Meanwhile, within the abyss, there still was no ground beneath him.
No sky above, no horizon to chase.
Only the descent.
Endless. Ceaseless. And merciless.
And in this fall, there was no wind to catch his cry, no surface to brace his limbs, no stars to orient the soul.
Dao Wei kept falling.
Not like a man falling through the sky. But like a memory being erased from time. Like a name being swallowed from the back of a forgotten prayer.
The Bottomless Abyss did not welcome, it devoured.
It was no mere pit. No rift in space or trick of illusion.
It was older than gravity, older than laws, older than light. A place where even cause and effect came undone. Where gods once came to die quietly.
Dao Wei plunged through it, not as a body of flesh and bone, but as something less, something undone.
A fluttering echo trying to remember itself.
The air—if it could be called that— was not cold, not hot. It was dense and viscous.
Like sinking through blood thickened by eons. Like crawling through a dream's marrow.
Every inhale shredded him from within, each breath a blade of ash and forgotten lamentations.
He tried to scream, but nothing came.
No voice. No sound.
Only the pressure of his soul peeling, flaking away into the void like old bark from a dying tree.
The light was the first to go.
It did not dim—It vanished…Utterly.
No shade. No silhouette. Just the purest, most complete darkness, the kind that didn't merely blind the eye, but rewrote the very concept of sight.
Then, the self began to unravel.
His thoughts tangled like threads in an oil-choked loom.
Each idea that tried to rise, each memory, each face—Mingxia's laughter, Xuner's eyes, Skyfall's cries turned sluggish, drowned, dissolved.
Dao Wei tried to cling to them, clutching at them like a dying man reaching for sunlight through water.
But the whispers came.
And they had many mouths.
They slithered between the cracks in his mind. Spoke in tones too ancient for language. Cooed and crooned in voices stolen from the dead.
"Forgotten."
"Hollow."
The last one was even louder.
"You are nothing."
His martial soul trembled. The light of his majestic orbit of elemental orbs around him faltered, and their essence leaked. Cracks veined across their surfaces, hairline fissures like spiderwebs etched in despair.
His body spasmed, no longer whole. His silver halo, once a symbol of transcendent defiance, blinked like a dying star, shrieking in disharmony.
Dao Wei's meridians boiled. His bones creaked as though ancient chains wound tight around them. But blood no longer flowed; it oozed, thick with grief and golden ruin.
Even the divinity within him, remnants of gods of both Light and Dark, quailed. As if afraid to exist here. This wasn't a place one should be, as it was ripping him down to the core.
This place was not for things that were. Only for what should never have been. And worse than the silence, worse than the void, was the pull.
The Abyss was not passive. It was hungry, it did not merely contain... It wanted.
His spirit recoiled as it reached for him, not like hands, but like a loss.
It gripped his soul like time grips a forgotten ruin, weathering away each brick, each memory, each truth.
It wanted to erase him.
Erase his name. Erase his story. Erase his light. Almost erasing everything that has to do with him.
He opened his mouth and tried to scream.
Tried to declare his name.
But there was no breath. No sound. Nor echo, only the unmaking.
Dao Wei's heart pulsed in pain—Not once.
But thrice.
Each beat heavier than a mountain, each one fraying his consciousness further.
But still… something clung to him—An instinct.
Not of cultivation. Nor of survival.
But of unfinished promises.
Through the thick, molten despair, a word crawled up his throat.
Barely a breath.
But a spark.
"...Mingxia…"
Then another.
"...Xuner…"
Names like lotus petals rising through tar.
His cultivation flared faintly, a shattered lantern in a world where even fire was unwelcome. And Qi leaked from his dantian, splashing into the nothing. His sea of consciousness roared with thousands of voices, screaming with terror not his own.
And yet… He remembered.
He had lived.
He had loved.
He had fought.
He had bled beneath suns that no longer existed.
He was Dao Wei.
And even if no god remembered, even if Heaven itself turned away—He would not forget himself.
A shape formed within him. Half-forged—Half-broken. But real. A sword, born of pain and forged in grief. Tempered by memory.
He reached for it, fingers trembling, and nails cracking as if about to break.
