The change came in an instant.
The fog convulsed, tearing apart as if some giant hand had ripped the heavens open from behind. The ash-path trembled, stone blocks grinding against one another. Above, the suspended chains of runes screamed like iron wrenched from its moorings, sparks hissing across the air as though the very laws of the world were trying to escape the road ahead before it was devoured.
From the heart of the mist, Mok'er unfolded.
The beast's form, half bone, half dreamstuff, shuddered and then burst outward. Flames surged—silent flames, vast as a tidal wave, rolling forward in a storm of light. It was not fire as mortals knew it; it carried no heat, no smoke. Yet wherever it touched, marrow ignited, blood unraveled, veins turned to powder.
Shen Jin's vision snapped to black.
He fell, or felt himself dragged downward, a thousand unseen hands clawing at his limbs. The path beneath his boots vanished. He landed, but not on stone. Around him spread a plain of bones, endless, infinite, each ribcage and spine blazing with white fire. Every flame licked with a hiss, the sound not of wood burning but of candle wicks sputtering by the tens of thousands, sharp and eerie, like whispers carried on the edge of death.
He looked down. His own hands were aflame. Flesh peeled in strips. Bone glowed beneath, shining like a lantern, his body being consumed, written over by this impossible fire. In his palm, the Seal blazed, throbbing like a heart not his own. Heat speared into his skull. His mind rang as though some immense pen were forcing itself onto his soul, trying to carve lines into him, word by word.
He tried to scream. No voice came. Only ash spilled from his lips, trailing down his chin. Every breath dragged fire into his lungs, scalding without flame.
Voices swarmed his ears.
—Bones are burning. Bones are burning.
—Names are devoured. Names are devoured.
—Yingzhao did not die. Yingzhao did not die.
Each syllable shattered across his consciousness like iron nails. They were not mere words but remnants of memory, shards of some ancient god's soul gnawed down to fragments. They cut him to pieces. His spirit felt carved apart, consciousness dimming, breaking, thinning to threads.
And Luo Qinghan—
She was still there, but in another fold of the nightmare. Light gathered around her, mirror-sigil after mirror-sigil spinning into being, wrapping her body in a veil of brilliance. Her wrist flicked, and the light condensed into a razor arc, slashing forward to meet the wall of bone-fire.
Steel-bright radiance clove the mist. But every strike met only shadows—phantoms fracturing away like ripples on water. They dissolved before her mirror-blade touched, leaving nothing, no wound, no resistance. The beast's body was not here, not there, but everywhere.
Her gaze sharpened to ice. The corners of her mouth were pale. Her spirit-energy drained with every breath. The dreamfire did not meet her blade; it slid around it like smoke, creeping across her shoulders, seeping against her neck. It slithered inward, a serpent of invisible flame.
Her body convulsed. Qi burst apart inside her veins as though a boulder had been hurled into a still lake. The veil of light shivered, and cracks were veining its surface. Shards of brilliance flaked away, scattering into the fog before winking out like dead sparks.
And then the laughter came.
A soundless roar that was not voice but vibration. It rose through the mist, up from every burning bone, through every shuddering chain, until it filled the air itself. Mok'er was laughing.
The laughter had no words, no steady syllables, only fragments, half dream, half ruin. It came broken, as though it could vanish at any breath, and yet it struck straight through flesh into marrow, echoing in places no human sound should reach.
Shen Jin crumpled, falling to his knees. His hands clawed the stone for anchor—stone that wasn't stone anymore but ash. His fingers dug in, and all he lifted was dust. The dust burst into sparks in his palm, burning bright as they wormed between his fingers, racing upward against the flow of blood.
Pain screamed through his arm. Firelines spread under his skin, glowing red through flesh, veins bulging until it felt like his entire arm would split open.
And then—he saw it.
Across the plain of bones, towering against the horizon, a corpse.
