The Southern Isles rose from the mist like the backs of jade-scaled beasts.
Storm-wreathed cliffs jutted into the sea, wrapped in vines the color of oxidized bronze. Thousand-step paths wound up the cliffsides, flanked by statues whose eyes had wept green tears for centuries. The wind howled like it remembered an empire lost—not to war, but to silence.
Li Shen stood at the bow of a river-cutter, watching the ancient peaks grow near.
"The jade tombs were sealed by nine Grand Masters," whispered Wei Min, sitting beside him. "Not with stone or keys—but with memories. And blood."
"And now they call me," Li Shen said. The Blade of Origin pulsed faintly beneath his cloak, as if responding to the old ghosts.
They passed beneath a gateway carved from a single tree petrified in moonlight, its roots spiraling into the sea. Glyphs shimmered on its surface, too old to be translated, yet they sounded in his bones.
This was the last breath of the Waking Emperor.
The cutter docked at a moss-draped pier. Mist clung to the edges of the cliff like spilled spirit-ink. The entrance to the tombs waited in the high mountains above—through trials none had passed in centuries.
The path to the tomb was carved into the mountain's face—a road called the Stair of Echoes, said to mirror the journey of the Waking Emperor's soul from mortality to godhood.
Each step they took changed the mountain. Trees withered behind them. Stones turned from jade to bone. The wind spoke in voices they knew.
"Brother…" came a whisper.
Li Shen turned and saw Xiao Lian, his sister, long dead.
But it wasn't her. The illusion cracked when she smiled with teeth too many, too white.
Wei Min drew a blade of calligraphed wind and cleaved the phantom apart.
"The mountain feeds on grief," she said. "Don't bleed into it."
At the first gate, they were met by an ancient man—blind, wrapped in yellowed scrolls, his eyes sealed by golden wax.
"Name your truest regret," the Guardian intoned. "Or turn away."
Li Shen stepped forward. No hesitation.
"That I left her behind. That I buried my father and never looked back."
The Guardian nodded.
And dissolved.
The gate creaked open—revealing a stairwell descending not downward, but into a memory made real.
They emerged into Yuan'tai, the lost capital of the Waking Emperor's empire.
But it was not ruined—it stood in pristine glory. Towers of green marble rose above canals flowing with golden koi. Market stalls bustled with merchants. Sword monks trained beneath blossoming trees.
It was a living memory—preserved by the tomb's sorcery.
But something was wrong.
The sun above never moved. The air was too perfect. The smiles too wide.
As they walked deeper, no one acknowledged them. The people moved in loops—repeating greetings, turning the same corners, laughing the same laughter.
"This is a looped soulscape," Wei Min said. "The Emperor locked his empire in memory, unwilling to let it die."
A bell rang.
Everything stopped.
The city dissolved like water, revealing a deeper truth: beneath the illusion stood a throne room built of skeletons and carved jade, with vines wrapped around the ribs of the dead.
And at its center sat the Waking Emperor—not dead, but dreaming with his eyes open.
He rose without motion.
A robe of mothwing and green fire curled about him. His crown was fused to his skull. His hands were stained with the ink of history.
"Who dares break the seal?" he asked—not with voice, but with the memory of thunder.
Li Shen stepped forward, every sword ringing against their sheaths.
"You called me. Through blade and ghost. Through ruin and war. I have come."
The Waking Emperor's gaze pierced into him.
"You carry the Origin. The first blade. The curse and cure. You are the final memory."
With a gesture, the ghosts of his Nine Generals rose—each bearing a relic weapon that had once shaken the world.
Wei Min held back, casting protective glyphs as the tomb's reality fractured. The battle was not in one plane—it echoed across memory, will, and sword-spirit.
Li Shen drew the Blade of Origin, and the tomb screamed.
The Nine came in waves.
General Morou of the Flamewheel Spear struck first—spinning flame through the air. Li Shen deflected with Mirror Vale Blade, catching flame in reflective glass and redirecting it into the next attacker.
Lady Saren of the Inkblade lunged from the air, leaving trails of dissolving glyphs. Li Shen countered with Sērahn's Echo, singing a note that canceled out her calligraphy mid-attack.
Warden Baogai of the Thousand Chains summoned fetters from the tomb walls—but Li Shen leapt into Sword Form: Sevenfold Cloud-Break, turning his steps into thunderclaps and shattering the bindings before they reached him.
Each blade he used resonated with its own voice, and his soul flickered at the edge of becoming something more—a Sword Saint not of flesh, but of truth.
And then only one remained.
The Waking Emperor himself.
The Emperor unsheathed a blade unlike any other—The Jade Eternity, forged from the soul of his people, each fold a layer of history.
"You are the blade that ends me," he said, stepping forward. "But can you bear the sorrow of gods?"
The clash was not physical alone—it was a war of time, identity, and soul.
The Emperor struck with Form: Crownless Heaven Descends, a style that erased history as it moved.
Li Shen answered with Form: All That Remains, forged only in that moment.
The blades met. Reality shattered. Memory collapsed.
When the silence returned, the throne was empty.
The tomb was dead.
And Li Shen stood alone, holding the hilt of the Jade Eternity, its blade now part of his soul.
Wei Min found him kneeling in the dust, eyes closed, breathing slow.
"You've done it," she said.
"No," he replied. "I've only opened the next gate."
Behind them, the tomb crumbled.
But in the far sky, black sails rose.
The Hollow Council was moving again.
And something darker stirred in the east—where no memory lived, and no sword had ever walked.