Mo Tianzun sat alone on the boulder behind the small, grassy ridge just beyond the edge of the fishing village. His tattered robes fluttered quietly in the sea breeze, the smell of salt and aged wine clinging to him like an old wound. He drank slowly from the flask tied to his waist, the burn of liquor no longer strong enough to dull the discomfort in his chest.
Twenty years had passed since the fall, and still, he was not free.
The disguise had worked—an old man with a crooked back and weather-beaten face, eyes always half-closed as if drunk or mad. No one dared approach him save children or the truly bold. His qi was hidden completely, the pendant he obtained from that brutal battle with the beast now hanging beneath his robes. It consumed any trace of his energy, erasing all presence. To the world, he was a harmless old beggar who mumbled to himself and drank under the moon.
And yet—someone was following him.
Mo Tianzun had noticed it earlier when he helped the family whose carriage had been attacked by the mutated beast. He hadn't planned to intervene, but something in him—some flicker of what used to be Lin Xuanji. The battle was swift, deadly, and brutal. But afterward, in the corner of his eye, he saw the shadow again.
That figure—he had followed him from the ridge.
He didn't need to look back to know who it was.
Longxuan.
Even now, the name alone made his chest feel too tight. Mo Tianzun took another deep drink of his wine, letting the liquid spill past his lips as he closed his eyes.
"Stupid brat," he muttered to himself. "What are you doing here…?"
He wanted to run. To vanish again into the mist. But no matter how far he ran, Longxuan would follow, wouldn't he? That boy, now a man, now a prince who should be ruling an empire, was still stubbornly clinging to him. Why?
He had seen the Crown Prince's face when they last met—pure, sharp, and heartbreakingly familiar. That moment on the cliff, when he was dying, Longxuan had screamed his name with all the desperation in the world.
Mo Tianzun gritted his teeth and stood.
No. He had to end this now.
He could not afford to be found, not now, not when the dark currents beneath the world were moving again. The System had returned, whispering pieces of prophecy and fractured warnings. Something ancient was awakening—something not even Mo Tianzun dared challenge yet.
Longxuan must be kept far, far away from this.
But this time, instead of fleeing, he turned. Instead of vanishing, he moved toward the one person he swore he'd never face again.
He walked directly into Longxuan's path.
The Crown Prince stood stunned at the edge of the forest path, his hand gripping his sword purely from habit—not out of fear.
The old man stepped from the shadows, the moonlight catching the raven threads in his ragged hair. His back was still crooked, his steps slow, but the moment their eyes met, time froze.
Mo Tianzun stopped only a few paces away. He lifted his chin ever so slightly, enough for Longxuan to see past the illusion—just a flicker of those cold, endless eyes that once belonged to the feared Demon Lord.
"You shouldn't be here," Mo Tianzun said quietly, voice rasped by wine and time. "There's nothing left for you to chase."
Longxuan's voice cracked when he finally spoke. "It's really you, isn't it?"
Mo Tianzun gave him a long look, unreadable, cold. But something trembled behind that look—some emotion he could not suppress.
"If I told you I wasn't," he said, "would you leave me alone?"
Longxuan stepped forward.
"No."
Mo Tianzun gave a bitter laugh. "Of course not."
He turned again, walking away, slowly. But this time, it wasn't to escape. It was an unspoken dare, a silent test.
Come, if you dare.
And Longxuan did. Without hesitation.
He followed the man with no qi, no energy, no pulse of power—but with eyes like midnight and presence like the heavens trembling. He followed, not as a prince, not as a warrior, but as someone who had loved and lost and refused to let go.
And as they disappeared deeper into the woods, the System buzzed in Mo Tianzun's mind once more:
[Warning: The World Will Soon Change. Prepare Yourself, Lord Mo Tianzun.]
He didn't stop walking. Not this time.
If the world dared to shift again, then let it.
This time, he would face it as he was—not hidden, not running.
And not alone.