The temple rose like a monolith from the heart of the Sea of Echoes—ancient, untouched by wind or wave. Its stairs shimmered beneath Li Shen's feet, made not of stone but of solidified intent. Every surface hummed with ancient sword-song, vibrations left behind by the first practitioners of the Path of Ten Thousand Blades.
Above it all, floating like a shard of twilight torn from the heavens, was the Blade of Origin—the first sword ever forged by mortal hands, its shape shifting as if undecided. A weapon of truth. A weapon of memory. A weapon that would only choose one whose past could no longer bind them.
But someone else had come to claim it.
Kaido Vren landed in silence.
The winds around him died. The sea below stilled.
His body was wrapped in black lacquered armor etched with curses, the mark of the Hollow Council's final forge. Pale gray light pulsed from the seams in his skin—scars of rebirth, of sacrifice.
His sword was unadorned. No name. No memory. A blade without past or future.
"I once had a name," he said, voice like dry ash on wind. "But names are for the living."
Li Shen stood tall, the seven blades orbiting him in silent readiness.
"And yet here you are, begging the dead for approval."
They moved before the echo could catch the sound.
Kaido struck with no flourish. His sword stabbed straight, impossibly fast, like the thought of death itself. Li Shen twisted, drawing the Mirror Vale Blade—deflecting the blow with a perfect parry that sent time itself fracturing.
Sword Form: Echo Splitter.
Kaido blurred sideways, reforming in a dozen places at once. His blade sang a dirge of obliteration—slashes that erased color, texture, even presence. Every strike devoured a fraction of memory from the world.
Li Shen responded with the Eidolon Blade, carving streaks of ghost-light across the temple sky.
Sword Form: Horizon Shatters in Silence!
For a breathless instant, their blades met—force against void, will against nullity.
The explosion shattered the sky above the temple.
Swords clashed, qi erupted, and forgotten gods turned in their sleep as two disciples of opposed philosophies collided beneath the eye of the Origin Blade.
Kaido advanced without pause.
He moved like inevitability—clean, mechanical, perfect. Every swing was devoid of style, yet unstoppable. His blade didn't seek to kill Li Shen—it sought to erase him, as if he had never drawn breath.
"You believe the past gives meaning," Kaido hissed, pressing his assault. "I discarded mine. And I grew stronger."
Li Shen bled from a cut on his brow, but his eyes burned brighter.
"You didn't discard your past," he said. "You ran from it. I carry mine. I forge my pain into steel."
The Ocean Soul Blade burst from his side in a spiral of water and wind, slicing through Kaido's left pauldron with elemental force.
Kaido growled, arm briefly limp, but the wound closed in seconds.
"The Hollow Council rebuilt me," he said. "Flesh is a suggestion. Memory is a flaw."
Li Shen smiled grimly.
"Then allow me to remind you why the flawed endure."
Li Shen stepped into his most advanced technique—one he had never dared attempt in battle.
He called it:
Sword Form: Heaven's Twelvefold Bloom.
Each of his seven swords rotated outward like lotus petals. Sērahn's Echo burned overhead like a second sun, the Ocean Soul Blade surged with a tide beneath his feet, and the Mirror Vale Blade shimmered between illusions of possibility.
Kaido met it with one blade—and overwhelming void.
The duel transcended the physical. Every step they took cracked the air, leaving behind footprints in the stormclouds above. Sword qi screamed in every direction. The temple began to crumble.
Kaido drove forward with a thrust aimed at Li Shen's heart. The tip of his blade glowed with entropic force.
Li Shen let the thrust come—and then vanished.
Sword Form: The Phoenix Forgets Its Cage.
Reappearing behind Kaido in a burst of flame, he drove the Crimson Feather Codex like a dagger into Kaido's shoulder. The scream that tore from Kaido's lips was one of memory returning.
"Do you remember?" Li Shen whispered in his ear. "You once had a sister. She taught you to hold a brush before a sword."
Kaido fell to one knee, trembling. The void at his core flickered.
Li Shen raised the Eidolon Blade, poised for the final cut—
But the Blade of Origin pulsed above them. It had been watching. Waiting.
Now, it moved.
Descending like a falling star, it split the air between them—and spoke.
Not in words. In truth.
Both men froze.
Images flooded them: The first forge beneath the sky, where flame and metal first met. The first sword drawn in fear, then in defense. Then in ambition. Then in sorrow.
The Blade hovered between them, testing hearts.
Li Shen sheathed all his blades.
"I do not seek to own you," he said quietly. "Only to walk with you a while."
Kaido, gasping, whispered hoarsely.
"I want… to forget…"
The Blade chose.
It drifted into Li Shen's palm.
The moment he touched it, a column of golden light erupted from the temple, spreading across the Sea of Echoes. The skies cleared. The mirrored waters grew still.
The Blade of Origin shifted shape in his hand—its edge became what he needed it to be. Not a sword of conquest, but a sword of memory—infinitely sharp, yet humble.
Kaido collapsed, unconscious. The curse-marks along his body faded. The Hollow Council's hold on him had been severed.
Li Shen turned to the rising sun, blade in hand, cloak torn, seven swords slung across his back.
The path was not over.
Beyond the horizon, he felt it—a disturbance near the Pale Monastery, where the Hollow Council's last hidden hand stirred in the desert wastes.
"Let the next shadow rise," he murmured.
And he walked forward, not alone.