In the upper sanctum of the Hollow Citadel, where obsidian spires rose like broken fingers into a lightless sky, the chamber of Still Flames trembled.
Scribes screamed as their soul-ink scrolls burst into fire.
Mirrors cracked.
Memory-lanterns shattered.
The Ebon Vault had been broken.
And deep beneath the Citadel, in a sphere of chained glass submerged in voidwater, a single eye opened — lidless, iris of shifting iron.
A bell rang. One note. Pure. Terrible.
A voice followed, layered with command and echo:
"Unleash the Black Envoy."
There was no ceremony in his awakening. No scroll or invocation. Only a splintered prayer carved in obsidian.
The Black Envoy did not sleep in a bed or tomb. He hung in chains of silence, submerged in black ice fed by the grief of a thousand cities.
He had no name.
He had no face — only a porcelain mask, pure white, with a single vertical crack.
When the chains broke, the ice hissed, and his swords uncoiled from the depths.
Two blades: one black as oil, the other pale as bone.
They whispered with hunger as they found his hands.
Servants fell to their knees as he rose, not in reverence, but in dread. Some wept. One tried to flee. The Envoy stepped once and appeared before her — a whisper of metal, a single sigh.
She vanished. Not slain, but unwritten.
His orders were clear:
"Find the Flamebearer. Break his swords. End the Line of Fire."
The Black Envoy's trail began at the ruined Forge of Gloom.
Where others would investigate, he tasted the residue of battle.
Every footstep left behind a faint pulse — memory, intent, trajectory.
He touched the scorched stone and saw flickers:
– The swirl of Li Shen's blade forms
– The echo of Sērahn's flame
– The glimpse of the Mirror Vale technique
– The voice of a girl called Rain, veiled in smoke
He didn't need to follow scent or trail.
He followed sword rhythms.
The Envoy began to move — not running, not gliding — but stepping across the threadline of intent left by Li Shen's strikes.
He was not pursuing the man.
He was hunting the wound Li Shen had cut into the world.
The Black Envoy arrived at the village of Shilun two nights later.
It was a place that had once resisted the Hollow Council.
Now it sheltered rebels who had begun remembering who they were.
They never had a chance.
The Envoy did not speak. His bone-pale blade sang across rooftops, and the black one unraveled memory itself. He severed bloodlines, burned banners with gestures.
He moved through twenty defenders in eight heartbeats.
When an old monk shouted Li Shen's name, the Envoy paused.
Not out of hesitation — but interest.
He touched the monk's face.
"Flamebearer…" the monk rasped. "He will end you."
The Envoy nodded.
And turned the monk's soul to mist.
His next stop was older — deeper into the mountains — where the last Moonblade Order had been hidden since the Days of Dust. They remembered the Old Sword Codes. They still prayed to starlight.
And they had once taught a boy named Shen.
He came in the dark of morning.
The moons had cracked again.
The Temple's seven masters met him at the gate. Cloaks raised. Swords ready.
But this was no duel.
This was the death of memory.
Their blades flashed — the Moonstep Form, the Falling Crescent, the Dance of Tides.
They circled him like a lunar storm.
The Envoy let them.
Then moved once.
His oil-black blade erased light. His bone blade echoed through history. He severed the First Sword Oath from their tongues, and their final thoughts never reached their mouths.
Only the Grandmistress remained. Old, blind, radiant.
"You were once one of ours," she whispered. "What name did we give you?"
The Envoy stood still.
Then said — in a voice he had not used for decades:
"…Shen."
Then he cut her gently, like a goodbye.
The Hollow Council had predicted Li Shen would go east. The Envoy disagreed.
He followed no maps.
He followed pulse. Rhythm. Blade-resonance.
Every strike Li Shen made rippled backward through time — and the Black Envoy felt it. Like strings pulling on strings.
He could now see flashes:
– Li Shen standing atop a wind-bleached tower
– A hidden library of Phoenix Monk relics
– A mirror reflecting the faces of the Hollow Council
He did not understand why yet.
But he would.
He found a cliff where Li Shen had once trained. His name was carved in stone, childish and sharp.
The Envoy touched it.
And for a moment… his hands trembled.
Not from rage.
From memory.
Then the tremble vanished.
And he turned toward the Sunken Fortress of Nyakan, where old fire stirred.
Far above, in the Hollow Council's Hall of Veils, the remaining nine watched through soul-mirrors.
"He remembers."
"That is acceptable. Let him. It will not alter the end."
"Unless…"
One figure leaned forward. The Hollow Architect, face hidden behind a mask of falling leaves, tapped a nail against her throne.
"Unless he chooses differently this time."
The others fell silent.
"Let him pursue Li Shen. Let them meet again."
"If the Flamebearer wins…"
"He will not," said the Architect. "But if he does — then he has earned the right to die at the gates of the Hollow Throne."
The Black Envoy stood upon the ridge of scorched stone, overlooking the path ahead.
His mask glinted as he pulled his blades into the wind.
He did not chase.
He moved ahead.
Wherever Li Shen would go, he would already be waiting.
And when they met again…
Only one name would remain in the world's memory.