It stood upright, though its head was gone. Shoulders jagged with shattered wings. The spine nailed, bent beneath invisible chains. A monument of ruin. Behind it, shadows rose like a broken tombstone, whispering, urging, clawing at his soul with a single demand:
Write my name.
Shen Jin's head snapped back. His mind detonated. Inside, his sea of consciousness shook. The Seal's voice clashed with the beast's dream-chant, a storm of sound like war-drums, a cavalry charge, a thousand hooves pounding his veins.
He gagged. Blood—no, ash—spilled from his mouth.
Luo Qinghan felt it. Her mirror flared. She lunged, stepping deeper, trying to pierce into the dream that swallowed him. Her qi surged, flooding the sigil. Light rose and erupted, a rainbow arc, a hundred spans high, ripping forward through the fog.
For a heartbeat, it broke through. But then the light collapsed.
And she saw them.
Countless reflections, shards of herself, standing within the broken glass of reality. They looked at her with cold eyes, lips curled, mocking, disdainful. The sight slowed her. Each breath came jagged. Spirit scattered, running wild, destabilizing.
In her mind's depths, something flickered—blue fire, brief, spectral. A soul stirring, restless. Something not entirely her own.
And Mok'er lowered its head.
Half its face was bone aflame, half a churning mass of dream-dark. Between its teeth, a cold fire danced, tongues of azure writhing where flesh should be. Hollow eyesockets fixed on her and Shen Jin alike, a gaze like absence, like mockery.
It did not leap. It did not strike.
It exhaled.
The breath came as a pallid vapor, a mist like a tide of rot. But it was more. A force older than words.
The Bone-Scorching Breath.
It surged forward, neither smoke nor flame but a tide of both, burning heat and the stench of marrow rotting, of corpses scorched until nothing remained but black ash.
Where the breath passed, the road fell away. Stones collapsed to dust. Chains above snapped and dissolved. Even the air split, ripples cracking as if reality itself was a pane of glass breaking apart.
The breath rushed toward Shen Jin.
The Seal in his hand erupted, carvings glowing red, scarlet lines unraveling up his arm. The brand pulsed in agony, out of control, writhing like a nest of serpents. He groaned, his throat seizing as the force hammered into him, driving his soul deeper into the labyrinth of the dream. Flesh and spirit both shook, shaking as though torn in two.
But she moved.
Luo Qinghan blurred forward, holding her personal mirror in her hands. The artifact flared, unfolding into a broad shield of light across Shen Jin's chest.
The breath struck.
The mirror-sigil screamed. Light trembled like glass on the verge of breaking. She braced, every vein alight, her body shuddering as the power crashed through her. Stones beneath her heels exploded, breaking apart with each step.
Blood traced her lip. It slid down her chin. But her eyes—they were harder than steel.
The world tore.
Dreamfire and Bone-Scorching Breath crossed, weaving together into a net of annihilation. Reality itself bent under the weight.
On one side of the divide, Shen Jin knelt in a wasteland of burning skeletons, every step surrounded by fire devouring memory. On the other, Luo Qinghan fought in a shattered hall of mirrors, her mirror-light cutting illusions that multiplied each time she struck.
Two spaces, two prisons.
And Mok'er stood at the center, half beast, half god, a mad titan of ruin, its body dissolving and returning with every breath. It was the master of this twisted theater, the conductor of this nightmare symphony.
Its whispers never stopped.
Bones are burning. Names are devoured. Yingzhao did not die.
Shen Jin raised his head. Sweat poured cold over his brow. He forced his eyes open and through the shifting plains of nightmare, he saw her—her back, steady, lit by trembling light, standing against the flood.
Her body shook, but her mirror was raised.
And in that moment, he knew. They were both bound here. Not just body, but soul. Both burning. Both unraveling. If they did not break free, together they would vanish into the mist, ground into nothing but dust and silence.
The Seal in his palm screamed. Fire spread. Symbols writhed, ready to break skin.
And Mok'er's voice grew clearer, sharper, closer, as though it whispered from inside his own blood.
And the world was fire and madness.