On the mountain, the dense, primordial fog that had cloaked the Titan's domain was gone. It had dissipated with its master's final breath, leaving the air sharp, thin, and painfully clear. The sun shone high, its light harsh and honest on the ravaged landscape.
At the very top of the central crater, two figures sat.
Gen and Liang leaned against opposite sides of **Forged Destiny**. The legendary weapon, now inert and dull, was driven deep into the shattered stone like a grave marker, a monument to a history that had just concluded. Buqu and Shelia had vanished completely in that final, silent blossoming of light, leaving no trace behind. No body, no relic. Only the echo of their clash and the axe that remained.
Despite Buqu's death, **Forged Destiny** did not vanish. It stood there, a cold iron wedge separating the two old friends who sat back-to-back, not looking at each other.
In another crater, Juxian lay unconscious, his breathing shallow but steady, his arms a ruin. The Ape Titan had already turned to motes of light and returned to the mountain's silent heart.
Gen observed the departing souls—the ancient Titan, Shelia in her final, selfless act, and the last defiant wisp of Buqu's will. He carried their weight. Then, he looked up.
He could see it.
High in the heavens, one of the four cruel pillars of light trembled. It flickered, not like before, but with a final, sputtering weakness. Then, it began to dim. It faded, growing fainter and fainter, its light bleeding away into the vast blue until, with a silent sigh felt in the spirit of every living thing, it winked out of existence.
Vanished.
By the time the Damocles fully died, Gen exhaled a breath he felt he'd been holding for years. A tangible weight lifted from his shoulders. The sky itself seemed to expand, to breathe. With only three Damocles left, the world felt less like a sealed tomb. It was as if that particular sword had hidden the sky's true, terrible beauty, and only now, in its absence, could Gen properly see it.
From the opposite side of **Forged Destiny**, Liang was also looking at the empty sky, without a word.
The two had tacitly sat here, not out of fatigue, but out of a shared, unspoken respect. They had hated Buqu, fought him with everything they had, but they respected the sheer, uncompromising magnitude of his will. Out of respect for him, and for the principle he had embodied now frozen in iron, they sat in silence, observing the sky he would never see again.
Liang spoke first, his voice quiet, devoid of its old cadence. "I fulfilled my promise, Gen. I think… it is time."
Gen's heart ached, a fresh pain layered over the exhaustion. After all the suffering, the loss, the hollow victory… was this still necessary? "Can things not come back to how they were in the past?" he asked, the question weak even to his own ears.
As he asked it, in his heart, the answer was already clear. The moment he saw that black, sucking vortex—a spell that felt like a wound in the world—he had understood. Liang had learned the same art that had killed Yaun. The art known as **The Dark Wheels**. From that moment on, their paths were destined to never truly cross again. They were walking on different sides of a fundamental rift.
Liang rose to his feet, still without turning his back to Gen. "The next time we meet," he said, his tone factual, "it might not be on the same side of the battlefield."
Gen sighed, the sound heavy in the quiet air. He stood up as well, his own back to Liang, the cold metal of **Forged Destiny** standing like a wall between them. "I understand," he said. "Let it be then."
He could hear the shift in the air, a soft *woosh* of displaced wind, and the faint, fading heat of Miracle Fire. A beam of light ascended into the sky. Liang was gone, again.
Despite the crushing pain in his heart, Gen never turned to look back. He had grown. He had learned. And certain things were just… as they were. His best friend, Liang, was gone. What remained was this powerful stranger with an agenda Gen could not yet fathom.
He took one last look at **Forged Destiny**. He didn't even try to lift it. He believed that neither he, nor anyone else in this world, would ever be able to. It would stay here, buried in the ashes of the bitter victory it had cost. A tombstone for three souls.
Gen descended the mountain. He found Juxian, carefully lifted his unconscious form, and slung him over his shoulder with a gentleness that belied his own battered state. Then, without ceremony, he walked away.
He gave his back to the setting sun, his shadow stretching long and lonely across the broken stone.
One of the Divine Generals was dead.
***
Far away, in the opulent, serene castle of the Bliss Palace, Xian and his wife observed the sky from their balcony. The disappearance of the Damocles was not surprising to him. Instead, he smiled, a thin, knowing curve of his lips. "Gen Jiang… again."
His wife, her hand resting lightly on the rail, tilted her head. "What now, my love? Is it too late?"
Xian shook his head slowly, his eyes distant, seeing patterns in the threads of fate. "It all starts now."
In the distance, from the direction of the lost mountain range, Xian's sharp eyes could see a figure rushing across the sky on a journey of long return. The figure galloped on a steed of fading fire, but the posture was no longer weak or uncertain. In the set of his shoulders, in the line of his flight, was the fire of a monarch—someone born to rise, to rule.
The steed of fire descended. It landed with a soft *thud* in the central courtyard of the Bliss Palace, directly in front of Xian and his wife. All over the palace, disciples and retainers stopped to stare in a mixture of awe and naked frustration at the sheer, daring privilege of the arrival.
***
In the Four Kingdoms, the disappearance of the Damocles caused ripples of pure, disbelieving joy. Taverns overflowed. Strangers hugged, clinked mugs, and sang off-key songs of celebration. Proprietors poured wine freely, toasting the brighter sky.
Amidst the chaotic joy, in the corner of one such tavern, a one-armed man sat alone at a table. He spun a simple knife on its point, his movements deft, his smile bitter. Li Zhan glanced through the grimy window at the now-less-crowded heavens. *He did it again,* he thought. *Looks like it's getting time for me to collect what is due.*
***
In the Four Kingdoms, within the Kang Family estate, Kang Mao repeated his thousandth **Jingdao** form in the bamboo forest. The sudden, brilliant flare and subsequent disappearance of the Damocles forced his entire training to a halt. A silence, deeper than any he'd felt, followed the light's passing.
*It disappeared. It actually disappeared.*
Old Shifting, his master, lay on his side nearby, his conical hat on the ground beside him. He lifted his head faintly to look upward, a satisfied smile betraying his usually impassive lips.
***
In his massive, silent castle, Prince Juo Si sat on his throne, his expression unreadable. Although he could not see the sky from his chamber, he could *feel* it—the slight but fundamental shift in the world's pressure. Moving with a new, hard-won elegance, he stood and walked out to the open grand balcony of the castle. He lifted his head.
The past months had hammered a grim maturity onto his face and into his body. But in his eyes, something deep was shining, forged in hidden fires. He could remember the last words of his general. Would this upcoming trial be his demise, or would it cement a rise that was bound to reach the apex of all he had ever dreamed?
***
Far away, in his estate, the man supposedly the strongest in the world after Jiang stood on his balcony once more. Tiang Feng observed the sky. He had a feeling—not a simple premonition, nor any foresight ability, but that gut-deep knowing one developed after reaching a certain level of strength, where you could sense the turning of the world's wheel.
"They will be moving now," he muttered to the wind.
***
In the Tower of Wonder. In the frozen peaks of the North. In hidden groves and forgotten tombs. All across the world, cultivators of legend and tale—beings who had watched and waited, who had despaired or plotted—began to stir. If one Damocles falling could be luck, a fluke… two could only mean one thing.
Perhaps it was hope.
Perhaps it was destiny.
The disappearance of the second Damocles sent a ripple that shook the entire world's foundation. Only three swords of annihilation remained in the sky.
The question, whispered in taverns, shouted from rooftops, and pondered in the hearts of the mighty, was now a roaring fire in the dark:
*Could they do it?*