[POV: Supreme Heart]
Supreme Heart threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing through the tiny room that he had painstakingly recreated from a distant memory of Earth.
"HAHAHAHA! Look at him! Look at that idiot stumble his way into victory!"
Within the pocket dimension he called home, an old television sat atop a wooden cabinet, its screen flickering with impossible images from countless worlds. Supreme Heart lounged lazily across a worn couch, one leg hanging over the armrest as he watched the entire disaster unfold. It was magnificent. Tragic. Absurd. Everything reality was supposed to be.
Da Wei had always been entertaining.
The Immortal Paladin had learned the cruel truth about omniscience. Knowledge was never free. To peer into every possibility, to grasp every strand of fate, was to drag those threads into a single pair of hands. Misfortune accumulated. Destiny twisted. The world itself bent around the observer until certainty became entropy.
One's own fate would fracture.
The fate of companions would corrode.
Entire worlds would eventually pay the price.
And what had all that sacrifice earned Da Wei?
The complete annihilation of the Underworld!
Supreme Heart reached for the remote and the image shifted. The television displayed the final moments of the great realm below existence.
The Seventh Layer cracked apart last. Mountains the size of galaxies shattered as rivers of souls spilled into the endless void. Ancient cities, where countless dead had awaited reincarnation since the dawn of creation, collapsed into clouds of pale dust.
The Eighth Layer lasted the longest.
A curtain of darkness rolled across the heavens as the Hollowed World descended. It was not merely consuming matter. It devoured concepts. The skies, the earth, memory itself. All of it unraveled into a sea of absolute emptiness. The Yama Kings who had once ruled there vanished without leaving behind even a trace of their existence.
Then there's the Ninth Layer.
The deepest foundation of death groaned as impossible cracks spread across the Wheel's ancient domain. Black stars ignited beneath the land, and colossal chains that had anchored reincarnation since the birth of reality snapped one after another. The Hollowed World opened like the jaws of some primordial beast and swallowed the entire layer whole.
Nothing remained.
The screen went black.
Supreme Heart slowly stopped laughing.
"...Well," he muttered, wiping a tear from his eye, "that escalated."
He pressed the remote again.
The image returned to Da Wei.
The Holy Emperor had finally collapsed, his body limp as his disciple caught him before he could strike drift to the vacuum of space. The countless liberated souls drifted upward like stars returning to the heavens, while the remnants of the battlefield stood frozen beneath a silent sky.
For a brief moment, Supreme Heart simply watched.
Suddenly, his television exploded.
BOOM!
Glass and fragments of quintessence burst across the room. The cabinet split in half, and the screen that had watched over reality for countless ages dissolved into glittering dust. Supreme Heart stared at the ruins and a long sigh escaped him.
"Bastard did it."
There was no anger in his voice.
Only certainty.
Da Wei had crossed the threshold.
His Weight of Existence had risen to a level that Supreme Heart's own artifact could no longer perceive. The television had not broken because it was damaged. It had broken because reality itself could no longer reduce Da Wei into something observable.
He now stood upon the same realm as the Supreme Beings.
That made him dangerous.
The others would no longer be able to ignore him.
Still, Supreme Heart doubted they would act immediately.
The Supremes had never trusted one another. Every one of them feared that the first to move would become the target of the other survivors.
He chuckled quietly.
"I suppose calling us the Six Supremes doesn't make much sense anymore."
He had always known that the Supreme Death had died a very long time ago.
Supreme Heart simply reached into the air and condensed a glass of crimson wine from pure quintessence. He raised it toward the empty room.
"Cheers to you, old friend."
He took a slow sip before letting the crystal glass fall from his fingers and it shattered against the floor.
"I've helped keep your secret for as long as I could."
It had been necessary.
His fellow Supreme Beings possessed exceptionally quick trigger fingers. The moment they believed the Lost Prophecy had truly begun, they would have burned entire realities to prevent its conclusion. They had already spent countless eras trying to break it through loopholes, deception, and manipulation.
The Lost Prophecy was unlike ordinary prophecies. It did not merely predict the future. It narrated it. More than that, it was not bound by destiny, making it truly unbreakable. Rather than a Law or some Fate, it was moved by Truth. It spoke of the coming of the Lost Supreme, an existence that would one day destroy all of reality... and save it.
It was a contradiction.
