The sun broke through storm-laden clouds, casting molten light across the weatherworn steps of Skyfall Monastery—a remote sanctuary built atop jagged cliffs where even eagles feared to nest.
Li Shen stood at the precipice, robes flaring in the salt-choked wind. Around him, the monks moved silently, offering no words—only bows. They knew why he had come.
He was preparing to breach the Sea of Echoes—a plane where time and memory intertwined. It was said none could cross it unchanged.
The seven blades on his back whispered with tension.
The Phoenix Manuscript, now partially rewritten by his hand, revealed more with each hour. Within its shifting script, Li Shen had uncovered the Coordinates of Remembrance—three convergence points in the world where the veil between present and past grew thin.
One such place was here.
At the heart of the monastery sat an obsidian mirror pool: The Well of Last Dreams.
That night, as storms wracked the cliffs, Li Shen approached it.
He knelt, removed each sword one by one, and placed them in a circle.
Then he looked into the water.
And saw himself—not now, but as a boy.
Reflections of the Forgotten
The mirror swirled.
He stood in a reed-woven hut, rain drumming on the roof, the scent of jasmine and firewood thick in the air.
His mother stood before him.
"You were never meant to carry this burden alone."
Her voice was gentle, but her hands trembled. She opened a small lacquered box.
Inside: a jade pendant, engraved with a symbol he'd never known—but one the Manuscript had begun to reveal.
It was the Sigil of the Last Flame—the key to the Sea of Echoes.
"When you find this again, you will understand who we are… and what we lost."
The vision shattered.
Li Shen gasped, hands braced on the pool's edge. Thunder rolled. The pendant burned hot against his chest—it had manifested.
He had unlocked the first memory-anchor.
But two remained.
Li Shen's next journey led him to Fellharrow, a ruined city swallowed by glass sands and sorrow. There, beneath broken towers, he met with Zhenya, the last Echo-Tracker—an order sworn to map forgotten paths through timelines.
Zhenya was a woman clad in raven feathers and ink-stitched armor. Her blade, made from starbone, never left her hip.
"You want to reach the Sea?" she asked, eyes narrowing. "You'll need a vessel. Not of wood, but of remembrance."
She led him through a shattered observatory to the Timeforged Vault. Inside lay the remains of a ship—not of this world, but one that had once sailed through the Aether when the sky itself cracked.
Zhenya pressed a shard of mirrored glass into his hand.
"This is your helm. It'll draw the paths—if you feed it memory."
"Whose memory?" Li Shen asked.
"Yours. And those you've taken."
She meant the warriors he'd slain.
The traitor in the Hollow.
The Hollow Architect.
The Ashen Blades.
Each left an imprint.
He'd have to summon them.
And relive their endings.
That night, he sat at the helm of the reconstructed vessel. The mirror shard glowed faintly as he whispered the names of the fallen.
One by one, their faces appeared in the glass. Their final words. Their final strikes.
But something else stirred—a shadow, watching from behind their eyes.
The Hollow Council.
They had linked their souls to those they sacrificed.
"You seek the Blade of Origin," a voice hissed through the shard. "We will see your journey end in regret."
Li Shen tightened his grip.
"I've walked through fire, ice, and ruin. You're too late to shake me now."
He stood, every blade at his back drawn and hovering.
Sword Form: Sevenfold Warding Wind.
A spiral of steel encircled the vessel, forming a cocoon of sword-light.
The vessel shuddered.
And rose—lifting from time and space, ascending through the layers of memory, through storms that smelled of jasmine and ash.
It wasn't water.
It was memory made manifest.
The Sea of Echoes stretched endless beneath him—waves of colorless thought and bleeding recollection. Echoes of cities long vanished floated on the surface—some drifting, others screaming.
The air shimmered with soundless music.
And far on the horizon—like a wound in the sky—waited an island of obsidian and fire.
There, bound by the chains of remembrance, waited the Blade of Origin.
Li Shen's ship drifted closer, the storm of forgotten lives boiling beneath.
And as it drew near, something vast and hollow rose from the sea.
A guardian, forged from the drowned regrets of a thousand swordmasters. Blades bristled from its back like broken wings. Its face was a mask of his own.
It roared.
And Li Shen stood tall at the ship's edge, blades ready.
"You guard the gate. I hold the keys. Let's finish this."
The Sea of Echoes erupted.
And the final test began.