MTLNOVEL Chapter 29: *Chapter 29: Shattered Stars**
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The starlight golem's roar shook the temple, its crystalline fists cratering the ground where Li Tian had stood moments before. Jiang Zixuan's laughter cut through the chaos as Azure Thunder cultivators swarmed the chamber, their lightning bolts scorching the ancient walls.
"The shard is mine, stray dog!" Jiang Zixuan brandished a jagged obsidian dagger—the forbidden artifact, its surface crawling with parasitic shadows. "This temple's power will *burn* for me!"
Li Tian ducked beneath the golem's sweeping arm, spatial energy fraying as he warped a lightning strike into the creature's knee. "Mei Ling! Its chest plate—now!"
Fire roared upward as Mei Ling rode a pillar of flames, her hands molten. "Eat this, you overgrown lantern!" She slammed her palms against the golem's starburst core. The creature staggered, cracks spiderwebbing across its torso.
Luo Chen leapt onto its thrashing arm, ice spreading from his blade. "Six breaths till it reforms!"
"Five more than we need," Li Tian shot back, but a thunderclap interrupted him.
Jiang Zixuan plunged the dagger into the temple floor. Shadows erupted, seizing control of the golem's fractures. The creature's eyes flooded black, its fists now crackling with stolen lightning.
"*Run!*" Luo Chen barely yanked Mei Ling clear as the corrupted golem obliterated its own arm to crush them.
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The temple shuddered, awakened guardians bursting from alcoves—stone serpents with magma veins, their jaws wide enough to swallow oxen. They turned on everyone.
"You fool!" Li Tian snarled at Jiang Zixuan. "That dagger's bleeding the temple's lifeforce!"
"All the better!" The sect leader danced between serpent strikes, his dagger drinking their essence. "I'll carve my ascension from this carcass of a tomb!"
Mei Ling incinerated a serpent's head, her flames dimming. "Tian! The shard's glowing!"
Within the golem's fractured chest, the Mirror shard pulsed in time with Li Tian's own artifact. *It's trying to reconnect.*
"Luo Chen! Freeze its shadow!" Li Tian lunged into the golem's shadow, staff blazing. "Mei Ling—light us a path!"
Fire and ice collided as Luo Chen flash-froze the golem's corrupted half. Li Tian's spatial blade sheared through the remaining starlight, his fingers closing around the shard—
—and the world *split*.
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**Memory of the Emperor**
Li Tian stood in a field of floating islands, the Magic Emperor before him—not as a ruler, but a young cultivator, bleeding from a dozen wounds.
*"Power is a dialogue,"* the Emperor said, pressing a hand to Li Tian's chest where the Mirror lay. *"Ask better questions."*
The vision shattered as Jiang Zixuan's dagger found Li Tian's back.
"*Dialogue* this," the sect leader spat.
Agony seared Li Tian's meridians—but the shard *answered*. Spatial energy detonated outward, hurling Jiang Zixuan into a serpent's maw. The shard fused with Li Tian's Mirror, its glow cauterizing his wound.
"Tian!" Mei Ling's voice sounded distant.
The temple was collapsing, guardians disintegrating into dust. Luo Chen dragged him upright as Mei Lind melted a path through falling debris. Behind them, Jiang Zixuan's screams faded beneath the roar of dying magic.
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They emerged under a bruised sky, the temple sealing itself beneath mountains. The shard warmed Li Tian's grip, its resonance humming with forgotten truths.
Mei Ling collapsed beside him, her robes smoking. "Next time… lead us somewhere with wine."
Luo Chen studied the shard. "It changed you."
Li Tian touched the Mirror, now veined with starlight. "It reminded me." Power *was* a dialogue—and he'd just begun to listen.
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**End of Chapter 29**