DEMON SOVEREIGN'S REIGN

The Memory Core still pulsed, but the moment Liu Shen stepped back, the temple trembled.

Rumbling echoed through the godbone chamber. The divine heart, sealed for millennia, gave off a slow, laboring thump—once, then again.

"He's waking up?" Lei Qing asked, half in awe, half in fear.

"No," Liu Shen murmured, steadying himself. His voice was calm, yet grim. "The heart is reacting to my presence. To my path. We're not intruders anymore."

Elder Qin gasped. "Then… we've been acknowledged?"

"No," Liu Shen replied. "We've been challenged."

---

Moments Later – The Trial Initiates

The temple cracked open beneath their feet. The disciples scrambled as pillars of divine bone rose, encasing them in a circular arena. Ancient glyphs lit the chamber in a cold, silver glow.

A voice—old as time, hollow and endless—rang out:

> "Prove your rebellion. Forge the bone into will."

Before them, a forge manifested—no flame, only a pit of divine marrow flowing like liquid starlight.

Above it hovered seven fragments of godbone, shaped like blades, dull and incomplete.

Yu Meixing's eyes narrowed. "A forging trial?"

Liu Shen nodded. "Not metalwork. It's testing our willpower. To reshape divinity through conviction."

Each of them was drawn to a bone-blade. As if destiny selected it. But destiny had no power here—only defiance.

---

The Bone-Forging Begins

Liu Shen gripped his chosen fragment. It was jagged, cold to the touch, but alive.

The forge called out—not with heat, but with emotion. Grief. Rage. Betrayal.

> "To forge me," the godbone whispered, "you must give up something."

Liu Shen stared into the marrow-pit. His own memories rose to the surface—his first betrayal at the hands of the heavens. His former lover's face. The last day of his former life.

The flame would demand pain as fuel.

Without hesitation, Liu Shen placed his hand into the marrow.

It burned him—not his skin, but his soul.

His vision blurred. Shadows emerged—figments of the past, faces of old enemies and traitors. The Celestial Envoy who struck him down. Huang Ze, who knelt to the heavens instead of standing with him.

> "You must give your hatred shape," the voice echoed. "Only then can your blade cut fate."

---

Meanwhile – The Others Struggle

Yu Meixing was caught in a different trial.

Visions of her former sect—her home—flashed in front of her. The day it was annihilated. The night she lost her identity and became just another shadow.

The forge whispered:

> "You cannot lead if you fear the truth of who you are."

Tears streaked down her cheeks.

She poured her guilt into the godbone, which shivered—and began to sing.

Lei Qing, meanwhile, faced a trial of loyalty.

Her vision brought her to the foot of a mountain, where a younger version of herself stood over a corpse—her master's, killed for disobeying heaven's decree.

She had run back then.

Now, the forge demanded: Will you run again?

With gritted teeth, Lei Qing answered by biting her thumb, letting her blood flow directly into the marrow.

"Never again," she whispered. "I'll stand. Even if I break."

---

Back to Liu Shen – The Demon Blade Emerges

Liu Shen stood at the edge of oblivion.

The marrow in the forge screamed as he channeled his entire past life's resentment into the bone.

And then… it began to glow.

Lines carved themselves along the fragment's surface—marks of rebellion and divine disdain. Symbols of truths too sharp for the heavens to swallow.

The bone became black iron. It twisted, lengthened, and wrapped around a growing core of crimson demonic essence.

A blade was born.

But it had no edge.

The voice returned.

> "To give it edge… name it."

Liu Shen raised the half-forged weapon and spoke:

"Heavenpiercer."

The forge exploded in light.

---

One by One – Weapons Awaken

Yu Meixing emerged, holding a blade shaped like a broken crescent. It pulsed with echoing screams—a soul weapon named "Widow's Cry."

Lei Qing forged a pair of gauntlets—"Fists of Regret," stained by her past but burning with future vengeance.

Elder Qin, remarkably, forged a fan—"Ashwind Scripture," that could seal or unravel spiritual essence with a flick.

Even the disciples, though many failed or collapsed, brought back lesser shards—tokens of trial and proof of resistance.

---

The Temple Reacts

The divine heart pulsed once more.

Liu Shen looked up as the god's final voice echoed through the chamber:

> "You are not the first. But you may be the last."

> "Break what binds. Reforge the age."

Then, the temple collapsed inward—not from ruin, but from completion. The divine corpse had offered all it had.

And now, it slept once more.

---

Outside the Abyss

The group emerged battered, bleeding, but transformed.

Each carried a weapon that no sect, no empire, no god could claim—artifacts not blessed by the heavens, but shaped by rebellion.

Liu Shen raised Heavenpiercer to the sky.

"The Celestials gave us systems so they could control us," he said. "We now wield truths they cannot bind."

Meixing nodded. "Then let's give them a reason to fear."

And from the edge of the world, the Demon Sovereign and his rising sect walked back into the light.

Ready to wage war—not just with strength, but with forged truth.