This happened before Heaven decided silence was safer than mercy.
The Immortal Court gathered beneath a sky split with divine fractures.
A lower realm had rebelled — not against Heaven, but against order. Its ruler had refused the binding decree, choosing chaos over submission. The verdict was swift.
Erasure.
Ye stood at the front of the formation, shadow folded neatly around him like a second skin. His presence alone bent the air, darkening the edges of the celestial platform.
Opposite him, Ling Yue stood among the auxiliary fairies assigned to stabilize the realm after judgment.
They did not look at each other.
Not at first.
---
"Proceed," an official commanded.
Ye moved.
There was no hesitation.
Power surged — precise, merciless. Shadow swallowed light, cutting through the rebelling realm's defenses like silk. The sky screamed as fate rewrote itself in violent strokes.
Ling Yue's breath caught.
She had known what he was capable of.
Seeing it was different.
The ruler fell — erased from existence without plea or echo. The realm shuddered, its foundations collapsing inward as reality rushed to fill the void.
Several fairies recoiled.
Ling Yue did not.
She stepped forward instinctively, hands lifting as she began stabilizing the fracture — weaving light, sealing what remained so the innocents would not be dragged into the collapse.
She worked quickly.
Too quickly.
"Fairy," one of the officials snapped. "Do not interfere with the execution."
"I'm not," Ling Yue replied, breathless but calm. "I'm keeping the realm from tearing itself apart."
The official hesitated.
She was right.
---
Ye felt it.
The shift.
He did not turn his head, but he knew where she stood — light threading the broken edges of reality, stubbornly holding together what Heaven had already discarded.
The command came sharp and cold.
"Finish it."
The remaining instability surged — one final collapse that would erase the last standing cities.
Ye could end it in a breath.
He raised his hand.
And stopped.
For the briefest moment, his gaze flicked sideways.
Ling Yue stood directly in the path of the collapse, light flaring brighter as the pressure mounted. Her lips were pressed together in concentration, unaware — or unconcerned — that she was standing between destruction and mercy.
She trusted the realm to hold.
She trusted him not to crush it further.
The pause was almost imperceptible.
But Heaven noticed.
Ye altered the strike.
The collapse softened — redirected, dispersed across the void instead of inward. Cities shuddered but remained. Lives were spared.
The officials stared in stunned silence.
No one spoke.
---
Afterward, the court dispersed in uneasy murmurs.
Ling Yue stood alone at the edge of the platform, hands trembling faintly as the aftershock faded. She exhaled slowly, forcing her breathing to steady.
"You shouldn't have done that."
She turned.
Ye stood several steps away — not close enough to draw attention, not far enough to deny intention.
"I was doing my job," she said lightly. "Someone has to clean up after you."
His gaze was unreadable. "You put yourself in danger."
She smiled — quick, bright, unapologetic. "Someone had to."
That answer unsettled him more than defiance ever could.
"You don't know what you're standing beside," he said quietly.
"I do," she replied just as softly. "That's why I stayed."
Their eyes met — only briefly.
Then she looked away first.
As if remembering where she was.
---
Later, whispers filled the halls.
"Did you see that pause?"
"He hesitated."
"Why would the Demon King hesitate?"
Ling Yue passed them humming softly, pretending not to hear.
Ye stood alone beneath a sky still healing from his decision.
For the first time in centuries, Heaven looked at him not with fear—
But suspicion.
And for the first time, Ye understood something dangerous and irreversible:
As long as Ling Yue stood in the same world as him,
Heaven would never stop watching.