The vision of Gong Xuelan, her face etched with a strange, almost maternal sorrow, whispering, "You will make them kneel, my darling sin," had been a searing brand on Jianyu's soul. He had teetered on the precipice of madness, his forms fragmenting, threatening to dissolve into the very qi of the Flesh Heaven Bridge. He was a child again, helpless, broken, in the arms of his creator, and the truth of his origin, the depth of Xuelan's manipulation, was a terrifying, all-consuming force.
But even as the Bridge groaned beneath him, threatening to swallow him whole, a cold, unyielding defiance surged within Jianyu. He would not be consumed. He would not be broken. He was not merely Xuelan's creation; he was something more, something that defied her control, something that had chosen its own path, however twisted.
His qi, which had flared wildly, now coalesced, drawing upon the deepest reserves of his System, upon the raw, absorbed energies of his predecessors. He forced his fragmented forms to stabilize, to coalesce, to rise. The Bridge, which had sought to judge him, now responded to his sheer, indomitable will. Its pulsating surface, once threatening, now seemed to bow beneath his feet.
Slowly, agonizingly, Xu Jianyu rose. His male form, resolute and unyielding, stood tall. Beside him, Xu Niánmei, ethereal and perfect, shimmered with a newfound intensity. And then, from between them, from the very core of his multiplexed soul, a third form began to manifest. It was not distinctly male, nor female, but a spiraling fusion of his power, his trauma, and his desire. It pulsed with a dual-core qi resonance, a terrifying harmony of opposing forces.
The Heaven-Sewn Court, which had watched in stunned silence, now erupted in murmurs of awe and terror. The assembled elders, their faces pale, stared at the impossible sight. This was no mere ascension; this was a manifestation, a birth.
Jianyu looked out at the sea of faces, at the cultivators who had sought to control him, to define him, to break him. He no longer answered to "Jianyu." He no longer answered to "Niánmei." Those were masks, tools, prisons.
With a profound, deliberate act, he drew a line of qi across his palm, then pressed his hand to his chest, carving a new name onto his skin in blood. The characters glowed, then burned themselves into his flesh, a permanent mark of his true, evolving identity.
"Xu Wushuang," he declared, his voice ringing through the Heaven-Sewn Court, no longer male or female, but a resonant, echoing force that vibrated through every soul present. "Peerless. Without equal."
The world watched as his third form solidified, a seamless fusion, exuding a power that seemed to induce madness in untrained cultivators nearby. The sky above the Heaven-Sewn Court ruptured, not with a gentle opening, but with a violent tear, as if the heavens themselves could not contain his emergence. The System, which had been his constant companion, his silent guide, flared with an agonizing, brilliant light, then began to burn, transforming, becoming something new.
The chapter ended with a simple, chilling line, echoing through the stunned silence of the Heaven-Sewn Court:
"Gods do not kneel. They bloom."