The throne room was silent, but it was not peace. It was the aftermath of everything that had ever been broken. Zheng sat alone, blindfold pressed firmly against his skin, his hands resting on the arms of the throne as if the weight of the world could be held there.
Every life he had touched, every judgment rendered through Ethereal Lock, reverberated through him. Pain was no longer just a sensation—it was a presence, a living thing that lingered in his bones. Soldiers who had survived battles, generals who had fallen, innocent villagers caught in the crossfire—all whispered through the threads of chi that wound around him like invisible chains.
He had won. The Jade Arbiter had been sealed, Emperor Wu contained, the gods humbled. And yet, victory was hollow.
The Tuktan generals knelt in the halls, their immortal eyes reflecting the flickering torchlight, but they too felt the strain. Even they, bound to his chi, could not escape the suffering he carried. When a mortal died, he felt it as though it were his own body being torn apart. When a god faltered, he bore the shock of cosmic upheaval. Every battle, every strike of Ethereal Lock, was payment in full—and still he owed more.
Zheng rose, stepping onto the marble floor. His blindfold did not hinder him. He could feel the pulse of every room, every corridor, every heartbeat within the palace. Each one tugged at him, not with loyalty or fear, but with unfiltered reality. The empire was stitched together now, but it was fragile, held in place by endurance and unrelenting pain.
He moved through the halls, past banners scorched by divine fire, past the corpses of enemies who had never seen his mercy, past the remnants of battles that had erased history itself. He could feel the weight of his choices pressing down like a mountain. Condensation, Erasure, Heavenrend—every strike left a scar on reality and a wound on his soul.
He stopped in the courtyard, under the green-lit sky where his birth had been marked by lightning. The wind carried scents of rain and ash, of iron and of blood. He let himself breathe. Only once, only for a moment.
Victory had come at a cost. And that cost was eternal.
He lifted his blindfold slightly, enough to feel the world, not see it. Even this small motion sent ripples through the threads of chi. Pain flowed in through every sense, through every fragment of memory he had absorbed. It was a river that could not be dammed. And yet, he bore it. He had no choice but to bear it.
The cost of victory was clear: to hold the empire together, to protect the people, he had to carry every burden himself. He had to be the lock against chaos, the anchor in a world teetering on the edge of annihilation.
And he would.
Because a true king does not step aside when the cost is unbearable. A true king never bends.
He does not ask the world to suffer for him.
He suffers for the world.
The blindfolded emperor knelt beneath the night sky, feeling the pulse of the empire beneath his feet, the weight of every soul above him. And in that moment, he understood the full price of sovereignty. Victory was not triumph. Victory was endurance. And endurance, he realized, was heavier than any crown.
He rose again.
The world waited.
And the King of the Beginning walked forward, carrying eternity in his chest.