The aftermath of the "Black Stroke" was not a celebration, but a haunting silence. While the seventy-seven Heavenly Generals had been erased or sent back to the Source, the cost was etched into the very air of the Heavensward Institute. The Living Jade walls were now streaked with veins of obsidian—the residual stain of the Ink of the Void.
Gaurav stood in the center of the plaza, his hand still raised as if he were still holding the brush that had crumbled to ash. His golden eyes were wide, but they lacked their usual piercing focus. They were the eyes of a man looking at a map where all the names had been blurred by rain.
"Master?" Ling Yun stepped closer, his wooden stick lowered. "The threat is gone. The sky is clear."
Gaurav turned to him. He recognized the blindfold. He recognized the sword-intent. But for a terrifying five seconds, he couldn't remember the boy's name.
"The... Sword Hall," Gaurav said, his voice raspy. "You are... the one who cuts the concepts."
Ling Yun's heart skipped a beat. The "Sword-Slave" had spent his life being forgotten by the world, but to be forgotten by his Master—the man who gave him his soul back—was a pain worse than the slave pits of the South.
The Harem's Emergency
Zhu Feng, Mo Rong, and Lady Yue descended from the tower. They didn't run; they moved with a frantic grace, their own cultivation levels fluctuating wildly because of the Soul-Anchor. The feedback of the Void had charred their internal meridians, but they ignored the pain.
"Gaurav!" Zhu Feng reached him first, her hands grasping his shoulders. Her heat was intense, a desperate attempt to jumpstart his fading humanity. "Look at me. Who am I?"
Gaurav looked at her. He felt the warmth. He felt the fire. "The... Matriarch. The Divine Flame. You... you pulled my ear in the library."
Zhu Feng let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Yes. And I'll pull it again if you ever use that Ink on yourself again."
But Lady Yue, the Administrator, saw the deeper damage. She used her Mirror-Soul to scan Gaurav's Soul-Sea. What she saw made her blood run cold.
[SOVEREIGN SCAN: SOUL-SEA FRAGMENTATION 15%]
[LOST DATA: Early childhood (80%), The face of the first wife (5%), The 13th Path's origins (100%).]
[STATUS: Memory-Shards are floating in the Void-Stain.]
"The Ink didn't just erase the Generals," Lady Yue whispered to Mo Rong. "It traded his memories for the power to overwrite Law. He is literally paying for his godhood with his past."
The Assembly of the Twelve
Gaurav was led back to the Sovereign Tower, his walk unsteady. The twelve disciples gathered in the Grand Hall, their expressions a mix of awe and dread. They had seen their Master defeat an army of the Heavens, but they had also seen him lose a piece of himself.
"We need to recover the shards," Mu Chen, the Sleeper, announced. He was holding his Reality-Ink brush, his eyes more alert than they had been in centuries. "My Path is the Dream Path. I can enter the Master's Soul-Sea, but I cannot navigate the Void-Stain alone. I need a guide."
"I will go," Seraphina (the Ghost Goddess) said. Her violet eyes were resolute. "The Void-Stain is a form of 'Death.' My Necromancy can navigate the shadows where Mu Chen's dreams might get lost."
"And I will provide the anchor," Qin Mo added, her fingers resting on her bone-harp. "My music will be the thread that keeps them connected to the waking world."
Gaurav, sitting on his throne, looked at his students. He felt a deep sense of pride, even if the names were still flickering in his mind. "My... Disciples. You are becoming the Teachers now."
The Ritual of the Soul-Dive
That night, under the silver glow of Mo Rong'er's Eternal Night, the ritual began. Gaurav was placed in a deep sleep in the center of a formation.
Mu Chen and Seraphina sat on either side of him. As Qin Mo began to play a haunting, low-frequency melody, the souls of the two disciples left their bodies and dived into the Master's mind.
Inside Gaurav's Soul-Sea, it was chaos. The golden library of the Sovereign Archive was partially covered in black, ink-like oil. Shards of glass—each containing a memory—were floating in this oil, slowly being dissolved.
"There!" Mu Chen pointed. "That shard... it's the memory of the Academy's founding!"
They saw a younger Gaurav, sitting in a dusty library, looking at a System interface for the first time. The image was fading, turning grey.
As they reached for it, a shadow emerged from the Ink. It was a remnant of the Arbiter of Balance, a mental echo left behind by the battle.
"The past is a burden," the echo hissed. "Let it go, and he will become the Absolute God. Why do you wish to keep him human and weak?"
"Because," Seraphina said, summoning a scythe of pure soul-energy, "a God who doesn't remember the people he loves is just a monster with a crown. And we didn't choose a monster. We chose a Librarian."
The Recovery and the New Mystery
The battle inside the soul lasted for what felt like hours. Mu Chen used his Reality-Ink to "repaint" the memories, while Seraphina fought off the corrosive shadows of the Void. One by one, they gathered the shards and pinned them back into the Archive's golden shelves.
However, as they reached the deepest part of the Soul-Sea, they found a shard that was different. It wasn't gold or black; it was a shimmering, iridescent white.
Inside the shard, they saw a woman. She wasn't one of the three wives. She was wearing simple, white robes and standing in a field of flowers that didn't exist in the Great Origin Universe. She looked at the camera—at Gaurav's memory—and smiled.
"Wait for me, Gaurav. The 13th Path begins when the first flower blooms in the Void."
Before they could grab it, the shard flew deeper into the darkness, vanishing into a part of Gaurav's mind that was still locked.
The Awakening
Gaurav's eyes snapped open. He gasped, his hand clutching his chest. The three wives immediately surrounded him.
"Master?" Lady Yue asked, her mirror glowing.
Gaurav looked at her. The fog was gone. "Yue. The Blue-Lotus Empress. You organized my budget when the world was falling apart."
He looked at Zhu Feng. "My Fire Queen. You burnt the Imperial Prince's hair when he insulted me."
He looked at Mo Rong. "My Night Empress. You shared your soul so I wouldn't freeze in the Graveyard."
They let out cries of relief, but Gaurav's face remained grave. He looked at Mu Chen and Seraphina as they returned to their bodies.
"You saw her, didn't you?" Gaurav asked.
Mu Chen nodded slowly. "The Woman in White. She isn't a memory from this life, Master. She is something else."
Gaurav stood up, his strength returning, but his heart feeling heavier than ever. The 13th Path was not just a power; it was a person. And that person was waiting for him at the end of the world.
[SYSTEM ALERT: SOUL INTEGRITY 92%]
[NEW QUEST: THE GARDEN OF THE FIRST FLOWER.]
[LOCATION: THE OUTER REALMS (BEYOND THE WORLD WILL).]
"The Heavensward Institute has survived the Purge," Gaurav announced, his voice booming with a new, dangerous clarity. "But we are no longer hiding. If the World Will wants a war of memories, we will give it a war of existence