that killed gods. The impact carved a crater deep enough to hide moons. The radiation that boils off it is not nuclear; it is the dying scream of eight almost-perfect heavenly laws trying to finish what they started.
The stolen skiff drifts the last five hundred metres on cold momentum alone. Its hull is scorched black from re-entry, frost-bitten white from Lan Shuyin's aura, and glowing faintly silver from the starlight shield that carried them through hell. One wing is completely gone. The engines cough once and die the moment they cross the Ark's gravity threshold.
Inside, five figures stand in silence.
Liàn Xing is at the forward viewport, coat open, silver circuits pulsing across bare skin like living scripture. The half-formed spear shaft (nine chi of absolute black threaded with flowing galaxies) rests across his back, humming with anticipation so intense the cargo netting creaks.
Lan Shuyin stands to his right, one pale hand pressed flat against the transparisteel. Frost spreads beneath her palm in perfect fractal patterns that mirror the radiation storms outside. Her cryo-tubes glow steady silver-blue for the first time in seventeen years, but her eyes are fixed on the Ark with something between reverence and dread.
Zhao Shentian leans against the port bulkhead, arms crossed, nine plasma micro-swords orbiting him in lazy golden rings. His usual smirk is gone, replaced by the quiet intensity he only shows when something is finally worthy of his full attention.
Zhenxing clings to the ceiling in full celestial form (nine metres of living nebula, wings folded tight against the cabin roof). Her eyes are twin supernovae dimmed by grief.
"The Ark remembers me," she whispers, voice soft with ten thousand years of sorrow. "It's crying. It knows why we've come."
The skiff shudders as an invisible current takes hold (the Ark's dying gravity field pulling them in like a dying god reaching for one last offering).
They pass through a jagged wound in the starboard flank: Tier Seven docking bay, half-melted centuries ago, dragon ribs forming natural arches that gleam with frozen soulfire. The deck is star-iron etched with the footprints of immortals who died screaming. Every footprint is perfectly preserved, down to the blood that froze mid-splatter.
The skiff touches down with a groan of tortured metal.
The moment their boots hit the deck, real gravity slams down (heavy, ancient, and furious).
Lights flicker on without power: cold blue corpse-fire floating in orbs that drift like lost souls. They illuminate row upon row of empty forging platforms, each one bearing a name carved in primordial celestial script. Every name has been violently scratched out, the grooves still smoking with residual heavenly wrath.
Zhao walks to the nearest platform and runs a finger through the scorched characters.
"Someone really didn't want history repeating itself," he mutters. "These were the Immortal Smiths who forged the Eight Heavenly Chains… and tried to forge the Ninth."
Lan Shuyin's voice is barely above a whisper.
"My grandmother told me stories. They all went mad when the Ninth Law shattered. Some say their ghosts still haunt the lower tiers, trying to finish what they started."
Liàn Xing says nothing.
He is staring at a single platform at the far end of the bay.
It is the only one whose name has not been scratched out.
Nine celestial characters glow faintly, untouched by time or wrath:
星河玄女之鍛
"Forged for the Mysterious Lady of the Starry River"
Zhenxing lands beside him, suddenly tiny again, wings dim.
"That was her anvil," she says, voice cracking like breaking stars. "The one they chained her to when they tore out her heart."
Liàn Xing reaches out and touches the name.
The entire Ark shudders.
A roar shakes the deck beneath their feet (not sound, pressure).
Nine separate dragon souls rise from the bones embedded in the walls. Each head is the size of a skyscraper, made of transparent purple soulfire, eyes burning with four thousand years of betrayal and hunger.
The central head locks onto Liàn Xing.
Its voice is the sound of mountains being torn in half.
"THIEF OF THE HEART-STAR."
The temperature plummets fifty degrees in a heartbeat. Frost explodes across every surface, thick enough to walk on.
"GIVE IT BACK."
Liàn Xing does not flinch.
He draws the half-formed spear shaft.
Nine chi of absolute black threaded with flowing silver galaxies.
The dragon souls roar in unison. Chains of frozen tribulation lightning lash out like living whips, fast enough to bisect moons.
Zhao's nine micro-swords ignite into a golden mandala that fills half the bay.
Lan Shuyin's twin short-spears sing free of their sheaths, frost-blue edges humming.
Zhenxing grows to full celestial size, wings spreading until they blot out the corpse-fire lights.
Liàn Xing steps forward.
He meets the central dragon head eye-to-eye.
The soulfire skull lunges, jaws wide enough to swallow cities.
Liàn Xing raises the spear shaft.
"Third Form – Starlight Rebellion."
No wind-up.
No stance.
Just motion so perfect it looks lazy.
The spear shaft moves faster than thought.
A single thrust.
Reality forgets how to exist along that line.
A perfect circular hole is punched straight through the dragon's soulfire skull. The edges glow silver, then collapse inward, devouring the rest of the head in a silent implosion that sucks nearby corpse-fire orbs into nothingness.
Eight heads remain.
They hesitate.
For the first time in four thousand years, something has hurt them.
Zhenxing's voice rings out like silver bells across the tier, ancient and terrible.
"Listen well, corpses of the Nine-Headed Star Dragon. That boy carries the heart you swore to protect and failed. Harm him and I will unmake every scale you ever wore, every roar you ever gave, every star you ever guarded. I will erase you so completely the Dao itself will forget dragons ever existed."
The dragon souls snarl, but the remaining eight heads pull back.
They do not flee.
They form a perfect circle around the group, wings of soulfire spreading wide, forming a reluctant honour guard.
The path deeper into the Ark opens.
Liàn Xing lowers the spear shaft.
Lan Shuyin exhales a cloud of frost that hangs in the air like diamonds.
Zhao sheathes one sword, spinning the other lazily.
"Remind me never to piss off your babysitter," he mutters.
Zhenxing shrinks back to loli size and lands on Liàn Xing's shoulder, wings still flickering with residual starfire.
"The crucible is three tiers down," she says, voice small but steady. "The dragon souls will guide us now. They know what's coming."
Liàn Xing looks at the glowing name on the untouched platform one last time.
Then he walks forward, into the heart of the graveyard where gods go to die.
Behind them, the skiff finally gives up and collapses into frozen scrap.
Ahead, three months of hell-training, slow forging preparation, and impossible growth wait.
And the Ark, for the first time in four thousand years, has hope.