Li Shen stood upon the deck of a sand-skiff, the wind of the Endless Divide biting against his weatherworn cloak. Behind him, the Sea of Echoes shimmered in the distance, a glimmering horizon of silver memory fading into myth. Before him stretched the Elaran Expanse—a desert so vast and cruel it was said to have once swallowed an empire whole.
The sky above was tinged crimson, not with sunset, but with the breath of the Bleeding Moon, an omen that had not risen for three centuries.
"It's always watching now," whispered Wei Min, the Fox-Eyed Windseer, standing beside him.
She was a ghost-light of a woman, skin tanned by desert sun, eyes rimmed with silver qi. Her robes carried the scent of dried herbs and scorpion-venom ink. She had joined him after the Temple of Origin, drawn by the wind's omens.
"The Hollow Council stirs in the Pale Monastery," she said. "But the sand itself remembers what was buried there. Bones, lies… and something older than either of us."
Li Shen nodded, fingers tracing the pommel of the Blade of Origin, still wrapped in golden cloth. Since claiming it, it had not spoken in voice or memory again—but its presence whispered into his soul, ever waiting.
"Then we give the sand something new to remember."
The ruins emerged at twilight.
Once, it had been a city of white towers and mirrored domes—Sil Haran, capital of the Dust-Blood Kings. Now, its bones jutted from the dunes like fingers grasping for the surface of a forgotten world. Pale banners still fluttered in the hushed wind, etched with glyphs of endurance, buried resistance, and the sigils of a vanished order—the Sun-Piercers.
As the sand-skiff docked on a broken terrace of collapsed stone, Li Shen's boots touched ancient ground.
The wind changed.
Whispers echoed from nowhere. Not speech, but sensation—grief, longing, hope denied.
"They say the Pale Monastery rests beneath this city," said Wei Min. "Sealed during the Betrayal of the Saffron Hour. Buried with its sins."
They descended together—through ruptured towers, mosaic tunnels, and shattered prayer-halls where stained glass wept molten color onto the sand.
Each step downwards felt heavier. The air grew denser.
And then they found it.
A gate of obsidian ribs, wrapped in chains of carved bone. A sigil pulsed at its center—an open eye with a blade driven through its pupil.
The mark of the Hollow Council.
Li Shen stepped forward and unsheathed the Blade of Origin.
At its silent presence, the chains rusted away. The gate opened.
And the Pale Monastery yawned beneath the earth like the open mouth of a dead god.
The descent into the Pale Monastery was a journey into a broken dream.
The halls were massive and circular, each chamber shaped like a ribcage, lined with crystal sarcophagi. The monks here had not died—they had sealed themselves in sleep, waiting for the next age.
Some still stirred.
A pale monk rose from one of the glass tombs, her body translucent, her voice a trickle of dry wind.
"You carry the First Blade. Then you carry our burden."
Li Shen bowed in respect, lowering his hand to his sword.
"I seek the Council's last hand. Where do they gather?"
The monk did not answer in words. Instead, she raised her hand and pressed it to Li Shen's forehead.
Visions struck him.
Cities burning in mirrored fire.
A circle of nine figures robed in void.
A mirror forged from the bones of the world.
He staggered.
The monk faded.
"The Hollow Council has abandoned flesh," Wei Min whispered, her voice trembling. "They seek to make the world a reflection of silence."
And then the walls began to hum.
Something vast had awoken.
In the chamber below, they found it—a cavern vast enough to hold a mountain. At its center was a throne sculpted from starlight and darkglass. Upon it sat High Seer Kazan Vraal, last mortal tongue of the Hollow Council.
He had no face—only a mirrored mask, upon which Li Shen saw his own reflection a thousandfold.
"Sword-Saint," came a voice not from the Seer, but from the mirrors on the walls, from the bones in the sand. "We wondered when you would come."
The chamber darkened as shadows rose.
Figures emerged—Reflections, warriors sculpted from stolen images and dead dreams. They carried twisted mockeries of Li Shen's blades, wielded with grotesque mimicry.
"We have seen your past," the Council whispered. "We will wear your future."
Li Shen stepped forward, his seven swords unsheathing in harmony.
"Then come take it."
The first Reflection struck with a mirrored Eidolon Blade, its phantom form echoing Li Shen's own spiritual signature.
He blocked with the true blade—Eidolon against Eidolon—and the impact tore through dimensions. Shadows warped. Walls cracked.
But Li Shen was not alone.
Wei Min danced through the storm of illusions, casting glyphs of unraveling wind, scattering the copies like broken glass.
Li Shen launched into his new form—Sword Form: The World Walks Upon Water.
With the Ocean Soul Blade beneath his feet, he surfed a wave of crashing qi through a row of attacking Reflections, slicing through three with a single upward arc.
One remained.
The Mirror King, forged from Li Shen's deepest fear—himself as a tyrant, eyes glowing, a crown of bone upon his head.
Their blades clashed—Origin against Falsehood.
"You will become us," it hissed. "All heroes do. All light fades."
"Not while I remember their names," Li Shen roared.
And he unleashed Form: Star-forged Memory Reforged—a forbidden strike that split even falsehoods in half.
The Mirror King screamed.
The glass chamber cracked. The Hollow Council's presence fractured—
And in the throne of light, Kazan Vraal shattered.
The Pale Monastery trembled.
Li Shen stood in the center of the ruin, swords sheathed, the Blade of Origin quiet at his side.
He had not destroyed the Hollow Council. But he had wounded their dream—and rescued a piece of truth buried deep within the sands.
Wei Min, wounded but alive, handed him a scroll drawn from the inner chamber.
"There's another," she whispered. "A name... from before even the Council."
Li Shen unrolled it.
A sigil: a rising sun devoured by ink.
"The Waking Emperor," he read aloud.
The air grew cold.
The next path awaited.