CHAPTER 172 —THE DRAGON WHO CHOSE
The desert did not move.
It listened.
Long Hao remained standing at the center of the ancient platform, palm hovering inches above the claw imprint left by something that had once carried the full weight of eclipse authority.
The Vice Dean stood several paces behind him.
He did not interrupt.
He understood.
This was not a battlefield now.
It was a memory chamber.
The wind died completely.
Even the distant dunes stopped shifting.
Long Hao lowered his hand slowly.
The golden mark over his chest pulsed once.
Pain flickered.
But this time—
He did not suppress it.
He allowed the fragment inside him to align with the stone.
The moment his palm touched the imprint—
The world inverted.
The desert vanished.
The Vice Dean disappeared.
Sound collapsed into silence.
And the sky—
Opened.
Not as a crack.
Not as a fissure.
As a wound.
The heavens were split entirely in two.
