The scene shifted.
Time began to race through the Xianzhou Yuanqiao.
Year 591 of Yuanqiao's self-seclusion.
In the rear courtyard of the General's residence lay a small training ground.
Mobius, who looked seven or eight years old despite being only one in actual age, stood in the middle of the field. Her tiny figure looked especially slight in the open space.
She wore a plain white training outfit, the sleeves folded up several times just to expose her soft little hands.
The outfit had clearly been altered. It had originally been made for an adult, then crudely shortened with broad, uneven stitches. One glance was enough to tell it had been sewn by someone with absolutely no talent for needlework.
Fu Hua stood opposite her, a slender tree branch in hand.
"Today, I'm teaching you your first lesson."
Mobius looked up at her, curiosity filling her eyes. "Master, what's the first lesson?"
"Run."
"Run?" Mobius tilted her head. The red cord tied around her dragon horns swayed gently with the motion.
"Yes. Run." Fu Hua held the branch horizontally before her. "I'll strike at you with this branch. Your job is to dodge. Stay out of reach for as long as you can. Run as far as you can."
Mobius blinked, clearly not fully understanding yet.
After all, who would have imagined that Fu Hua, as she was now, intended to begin training a one-year-old child?
But Fu Hua could no longer afford to care about that.
The next instant, the branch in her hand moved.
It was not fast. In fact, for any adult, it would have been slow enough to avoid effortlessly.
But for a one-year-old child, that branch was like a bolt of lightning dropping from the sky, carrying with it an indescribable pressure.
Mobius instinctively twisted sideways. Her footing wobbled, but she barely avoided the first strike.
Fu Hua's brows moved slightly.
The second strike came immediately after, just a fraction faster than the first.
This time, Mobius didn't even have a chance to recover her balance. Before she had fully righted herself from the first dodge, the second blow was already there.
She reflexively tried to retreat, but her foot slipped, and she landed flat on the ground on her backside.
The branch stopped three inches from her forehead.
It did not fall.
"Not bad." Fu Hua withdrew the branch. "Better than I expected."
Sitting on the ground, Mobius panted hard, her little face flushed red from tension.
"Master… are… are you praising me?"
"Of course." Fu Hua crouched down and pulled her to her feet. "At your age, I couldn't even dodge that strike."
And on that point, Fu Hua was not lying.
Because unlike Mobius, at the age of one she herself had only just barely learned how to talk.
But Mobius obviously didn't know that. Her eyes lit up at once.
"Really?"
"Really." Fu Hua nodded.
Mobius climbed to her feet, dusted off her training clothes, and her blue-green eyes turned thoughtfully, as if she were brewing up something more important.
After a short silence, she looked straight at Fu Hua's face.
"Master, then am I a good child?"
Fu Hua froze for a moment.
She looked at the little one standing before her, barely reaching her waist, and suddenly felt dazed.
A good child?
Those three words, spoken from Mobius's mouth, carried a kind of innocence utterly out of place in this training ground.
A child, asking whether she was good.
It should have been the most ordinary question in the world, the kind any parent could answer without thinking.
But Fu Hua was not a parent.
She was an Arbiter-General of the Hunt, Yuanqiao's general, a being who had been eroded by Nihility for nearly six hundred years and was searching for someone who could kill her.
The words "good child" had never had a place in her life.
Mobius stood there, looking at her with those blue-green eyes, waiting for an answer.
Fu Hua was silent for a moment, then nodded.
"Yes."
She paused, as if confirming it for herself, then repeated it.
"You are absolutely a good child."
The corners of Mobius's mouth lifted slightly, though she quickly suppressed it.
She did not cheer the way an ordinary child might after being praised. Instead, she lowered her head and stared at her own toes, as though considering something far more important.
"Master."
"Yes?"
Her voice grew quieter, almost hesitant. "I heard the elders say…"
"They said my previous life was Master's friend."
At that, Fu Hua's hand twitched.
The branch slipped from her fingers, hitting the ground with a crisp clatter.
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she lowered her eyes and watched the branch roll twice before coming to a stop.
Friend.
She had not heard that word spoken aloud in a very long time.
From the day Yuanqiao sealed itself away, she had never heard it again.
Because friendship required equality.
On a Xianzhou shrouded in Nihility, no one considered themselves fit to stand as the general's equal.
Mobius looked up at her again. "The elders also said…"
"They said Mobius—my previous life—was Master's best friend."
She blinked. "Are they right?"
The training ground fell quiet.
Fu Hua stood there, her grey-white hair lifted gently by the wind.
She looked at Mobius—at that face both identical to and completely different from Moebius's.
The same blue-green eyes. The same horns. The same brows and features.
And yet wholly different in every other way.
