Azure Sky Inner Sect – Celestial Harmony Peak, Sect Leader's Floating Palace
Day 100 – exactly seven days after registration
The summons arrives at dawn.
A single jade tablet delivered by a trembling outer disciple who refuses to cross the courtyard threshold.
The tablet is warm to the touch and smells faintly of old fear.
Liàn Xing reads it once, then again.Then crushes it in his fist. The pieces turn to silver dust that refuse to fall.
Lan Shuyin is sitting cross-legged on the floor sharpening her spears, and Zhao is spinning one golden ring on a finger, expression unreadable.
Zhenxing reads the message in the air where the dust spells it out.
"'By order of Sect Leader Yún Tiān Lóng, the inner disciples Liàn Xing, Lan Shuyin, and Zhao Shentian are summoned to the Celestial Throne Hall at the ninth hour for an audience regarding recent… incidents.'"
She snorts.
"Translation: they're scared shitless and want to see if you'll kneel or burn the palace down."
Liàn Xing is quiet for a long time.
The spear shaft on his back hums, eager.
He finally speaks.
"We go."
Lan Shuyin's whetstone pauses.
"You know it's a trap."
"I know."
Zhao grins, but it's thinner than usual.
"Twenty hidden Nascent Souls. Three half-step Soul Transformation elders. The Sect Leader himself is peak Nascent Soul. They'll have formations ready to suppress the spear the moment we step inside."
Liàn Xing looks at the silver dust still floating in his palm.
"They can try."
He walks inside to change.
Lan Shuyin and Zhao follow.
Zhenxing stays behind, wings dim.
"Host," she calls softly.
He stops.
"Don't let them make you into what they fear."
He doesn't answer.
He just closes the door.
–––
08:58 – Celestial Throne Hall
The hall is a floating cathedral of jade and cloud, pillars carved from ten-thousand-year profound ice, ceiling open to the sky where tribulation clouds gather like uninvited guests.
Five hundred inner disciples line the walls in perfect silence.
Twenty-three Core Elders stand in formation.
Seven Nascent Soul Ancestors float above, auras locked down but ready. Three half-step Soul Transformation guardians stand at the cardinal points, hands already forming seals.
At the very top of the hundred-step jade dais sits Sect Leader Yún Tiān Lóng. White beard of living cloud flowing down his chest, eyes like dying stars piercing everyone they land upon.
The great doors open.
Three figures walk in.
Liàn Xing in the centre, coat open, spear shaft across his back.
Lan Shuyin at his right, white combat hanfu edged in frost-blue spear motifs, twin short-spears crossed behind her back.
Zhao at his left, golden hair loose, nine rings orbiting lazily.
They stop exactly thirty-three steps from the dais (one step for every year the Sect Leader has sat on that throne).
No one speaks, the silence feels a living thing coiled and ready to strike.
Finally, the Sect Leader stands. His voice is soft, but it carries the weight of eight thousand years.
"Liàn Xing of the gutters. You have brought chaos to my sect. You have crippled twenty-three core disciples. You have turned our sacred grounds into a place of fear. Yet you walk these halls as though you own them."
He gestures, and the air ripples.
Twenty-three suppression formations ignite simultaneously blazing azure chains of heavenly law that can bind Nascent Souls as if they were no more than insects.
The blazing chains of law reach for the spear, and stop one metre away frozen.
Not by power, but by memory.
The chains remember the fifty-three ancestors who ceased to exist.
They tremble, then shatter.
Golden fragments rain across the hall like broken promises.
The Sect Leader's eyes widen a fraction.
Liàn Xing speaks, his voice is quiet.
It fills the entire hall.
"You summoned me to kneel or to die.
I'm not doing either."
He takes one step forward. The dais cracks beneath his foot.
Another step.
Another crack.
By the tenth step he stands at the base of the throne.
The Sect Leader does not move.
Liàn Xing looks up at the old man who has ruled Azure Sky for eight thousand years.
"I was born in Ring 8.
You put a bounty on me when I was six because a scanner flagged something forbidden. You sent enforcers every year to see if I was ready to harvest. You called me trash for eighteen years."
He places one hand on the spear shaft.
It hums, soft and patient.
"I'm here to return the favour."
He looks at the twenty-three Core Elders.
At the seven Nascent Soul Ancestors.
At the five hundred inner disciples who once looked down on the gutters.
"I'm giving you one chance. Only one. Bow, or burn."
Silence.
The Sect Leader's cloud-beard trembles.
Then he does something no one in eight thousand years has ever seen.
He steps down from the throne.
One step.
Two.
Until he stands on the same level as the boy from the gutters.
He looks Liàn Xing in the eye.
And kneels.
Not fast.
Not slow.
With the weight of eight thousand years of pride breaking all at once.
His forehead touches the cracked jade.
Every elder, every ancestor, every disciple follows.
Five hundred and thirty foreheads hit the ground in perfect, terrified unison.
The hall is silent except for the sound of rain starting outside (real rain, warm and clean).
Liàn Xing looks down at the Sect Leader.
His voice is softer than anyone expected.
"Get up."
The old man rises, eyes ancient and suddenly very, very tired.
Liàn Xing turns to leave.
Stops.
Looks back.
"The tournament is in eighty-three days.
Until then, leave us alone. After that…"
He smiles.
It is small, tired, and unbreakable.
"We'll see who owns this sect."
He walks out.
Lan Shuyin and Zhao follow.
The great doors close behind them.
The Sect Leader stands alone in the hall of kneeling immortals.
He looks at the throne that no longer feels like his.
And for the first time in eight thousand years, he is afraid.
Outside, the rain washes the silver scar in the sky clean.
The countdown continues.