The sound of the Ancestral Stele cracking was not loud.
Yet to Xiao Fan, it was as though something deep within his heart had softly shattered.
That green crystal core floated before him, its glow warm and gentle, almost identical to the relic he had worn around his neck as a child. But the one from his childhood had brought only peace and warmth during cultivation, while this one seemed to seal away an origin so long and suffocating it was almost unbearable.
Xiao Fan reached out.
The instant his fingertips touched the crystal core, a fine, piercing pain spread from the depths of his bloodline.
He saw fire.
Not Heavenly Flames, but the fires of war that had illuminated the heavens on the night the Ancestral Realm was destroyed.
Black palaces collapsed, altars shattered, and countless Tunling Clan members knelt on the ground. Some were still madly devouring the bloodlines of their own kin. Some wept as they tried to dig scales and beast bones that did not belong to them out of their bodies. Some had clearly lost all human form, yet still called their own names again and again, as if remembering those names could prove that they had once been living people.
Then the scene changed.
A woman stood at the edge of the Ancestral Realm, holding a swaddled infant.
Her face could no longer be seen clearly. Only the wound piercing her chest and the half of a green crystal core she desperately protected in her palm remained visible.
Beside her stood a man covered in blood, a pair of broken dragon wings behind his back. Yet his eyes were terrifyingly clear.
He did not turn to look at the enemies pursuing them. He merely used the last of his strength to brush aside the