Li Shen and Wei Min departed Vaer Zhen before the sun could crown the horizon. Behind them, the fortress resumed its ancient slumber. Before them stretched a desolate road rarely walked—The Hollow March, a gray scar carved through wild country and cursed lands, leading toward the forbidden edge of the world.
"The Gate of Endings lies in the Valley of Wanstone," said Wei Min. "No maps chart it now. Even the Phoenix Monastery struck its name from our scrolls."
"Why?" asked Li Shen.
"Because it is where the First Sword was broken. And where the world forgot itself."
The path led into silence.
Birds ceased to call. Wind stilled.
The moon above—the smaller twin known as Alen's Echo—dimmed as if mourning something yet to happen.
For two days, they passed cairns and shattered statues—pilgrims turned to stone, faces contorted in awe, fear, or agony.
Li Shen paused before one—a woman clutching a scroll, her eyes wide with something between terror and joy.
Wei Min whispered:
"They tried to reach the Gate without harmony. Their souls cracked the moment they glimpsed it."
They camped in silence that night, within a broken stone archway shaped like a lotus folding in on itself.
Li Shen meditated beneath the stars. His blades lay before him like sleeping sentinels.
In his vision, the Crucible Blade pulsed, the Blade of Breath stirred like wind through leaves, and the Jade Eternity glowed with soft warmth.
But behind them, in the shadow of his spirit, something deeper called.
A blade without form, whose name could not yet be spoken.
On the fourth dawn, they stood above the Valley of Wanstone.
It was not a valley in any natural sense—it was a wound, carved deep and unnaturally wide, lined with monoliths of black quartz that hummed faintly when stepped near.
At the center, a single stairway descended into earth—impossibly long, vanishing into lightless shadow.
Above it hovered a monument: a shattered blade the size of a dragon's ribcage, suspended in air and cracked down its middle.
Wei Min knelt.
"The First Sword. The Nameless Edge. It shattered during the Severance War."
"And the Gate lies beneath?"
Wei Min nodded.
"Once entered, the Gate of Endings can never be left unchanged. Or… for some, never left at all."
Li Shen stepped toward the stair.
His breath slowed.
The wind whispered of endings.
The descent took seven hours.
Each hundred steps, an echo greeted him—his own voice, answering questions he had not yet spoken aloud:
"What do you fear?"
"What have you forsaken?"
"Why do you still carry hope?"
When he reached the bottom, there was no gate.
There was only a reflection.
A lake of liquid silver—perfectly still, perfectly flat—spanning the cavern floor. Above it floated the Gate, invisible save for the distortion in the air and the scent of cold iron.
Wei Min stayed above.
Only the destined may cross.
Li Shen stepped forward—and the silver rippled.
"Who seeks the End?"
A voice not spoken, but felt.
Li Shen bowed.
"I am Li Shen. Sword of the Phoenix. Bearer of the Crucible Flame. I seek not the end—but the sword that ends falsehood."
"Then take the Trial of Echoes."
The lake swallowed him whole.
He fell not downward, but inward.
Into memory. Into selves he had never lived, and selves he had left behind.
Echo One: The Coward
He stood in a ruined temple, watching his master die. In this world, Li Shen had fled instead of fighting.
The master's eyes turned to him with sorrow.
"Is this the sword you carry now?" he asked.
Li Shen did not answer. He stepped forward and raised the Crucible Blade—not in anger, but in grief.
The echo wept and dissolved.
Echo Two: The Tyrant
Li Shen stood in black robes, ruling over conquered cities with a flaming sword. His name invoked terror.
This echo grinned.
"Power was always yours. You chose to suffer instead."
They dueled.
Sword Form: Echo Strikes Before the Bell.
Sword Form: Heaven Shatters, Dust Remains.
Li Shen cut through the illusion with the Blade of Breath, which sang in response.
"I choose balance," Li Shen said, "not control."
The tyrant dissolved into ash.
Echo Three: The Hollow
Here was Li Shen with no past. No future. A shell in monk robes, with eyes like blank water.
This echo raised no sword.
It simply whispered:
"What will you become, when all memory is taken from you?"
Li Shen trembled.
He dropped his weapons.
He stepped forward and embraced the echo.
And it smiled.
And vanished.
At the center of the lake stood a pedestal of bone-white stone.
Upon it rested a blade forged of silence, shaped from nothing and everything. It did not reflect light. It bent it. It was absence given edge.
As he approached, the sword stirred.
It asked no question.
It demanded no trial.
It simply waited.
Li Shen reached forward and wrapped his fingers around the hilt.
In that moment, the cavern cracked with unbound light.
The Nameless Edge did not cut through steel.
It cut through certainty.
When he held it, Li Shen saw the past not as it was—but as it could have been.
He saw every blade he'd ever held—the Sword of Origin, the Jade Eternity, the Crucible Flame, the Blade of Breath—reflected and made whole.
And still, this one was different.
It was finality given shape.
"You are the last wielder," said the Gate.
"And you are the sword that breaks illusions," Li Shen replied.
When he emerged from the depths, Wei Min stepped back.
"Your eyes," she whispered. "They've changed."
They had.
They held endings now.
And above, the Hollow King stirred.
Next
With the Nameless Edge in hand, Li Shen must now cross the Fields of Forgotten Flame, where the Hollow King gathers the remnants of the Ashen Pact for a final assault.