At last, Fu Hua gave a faint, quiet laugh.
"Yes. Moebius was my friend. My last friend."
Mobius blinked, seeming to turn the meaning of that answer over in her head.
But that expression, seen through Fu Hua's eyes, suggested something else entirely.
This child… did she think Fu Hua was treating her as Moebius's replacement?
After all, Vidyadhara reincarnation was a peculiar thing. Once they molted and were reborn, all memories of the past were lost. Other than bloodline and appearance, the new life and the old one shared nothing.
And precisely because of that, the reincarnated so often ended up in an awkward position.
The people around them couldn't help comparing them to the person they used to be, measuring them against their past life, projecting old shadows onto them.
Cases like that had appeared on every Xianzhou before.
Fu Hua crouched down until she was eye level with Mobius.
"Mobius."
"Yes?"
"I understand very well how Vidyadhara reincarnation works."
"After molting, the past is forgotten. You won't remember any of Moebius's life. You won't remember what she went through. You won't remember what she said to me."
"You are not Moebius. You are Mobius."
"I am not treating you as anyone else's shadow. You are yourself."
But Mobius did not react the way Fu Hua had expected.
She only looked at her, then asked quietly, "Master, then let me ask one more thing."
Fu Hua was slightly startled. "Go ahead."
"Why have we stayed sealed away for so long?"
"…What?"
Fu Hua blinked, clearly not expecting that question.
It had been a very long time since anyone had asked her that.
Not because no one wanted the answer, but because everyone already knew it.
The Xianzhou Yuanqiao had been sealed away for five hundred and ninety-one years. Everyone on the ship knew why. It was memory engraved into their blood—a story passed from parents to children, from children to grandchildren.
But Mobius didn't know.
She had only hatched less than a year ago. She hadn't had time to hear those stories, hadn't had time to let that crushing history bend her spine.
"Mobius," Fu Hua said at last.
"Yes?"
"The Vidyadhara elders… haven't taught you Yuanqiao's history?"
Mobius tilted her head, thinking about it carefully.
"They taught me a little," she said honestly. "But the elders said I'm too young. They said I should learn it when I'm older."
Fu Hua fell silent.
Too young.
Those four words, spoken by Mobius, sounded perfectly natural.
But to Fu Hua, they struck with surprising force.
Of course. This child was only one year old.
One year.
By Xianzhou standards, one year was hardly even a point worth noting. In the world of ordinary people, a one-year-old had only just learned to walk, and couldn't even speak full sentences clearly.
And yet Mobius was already standing on a training ground, asking, "Why are we sealed away?" and "What is the outside world like?"
Suddenly, Fu Hua felt something close to absurdity.
She was training a one-year-old child.Making a one-year-old dodge her branch.Making a one-year-old…
Become the person who could kill her.
What in the world was she thinking?
"Master?" Mobius's voice interrupted her thoughts.
Fu Hua came back to herself and looked again at that small face.
"Master, you still haven't answered me," Mobius said, a little unhappy.
"Why do we have to stay sealed away? Why can't we go out and see the outside world?"
Fu Hua drew in a slow breath.
Then she answered.
"Because Yuanqiao is guarding something for the entire galaxy."
Mobius blinked. "What thing?"
"A monster," Fu Hua said softly.
"A very frightening monster."
Mobius's expression changed.
She tilted her head, trying hard to understand.
"A monster?" she repeated. "What kind of monster?"
Fu Hua was silent for a moment.
She didn't know how to explain Nihility to a one-year-old.
After all, the most terrifying monster Yuanqiao was guarding now… was herself.
"Incredibly powerful," Fu Hua said at last, choosing the simplest words she could. "It's so strong that there are almost no people in the whole galaxy who can deal with it. If it ever got out, the people outside would all suffer."
"That's why Yuanqiao sealed itself away?"
Fu Hua nodded. "Yes. Yuanqiao sealed itself away to keep watch over that monster and stop it from getting out to hurt others."
"Then why not just kill it?" Mobius asked, with a child's bluntness.
"Because it can't be killed," Fu Hua answered honestly. "That monster is too strong. No one can kill it. At least… not yet."
After all, she herself had secretly left Yuanqiao once in search of such a person.
Yet in the current galaxy, she had not found anyone capable of it.
Mobius looked up again.
"Master, just wait. I'll grow stronger."
Fu Hua froze.
But Mobius kept going.
"I'll kill that monster, and then I'll open Yuanqiao's gates!"
"…All right," Fu Hua said softly. "Master will wait for you to kill it."
The scene shifted again, beginning to show fragments of Mobius and Fu Hua's life together.
And at that moment, Fu Hua's monologue finally resumed.
The setting changed once more to the General's residence, where Fu Hua sat at the center, her face shadowed with worry.