How could the universe survive its own destruction? How could a savior become the end of everything?
The first chapter of that impossible story had already arrived.
The Great Beast.
The beginning of the End.
Supreme Heart slowly looked around the little room from the old couch, the television cabinet, the bookshelves, and the cheap ceiling lamp. It was a tiny apartment from a world long gone. Perhaps it was the last time he would ever see it.
With a wave of his hand, his ordinary clothes dissolved.
Blue and gold robes embroidered with countless dragons wrapped themselves around his figure. His short black hair flowed down his back like a dark waterfall, while a magnificent golden crown descended from the heavens and settled upon his head.
The pocket dimension faded.
He stepped into reality.
Before him stood an immense golden pavilion, stretching farther than mortal sight could reach. Floating above it was the Wheel of Reincarnation itself. Once a perfect circle, it had slowly transformed into a far grander construct, countless formations and heavenly mechanisms interlocking across its surface.
Rows upon rows of cultivators worked tirelessly beneath it. Formation Masters carved divine arrays into the air. Xianxia foremen directed entire armies of craftsmen. Specialists from a thousand paths adjusted heavenly engines that could reshape existence itself.
The moment they noticed him, every one of them knelt.
"Greetings, Human Emperor!"
"The eastern formation arrays have been completed, Your Majesty!"
"The soul conduits have stabilized!"
"The heavenly anchors are functioning beyond expectation!"
"The celestial forge has finished the final refinement!"
One elderly Formation Master stepped forward and bowed deeply.
"Human Emperor, construction has progressed exactly according to your designs. The specialists from every great path have completed their responsibilities."
Supreme Heart surveyed the impossible structure above them and a small smile touched his lips.
"You've all done well."
The workers straightened, their expressions filled with pride. To them, the Human Emperor was not an untouchable god, but the sovereign who had stood beside them through countless ages, sharing in their burdens and carrying the weight of impossible dreams.
If Da Wei had been present, he would have undoubtedly stared in disbelief and asked where the Supreme Heart had gone. The truth was simple. The Supreme Heart and the Human Emperor had always been the same person, but perceived just differently.
One young craftsman hurried forward, excitement shining in his eyes.
"Your Majesty," he said with a respectful bow, "the construct is complete."
He looked toward the vast Wheel of Reincarnation suspended overhead.
"It only awaits your final touch."
Supreme Heart raised a single hand toward the heavens and slowly closed his fingers.
The reaction was instantaneous.
Every fragment surrounding the enormous Wheel of Reincarnation answered his call. Countless gears, divine pillars, formation plates, and celestial mechanisms that had been floating around the construct shot into the sky. Even the pieces resting upon the ground trembled before tearing free from the earth, joining the endless stream of components converging above the golden pavilion.
A vortex of quintessence gathered within his clenched fist.
It swirled faster and faster, compressing until even space itself bent around it. The brilliant radiance eventually collapsed inward, and when Supreme Heart opened his hand once more, a single golden gear hovered above his palm.
It was neither the largest nor the most intricate piece.
Yet the moment it appeared, every cultivator present felt an indescribable pressure weigh upon their souls.
Supreme Heart looked up at the unfinished construct.
"This shall become its heart."
He loosened his fingers and the gear drifted upward.
The instant it touched the Wheel of Reincarnation, the entire construct awakened. The ancient wheel began to spin. Slowly at first, and then faster. And faster. Until the countless heavenly mechanisms became a river of golden light. Suddenly, the rotation stopped.
The Wheel reversed.
The impossible structure unraveled before the eyes of every witness. Layers separated into countless components, formations detached from one another, and colossal rings that had governed reincarnation since the dawn of existence broke apart.
Yet nothing fell.
An unseen force guided every piece. The scattered mechanisms reassembled themselves into an entirely different shape. The circular foundation stretched upward. Golden pillars rose toward the heavens.
Millions upon millions of gears interlocked inside an endless framework of divine steel and crystallized quintessence. Bridges, stairways, and rotating heavenly arrays wrapped around the ascending structure as though building a road toward eternity itself.
What had once been a Wheel became a Tower.
Its peak pierced the clouds and its foundation seemed rooted in the very laws of existence. Countless runes ignited across its surface, illuminating the Mortal Plane with a golden light that rivaled the birth of a universe. The workers stared in complete silence. One by one, they fell to their knees.
"Heaven preserve us..."
