The Pavilion held a feast.
Banners were raised, drums echoed through the mountain valleys, and every elder lifted their cup in toast to Li Fan—the disciple who had faced a Celestial Prime and walked away breathing.
But Li Fan?
He wasn’t at the feast.
He stood instead before an ancient cave, sealed behind ten layers of stone and starlight.
It was Yue Xian who had shown him the map.
“This was once a place only the Pavilion's founder could open,” she had whispered. “But you… you burned your mark into the seal.”
The entrance shimmered at his presence.
He pressed a single palm against the stone, and the seal dissolved like mist.
[Crownless Path – Unlocked]
A gust of wind rushed out, laced with the scent of time, bone dust, and something older than cultivation itself.
The tunnel led downward.
Endlessly.
Spiraling deep into the heart of the mountain.
Li Fan passed walls inscribed with celestial script—records of warriors who had walked this path in past ages.
Each bore a single line:
“We rejected the heavens, and walked without crown.”
At the end of the tunnel, he found a black door, shaped like a crown… split in two.
He stepped through.
And the world vanished.
The sky above was dark.
But not from clouds.
From absence.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
No sun. No moon. Just stars—burned out, inverted, dead.
The world below was a broken plain of glass, echoing with distant screams.
A voice greeted him.
“Welcome back, Emperor.”
A figure stepped forth, cloaked in molten chains, eyes hollow and glowing with stardust.
“I am Echo—Keeper of the Crownless Path. You abandoned your title once. Do you now seek to reclaim your throne?”
Li Fan’s eyes narrowed. “No throne.”
“Then why walk this road?”
“Because the heavens remember me as a threat.”
“But they forgot something.”
“I remember them.”
Echo raised his hand.
And a figure stepped forth from the shadows—Li Fan, but not as he was now.
This version wore black robes lined with gold, a blade that dripped starlight, and eyes colder than death.
“This is who you were at the peak of the Dao,” Echo whispered. “The one who severed gods. He never failed. Never doubted.”
“Defeat him… or become him.”
The Starforged Blade trembled in Li Fan’s grip.
The air split as his past self moved—so fast, he didn’t see the strike until his own blood hit the ground.
The battle shook the broken plains.
Each strike from his past self unraveled the laws of reality—time slowed, gravity bent, stars flickered with each clash.
Li Fan fought harder than he ever had—not just against power, but against the whisper of temptation:
“Why struggle? You were a king. Take it back.”
But he roared in defiance.
“That version of me destroyed empires. Burned cities to silence the gods. I will not become that again.”
“I will forge a new path.”
He drove his blade forward—not to kill, but to shatter the illusion.
The crowned version screamed—and fractured into a million shards of starlight.
Echo knelt.
“You have chosen the Crownless Path—power without dominion, legacy without empire. Few ever succeed. Fewer still survive.”
A sigil appeared above Li Fan’s heart—a brand shaped like a broken crown wrapped in flame.
[Crownless Path: Step One – Forged Identity]
[Bonus Gained: Starforged Pulse Technique – Breath of the Shattered Sky]
Yue Xian looked up as the stars rippled.
She smiled faintly. “He chose it…”
From across the sea, in a palace carved from dragonbone, an ancient figure stirred.
A masked woman in crimson robes whispered, “The Crownless walks again.”
And the Ninefold Profane Court sent their next emissary.
This time… it would not be a Phantom.
It would be a god’s disciple.
