The sky above Broken Sky Peak cracked open with thunder not natural, but a resonance of ancient arrays awakening. The mountaintop had once been sacred ground for Dao duels, now long-forgotten… or so Li Fan thought.
He stood beside Yan Mei on the cracked plateau, wind ripping at his robes. Behind them, the path to the Mirror Tomb still glowed faintly with soullight. In front of them stood five cultivators clad in red-gray robes faces hidden by bone masks.
"Let me guess," Li Fan muttered. "Ash Puppets?"
Yan Mei's fingers tightened around her blade. "They're corpse-bound constructs. Mindless… usually."
One stepped forward. Its mask cracked open.
"Li Fan. Yan Mei," said the thing in a voice far too human. "You have trespassed into layers sealed by celestial decree."
Li Fan narrowed his eyes. "Who sent you?"
The puppet's eyes glowed faintly red. "An old friend. One who remembers the man you were before you called yourself 'Li Fan.'"
His pulse faltered.
"You're lying."
"No," the puppet replied. "We're here to bring you home."
Without warning, it stomped its foot and the mountain exploded with shifting runes.
A grand array activated beneath their feet.
Yan Mei spun and slashed, destroying three glyph anchors but more flared to life. Runes lifted into the sky like glowing serpents, encircling them both.
"A formation duel," she growled. "You're boxed in."
"I know," Li Fan replied, calm despite the encroaching glyphs.
He rolled his sleeve up, revealing tattoos inked across his forearm scripts written in a language even Yan Mei didn't recognize.
He bit his thumb, smeared blood across the skin, and whispered:
"Let all hidden runes awaken. Let my words forge my path. Ink shall become foundation."
The glyphs ignited.
His body rose into the air just a few inches and the air around him shifted. Not aura, but gravity. Space. Sound. The Ash Puppets stumbled backward.
From his chest, a mark began to glow a swirling quill-shaped brand.
Yan Mei's eyes widened. "You're... breaking through?"
"No," he said, voice deeper now. "I'm rewriting."
Light burst from his body thousands of invisible symbols stitched into a script only the Dao could read.
"First Chapter of the Boundless Ink: Foundation by Stroke."
The Ash Puppets moved in unison, five attacks converging.
Too late.
With a single motion, Li Fan drew a glowing symbol in the air part seal, part sword technique and slammed it into the ground.
The peak split.
A massive calligraphy brush-shaped sword erupted from the rock, slamming through the attacking puppets and slicing a canyon down the mountain.
The formation collapsed.
Silence fell.
Yan Mei approached slowly. "You… established your foundation."
Li Fan turned, blood trickling from his nose. "Not just any foundation. One built from forgotten scripts. It responds to my will. Not the heavens'."
She didn't speak immediately.
Then, in a whisper: "That was beautiful."
He almost smiled before his body lurched forward.
Something was wrong.
His core wasn't stabilizing.
He fell to one knee, choking. Symbols flickered across his skin glitching, distorting. His body was resisting his own breakthrough.
Yan Mei caught him, dropped beside him, pressed her hand to his back.
"What's wrong?"
"They sealed something inside me," he gasped. "Someone…"
She activated a cleansing formation, trying to ground his Qi.
Then she heard it a voice, faint but whispering from inside him.
"Hello again, Yan Mei. I missed you."
She froze.
The voice was hers.
---
In the Citadel, the observer staggered from his mirror, eyes wide.
"He activated the Foundation of Ink," he muttered. "But the seal broke too soon…"
Behind him, the blindfolded prisoner trembled violently. Runes exploded across his shackles.
The observer turned.
"It's begun," he whispered.
"He remembers her voice."