The road to the Forbidden Capital was lined with ghosts—ruined temples, sunken waystations, and graves with no names.
They moved carefully.
By day, they hid beneath merchant veils, passing as wandering monks and cartographers. By night, Shenhai trained. Each swing of his sword felt heavier now—not in weight, but in meaning. The blade no longer merely cut; it remembered.
But so did the world.
News spread through border towns of a boy who fought fate at the Sky Loom. Of a girl with a map in her eye. Of a monk whose bell once rang at the gates of heaven.
The rumors carried faster than feet.
Which is why the empire sent a hunter.
They were ambushed near the Black Pearl Pass.
A bridge carved from obsidian stretched over a roaring gorge. They reached the center before Meiyan froze.
"We're being watched."
From the far end, a lone man stepped forward—tall, silver hair tied with red silk, a scar crossing his jaw like a signature.
He wore the uniform of an old sect—Stormblade Pavilion.
Shenhai's breath caught.
That was his father's sect.
The man stopped ten paces away. "Li Shenhai," he said.
His voice was like steel dragged across gravel.
"I am Yun Feilong. Your father's final student. His sword-brother."
Baimu moved to step forward, but Shenhai raised a hand. "You knew my father?"
"I bled beside him," Yun said. "Until he vanished. Until he betrayed us all."
He unsheathed a blade—the twin of Shenhai's own.
It sang the same name.
Meiyan whispered, "It's made from the same metal."
Yun pointed his sword at Shenhai. "That scroll you carry… it is not a legacy. It is a chain. Li Zhen stole it from the empire, and now you carry the weight of his treason."
"Why?" Shenhai asked. "Why would he steal it? Why vanish?"
Yun's face twisted. "Because your father was trying to unmake the empire."
"And he nearly succeeded."
Blades clashed.
It was not a duel—it was a declaration.
Yun moved like thunder, each strike laced with old grief and deadly precision. Shenhai blocked, parried, stepped back. But he was no longer just reacting—he was remembering. The blade in his hand echoed every movement Yun made, then reshaped them.
It was as if the sword knew this fight had happened before.
And this time, it wanted to finish it.
On the twelfth exchange, Shenhai's blade sliced Yun's shoulder.
Blood sprayed across the obsidian.
Yun dropped to one knee, eyes wide.
"You've unlocked the first memory…" he said, almost in awe. "He really did seal it into you."
Shenhai lowered his sword. "Tell me everything."
But Yun only laughed.
"I can't. I've already betrayed him once."
He tapped a sigil on his wrist, and vanished into smoke.
Meiyan cursed. "A shadow-swap. He was never fully here."
Shenhai stared into the gorge.
His heart thundered with questions.
That night, they camped by the ashes of a forgotten shrine.
Baimu tended to Shenhai's bruises. "Yun wasn't just testing your blade," he said. "He was testing your will."
"He was my father's brother-in-arms," Shenhai whispered. "And now he's an agent of the same empire my father tried to destroy."
"Or," Meiyan said from the shadows, "he's a double agent. Torn, like you."
She tossed Shenhai a scrap of cloth—Yun's discarded headband.
Etched into it, hidden behind layers of faded silk, was the same symbol from Shenhai's dreams:
The crimson moon.
And the broken sword.
Later, as the fire dimmed and the stars wheeled above them, Shenhai asked quietly:
"If I am my father's heir… what was he fighting for?"
Baimu and Meiyan said nothing.
Because the answer no longer lay in words.
It lay in the path ahead—
In blood and ash.
In scroll and sword.
In trust, and its betrayal.