The air was still, too still. Not even the corrupted wind of the Demon Realm stirred the brittle foliage around Zhao Lianxu as he knelt at the mouth of the Abyss. A chasm torn through the world, older than any empire, deeper than death itself. Before him, the ground fractured like shattered glass, veins of ancient energy glowing faintly in its crevices. The blackness below was absolute, devouring all light.
His breath misted in the sour, frigid air. Beside him, Princess Anmei stood silent, the weight of the moment pressing down on them both like the unseen hand of destiny. Her robes were tattered, darkened by blood and ash, yet her back remained straight. Her blade, half-drawn, pulsed with the last threads of celestial light it could summon in this cursed place.
Zhao reached out, brushing his fingers along the broken edge of the cliff. "It's not just a crack in the land," he murmured. "It's a memory. A scar from when the Heavens were wounded."
"You feel it too?" Anmei whispered.
He nodded. "It calls to me. Not like a voice, but like… grief. Endless grief."
The others remained behind, further up the ridge. General Kai argued quietly with Grandmistress Xue over their next move, while the Moonshade monks tended to the wounded. The last battle against Velkan's corrupted horde had left them fractured and drained. Even the healers' hands trembled as they lit sacred fires to hold the darkness at bay.
Zhao stood. "We descend at dawn."
Anmei's jaw tightened. "You know what lies below."
"I do. And I know what happens if we hesitate."
That night, Zhao dreamed.
He stood in a palace made of bones and silence, its corridors echoing with whispers of forgotten kings. At its heart sat a throne wrapped in chains. On it, not a demon, nor a god, but himself—older, colder, cloaked in shadows that hissed with madness.
"You cannot stop the Abyss," the future-him said, voice layered with voices of a thousand souls. "You were born from it. Molded by grief. Birthed by betrayal."
Zhao reached for his blade, but it was gone. His hands bled shadow.
"I am not you," he hissed.
The throne-bound figure only smiled. "Not yet."
He woke with a gasp, heart pounding like war drums. Anmei was at his side in an instant, her hand resting lightly on his.
"Another vision?" she asked.
He nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. "The Abyss knows me. It's waiting."
At first light, they descended.
The path spiraled downward, carved by ancient hands and sealed in forgotten rituals. Every step was heavier than the last. The deeper they went, the more their light dimmed. Anmei's blade flickered. Zhao's internal energy slowed, as if wading through thickened time.
Whispers began to stir.
They came first as wind, then as voices—familiar, cruel, seductive. The regrets of lifetimes past made manifest.
"Lianxu," a voice sang. "You let her die… your mother… remember?"
He clenched his fists, pressing forward. "You are echoes. Nothing more."
Beside him, Anmei slowed, her face pale. "Zhao… it's her voice. My mother… she's… she's crying."
Zhao reached out, gripping her arm. "She's not here. That's the Abyss. It feeds on what breaks us."
She nodded, tears forming. "I know. But it hurts like she's dying all over again."
They pressed on.
Below them lay the Temple of Hollow Flame, once a shrine of celestial fire, now twisted by corruption. Its spires jutted like blackened fangs from the rock, and its entrance pulsed with malign energy. This was where the Veil was weakest.
Zhao led them through, his blade whispering prayers in the old tongue. Each step within the temple drew more shadows to them. Phantoms of the past flickered in the corners of their vision—loved ones, enemies, and the forgotten victims of war.
At the altar stood the source of the breach: a tear in the Veil itself, swirling with lightless storm.
Velkan was there.
But he was no longer the man they had fought before. His form shimmered, flesh fused with nightmare, eyes twin voids. He hovered above the altar like a god possessed.
"You're too late," he rasped. "The Veil drinks from my soul now. Soon, it will flood the world."
Zhao stepped forward. "Then we'll stop it by severing its root—starting with you."
Velkan laughed, the sound echoing with madness. "You still cling to hope. Even now. But what will you do when Anmei falls? When your love becomes your undoing?"
Zhao glanced at her—and she at him. No words passed between them, yet an unspoken vow was exchanged.
The battle began.
Light clashed with darkness, the temple shaking with their fury. Zhao's sword, alight with the power of his bloodlines, met Velkan's corrupted energy. Anmei danced through shadows, her strikes a blur of divine precision.
But Velkan was too far gone. Each blow they landed was absorbed, twisted, returned in waves of soul-flaying agony. The tear in the Veil grew.
Then Anmei fell.
A pulse of shadow struck her, throwing her into a pillar with bone-breaking force. She cried out, pain slicing through her voice.
"No!" Zhao roared, his power erupting.
His sword shattered—then reformed, forged anew in fire and memory. From the abyss within him rose not just rage, but clarity.
He became one with his power.
With a cry that shook the foundation of the temple, Zhao struck. Velkan reeled, his body disintegrating in a scream of despair and fury. But the Veil—
It still pulsed.
Zhao stumbled to Anmei's side. She was conscious, barely.
"Lianxu…" she whispered. "You have to seal it."
"I need you," he said, tears burning his eyes. "I can't—"
She gripped his hand. "You can. You were born of three bloodlines for this moment. Let the darkness know light."
He rose.
Drawing on every fragment of who he was—his father's legacy, his mother's power, and the ancient soul that slumbered within—Zhao stepped into the breach.
The pain was indescribable.
But he did not scream.
He remembered his mother's lullaby. His father's final command. Anmei's smile when they first met. The world as it should be.
And he gave it all to the Veil.
A roar. A blinding flash.
Then silence.
When the world returned, the breach was sealed. The temple was ash. And Zhao—
Zhao was gone.
Anmei screamed his name until her voice gave out.
But far above, in the clean air of the surface, a single lotus bloomed from scorched earth.
Its petals shimmered with starlight.
A promise.
He was not gone.
Not entirely.