Dawn broke like a blade over the Eastern Ridge, cutting through clouds heavy with omen. The Ashen Spire, once a bastion of steel and sorcery, now lay hushed in mourning silence. Within its shadow, three figures rode out through the broken gates.
Jin rode at the front, his black cloak trailing behind him like a phantom's breath. The Empress followed, clad in traveling armor forged from silver-threaded dragonhide. Qilin brought up the rear, quiet as dusk, her spear resting across her back.
The path they took was old—too old. Even the map Qilin carried, penned in the age of Sect Kings, showed only jagged ink where the Forgotten Vale lay.
They rode in silence.
Until the forest changed.
The trees thickened, their bark darkening with rot. The sky above seemed to dim, even though the sun still burned behind them. The wind carried whispers now—snatches of lullabies, ancient prayers, the weeping of children unborn.
No beasts stirred.
No birds cried.
Only the road remained.
Jin slowed his horse. "We walk from here."
Qilin dismounted first, eyes scanning the twisted forest. "Something's wrong. The soil smells… hungry."
The Empress nodded, pressing a hand to the hilt of her sword. "The Vale resents intruders. It remembers trespass."
Jin said nothing.
He simply stepped forward.
And the forest parted.
They walked for hours.
Time bled strangely in the Vale. A minute stretched into an hour, and an hour passed like a heartbeat. Shadows moved against the light. Trees leaned in to listen. Once, they passed a stone monolith etched with the name of a man Jin had slain 9,000 years ago.
He paused then.
Not because of guilt.
But because he remembered the man's scream.
"It's not just a cursed forest," Qilin muttered. "It's a graveyard. Of memory. Of time."
The Empress looked at Jin. "Why here? What are we looking for?"
Jin didn't turn.
"We're not looking for something," he said.
"We're waiting for someone."
And then the path vanished.
Where the road should have been, a lake now waited—black as pitch, unmoving, reflecting not the sky but a void deeper than night.
A boat sat at its edge.
No oars.
No ropes.
Just a sigil on its side.
The sigil of the Eternal Tomb.
Qilin froze. "That's the symbol of the Second Requiem Sect. They were erased during the Shattering."
"No," Jin said softly. "They were buried. Here."
The Empress narrowed her eyes. "This is madness."
"Maybe," Jin said. "But it's the only way forward."
He stepped into the boat.
It didn't sink.
One by one, they joined him.
And the lake moved.
They sailed without wind or motion, the world around them flickering like dying lanterns. Once, a face appeared beneath the water—mouth open in a scream that made no sound. Once, a hand reached from the depths, clutching Qilin's ankle. She stabbed it without flinching.
Still, the boat did not stop.
Until they reached the island.
It was small. No more than a few hundred paces across. At its center stood a mausoleum shaped like a lotus in bloom, each petal forged from bone.
Jin disembarked first.
The mausoleum door opened before he touched it.
And a voice whispered: "Welcome home."
Inside, the air was cold with memory.
Carvings adorned the walls—scenes of Jin's past, etched not in stone but in the frozen breath of ghosts. His first battle. His fall into the Pit. The betrayal that ended his life.
And there, at the center of it all, stood a throne.
Empty.
But not silent.
Because a presence sat upon it.
Not a man.
Not a ghost.
But a memory made flesh.
It looked like Jin.
It wore his face.
But its eyes were wrong—endless pits of ash and flame.
"I was wondering when you'd return," the echo said.
The Empress stepped back.
Qilin gripped her weapon.
Jin did neither.
He walked forward until he stood before his double.
"What am I?" the echo asked.
Jin didn't blink. "What I left behind."
The echo smiled. "A hollow of rage. A shell filled with wrath. Do you think you can run from me forever?"
"No," Jin whispered. "That's why I'm here."
The echo rose from the throne.
And the world shuddered.
Outside, the island split.
The lake boiled.
From the depths rose pillars of bone, and upon them—vaults. Coffins sealed with unbreakable runes. Screaming faces etched into their sides.
The dead of the Second Requiem Sect.
Not resting.
Not sleeping.
But watching.
The Empress stepped back. "This place—it's alive."
"It's more than that," Qilin said. "It's remembering."
Back inside, the echo circled Jin.
"You thought burying me here would keep the rage at bay," it hissed. "But the longer you live, the more I grow. Every wound you suffer, every soul you break—it feeds me."
"I know."
"So why return?"
Jin raised his hand.
And in it, he held the Soulbrand Fang—the cursed dagger that had pierced his own heart ten thousand years ago.
"To bind you," Jin said.
The echo screamed.
The fight was not physical.
It could not be.
It was memory against memory. Will against will.
Jin stepped through the echo's flame and took blow after blow—not with his body, but with the weight of his own regrets. The time he spared a traitor. The child he could not save. The army that died under his name.
The echo became them.
Mocked him with their faces.
But Jin did not falter.
Because in his hand burned something older than hate.
Purpose.
He drove the Soulbrand Fang into the echo's chest.
And spoke its name.
"I am Jin of the Ashen Grave. Son of the Unyielding Flame. And I bury my past with choice."
The echo screamed.
Then shattered.
And the mausoleum went silent.
When Jin emerged, the world had changed.
The lake was gone.
The forest bent in deference.
And the sky above wept silver rain.
Qilin stared at him. "What… did you do?"
"I severed the past."
The Empress stepped forward. "Then what remains?"
Jin looked at the horizon.
And answered with ice in his voice.
"Vengeance. And war."
Far away, in a palace carved into the bones of a mountain, a man opened his eyes.
He had not stirred in five thousand years.
But something had just awakened him.
A name.
A force.
A threat.
"Jin," he whispered.
Then he smiled.
"Finally."