"When the dragons stir, so too must the bones that dared forget them."
— Scripture of the Eastern Wind, Fragment II
👁 The Mourning Emissary Arrives
The spirit-boat cut across the sea like an omen. No waves rose in its wake. No birds circled above.
The Mourning Emissary stood cloaked in layers of woven grief-silk, the kind only spun by the Sorrow Weavers of the Eastern Steppes. Her veil shimmered with blood-mourning patterns—sigils of names too old to pronounce.
She stepped onto Shellspine Isle, and the sea itself recoiled a little.
"You carry the blade of the drowned," she said, voice soft but cold.
"And the fire of the forgotten."
Jin, standing among the gathered sects and the newly awakened Shellborne Host, said nothing. His hand rested calmly on the pommel of the now-invisible Leviathan Blade, stored within his spiritual sea.
"Why has the East sent an emissary?" T'ai-Vor asked. "The Pact was not yours to recall."
The Emissary turned slightly.
"Because the East has received word… that the Dragon Gathering has begun."
Every sect master, even the oldest among them, froze.
Lin Xue's eyes widened.
Su Ren staggered backward.
Ash-Eye dropped his jade pipe.
The Dragon Gathering had not been summoned in over three thousand years.
"The claws have been counted," the Emissary said. "And the one who burned the Accord now holds one of the Seven Keys. He must attend."
🔑 The Seven Keys of Gathering
Jin frowned.
"What key?"
The Emissary raised her staff. A glowing seal pulsed in the air behind her, revealing an ancient structure of draconic law.
"The Leviathan Blade was forged by Muruk'an himself.
Any who bears it now, awakened and bonded, is Keeper of the Fifth Key: Memory Flame Tide."
"I didn't choose to hold a key."
"The Gathering does not ask for choice."
The Emissary turned, pointing east.
"Three days' time. Atop the Cinder Spine Peaks, where the Dragons last walked before the world was silenced.
You must bring your memories… and your war."
T'ai-Vor stepped forward.
"He won't go alone."
"No," said Lin Xue. "Neither will we."
The sects murmured in growing unity.
"The Realms fracture. The Western Sea remembers. The Eastern Winds stir. The Northern Blades sharpen.
And now… the Gathering begins."
The Emissary bowed once and dissolved into mist.
🛡 Preparations for the Eastward March
Jin spent the next hours speaking with each sect leader. The realization was sinking in: the tide was no longer regional. This was no longer a battle of coastal memory or sect pride.
It was something older.
Something continental.
Something divine.
T'ai-Vor gifted him a companion—Vo'Kora, a Sea-Pact war beast resembling a manta-ray forged from living tideglass. It would serve as Jin's mount and guardian.
"Vo'Kora remembers the flames that once drowned her," T'ai-Vor said. "She will carry you beyond the realm of memory and into prophecy."
Lin Xue and Su Ren assembled a traveling host—thirty elite cultivators across four sects.
Ash-Eye, for once, said nothing—but slipped an eastern compass-stone into Jin's cloak.
"It always points to the truth you fear most."
Jin nodded, eyes distant.
"Let the Gathering begin."
🐉 The First Signs
As they departed Shellspine Isle, the air shimmered.
Above them, the clouds twisted into seven draconic eyes, each blinking once before vanishing.
In the North, the Steel-Jaw Tiger Clans began sharpening celestial blades.
In the South, the Nine-Petal Lotus Empire lit their beacon torches.
In the East, a mountain breathed.
In the West, the sea remembered fire.
The Realms stirred.
And far above, beyond mortal eyes, seven dragons—once sealed by Jin's betrayal in his first life—began to awaken.
One of them opened a single eye.
"The Hollow Flame returns…
and the balance begins to crack."