The Stone Gate stood on the Pavilion’s second tier, carved into the cliffside like a celestial scar. Towering thirty feet tall, it was inscribed with runes that shifted and twisted as if alive—breathing thought, exhaling madness.

  To pass, a disciple had to kneel before the gate and endure a projection of an ancient Golden Immortal’s will—not an attack of body, but a siege of spirit.

  Most lasted minutes.

  Some, seconds.

  One had lasted an hour, centuries ago. That disciple became a Pavilion Elder.

  No one had done it since.

  Disciples filled the surrounding terraces, whispering with gleaming eyes.

  “He’s going to try the Gate?”

  “Without a cultivation method?”

  “He’ll break in five seconds.”

  Even Shen Lian had arrived—robes immaculate, a silver fan tucked behind his back. He didn’t speak, but his presence loomed.

  From the side, Elder Yue Xian stood watchfully. Her face was blank, but her fingers were tight around her jade ring.

  Li Fan stepped forward alone.

  The runes flared red.

  As he knelt, the world changed.

  Suddenly, he was no longer on the cliff. He stood in a vast black void, suspended under a dome of golden stars.

  And before him…

  A man of fire and starlight emerged.

  Clad in robes of solar flame, with a gaze that burned straight through the soul.

  “You dare approach the heavens with a shattered root?”

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  “You—flawed thing—seek immortality?”

  “You. Are. NOTHING.”

  The voice struck like thunder. The pressure slammed into Li Fan’s mind like mountains falling. His knees buckled. Blood ran from his nose.

  His vision blurred.

  And then—

  He smiled.

  Because in that pressure… he heard something else. A whisper buried beneath the roar.

  Not the voice of the ancient.

  But the voice of the stars.

  “You are not a mistake.”

  “You are a vessel.”

  “You are the beginning of something new.”

  His breath slowed. He stood straighter.

  The projection snarled, unleashing a storm of divine rage. Pillars of memory, failure, and cosmic judgment rained down.

  But Li Fan…

  He opened his arms.

  He did not resist. He accepted.

  And in doing so—he passed.

  Outside, the runes on the Stone Gate suddenly stopped flickering.

  Then—

  BOOM.

  A crack appeared from top to bottom.

  The projection inside collapsed.

  Li Fan stood, blinking against the sunlight as the illusion faded. Blood ran from one ear, and his robe was torn. But his eyes… gleamed with starlight.

  He had lasted sixty-three minutes.

  Longer than anyone in over a thousand years.

  Shen Lian’s fan snapped open.

  He said nothing, but inside, a fire lit.

  “This isn’t just talent. It’s something older… more dangerous.”

  Yue Xian smiled faintly. “You walked into the heart of a god and came back alive,” she whispered.

  But far beneath them, in the Sealed Root Vaults, a second soul chain snapped.

  From a distant island across the sea, a woman in white silk opened her eyes.

  They burned with golden rings.

  “The Starforged has awakened,” she murmured. “And the others will begin to move.”

  She reached into the air—and plucked a lotus petal from the wind.

  “Let us meet soon, little vessel.”