In a dark valley nestled within Fang Yuan's time-accelerated aperture, a clone stood alone.
He had no orders. He had no task.
He was placed there as a contingency—if something went wrong in the dream-seal vault, he would respond. But no signal came.
Instead, the vault trembled. The dream of a Gu. The weight of a myth. The echo of something denied by Heaven itself.
The clone looked up. And in the cracked firmament of the aperture sky, he saw not stars—but steps.
Not walking above. Walking beneath.
He did not understand. But he felt it: the pulse of a will even Heaven couldn't hold.
And for the first time since his creation, he wondered:
"What if this is more than Fang Yuan?"