The last sun before the Empire of Dust was not a sun at all.
It was a dying eye in the sky, wreathed in sickly gold, casting no warmth.
Li Shen stood at the edge of a broken mesa, staring across a land that had no horizon—only a vast plain of ash and bone-white sand, where the wind sang in forgotten dialects.
"This was once the Heartland of Khaerun," Wei Min whispered beside him, clutching a scroll sealed with thirteen talismans. "A living empire. Then the Ashen Pact bled it dry."
"How long since it fell?" Li Shen asked.
"No one knows. The Hollow Council erased the time. Even the Phoenix Monks could not recover it."
Behind them, their small company prepared silently. Three phoenix monks, draped in veils to ward against soul-sapping winds. Two former Ashen defectors, faces branded with old oaths. And a swordsmaster named Jao Fen, once of the Lotus Court, whose tongue had been removed for betrayal.
Only Li Shen's voice seemed unshaken, grounded by the blades he bore.
The Blade of Origin, humming with ancestral force.
Jade Eternity, now bound to him by battle and memory.
Sērahn's Echo, still humming the final note of the Waking Emperor's sorrow.
They took the first steps into the Empire of Dust just before dusk—though here, dusk never left.
An hour into the wastes, the wind began to change.
Not just direction—but intent.
It no longer whispered; it searched.
Wei Min raised a protective ward, inscribing circles mid-air with fire-dipped fingers. But it was Jao Fen who stepped forward first, gesturing toward the ridgeline ahead.
Silhouetted against the grey ash sky stood a forest of petrified trees—each trunk made not of wood, but fossilized bone. Branches curved upward like grasping claws.
And from between them drifted the first Bone-Storm.
It came without sound. A swirling cloud of powdered remains, mixed with broken oaths and flickers of failed spells.
The group dropped, covering faces.
But the storm wasn't after them.
It avoided Li Shen, curving around him like a serpent around a flame.
The Blade of Origin vibrated. A memory unfurled in his mind—a soldier's dying breath, long ago, who had whispered:
"He who carries the first blade shall not fade with us. He shall awaken the sealed."
When the storm passed, the petrified forest opened before them. And there, carved into the largest bone-tree, was a door.
A perfect circle. In its center: a single black handprint.
"This is the Mouth of Khaerun," Wei Min breathed. "Their kings were buried alive behind this door."
Li Shen stepped forward and pressed his hand to the mark.
The tree shuddered.
And opened inward.
The corridor beyond descended in a spiral. The walls were carved with murals that moved when unobserved—scenes of bloodshed, ancient betrayals, monarchs turned to living statues to serve the Hollow Council.
Torches lit of their own accord, burning with green-blue flame.
"We walk into a palace that never died," whispered one of the monks.
As they entered the main chamber, they found it was not empty—but occupied.
Statues of warriors, rows upon rows, stood frozen in place. Except they were not stone.
Their eyes flicked toward Li Shen.
They breathed—slowly. Shallowly. As if waiting for a command that never came.
Wei Min gestured for silence, unraveling the talismaned scroll. As she read, her voice trembled.
"These are the Sorrowbound. Once kings. Now husks. They are sustained by regret and the will of the Hollow."
Li Shen walked between them, the Jade Eternity glowing faintly.
A single statue turned.
And spoke.
"You carry the soulblade. You walk where gods once wept. Do you intend to break the seal?"
"I do," said Li Shen. "I seek the truth buried here. And the blade forged in the final war."
The Sorrowbound extended a trembling hand. In its palm appeared a key of dust and light.
"Then open the last gate. And remember... no truth here comes without price."
The final chamber of the vault was not a room.
It was an arena, circular, surrounded by mirrors that reflected moments, not images.
Li Shen saw himself as a child, training with his father.
He saw the burning of the Phoenix Library.
He saw the time he nearly let Wei Min die.
He stepped into the circle.
At the center waited a sword impaled into a floating slab of obsidian. It was nothing like the others—it had no edge, no crossguard. It was a shard of pure memory, vibrating like a heartbeat.
The Crucible Blade.
A voice rang out—sharper than steel.
"To claim me, you must fight not your enemies... but your truth."
And then he appeared.
Another Li Shen.
Eyes full of fury. Body clad in ghost-steel. A twisted mirror of his failures.
They clashed.
The Crucible Blade echoed every strike, each swing ringing with a truth Li Shen had denied:
That he feared being forgotten.
That he sometimes fought not for peace—but for vengeance.
That he was slowly becoming what he swore to destroy.
The Mirror Li Shen wielded no blade. He was the blade.
But Li Shen knew the forms.
Sword Form: Ashen Lotus Breaks the Sky.
Sword Form: Heaven's Thread is Cut.
Sword Form: Memory Drinks the Flame.
The chamber trembled. The past cracked. The Crucible Blade left the stone, flew to Li Shen's grasp—and the mirror shattered into ash.
He fell to one knee, panting.
Three blades now answered to him:
The Blade of Origin.
Jade Eternity.
The Crucible Blade.
Wei Min approached, her face pale.
"The Empire of Dust sleeps no longer. The Hollow Council will feel this."
"Let them," Li Shen said. "I will bring them the war they buried."
Above them, the sky darkened.
In the far distance, a signal fire—black and silver—lit the horizon.
The Ashen Pact was already moving.
And so, too, was the final Blade, hidden not in a vault or tomb—but in a living world that never fell.