The tunnel whispered.
It wasn't a sound that echoed — not footsteps or wind — but a crawling murmur, as if a thousand voices slept in the stone and stirred as Rael passed.
Yue followed behind, her steps silent. The glow from her blade cast shifting moonlight along the obsidian walls, catching on carvings etched deep into the stone — old sigils and stylized skulls, warnings perhaps, or forgotten oaths.
The deeper they walked, the colder it became.
But not the kind of cold that numbed the flesh.
This cold was memory.
It pressed into the bones and made the heart heavy.
Rael's fingers brushed against one of the carvings. It pulsed faintly beneath his touch, like a slow heartbeat buried under rock. The system remained quiet, subdued in this place—as if even it hesitated to interpret the crypt's power.
"Physique resonance: dormant."
He withdrew his hand.
"There's something ahead," Yue whispered. "Do you hear it?"
Rael nodded.
It was a sound that didn't quite belong — the clinking of metal. Chains, perhaps. Or armor brushing stone.
They emerged into a wider space.
A chamber shaped like a funnel, with countless narrow ledges spiraling downward toward a pit at the center. Around the edges, ancient iron chains hung like vines. Dozens of broken corpses lay sprawled across the levels — some armored, others dressed in monk robes, but all bearing the same cracked bone masks.
Yue exhaled. "They were trying to reach it too."
Rael followed her gaze.
At the bottom of the pit, something glowed.
Not light — darkness. But a darkness so condensed and radiant it took shape. A sigil of death formed in the air above it: a withered eye surrounded by eight jagged points.
The Fourth Brand.
Rael felt his chest tighten. Not from fear — from memory.
That same eye had been carved into the chest of the masked man who murdered the twins in his unit back in the lower continent. That death still sat in his mind like hot iron.
Yue tensed. "Something's coming."
The air warped.
From the spiral paths above, several black-robed figures descended, their movements too graceful to be mortal. They didn't climb or fall — they flowed, like smoke given form.
Each wore a full bone mask, their mouths sewn shut by threads of Qi.
"Split Silence," Rael muttered.
One figure floated to the center platform and landed silently. His mask bore a vertical crack across both eye sockets — a sign of command.
He raised a single pale finger toward Rael.
Then the system triggered.
"Host has been marked by a Dead Silence Executor."
"Warning: These entities operate outside natural qi flows. Martial techniques will be disrupted."
Yue's grip tightened on her sword.
"They're immune to suppression techniques," she whispered. "I'll try to flank. You go."
Rael didn't argue.
The air exploded as the Executor leapt.
---
The first clash was silent.
Rael's sword struck nothing but shadow. The masked man had already vanished, reappearing behind him mid-strike.
Rael twisted.
His knee shot up into the enemy's gut while his left hand threw a pulse of Qi backward — not as a weapon, but to anchor himself. The recoil steadied his body long enough to deflect the following strike with his forearm.
Bones cracked.
Blood sprayed.
But it wasn't his.
Rael had hidden a blade along the gauntlet of his right arm. It slid clean through the Executor's stomach, but the man didn't flinch — not even as darkness spilled out instead of blood.
"Not alive," Rael muttered.
But that meant he could use the Ash Vein Flow — a style that ignored pain and used internal pressure to rupture Qi cores.
Rael shifted his stance.
The Executor lunged again — but this time, Rael met him with a side-step and slammed his elbow into the mask.
Crack.
The mask split, and the man screamed soundlessly as his body twisted into dust.
From above, Yue danced between three more of them, her blade trailing silver arcs like moonlight through water. Where her strikes landed, the flesh of her enemies evaporated — her techniques didn't just cut, they purified.
She yelled, "Rael, now!"
At the base of the pit, the Fourth Brand pulsed.
Rael leapt.
Each step down the spiraling ledge triggered memories of every fight he'd endured. Not visions, but emotions. Fear. Guilt. Hunger. Anger. They clawed at his mind as if testing him one last time.
But he didn't waver.
He reached the bottom.
The Brand hovered, waiting.
"Warning: Claiming the Fourth Brand will cost a piece of your psyche."
"Proceed?"
Rael stared into the black sigil.
What would he lose?
Memories? Emotions? The last time he gained power like this, he'd become colder. Sharper. He didn't know what part of him had been carved away—but he remembered waking with fewer dreams.
He clenched his jaw.
"I'll pay."
And reached out.
---
The world shattered.
But this time, it didn't pull him into illusion.
It opened.
He stood not in the crypt, but on a battlefield of bones — endless and lifeless. In the center, a throne of ash. And sitting upon it, not a man — but himself.
Rael stared at the figure.
His double met his eyes. "If you keep taking from yourself," it said, "one day, you'll have nothing left."
Rael stepped forward. "Then I'll rebuild. Stronger."
The double grinned.
And shattered into dust.
The Brand surged into his chest.
"Fourth Brand acquired: Vein of Silence."
"Temporary trait obtained: Ashen Sense — allows detection of intent through emotional residue."
"Cost: One cherished memory—erased."
Rael gasped.
His mind raced.
What had he lost?
He couldn't tell.
And that hurt more than anything.
---
Yue dropped beside him, panting.
The remaining Executors had vanished, sensing the Brand's awakening.
She placed a hand on his arm.
"You alright?"
Rael nodded.
But his voice was hollow.
"I think… I forgot something. Something important."
Yue didn't press.
Instead, she helped him stand.
Together, they turned away from the crypt — unaware that far above, the stars had begun to shift, marking his ascension.
And somewhere, deep in the wilds of the Cloudvein Continent, a beast with seven eyes stirred from slumber, its gaze fixated on the boy who now carried the fourth mark of silence.