Night fell heavy.
Lin Yue stood on a balcony overlooking the moonlit valley. Her body still thrummed with the dual resonance mutation, unstable and frightening.
Xuan Mo appeared beside her silently.
"You should rest," he said.
"I can't," she admitted. "My qi won't settle."
He hesitated.
Then—
"Lin Yue. There is something you must know."
She faced him.
His expression was dark, conflicted — a storm chained behind ancient self-control.
"In the original sky-script," he said quietly, "the prophecy ends with this line:
'When the moon's echo awakens, the Night Emperor will fall.'"
Lin Yue froze.
He continued:
"The reason everyone fears you… the reason they want to take you, kill you, bind you… is because your existence signals the moment I am fated to die."
The air cracked.
Lin Yue whispered, stunned, "You… you knew?"
"Yes."
"And you STILL protect me?"
"Yes."
"Even if it kills you?"
Xuan Mo stepped closer, moonlight wrapping around him like armor and vulnerability.
"I have lived a thousand years in darkness," he said softly."If fate demands I fall… then I will fall standing beside you."
Her breath trembled. "You idiot."
"Yes," he agreed.
Her throat tightened.
She said nothing.
So he did.
He lifted a hand, gently cupping her face.
"But hear this," he murmured."If the heavens want you as the instrument of my death—"
His eyes glowed with fierce devotion.
"—then I will rewrite the heavens."
The world shuddered.The moon brightened unnaturally.Power rippled outward like a declaration to the cosmos:
I choose her.
No emperor had ever said such a thing.
No realm had ever allowed it.
But Xuan Mo did not care.
And fate… trembled.