The Citadel of Echoes groaned with a sound that was not of stone or steel, but of reality itself straining at the seams. Light bent along unnatural angles. Walls flickered between memory and ruin. What once was the stronghold of the Hollow Council now crumbled under the weight of betrayal and battle.
At its heart, beneath the shattered skylight of the Grand Hall of Null Echoes, stood the last circle of the Hollow King's chosen:
Veyra of the Silent Veil, mistress of the Moon-Thread Whip.
Xian Mournroot, the Pale Blade of the Sunken Sect.
General Tor Qan, wreathed in dusk armor forged from soul-metal.
And at the center, seated as if the Citadel was not burning around him, Severin the Hollow Mouth, first voice of the King.
Around them, death bloomed like petals in midair.
The Final Storm Begins
Li Shen advanced through the burning gates, the Nameless Edge humming in resonance with the citadel's dying echo. Behind him followed Rin of the Mirror Vale, face painted in blood and ash, and Master Baelin, now wielding a blade of fractured crystal—reborn from his broken staff.
Their arrival was not quiet.
With a single gesture, Tor Qan roared and brought down a slab of wall, but Li Shen cleaved through it without breaking stride. Moonsteel and memory collided as the forces of past and present erupted in chaos.
Duel 1: Rin vs. Veyra of the Silent Veil
Veyra moved like unraveling silk. Her whip, woven of chi-infused moon-thread, danced with lethal grace, each flick capable of severing skin, memory, or hope. But Rin was faster.
They fought along the crumbling stairs, whip against fan-blade, light against illusion. Veyra conjured hallucinations—visions of Rin's past: her sister's death, her master's fall, the night she bled alone in the Mirror Vale. But Rin, eyes aflame, spun through them like wind through frost.
"You think my past will stop me? I drink it. I burn it. I've named every scar."
With a rising shriek, she used the technique "Veilbreak Waltz", slicing through illusions and coiling Veyra's own whip around her neck. With a twist and a final exhale, the whip snapped—followed by silence.
Duel 2: Master Baelin vs. Xian Mournroot
Xian stepped like a ghost. His blade dripped with the souls of drowned monks, each strike a prayer from the abyss. Baelin met him with crystal and flame, forming the Twelve Petal Parry, a defensive form said to deflect the weight of oceans.
Their fight raged along the bridge of broken time—glass tiles shattering beneath their feet. Xian called upon the Tide of the Forgotten, a tidal wave of drowned echoes, but Baelin stood firm, driving his staff-sword into the very heart of the deluge.
"You think the tide will erase me, boy? I was there when the sea screamed its first lie."
With a roar, he unleashed Cradle of the Phoenix Monk, a spiraling blaze of flame and chi that turned the wave—and Xian—with it. The Pale Blade collapsed, steam rising from his cracked sword.
Duel 3: Li Shen vs. General Tor Qan
Tor Qan did not wait. With a bellow, he charged, swinging a duskblade that weighed like a mountain. Sparks flew. Every blow he delivered cracked the earth, and every strike Li Shen returned chipped away at the armor hiding the man beneath.
Their battle was brutal. Not elegant. Not artful. Just pain.
Tor Qan wielded the Oath-Crushing Style, a form designed to destroy techniques, not defend against them. Li Shen adapted, abandoning form for instinct. He remembered Wraithbone Hollow. He remembered the Mountain of Dying Echoes.
He remembered who he was.
With a roar, Li Shen launched Skybound Ash, a technique learned in desperation—one that burned the lungs and spine to unleash a single vertical slash. It caught Tor Qan at the joint between pauldron and chestplate, splitting the general in a flash of light.
The Hollow Voice Speaks
The battlefield fell silent.
Severin rose from his throne, eyes like glass voids.
"You believe death brings change. You are wrong. Death is a door that only opens inwards. And behind it… nothing waits."
With a gesture, he unleashed the Voice of Hollow Flame.
The room disintegrated.
Reality peeled. Time slowed. The stones beneath them aged a thousand years and turned to dust. Severin was not fighting—he was unmaking.
Li Shen stepped forward.
The Nameless Edge sang, and a shield of memory bloomed around him. The Echo of All Blades—a technique only his sword could perform—absorbed the strikes and turned them into silhouettes of every master he had ever faced.
Jian Tu of the Falling Palm. The Ghost Monk of Wraithbone. His own father.
They stood behind him now, ephemeral and fierce.
Together, they faced Severin.
Breaking the Circle
Li Shen's final strike did not glow. It did not scream. It whispered.
"This is for the names you erased."
He struck with Remembrance Form: Final Petal—a technique so silent it could only be heard in the soul.
Severin crumbled, unraveling like parchment soaked in rain.
And then the Citadel began to collapse.
Escape From the Void
The citadel's spine cracked. The Hollow Flame at its heart destabilized. As walls caved, Li Shen and the others fled through the arch of broken stars, chased by time distortions and falling sky.
Rin dragged Baelin through the gate as it collapsed behind them. Li Shen leapt last, holding the Nameless Edge to the sky, severing a descending pillar of Hollow Flame before it could follow.
The Citadel of Echoes fell into itself—into memory, into nothing.
And the Inner Circle of the Hollow King was no more.