Bai Zixian woke to light that felt like knives in his eyes.
He was still in the crevice. Still alive. But his body was wrong, injuries that should have closed remained open, golden blood dried in crusts across his skin, regeneration completely stopped.
He'd reached a limit he didn't know existed.
Divine existence regeneration required fuel, spiritual energy, physical reserves, something fundamental that his body had exhausted. Without it, he was no better than a mortal. Worse. A mortal's wounds would at least scab over. His remained fresh, refusing to heal.
He lay in the crevice and felt nothing.
Just emptiness. Hollowness. The absence of anything resembling purpose or reason to continue.
What was the point?
He'd escaped one threat only to find himself still trapped. Still injured. Still unable to leave because his legs wouldn't work and his body wouldn't heal and the beetles that had killed the matriarch would eventually notice him.
He closed his eyes and waited for night.
When it came, he didn't move.
Day came again. He still didn't move.
Seven days passed this way.
On the seventh day, sounds penetrated his stupor. Fighting. The beetles were defending their territory against something new, another nest, another swarm.
He listened without interest.
Watched, when he bothered to open his eyes, as beetles swarmed and died and were replaced by more beetles. The invaders were driven back. The nest's population doubled overnight, eggs hatching, new generation emerging.
They won.
Bai watched and felt nothing.
Night came again.
He stared at the darkness and thought about death. About whether dying here would be peaceful or painful. About whether anyone would notice his absence.
And then, in the silence, he heard his own voice.
"Bai."
He said his own name. Speaking aloud for the first time in days, the sound rough and cracked.
"You're a divine existence."
The words fell into darkness.
"You are a candidate for the throne."
Something stirred in his chest.
He forced himself to sit upright.
His body protested. Wounds tore open. Golden blood flowed again. But he pushed through, made himself remember what he'd forgotten during seven days of hollow nothing.
He was crown prince of his kingdom.
One of two possible heirs. The throne would pass to one of them when their father died, assuming they proved worthy. That was how his family worked, for generations stretching back through history.
If you were a divine existence from the throne bloodline, you had a choice: reach Ruler stage and rule over mortals and divine existences alike, or stop at Domain or Ascendant and rule over mortals alone.
Only one of his family had ever chosen the former path.
Bai Jinxue.
His ancestor. A woman who had ascended to Ruler stage, who had refused the mortal throne in favor of something greater, who now stood among the eleven beings that governed the divine existence hierarchy.
She had walked this path before him. Had proven it was possible to rise from throne candidate to god.
And he would do the same.
Not just to rule mortals, that had never been his goal. He would unite the broken world. Bring divine existences and mortals under one banner. His banner. Create order from the chaos that had defined his generation's existence.
That was why he'd volunteered for the drafting when his family's influence could have exempted him. That was why he'd walked into this nightmare willingly.
I will rule.
He said it to the darkness. His voice echoing off stone walls.
"I will rule!"
The nest erupted.
Beetles poured from burrows. Spiders, the few that remained after the matriarch's death, emerged from hiding. All of them converging on his location, drawn by noise, by movement, by prey that had revealed itself.
Bai stood in their midst and activated his Memory concept.
Just to release. To let the concept's presence manifest in the physical world.
His concept had been depleted for days. Using it now was dangerous, potentially fatal if it consumed what little life force he had left.
But he did it anyway.
The pressure expanded from him like a wave.
The beetles stopped advancing.
The spiders froze in place.
He kept the pressure active. Kept standing despite injuries that should have made standing impossible, despite exhaustion that had pushed him to the brink.
"I WILL RULE! I WILL UNITE THIS WORLD! I WILL BRING ORDER TO CHAOS!"
The insects cleared a path.
They formed ranks around him. Beetles and spiders, natural enemies now standing together, all looking at Bai Zixian as if awaiting instruction.
His first subjects.
Not divine existences. Not mortals. Not even proper beasts.
Just insects.
But they were his.
He deactivated his concept and nearly collapsed. His body screamed at him to stop, to rest, to let death come peacefully.
He ignored it.
He looked at the assembled insects, dozens of them, arranged in crude formation, waiting.
And he smiled.
"Let's conquer this valley," he said.
His voice was barely above a whisper. Exhausted. Damaged. But carrying conviction that exhaustion couldn't erase.
The insects didn't understand his words.
But they understood his intent.
And when he began limping toward the nest's exit—toward the mist valley that had nearly killed him, toward the threats that waited deeper in the fog, they followed.
Bai walked into the mist with insects at his back and ambition in his chest.