"This child, Mobius, is the most gifted existence I have ever seen. There is no second one."
"I once thought that being recognized by the Reignbow Arbiter and granted that divine Hunt manifestation already made me the most fortunate person in the whole Alliance."
"But Mobius is even more extraordinary than I am. She inherited everything of the Vidyadhara in perfect form."
"Among the former six Vidyadhara lineages, each Dragon Sovereign held a different power and a different responsibility."
"The High Elder of the Luofu carried the Azure Dragon's inheritance—summoning clouds and rain, watching over the Ambrosial Arbor."
"The Heavenly Wind Lord of the Yaoqing carried the Yinglong inheritance—commanding wind and thunder, guarding the Womb-Moon."
"The Blazing Court Lord of the Zhuming carried the Horned Dragon inheritance—wielding heavenly fire, guarding the Primordial Flint."
"The Frozen Abyss Lord of the Fanghu carried the Flood Dragon inheritance—mastering ice and tides, watching over the Inch-Sea of Smoke."
"The Kun'gang Lord of the Yaoqing carried the Earth Dragon inheritance—silent and contemplative, guarding the Abyssal Stone of Resting Soil."
"And the Jade-Holding Lord of Yuanqiao carried the Hornless Dragon inheritance—condensing jade into form, guarding the original source of the Vidyadhara."
"But Mobius…"
"She inherited all of it."
"Not only the Hornless Dragon inheritance. Not only the power that belonged to Lady Xianyu alone."
"The Azure Dragon, the Yinglong, the Horned Dragon, the Flood Dragon, the Earth Dragon… all six lineages of dragon inheritance reappeared within her."
"I saw it with my own eyes. Before she was even two years old, she could already activate six completely different dragon powers at once on the training field."
"Six powers. Six origins. Six entirely different directions of destiny. Yet within her, they coexisted perfectly. No conflict. No rejection."
"It was as if… she had been born to be the Vidyadhara's Imperishable one."
"She was two. Two years old."
"To those old generals who had fought for a thousand years, to the mighty warriors who had carved their names across the stars, even they would have fallen three degrees short before the purity of her dragon force."
"And her strength had already surpassed Lady Xianyu of old. Surpassed every Dragon Sovereign in Yuanqiao's history."
"Even… surpassed the Arbiter-Generals I had once known."
"And she was only two."
At this point, a faint tremor entered Fu Hua's voice, though she herself did not seem aware of it.
"I once believed Yuanqiao had no hope left. I believed Nihility would eventually devour everything. I believed that all I could do was find someone who could kill me—someone who, at the final moment, could sever all of this."
"But Mobius… she gave me a possibility I had never imagined."
"Perhaps it was not merely a matter of killing me."
"Perhaps… she could truly bring all of this to an end."
Meanwhile, within the Divination Commission on the Luofu, silence had fallen so deep that one could hear a pin drop.
The Ten-Directions Projection Nexus still shone, and the vast screen above remained frozen at the end of Fu Hua's monologue.
But the expressions on the faces of the Arbiter-Generals seemed fixed in place.
Jing Yuan was the first to recover, but instead of speaking, he slowly turned his head toward the small figure standing in the corner.
Mobius.
She was still there, her three-year-old body especially tiny beneath the weight of all their stares.
Truthfully, Jing Yuan had been curious from the very first moment Mobius used her power.
As Yuanqiao's Jade-Holding Lord, why could she wield the Azure Dragon's might—the same power as the Imbibitor Lunae?
He had assumed there was something unusual about the Jade-Holding lineage itself. He had thought perhaps this was simply the unique expression of Yuanqiao's Dragon Sovereign power.
Only now did he understand that was not the Hornless Dragon's inheritance at all.
That was the genuine Azure Dragon inheritance—identical in source and nature to that of the Imbibitor Lunae, without the slightest difference.
Mobius had not imitated it.She had not borrowed it.
She had truly mastered it.
And not only the Azure Dragon. The Yinglong, the Horned Dragon, the Flood Dragon, the Earth Dragon… all six dragon inheritances of the Vidyadhara coexisted within that tiny body.
Then suddenly, Jing Yuan thought of something else—and immediately felt a headache coming on.
Surely, by now, the Dragon Elders within Luofu's Vidyadhara district had seen all of this too.
A Dragon Sovereign so powerful, so utterly rootless, and carrying the true legacy of Impermanence… no, of the Imperishable.
Jing Yuan could already imagine the attitude those Dragon Elders would adopt the moment Aha's spectacle ended.
"All six dragon lineages… inherited in full?" Feixiao's voice broke the silence first.
She turned sharply, her gaze falling on the small figure in the corner of the hall.
