Rain sliced through the jungle canopy like a thousand silver needles as Li Shen stepped out of the mists, cloak heavy with moisture, his breath slow, controlled.
Beneath his feet, the ruins of a stone causeway jutted from the waterlogged cliffs, slick with moss and time. Broken statues marked the path — firebirds, half-shattered, their beaks pointing toward the sea.
Before him stretched the Bay of the Forgotten Flame — gray and still, ringed with skeletal ships and storm-wracked spires. And at its heart, like a wound held open by tide and memory, loomed the Sunken Fortress of Nyakan.
A fortress-temple built into the cliffs and beneath the waves.
Where the last of the Phoenix Monks once stood against the Hollow Council — and where the fire they once guarded now guttered in silence.
Li Shen took one step forward — and the sea parted.
Only slightly, only enough to expose the cracked stone stairs that led down beneath the bay.
The Ocean Soul Blade shimmered on his back, reacting to the movement of tide and spirit.
The fortress was calling.
Each step took him deeper beneath the waves — but no water touched him.
A protective ward, ancient and flickering, still remained.
Carved into the arch above the staircase: "When Light Drowns, Flame Must Learn to Swim."
The walls glowed faintly with phoenix-glyphs, each pulse echoing Li Shen's heartbeat. He passed rows of silent statues, warriors with burning feathers carved into their helms, their eyes closed in eternal vigilance.
The Mirror Vale Blade trembled slightly at his side.
Not in warning — but recognition.
This was once a sanctuary of sword-saints and soul-seers, before the Ashen Pact shattered their order. The blades remembered.
Down deeper. Through flooded colonnades and fire-scarred meditation chambers. A great mural appeared — painted in blood and gold.
It depicted a flaming sword descending from the heavens, splitting the sea, and awakening a slumbering firebird beneath the waves.
Li Shen stopped.
The firebird in the mural had no eyes.
Just mirrors where its gaze should be.
At the heart of the Sunken Fortress, beyond a door carved from volcanic glass and sealed with seven flame-locks, lay a vast chamber.
The Chamber of Thousand Plumes.
Its ceiling opened to the bay above, the ocean held back by a thin dome of shimmering energy. Broken banners fluttered in unseen wind. Around the edges stood the remains of hundreds of monks — seated in meditation, long turned to salt and ash.
But one figure still breathed.
A man wrapped in crimson and gold robes, face obscured by layers of soot and prayer cloth. His hair had long since whitened, and his hands bore flame-scars shaped like wings.
He opened one eye as Li Shen stepped through the threshold.
"You've come," said the monk. His voice was dry, crackling. "The Flame Line still lives."
Li Shen knelt.
"Master," he said. "I am Li Shen of the Skyblaze Line. I bear the Crimson Feather Codex and the will of the Phoenix."
The old monk smiled.
"Then we are not yet undone."
The monk — Master An Zhen — led him deeper, past the salt-ash guardians and into the Sunheart Vault.
There, Li Shen underwent the Three Trials of Ember and Tide.
1. Trial of the Drowned Flame
He was submerged into the sacred pool known as the Lake of Silence. Within it, his mind was assaulted by visions of failure — burning cities, fallen friends, the Hollow Council victorious.
To overcome it, he had to let go of regret, not by forgetting, but by honoring each failure with flame-etched memory.
A fire burned in his lungs. He let it.
And rose with his first new technique:
Tidebreaker Flame Form — a sword stance that merges fire and flow, able to cut through illusions and sever emotional bindings.
2. Trial of the Ashen Feather
He faced the spirits of fallen Phoenix Monks in a hall of reflection. They challenged his purpose, his rage, his need for vengeance.
"You are not our heir if all you seek is destruction," said one.
"I fight to protect," Li Shen answered. "But to protect, I must become fire — and fire consumes."
Only then did they kneel — and bestow him with the Mantle of Crimson Wings, a technique hidden in the final pages of the Codex.
A flash-step style mimicking the fall and rise of a phoenix, allowing instant bursts of movement through flame paths.
3. Trial of the Forgotten Sun
In total darkness, Li Shen fought a shadow that mirrored his every strike — his own doubt given form.
He nearly lost.
But remembered Rain's voice.
Master Xin's laughter.
The whisper of Sērahn's blade.
He fought not alone — but as the bearer of many hopes.
The shadow shattered.
And in its wake came a blade — forged of mirrored sunmetal, wreathed in gold flame.
The Dawnpiercer Blade.
His fourth sword.
When he returned to Master An Zhen, the old monk wept.
"You have done what none could," he said. "The Flame Line lives… and rises."
Above them, the dome trembled.
"The Hollow Council will send their hounds," the master whispered. "One walks already in your shadow."
Li Shen turned his head.
"I know. The Black Envoy."
An Zhen nodded, and slowly reached into a fire urn.
He pulled out a single seed — pulsing with red light.
"The last Phoenix Seed. Plant it at the Hollow Gate. And the flame will return."
Li Shen took it, eyes resolute.
Then the ocean roared.
The dome shattered.
And the Black Envoy descended in silence, blades drawn.
The chamber split as the two met.
Li Shen drew all four swords — the Ocean Soul, Mirror Vale, Eidolon, and Dawnpiercer — each blazing in resonance.
The Black Envoy stepped through the storm, his oil-black and bone-white blades humming in deadly rhythm.
Their swords clashed.
Steel on steel.
Flame against void.
Light against memory.
Li Shen spun with the Mantle of Crimson Wings — vanished in a flash, reappeared with the Tidebreaker Form, and shattered a stone pillar to fling debris at the Envoy.
The Black Envoy moved through it — effortless, unnatural, as if space bent for him.
Each exchange struck with the force of thunder.
Until finally — the Envoy's bone-white blade cut the air toward Li Shen's chest.
Li Shen countered with Phoenix Wrath Arc — a forbidden arc of fire and soul-force, igniting both blades in a cross of flame.
The clash tore open the chamber.
The sea surged in.
And the two were swept apart — carried into the depths.
When Li Shen awoke, he was clinging to a broken outcropping miles from the fortress. The Phoenix Seed still clutched in his hand.
The Envoy was nowhere in sight.
The ocean boiled far below.
And somewhere, deep beneath, a dark shape stirred.
He rose.
Stronger.
Tempered.
Unbroken.
The path led east now — toward the Grave of Stars, where another blade awaited.
But the Hollow Council knew he lived.
And the next time the Black Envoy struck…
Only one would walk away.