The sky burned the night the seal fractured.
Mo Tianxian stood atop the great stone terrace of the Celestial Archive, his white and gold robes billowing in the storm-wind, scrolls circling him like stars. Thunder cracked the heavens. The once-holy sanctuary shook with distant tremors as battle drums pounded in the valley below.
"They've come," whispered Master Qin, the last of the Elders. "The Empire has betrayed the Accord. They want the scrolls. All of them."
Mo Tianxian closed his eyes.
He had seen this. In dreams. In signs. In prophecy etched into his skin as a child.
But none of it prepared him for this moment.
Not for the pain in his chest.
Not for the quiet that had taken root inside his heart.
Not for the weight of choice.
"They were our allies," Tianxian said softly. "They vowed to protect knowledge, not claim it."
Master Qin's face was lined with grief. "They no longer see knowledge as sacred. They see it as power. And you, Tianxian… You are the last key."
A pause.
Then: "You must destroy the seal."
Tianxian's breath caught. "That would break the balance."
"If they take the scrolls, they will twist them. Rewrite them. They will erase the old truths and remake the world in lies. Destroy the seal. Scatter the scrolls. Hide them across lifetimes if you must."
"But if I do," Tianxian said, trembling, "the Keeper dies."
Qin laid a hand on his shoulder. "Then let the Keeper die. And let the world forget him… until it remembers again."
—
The scrolls were not parchment.
They were living, breathing relics of celestial memory. Seven in total. Seven truths.
One for each pillar of the balance: Light, Shadow, Flame, Breath, Memory, Blood, and Will.
Mo Tianxian had bonded to them at the age of twelve. They whispered to him. Dreamed through him. When he walked, they followed. When he wept, they hummed in comfort. He loved them like siblings. Like fragments of his soul.
But now… he would have to break them.
The chamber of the seal was deep within the Archive, surrounded by wards so old they pulsed like veins.
He descended the spiral steps, the scrolls swirling behind him in mournful orbit.
He did not cry.
He did not falter.
But when he reached the final gate, he whispered, "I'm sorry."
And opened it.
—
The seal was a floating prism of pure starlight, suspended above a pool of ink-dark water. The moment Tianxian stepped inside, the scrolls screamed in his mind—wordless, desperate.
"You were never meant to live as one," he said aloud, tears finally falling. "You were born to be remembered. So be remembered—in parts. In pieces. In hope."
He raised his hands.
The prism shuddered.
And the scrolls burst outward—seven streaks of blinding energy, torn from one another, ripped across time and space.
The seal cracked.
And with it, Tianxian's body did too.
Light bled from his skin. His soul splintered, wrapped in fire and memory, flung like a comet across the ages.
But as his vision dimmed, one voice remained:
"You will return. When the world needs you most."
And he whispered his last vow:
"Then I will return as love—not as war."
---
Somewhere far away… an infant cried.
And in that newborn's soul, a fragment of celestial memory stirred.