Blood streamed from his palms as he wrapped them around the hilt of something that had no edge, yet could somehow still feel it.
His spirit surged, briefly. Enough to reclaim a breath of identity.
Then a voice rang out. It was not cruel… Not loud. But gentle, terrifyingly gentle.
"Descend."
He twisted, though there was no direction. No axis. No sense of movement.
"Descend."
Dao Wei's eyes fluttered even so slightly.
Further above—maybe below? Far from what even fear could touch—A pair of crimson eyes opened.
They did not blink. They did not speak, they simply watched. There was no hatred in them, no warmth, no judgment. Only truth—And a terrible patience, as if they had seen the birth of stars and would watch him long after their death.
His sword slipped from his grip, floating into nothingness like the goodbye of a loved one.
He tried to reach, not for the eyes. But for a memory. A courtyard… Swirling clouds… A girl clad in dark violet royal regalia.
"...Lingxue…"
Break!
Suddenly, with that final name, the world broke.
Not in noise. But in silence, a silence so complete, so final, it cleaved through everything that still dared to exist.
Dao Wei continued falling, drifting further and further into the darkness.
While somewhere, in a realm not meant for man nor god, something else began to stir. Across the realm of Qingling, a storm was gathering. Not one of thunder or rain.
But of reckoning.
The name—Dao Wei, once spoken with reverence and fear, was now whispered only in corners.
Like a curse… A prophecy.
The sky above the ruined Sword God Sect remained cloudless, but a low pressure hung there, as if Heaven itself mourned the unraveling of fate. Ash still clung to shattered statues. Blades rusted in the silence where disciples once trained.
Only ghosts roamed now.
And stories.
At the heart of the decimated inner sanctum, where celestial sword Qi once bloomed like lotuses of judgment, an elder's trembling hand gripped a brush.
The ink bled too fast that even the parchment seemed reluctant.
Strike!
Then another.
And at last, The Name: Dao Wei was completely removed from the Records of the Sword God Sect.
It was done…Just like that.
The legacy erased.
"Sigh!" The elder exhaled, as if he'd just buried a son.
And in the Northern Jade Pavilion of the Imperial Capital, banners fluttered with unnerving calm.
Officials whispered.
Courtiers scowled.
The Empress Regent herself listened in silence as the Imperial Chronicler unfurled the latest divine edict.
"Dao Wei has fallen into darkness. His acts are deemed treason against the Celestial Order. His name shall be struck from all official annals. Let no shrine honor him. Let no cultivator revere him."
The decree ended, but no applause followed. Even the golden carp in the pond below seemed to circle slower.
"Fallen?" the Regent murmured, fingers trailing the rim of her tea cup. "No. He was pushed."
No one dared to respond.
While in the teahouses and cities, they spoke his name with fire and fear.
"He defied the Demon Childe!"
"Aye—but then devoured the Hell Serpent and vanished into the Abyss."
"Maybe he became one of them."
"Nonsense! He'll return. They always do."
Some toasted to his memory.
Others spat on the ground.
A bard played a sorrowful tune, ending with—"And when the hero falls, the stars turn their faces away…"
In the Western Mountains, a woman knelt by a cliff, the wind knotting her hair.
She did not cry. Instead, she lit incense. And then raised her blade to the stars.
"Sword Childe or demon... You saved us. That is enough."
Around her, survivors of the Sword God Sect bowed in silence. They did not speak his name. But in their hearts, it burned brighter than ever.
And high above, behind veils of starlight and cloud, beneath layers of secrecy even fate could not peer through, the Holy Lady dipped her brush. Silver veil aglow in moonlight that no mortal eye could see, she wrote with measured grace:
'Status: Unknown.
Memory: Unstable.
Threat Level: Divine Anomaly.'
Then, after a long pause, she added a line that shimmered with unspoken truth:
'Not all demons wear horns. Not all gods shine bright.'
She paused, gazed out toward the east where the sky fractured subtly, like a mirror beginning to crack.
"He will return," she whispered to no one.
Far away in the ruins of sects both hostile and friendly, young cultivators asked questions their masters refused to answer.