As soon as the last breath escaped the Emperor, the world seemed to freeze. Skymender, Sword Grandmaster Shang, the Treant, all things in the world stopped moving and stopped thinking. It was as if time had frozen.
A bright, multicolored whirlwind appeared. It acted like a blackhole, devouring the entire world. Nothing offered any resistance. When everything had gathered, concentrated into a single, small point, it exploded.
A multi-colored radiance filled the world as everything reformed.
Everything reverted to the day the Emperor was born.
The Emperor opened his eyes. He was held in an elderly woman's arms.
"Skymender! This time, we will succeed." He thought to himself.
He lived his early life as always, making sure that he remembered what Skymender had told him.
When the time came, he proceeded in the best sequence known to him.
From a commoner to a noble. From a noble to a king. From a king to an Emperor. He had killed many people to reach this far, some who were his enemies and some who cared about him.
As he sat on his throne, he slowly counted. It was soon to be time.
In a distant kingdom, the Baroness of the Sky Barony was in pain. Time passed, and a saintess held a baby.
Skymender's eyes opened.
He had suspected that he might not lose his memories. After all, he could see through the false world. Here he was. His vision was as bad as it had been when the Emperor died.
Skymender slowly grew up. His childhood was different this time. He did not form any bonds, besides his bond with Skymerge. He had always wondered what had happened to him.
Even the Emperor didn't know.
He visited the Imperial Capital for the first time around the age of ten.
There, he went through mostly the same things as before, with some minor changes.
Eventually, he and the Emperor locked eyes.
The Emperor smiled. He breathed a sigh of relief and sat back in his chair.
All he needed was a glance to determine that Skymender had kept his memories.
Skymender returned to the Sky Barony after the summer, where his parents received a letter from the Emperor.
Saving the minor details, Skymender had been "Chosen" to come and study under the Emperor for many years.
There was no way to reject it even if they wanted to.
Skymender was finally able to continue seeing through the false world in peace.
Time passed fast. Skymender had ordered a few of the Emperor's agents, people who he had nurtured throughout his early life, to keep watch on Skymerge.
One day, he received a report that Skymerge had simply disappeared into thin air.
It wasn't that he had escaped their vision, but that, as their eyes were on him, he vanished. They only remembered seeing a strange envelope in his hands before he did so.
Skymender kept it in the back of his mind, but did not pay it too much heed.
His vision of the false world was rapidly deteriorating. Only one thing remained constant, and that was the Emperor. He was like a lone figure in a field of light.
No matter how badly his vision deteriorated, the Emperor remained as clear as day.
His vision through vibrations was becoming similarly bad. He could barely sense anything, and what he could sense was utter nonsense.
Skymender wore a blindfold, though that did not affect his vision at all. All he could see were multicolored light, mostly the color white.
As his vision completely faded, leaving everything besides the Emperor rendered a field of light, he saw something else. Or rather, multiple something elses.
One of them was in a location he faintly remembered. The very mountain where he had seen that mythical man tear the sky and reform it again.
The Emperor was his guide, Sword Master Shang their guard.
The Imperial Scholar would manage the Empire. Skymender had seen him once again in this life, but had not formed any connection.
This also went for Melly, who now lived a much happier life than before.
Skymender traveled towards that familiar mountain, eventually finding the mirror shard. No vision triggered again. He simply held the shard in his hand. He went towards the next shard, the Emperor guiding his way.
The next shard was hundreds of feet below a swamp. It took Sword Master Shang a few days to dig deep enough, though he himself could not even see the shard. Skymender collected it. He saw a vision this time, of someone slashing the sky. He looked similar to the other man, but also different.
Skymender was able to tell what these shards represented now. It represented the waste of power in this cycle, the excess discarded over countless years.
It formed a crystalline substance, the mirror. The visions were not real, but manifested from the will of countless people from countless cycles, the will to go beyond the world.
Skymender sensed seven more shards. Four were on the Continent of Wu.
The fourth was on a man known as the Fisherman. He was surprised to see Skymender, and when Skymender requested the shard, he was shocked. He handed it over.
"Perhaps you will break these restrictions. Even at my peak, I could not begin to fathom the mysteries of this place. Perhaps its own power will be what breaks it in the end, just in your hands."
Skymender did not pay him much heed, continuing onwards.
They headed to the Mainland. They were able to find the shards in extreme environments. One was inside a volcano. Sword Master Shang, once again Sword Grandmaster Shang, had to drain the volcano of lava, destroying a town, before they managed to get their hands on it.
Another was in a dark and dangerous swamp. It took a few months to find that one.
The other two were slightly easier, but still hard to obtain.
With eight in his hands, Skymender turned his attention to the last one. It was far, far away. Neither on the Mainland nor the Continent of Wu, but the ocean.