A Map in Water
Dawn broke gently across the Sapphire Reach, the golden light softening the scars of battle and the crumbling bones of the Ocean Soul Temple. Li Shen stood atop a ridge, the wind catching his cloak as he unfurled the jade scroll shard Shu Yan had passed to him before falling into unconsciousness.
Though cracked and worn, the inscription still glimmered with runes of moon-touched ink. When touched with a trace of his water-aspected qi, the scroll shimmered—and a shifting map of translucent ink bloomed into the air above it.
Lines of coiling silver traced a path northeast beyond the Sapphire Reach, past the Whispering Flats, through an unmarked gorge nestled beneath two mountain peaks shaped like folding wings. At the heart of the gorge was a hollow basin, marked only with a single glyph:
"The Vale of Mirrors."
Below it, ancient script read:
Where water ceases to flow, and all faces lie—
There waits the blade that knows not truth nor shadow.
Li Shen frowned. He had never heard of such a place, even in his late master's teachings. The Ocean Soul Temple had many legends of the founding swords—elemental echoes from a time before the Five Courts had risen, each bound to a primal force. But the Mirror Vale Blade was myth, something spoken of in riddles.
He traced the map's path in the air once more, committing every detail to memory.
Then he looked east—and began walking.
Through the Whispering Flats
Three days passed.
The Sapphire Reach gave way to cracked salt plains and long, wavering mirages. The sky burned above, the wind sang in broken whistles, and the sun carved deep lines into his exposed skin.
These were the Whispering Flats—so named not for wind, but for what it left behind. Skeletal remains of travelers littered the cracked stone, and with them, whispered echoes drifted in the dry air. Voices from long ago, replaying fragments of lives lost to thirst, ambition, or madness.
Li Shen walked in silence. He did not speak to the whispers.
They hungered for response.
At night, he trained. Beneath a shattered moon, his sword danced in slow arcs through the air, flowing from the Tenth Form into improvisations of his own. He began to understand something Shu Yan had hinted at—the Forms were not ends; they were doors.
And sometimes, new doors opened only in solitude.
The Gorge of Winged Stone
On the seventh day, mountains broke the horizon—jagged and slate-gray, rising like wings split from a fallen god. A narrow gorge opened between them, its entrance veiled by vines and dead wind.
As Li Shen stepped into its shadow, the world changed.
Sound dulled.
The air thickened with a weight that made his breathing shallow. There was moisture, but no movement—still water collected in ancient grooves on the stone walls. He dipped his fingers in it and flinched—it was freezing cold, despite the summer heat outside.
The deeper he walked, the more the walls seemed to lean in.
The ground flattened into a bowl of dark rock veined with faint silver. Pools of water formed rings across the hollow, and mist rose from their surfaces.
He stepped into the heart of the basin.
And every pool lit up.
Dozens of mirrored surfaces shimmered with moonlight—though the sun had not yet set. Each reflection did not match the real world. In one, Li Shen saw himself as a child, eyes wide, sword too heavy. In another, his back was turned, blood on his hands. In a third, he wore robes of black and red—the colors of the Reaping Hand.
And in the largest pool, he saw nothing at all.
No reflection.
Only darkness.
And from that void, a voice came.
The Blade That Lies
"You seek the blade?" the voice asked—feminine, distant, unearthly.
Li Shen did not flinch. "I seek what was forgotten. I seek balance."
The mist surged. A shape rose from the central pool—humanoid, draped in robes of woven moonlight, with a veil of silver obscuring her face.
She carried a blade that shimmered between curved and straight, long and short, polished and cracked—each time Li Shen blinked, it changed form.
"The Mirror Vale Blade was sealed here not because it was evil," she said, "but because no one could hold it true. What you see in its steel is not your enemy—but your certainty. Are you ready to question it?"
Li Shen drew the Ocean Soul Blade and dropped to a ready stance.
"Show me."
The figure bowed—and vanished.
Then the reflections in the pools stepped out of their mirrors.
Three versions of himself.
—One young and impulsive, blade heavy, eyes burning with rage.
—One blood-soaked, ruthless, moving like a storm.
—One in the colors of the Reaping Hand, graceful and cruel.
All of them attacked.
Duel of the Self
Li Shen's first parry shattered the illusion of time.
Each version of himself moved with his own techniques, his own understanding of the Forms—but twisted. The child-self rushed, lashing out with wild strikes from the First and Third Form. The bloodied self used brutal, shortened counters—stripped of elegance. And the Reaping Hand self was precise, detached, using inverted versions of his Ocean Soul techniques.
He danced between them.
Eighth Form: Whisper Beneath Wake.
He dodged his child-self's slash, striking with a ghost-step.
Ninth Form: Grasping Undertow.
He let the bloodied self's thrust pass, then flipped him into the mirrored pool.
But the Reaping Hand self mirrored his movement exactly, countering Undertow with a twisted form called Sinking Fang—a technique Li Shen had never used, but felt disturbingly familiar.
Their blades clashed, and time seemed to slow.
"Is this what I become if I fail?" he asked.
"No," the reflection whispered. "This is what you become if you win without question."
Li Shen closed his eyes.
And in that moment, he felt the stillness again—not emptiness, but acceptance.
He flowed into a new stance—half-remembered, half-created.
Unnamed Form: The River Remembers Its Source.
He let the attack come.
Redirected.
Reflected.
And then—released.
The Reaping Hand self stumbled. And with a single, precise stroke, Li Shen disarmed all three illusions.
They dissolved into mist.
And the Vale fell silent.
In the Wake of Reflection
The figure in silver stepped forward once more.
She held out the shifting blade.
Li Shen reached forward.
The moment his hand touched the hilt, the mirror-sheen shattered—and the sword became whole. No longer shifting, but forged in pale moonsteel with a deep azure core. It felt lighter than the Ocean Soul Blade, but sharper, more honest.
"The Mirror Vale Blade is not yours to command," the figure said. "It is yours to confront. Wield it only when you are ready to face truth."
Li Shen sheathed it alongside his Ocean Soul Blade.
He bowed low.
And as he turned from the Vale, stepping back into sunlight, the shadows behind him whispered—darker forces were already moving. The Hollow Council would not sit idle. The Ashen Pact would not forgive what was lost.
And in the north, stormclouds gathered over a fortress of glass and fire.