Into the Void

Chloe didn't go to her room. She went to the Teleportation Chamber.

She knew how to operate the array. She had watched him do it.

"I'm not staying here to be forgotten," she muttered, slotting the spirit stones into the grooves. "If he won't send me home, I'll find my own way."

She activated the array. The coordinates were set to random.

* FLASH.*

The world twisted. The Frost-Jade Palace vanished.

Chloe slammed onto hard, black rock.

She looked around. The sky was purple, torn by jagged rifts. Floating islands of debris drifted in a void of static.

The Shattered Void. The space between worlds.

"Okay," Chloe breathed, standing up. "This is fine. I just need to find a rift that smells like Starbucks."

A low growl vibrated through the rock.

Chloe turned. Rising from the shadows were three Void Beasts. They looked like wolves made of ink and teeth, their eyes glowing yellow.

"Not fine," Chloe squeaked.

She scrambled backward. The beasts circled. She had no cultivation. She was a spirit, a snack.

One beast lunged.

* SHING.*

A beam of white light bisected the beast in mid-air. It dissolved into smoke.

Chloe gasped.

High Immortal Han stood between her and the pack. He had found her.

But he looked wrong.

His eyes were bleeding. His white robes were stained crimson. The air around him cracked with black lightning.

"Han?" Chloe whispered.

"You left," Han rasped. He didn't look at her; he stared at the beasts. "You left the perimeter. My Vow... shattered."

"Heart-Demon Tribulation," Chloe realized. By chasing her, by feeling the panic of losing her, he had broken his Vow of Severed Dust. The backlash was eating him.

The sky above them churned. A giant, golden eye opened in the purple clouds. The Heavenly Dao.

**[TRANSGRESSION DETECTED,]** a voice boomed, shaking the void. **[THE CULTIVATOR HAS SUCCUMBED TO TEMPTATION. TO RESTORE THE PATH, YOU MUST DESTROY THE SOURCE OF YOUR DESIRE.]**

A golden sword fell from the sky, landing at Han’s feet.

**[KILL THE VESSEL. ASCEND.]**

Han looked at the sword. He looked at Chloe.

Chloe backed up to the edge of the floating rock. "Han... you want to be a god, right? Do it. I'm just a battery."

Han picked up the golden sword.

His hands were trembling. He turned to face her.

"I spent five hundred years carving my heart out of stone," Han said softly. "I thought power was the only truth."

He walked toward her. Chloe closed her eyes.

"But then you cooked peppers," Han whispered.

Chloe opened her eyes.

Han smiled. It was a broken, beautiful thing.

"You are annoying, Chloe. You are loud. You are disrespectful."

He raised the sword.

And turned it toward the sky.