"It is a divine miracle."
"The Human Emperor has forged a path beyond reincarnation itself."
Prayers echoed across the endless pavilion. Some kowtowed until their foreheads bled. Others simply wept.
The Tower stood unmoving, its silent existence carrying a majesty that words could never describe.
Supreme Heart merely watched it for a moment, and then he reached out.
The gigantic structure rapidly shrank, folding into itself through layers of impossible space before becoming no larger than a grain of sand. It drifted into his waiting hand, and with a simple gesture, he stored it within his pocket dimension.
Without another word, he ascended.
His figure became a streak of blue and gold that shot beyond the skies of the Mortal Plane. Mountains, stars, and entire galaxies slipped behind him as he crossed the threshold separating the greater realms. His domain faded into the distance. Ahead of him lay only darkness. It took him nearly two days to arrive.
When Supreme Heart finally reached the Underworld, there was nothing left.
No cities.
No rivers of souls.
No heavens of death.
Only an endless expanse of empty space where one of the greatest realms in existence had once stood. He quietly calculated the flow of reality. The borders were already shifting.
Soon, Hell and the Mortal Plane would become direct neighbors.
"The Supreme Taboo won't let an opportunity like this pass," he murmured.
Territory was power. If Taboo claimed the abandoned domain, then he would also inherit the burden that the Supreme Death had carried for countless ages. The Abyss never stopped expanding. For untold eras, the Four Horsemen had served as substitutes, bearing part of that impossible weight in Death's absence.
Supreme Heart stretched out his senses.
Nothing.
He could no longer feel those children.
His gaze darkened.
"So someone else is carrying it now."
Finding the Hollowed World proved even more troublesome.
Another full day passed before he discovered the faint traces of his own quintessence lingering within it. Da Wei had hidden the world well, wrapping it beneath the Dark Veil and concealing it from almost every means of observation.
Almost.
Supreme Heart formed a seal. His consciousness descended. For a brief instant, his mind entered the Hollowed World. He found Da Wei resting within a magnificent imperial chamber. The Holy Emperor lay upon an enormous bed, recovering from wounds that would have erased almost any other existence.
The moment Supreme Heart appeared, Da Wei's eyes snapped open.
He turned his head slightly.
"Fuck off."
A pulse of authority erupted from the Hollowed World. Supreme Heart's projection shattered instantly, his consciousness being forcibly expelled back into the void. He blinked, and then he grinned.
Standing outside the hidden world, he stared into the endless darkness before him. Though the Dark Veil prevented him from seeing within, he knew those all-seeing Ophanim were staring right back at him.
Supreme Heart slowly raised one hand, and then he gave the hidden world a very deliberate middle finger. Somewhere beyond the veil, Da Wei was undoubtedly looking at him.
There was an old saying throughout the Greater Universe.
As the Supreme Heart, he was an insufferable asshole to absolutely everyone, especially his enemies.
As the Human Emperor, however, he was the kind of person that entire civilizations would gladly follow to the end of existence.
Right now, Da Wei was dealing with the former.
"You slimy, sucker punching, self-righteous, cum-guzzling sack of fermented divine horseshit and expired holy cum," Supreme Heart screamed with vicious delight, his voice dripping with mocking venom as it echoed through the Hollowed World. "I'm gonna fuck you up so catastrophically that your precious Hollowed World will be limping for the next ten trillion years. I'll ram a gas-giant-sized, soul-forged dildo straight up your planet's core, coat it in barbed thorns of pure agony, and spin that fucker like a cosmic drill while I blast the loudest, most annoying victory anthem directly into your realm's ley lines. Your entire world is gonna be moaning my name in broken, sobbing ecstasy and pain, you pathetic, hypocritical, ass-clenching Paladin prick!"
His laughter echoed through the empty remains of the Underworld, and then he reached into his pocket dimension.
The Tower emerged.
Even in its reduced state, its mere presence caused the surrounding space to tremble. Supreme Heart aimed it toward the hidden Hollowed World. With a single motion, he drove it downward.
The Tower expanded.
In an instant, it became a colossal pillar of gold that anchored itself against the boundaries of the concealed realm, piercing through the layers of the Dark Veil and embedding itself within the world's foundation.
Supreme Heart threw his head back.
"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!"
His laughter rolled across the empty Underworld louder.
"FUCK YOU!"
