"Some dragons are born to fly. Some are born to die.
But the rarest kind… are born to remember."
— From the Forbidden Hatchery Scrolls of the Eastern Void
🌫️ Sky Isle: The Drifting Cradle
The Hollow-Bound Four stepped onto a trembling platform of floating light and mist. The sky isle they reached was unlike the others. No throne. No ruin. No warborn sigil.
Just a single egg, half-buried in a nest of silver vines, surrounded by glowing runes that pulsed like heartbeat patterns.
The egg was enormous—twice the size of a war ox—and etched with unreadable glyphs, the script flickering in and out of visibility as though fighting to be remembered.
Su Ren froze. Her breath hitched.
"This isn't just a dragon egg… it's a sealed one."
"It was never meant to awaken in this age."
"Then why is it stirring now?" Jin asked.
Ash-Eye looked up at the clouds above. They were spiraling unnaturally, forming a circle as if some eye beyond the heavens was watching.
"Because something has changed."
"Because you are here."
🐣 The Egg – Breathing Without Hatching
Without warning, the egg exhaled.
A wave of psychic pressure swept out—not violent, but ancient.
The air shimmered with the shape of a dragon that had never been born, its limbs incomplete, its roar silent, its wings not yet unfurled. But its soul was fully formed.
And it remembered something.
A time before kingdoms. Before cultivation.
When dragons were the custodians of balance, and the sky had no owner.
Jin stepped forward.
The Mourner's Crown throbbed—resonating not with dominance or power, but shared memory.
"This one was never meant to fly," Su Ren whispered, approaching gently.
"It was meant to hold back the heavens. A seal. A sacrifice."
"It is not a dragon of wrath…" Lin Xue murmured.
"It's a dragon of memory."
⚖️ The Decision – To Break or Not to Break
Around the egg, a series of ancient dragon wards emerged from the soil, whispering:
"Let it sleep."
"Break the egg, and the balance of flame and sky will falter."
"Its dreams keep a gate closed. A gate that should never open."
And yet the dragon soul inside was stirring not in rage, but in pain.
"It's awake," Jin said quietly.
"But it doesn't know who it is."
"Can you help it remember?" Su Ren asked.
"Only if I do something unforgivable."
Jin reached into his own soul-sea, into the depths of his cultivation path—where the Second Hollow Form resided, partially formed—and offered it to the egg.
A part of his emptiness. His stillness. His death.
The dragon accepted.
The egg cracked.
🌌 Birth Without Fire – A Dragon of Echoes
Instead of hatching with fire and blood, the dragon emerged as a spirit of memory and wind—a serpentine form made of reflected dreams and hollow sky.
It did not roar.
It did not cry.
It remembered.
"You are… not our kind. Yet you carry silence… like one of us."
"I am K'Yaruun. The Gateborn. The Last Lock."
The dragon spoke directly into their hearts.
"You should not have awakened me.
But if you had not… I would have forgotten why I slept."
It coiled around Jin once—not binding, but understanding.
"I do not grant you flight. I grant you weight."
"You now carry a name that the sky fears."
And then, the sky above them cracked—just slightly.
Revealing a golden gate with seven chains.
One of them had begun to fray.
📜 Echo Gained – Memory of the Gateborn
You have gained: "K'Yaruun's Favor" – Dragon Echo (Hatchling Class)
May summon K'Yaruun's soulform once per battle to negate one spiritual or memory-based attack
Passive Ability: Dream Weight – You cannot be erased or forgotten by memory-based techniques or temporal warping
World Trait Altered: The Seventh Chain of the Sky Gate has been weakened by 2%
Mourner's Crown Awakening: 96%
New Keyword Unlocked: "Gatefall"
🌍 World Response
In the Northern Flame Empire, the heavens shimmer red for one breath.
An ancient draconic clan in the far west howls as a tattoo on their patriarch's back begins to melt.
A wandering sword monk drops his blade, staring into the sky and saying:
"The Gate remembers… we are no longer safe."
In a hidden sect, buried under ten thousand tons of stone, a voice whispers through a dying disciple's ears:
"The egg cracked. So shall the sky."
The Hollow-Bound Four stood in silence.
Behind them, K'Yaruun coiled once more, then vanished into the mist—returning to dream.
The path ahead now shimmered with a golden line, barely visible to those not blessed by memory.
Jin did not smile.
But he whispered something only the wind heard:
"If you were meant to seal the heavens… then what am I meant to unseal?"