Floating amidst a boundless sea of mist was a mansion of impossible majesty, sculpted from jade-white stone and dark starwood that gleamed faintly like starlight.

  Its spires pierced upward into a sky that wasn’t truly there, only an endless shimmer where space and time folded, runes flickering in and out like fireflies trapped between realities.

  The roof tiles shimmered like rippling moonlight, shifting faintly with each swell of Qi, as though the building itself was breathing.

  In the front yard, a crystal pool spread wide over polished marble, its surface calm and luminous, scattered with lotus blossoms that glowed from within, petals untouched by decay. Ripples moved across the water though no wind stirred, as if unseen fingers brushed the pool in reverence.

  Around the pool, spirit flowers bloomed in brilliance, their petals opening and closing with the rhythm of some ancient pulse. Each one pulsed with raw Vitality, their stems faintly trembling, their fragrance thick enough to stir the soul. Yet it was not any hidden formation that fed this lush Garden.

  Not far from it, barely reaching the height of the other flowers, stood a small, Vibrant Purple Flower.

  Though diminutive, it shone with quiet sovereignty. Its leaves swayed gently without breeze, each of it's leaf has a purple thread of vein that pulsed with a dense and concentrated Vitality Essence.

  With every subtle rise and fall, like the inhalation and exhalation of a slumbering deity, it breathed out a fine purple mist.

  The Mist drifted outward in slow, curling streams, seeping into air and stone alike, and wherever it touched, vitality blossomed. Flowers stood taller, grass shimmered greener, the very walls of the mansion seemed to hum, as if drinking deep from divine nectar. Even silence itself grew full, alive, thick with the essence of renewal.

  The garden basked in its breath, and so did its inhabitants.

  Haozi, Min Li, and the six children sat in a circle, around Rainbow, their chests rising in rhythm with the purple mist.

  None resisted it; even if they tried, the Essence still sank into their pores, threading into their blood and marrow, brushing away hidden filth and errors. The children, with their fragile mortal frames, could not yet draw deeply. Much of the essence lingered within them in dormant pools of purple light waiting for the moment they’d awaken.

  But Haozi and Min Li were different.

  A vortex spun faintly around them, air bending as they drew in the purple Vitality Essence with the hunger of cultivators tempered by years of struggle.

  The mist rushed toward them as though the flower itself favored their existence. Their bodies trembled under its touch: bones groaning, skin glowing faintly, meridians widening as cracks of light snaked along their veins.

  Their eyes, closed in meditation, twitched with both strain and ecstasy, for the transformation was not gentle.

  ----

  Sigil City.

  Thud. Thud. Thud.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The earth shook beneath a storm of footsteps, thousands of beasts surging forward as one, their roars crashing together into a single, deafening war drum. Dust rose in choking waves as their red, frenzied eyes locked onto the towering wall ahead.

  Then came the collision.

  BAAAAAAAAAMM!

  The land itself trembled, a thunderclap splitting the sky as flesh and fury met stone.

  For a breath, the wall held.

  Then...

  Crash! Crash! Crash-crash-crash!

  Thousands of punctures bloomed across its surface all at once, like a body riddled with arrows. The wall shuddered, fractured, and finally—

  CRAAAAAASSSH!

  A thunderous sound echoed as It fell apart from the inside out, crumbling not like a fortress but like brittle tofu cut by a knife.

  The sigils carved into the stone, the very wards that had made the wall unyielding for centuries, lay dark and lifeless. Their glow had vanished, leaving nothing but dead carvings in broken stone.

  -----

  Deep within the jungle, Hei’an froze mid-chase. The air seemed to still around him, his stride faltering as his eyes widened: shock first, then disbelief, then the creeping edge of horror.

  An unfamiliar Fear slid into his chest.

  That sound… that impossible sound.

  The wall that had stood unbroken for millennia, the pride and bulwark of the city, could not have fallen.

  yet, the echo rolling through the land told him otherwise.

  Instantly, He cast his divine senses outward like a tide, desperate, unwilling to believe. No… it can’t be.

  Jin Yu felt a tremor pass through his chest, his stride faltering as the sound reached him. His pupils tightened, the weight of realization pressing inward like a cold tide.

  "What is that…?"

  He stretched his senses outward, further than his realm could truly sustain, until they thinned and broke against the forest’s edge.

  Within him, something brewed: an unspoken dread.

  He had wanted disorder, yes, a spark to wound Hei’an’s pride, a storm to draw out the City’s defenses. But the sound that rolled through the land was not disorder.

  It carried ruin.

  It wasn’t the faceless masses that first seized him, it was her.

  Sylune.

  Her Blue eyes and water sheen body flickered like a blade across his mind, swift and silent.

  She was there, within those walls. The walls that had fallen because of him, because of his petty revenge.

  He thought in disbelief.

  Heaviness pressed against his chest, sharp enough to threaten his composure. He would not name it fear, but it burned just the same.

  His steps turned of their own accord, carrying him away from the trees and back toward the city. The forest no longer mattered. Only the truth ahead did.

  Hei’an had already stilled at this point. His face, so rarely moved, hollowed in silence.

  The wall had fallen.

  The defenses were gone.

  What his divine perception revealed was not resistance, but emptiness, a hollow City without guard or refuge, waiting to be torn apart.

  For the first time in an age, his composure cracked. His heart gave a single heavy beat that echoed in his chest, and he stood motionless, eyes fixed on the chaos unfolding ahead.

  Before his brain could process it, his legs moved on their own, mirrored the turn, chasing after Jin Yu.

  The more he saw with his perception, the lower his heart beat, until it stopped.

  Literally stopped.

  -----

  With the wall gone, the rest followed easily. The automated defense posts that should have come alive in flame and steel remained silent. No light. No force. No resistance.

  The City, once a bastion, now lay naked before the horde.

  The last fragments of stone tumbled down in clouds of dust.

  Beyond the ruins of the wall, the City lay quietly, its streets silent. No beings. No souls.

  The beasts charged through, their claws tearing furrows into the marble roads, their roars shaking the abandoned mansions and empty towers. Windows shattered beneath the vibrations, doors splintered, banners of once-proud clans whipped in the dust storm that followed them.

  Yet no one came.

  No blades, no shouts, no dying cries.

  The City was like a hollow shell, utterly defenseless.

  Beasts prowled the market squares where stalls stood deserted, overturned by the quake of their advance.

  A pack of tusked fiends smashed into the council hall, collapsing its roof with ease. Serpent-like shadows slithered along the canals, their scarlet eyes flickering in the water’s reflection.

  The Mighty City that had stood for centuries did not even resist, it simply received the invasion like a corpse unable to flinch from desecration.

  Above it all, the broken wall groaned in the wind, its fallen sigils glowing faintly one last time before fading into complete darkness.

  After a while, the frenzied beasts got restless.

  Their red eyes darted from shadow to shadow, searching, hunting, desperate for flesh. But the city was silent, a hollow carcass of stone.

  Their howls grew wild, shrill with frustration. One by one, the monsters turned their fury on what remained, tearing apart temples, crushing bridges, smashing statues into dust. But even that was not enough.

  The bloodlust in their eyes burned hotter with each breath, until their rage tipped into madness.

  As if driven by one mind, the horde turned toward the horizon. Beyond the ruins, another City stood close enough, alive enough.

  ROOOOOOOOOOOAARRR!

  The beasts roared, a defeaning sound that shook the sky, then surged forward in a tide of claws and fangs. The earth trembled as their frenzy found a new target.

  The first City had been empty. The next one would not be so fortunate.