The moment Li Shen's fingers closed around the hilt of the Eidolon Blade, the Hollow trembled as if the bones of the world had just been torn from rest.
Cracks spiderwebbed through the chamber's floor. The walls, once lined with sleeping swords, groaned and shattered, hurling shards of qi-forged steel in all directions. The frozen sconces flickered—then burst in blue flames, bathing the room in ghostlight.
A piercing scream echoed from deep within the monument—a sound that did not belong to any mortal creature. It was grief made voice. Memory set loose.
The Hollow was dying.
Li Shen sheathed the Eidolon Blade across his back and leapt up the crumbling stairwell. The path behind him fell into darkness, swallowed by collapsing stone. He moved with fluid steps, weaving between falling debris, channeling Ocean Step techniques to leap from edge to ledge.
But his balance faltered.
The Eidolon Blade weighed more than steel. It dragged at his soul, pressing into the cracks of his will. Its power bled into him—raw and ancient—stirring echoes of voices that were not his own.
He gritted his teeth and pressed on.
At the Hollow's basin, the sword-mists had turned to a storm. Broken blades floated in the air, spinning in wild orbits. The monument had split apart, and the statues of the old sects screamed as they cracked and wept molten tears.
Li Shen sprinted.
A geyser of spectral flame erupted to his left—he dove, rolled, and countered the burning wind with a sweep of the Ocean Soul Blade.
Second Form: Tidal Cage.
A sphere of water crashed into the incoming flames, creating steam that blinded him—but also cloaked him from another strike of elemental qi that lashed from a nearby broken sword.
Something was awakening beneath the Hollow.
Something not meant to see light again.
He reached the final ledge—the winding path that led out of Wraithbone Hollow.
But standing there, barring his path, was a figure he did not expect.
Not a man. Not a ghost.
A memory made flesh.
It wore no face—only a mirrored surface, as though the world itself reflected in it. Its robes were those of the First Swordmaster. And in its hands, it held a perfect copy of the Eidolon Blade.
Li Shen froze.
The figure raised its blade and bowed.
"Prove yourself, Wielder of Three."
No more words.
It attacked.
The Memory Specter struck like thought—instant, sharp, impossible. The mirrored blade clashed against Li Shen's Ocean Soul, and the force of the impact sent thunderclaps through the air.
Li Shen countered, spinning into Sixth Form: Breaker of Currents, twisting his blade into a reverse-grip arc and launching a water lash toward the specter's legs.
It passed through without harm.
The faceless warrior responded with a flick of the Eidolon twin—Void Edge—and slashed through space itself.
Li Shen barely ducked.
The air screamed where the blade passed. Stone disintegrated in its wake.
He could not fight this with Ocean Soul alone.
He drew the Mirror Vale Blade.
Seventh Reflection: Mirror Moon Split.
He vanished into six reflections—phantoms dancing across broken snow and steel. The specter hesitated for half a breath.
That was enough.
Li Shen surged forward, real and illusion overlapping, and drove both swords in a crisscrossed strike against the specter's core.
But—
The specter did not fall.
It looked down at the blades in its chest and simply said:
"You still doubt."
And it exploded.
The force hurled Li Shen into the air, over the edge of the ledge. For a heartbeat, the sky spun—and then he landed on the icy slope outside the Hollow, rolling hard against frozen earth.
He groaned, struggling to breathe.
The Eidolon Blade lay beside him, steaming.
He reached out, fingers trembling—and the moment he touched it, a scream tore from his throat.
Memories flooded him.
Not images. Feelings.
He felt what it meant to betray a sect.
He felt what it meant to be hunted for the knowledge he once protected.
He felt the final moments of the First Swordmaster—surrounded, bleeding, sealing his soul into the blade to keep the truth from ever returning.
Li Shen gasped.
The snow around him melted in a perfect circle as his qi surged uncontrollably.
His own swords rejected him for a moment—Mirror Vale dulled, Ocean Soul hissed steam.
His body trembled.
The Eidolon Blade was not a weapon.
It was a burden.
And yet—
He stood.
The wind died.
Wraithbone Hollow collapsed behind him, buried beneath a landslide of ancient grief.
Li Shen turned his back on it.
Ahead, the frozen forest awaited—white trees heavy with snow, silent sentinels watching him pass. His robes were torn, his blades worn, but his spirit burned.
He had survived.
He had claimed the Eidolon Blade.
But something had changed.
He no longer walked as merely a swordsman.
He walked as a legacy awakened.
And somewhere, far from the cold wastes, in the jade towers of the Hollow Council—
A bell tolled.
Its sound did not travel through air.
It traveled through blood.