At the age of two, her strength had already surpassed Arbiter-Generals who had fought for centuries?
Feixiao still clearly remembered how this little thing had fake-cried just last night.
And now she was being told that the same tiny brat who had put on that pitiful act could actually crush her effortlessly?
That was more than a little horrifying.
Yet just as everyone stood in silence, a voice of Joy suddenly rang out across the galaxy.
"Dear viewers in front of your screens, after watching so much of this documentary, aren't you all dying to know how this master-and-disciple pair ended?"
At once, everyone looked up and realized that Aha—who had seemingly vanished—had somehow reappeared.
"Oh, come on, don't look so tense," Aha said cheerfully. "I didn't come back just to watch you all sit there making funeral faces."
The image in the sky began to change again.
The frame, frozen on the end of Fu Hua's monologue, was casually swept aside by Aha.
Aha's figure floated against the starry backdrop, reclining against emptiness itself with one leg crossed over the other, as relaxed as though sunbathing in a backyard.
"Now then, now then, stop looking so grim."
"I know what you're thinking. Red Kite searched everywhere and still couldn't find anyone who could kill her, only to discover in the end that the answer had been at her side all along—that the little one who had just hatched was the only hope."
"And then?" Aha tilted Their head, deliberately teasing. "What happened next? Did the two-year-old little monster who inherited all six dragon lineages actually fulfill her mission in the end?"
Aha paused, as though waiting for the entire galaxy to answer.
Of course, no one could.
"Hehe." Aha chuckled, the eyes behind the mask narrowing.
"I saw two endings."
"One of them belongs to Enigmata—the version you are all living through now, the one that's already been rewritten once."
Aha folded down one finger, leaving another raised.
"The other one… belongs to the Imperishable."
The moment that name fell, the air inside the Divination Commission seemed to freeze solid.
The Imperishable.
The source of the Vidyadhara.The root of all six dragon inheritances.The name of a long-dead Aeon.
By all known truths of the galaxy, the Imperishable was dead—utterly dead, beyond any possibility of return.
Yet Aha had said They had seen an ending tied to the Imperishable.
"Don't look so shocked." Aha grinned wider, clearly delighted by the galaxy's reaction.
"That ending tied to the Imperishable no longer exists. Enigmata erased it, scrubbed it clean, wiped it out so completely not even dust remains."
"But…" Aha's tone shifted, becoming gleeful in the way of a child showing off a prized toy.
"Who am I? I'm Aha! Aeon of Joy! King of pranks! The single greatest troublemaker in the whole galaxy."
"So why shouldn't I be able to see through one little erased ending?"
They said it so matter-of-factly, as if Enigmata's authority meant no more to Them than a thin sheet of paper.
Jing Yuan's brows tightened.
He could not tell whether Aha was telling the truth. One could never fully trust anything the Aeon of Joy said.
But one thing he could not deny—
Aha was absolutely capable of it.
Because this was an Aeon.
A being on the same level as Enigmata itself.
"All right, enough nonsense."
"I know what you want to see. You want to see that ending that no longer exists—the one tied to the Imperishable."
"Even though it's gone. Even though it will never happen again. Even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the timeline you're living in now."
Aha paused, the grin on Their face stretching into something absurd.
"But I, Aha, happen to be in a good mood today. So I'll make an exception and let you see it."
The image in the sky went abruptly dark.
The deep field of stars vanished. Aha vanished with it, replaced instead by an abyssal black.
It was not ordinary darkness.
It was Nihility.
Pure, absolute, unstoppable Nihility.
Like a hand emerging from the depths of the void, it slowly spread its fingers and blotted out the whole star region beneath it.
And at the heart of that darkness, a single Xianzhou hung suspended in silence.
Yuanqiao.
Unlike the Yuanqiao shown earlier, which had still retained a thread of life, this one was now nothing but a husk.
Its hull was shattered, its surface scarred. Streets that once blazed with light lay in utter darkness. Plazas once teeming with people stood empty.
Nihility seeped from every corner of the ship, as though Yuanqiao itself were rotting, being hollowed out from within by something unseen.
And within that ruin, two figures fought.
One of them was Red Kite—now completely assimilated by Nihility.
The once-proud general of the Hunt had become a black sun.
And facing that black sun was a colossal dragon, battered and wounded.
It was a dragon awakened to the Imperishable.
Then a desolate voice spoke, declaring Yuanqiao's end.
"The Hunt's arrowhead still failed to outlast Nihility."
"But the dragon scion of the Imperishable did fulfill her promise."
"That day, a black sun hung in the sky."
"That day, the black dragon devoured the sun."
"From that day onward, there was no longer any Xianzhou Alliance."
"The black dragon swallowed everything… and paid for it with her life."
Join here to read ahead.
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