The mortal realm was a world drowning in fear. Lan Yue's journey was a grim pilgrimage through a landscape of ruin. She flew over burnt out villages that were little more than blackened scars on the earth and endless, snaking lines of terrified refugees clogging the roads, their faces hollow with a despair she felt in her own soul. From the high altitudes, she could always see it: the distant, horrifying sight of the Bakunawa's all consuming storm on the horizon, a permanent vortex of darkness that seemed to blot out the sun, a constant, silent scream from the edge of the world.
She did not travel to the Azure Cloud Sect. Her home was no longer a sanctuary, but a source of the poison that was killing the world. Vex'aal's intelligence had guided her to a new location: the ancient, neutral city of Tianshu, a mountain fortress where the surviving leaders of the great sects had gathered for a desperate, final council of war.
Her arrival was a cataclysm. The city, tense and grey under a perpetually overcast sky, erupted as her grey robed figure descended from the clouds into the main plaza. Alarms blared. Within moments, she was the epicenter of a forest of sharp, glittering steel, surrounded by hundreds of guards, their faces a mixture of awe and terror.
She did not draw her own weapon. Nightfall Crescent remained a silent weight on her back. She simply stood, radiating a calm, immense power that made the very air tremble, the stones at her feet humming with a faint celestial light. "I am Lan Yue," she announced, her voice ringing with an authority that was not of this world, a sound that cut through the panicked shouts. "I have come to speak to the Sect Leaders. I bring the truth of the Bakunawa."
She was brought, under heavy guard, to the great council hall of Tianshu Fortress. The massive chamber, built to celebrate unity, was now a house of grief. The leaders of the righteous path were assembled, their faces haggard, their fine robes singed and torn from recent battles. Her own former master, the Sword Sage Jian An, looked a hundred years older, his back, once so straight, now bowed with the weight of unspeakable loss.
And standing at the head of the council, his face a mask of cold, arrogant power, was Elder Feng. Beside him, Wei Chen stood like a grim statue, his aura colder and harder than she had ever felt it. His eyes widened in shock as she entered, a flicker of some old, forgotten emotion, before it was submerged in a tide of pure, unadulterated hatred.
"A trick!" Feng's voice boomed through the hall before she could even speak, his words a masterclass in manipulation. "The demon's puppet, the fallen Saint, has come to spread more lies and sow more chaos in our darkest hour! She who was our greatest hope now comes as our final doom! Seize her!"
The guards surged forward, their swords raised. But before they could reach her, Lan Yue raised the obsidian Memory Weaver high.
"You claim to follow the righteous path," she said, her voice cutting through the uproar, each word a clear, resonant bell of truth. "A path of honor. A path of truth. Before you condemn me, I ask only that you look at the evidence."
She activated the crystal. The silent, damning images bloomed in the air for all to see. The scene was the dark, damp Undercity cistern. The figures were clear: Elder Feng, Wei Chen, and the fallen disciples. They saw Feng's gloating confession, heard his silent words form as he mocked their foolish loyalty. They watched in horror as he spoke of his plan to sacrifice them, to summon the Void, to frame the empresses. His treachery, in all its smug, self serving detail, was laid bare for the entire world to witness.
A wave of shocked, horrified gasps went through the hall. The sect leaders stared from the undeniable proof in the air to the face of Elder Feng, which had become a mask of pale, sweating fury. His carefully constructed world of lies was in ashes.
Wei Chen stared, his entire body trembling violently. The images in the air were a horrifying mirror to his own memories, now hideously re contextualized. Every word of praise from Feng, every piece of "evidence" he had been shown, every righteous speech he had given all of it was a lie. A lie he had not just believed, but championed. A lie that had made him betray the person he once cared for most. A choked, animal sound of pure agony escaped his lips.
"You see now," Lan Yue said, her voice a low, sorrowful judgment that was not for Wei Chen, but for them all. "The monster you have been fighting is not the one you thought."
"No," Feng hissed, a wild, mad light in his eyes. His composure shattered, replaced by the cornered rat's final, spiteful fury. "You are the monster! All of you! If I am to be condemned for seeking power, then I will drag you all into the silence with me!"
He slammed his hand on the floor, biting his own thumb and smearing blood across a hidden seal. A complex array, a Void trap he had prepared long ago, flared to life. Dark, Void laced chains of energy erupted from the floor, sealing the great doors. More shot up the walls, covering the windows in a web of impenetrable shadow, and a dome of darkness solidified over the ceiling, plunging the hall into a terrifying twilight. The air grew cold, thin, and hard to breathe.
At the same time, outside the city, the Bakunawa, a dozen leagues away, felt the massive surge of its native energy. The storm on the horizon pulsed, and the creature let out a world shattering, silent roar that was felt as a psychic shockwave by every cultivator in the hall. It changed course.
It was coming for them.
"Feng, you madman!" Jian An screamed, drawing his sword.
But he was too late. Wei Chen, with a cry of pure, agonized rage that was directed as much at himself as the man before him, finally charged the true traitor. Their battle erupted in the center of the sealed, collapsing hall, a whirlwind of golden, righteous light against corrupting, heretical darkness.
The diplomatic mission was over. Lan Yue stood in the center of the chaos a traitor about to be consumed by his own weapon, a broken man fighting for a redemption he would never find, and a council of the most powerful leaders in the world, trapped and helpless. Outside, the apocalypse was descending upon their mountain fortress.
Her mission to deliver the truth had succeeded. And in doing so, she had just triggered the end of the world.