A memory, not his own, flickered across the edge of Fang Yuan's vision.
It was not a dream, nor a time-path vision. It was a wound in the world, still bleeding.
Star Constellation stood above the battlefield — not a woman now, but a tower of cold starlight. Threads of fate coiled around her, a thousand destinies dancing like puppet strings. Across from her, Fang Yuan and Giant Sun clashed together like black fire and golden blood.
They had no alliance, only aligned needs.
Fang Yuan remembered the final moment — her eyes widening, her threads fraying, a prophecy interrupted by something beyond calculation. Then the sky broke.
Heaven's Will screamed, not in words, but in collapse.
The vault split. The fragments flew.
He blinked, and the memory — or myth — was gone.
But the echo remained, carved into the Abyssal Root.
The clone did not flinch under Fang Yuan's gaze. He was near-identical — same eyes, same stance, even the same trace of blood path corrosion hidden deep in his soul.
But there was something else. Something... off.
"Why are you here, instead of observing the Northern Plains storm?" Fang Yuan asked.
"I was," the clone said. "But I saw something that changed the plan. A thread that shouldn't exist."
Fang Yuan frowned. "Thread?"
The clone raised a hand. A miniature fate thread flickered above his palm, trembling as if trying to escape. "It led back to me. Not the original. Me."
A fate thread connected to a clone?
That should be impossible. Fate Gu was destroyed. The threads of destiny were supposed to be in ruin, beyond repair. And clones, lacking karma and true origin, should have been immune.
Yet here it was. Fragile, pulsing, alive.
Fang Yuan narrowed his eyes. "Show me."
The clone turned without a word. The sky above them cracked again, more deeply this time — a sound like stone grinding across a dying star.
Moments later, they stood at the edge of a fissure within the immortal aperture. A place Fang Yuan had sealed for centuries: the Abyssal Root, where discarded killer moves, false paths, and soul shards were buried.
The clone pointed. The thread floated there, piercing through the void, connecting to something deep beneath.
"Something remembers," the clone said. "And it remembers us both."
Fang Yuan stared into the darkness.
Somewhere, impossibly, a forgotten myth was breathing.
And it knew his name.Ren Zu Style Myth: The One Without Thread
In the time before legends were born, there was a man who walked with no thread beneath his feet.
He passed the gates of Fate and did not bow.
He was offered life by Death and refused.
He was written into the sky, and he shattered the sky to forget his name.
He needed no path, for he was not going anywhere.
He simply was.