The winds howled like mourners as Jin stepped into the Valley of Ash.
Xue Qilin walked beside him in silence, her armor humming with barely restrained energy. The valley had once been a thriving city—now reduced to skeletal remains of towers and temples, buried beneath layers of gray dust.
"This is where it began," she said. "The first reflection. The Hollow Crown's trial."
Jin gripped Nihil tighter. The blade felt heavier with each step, not in weight, but in consequence.
He could feel the presence ahead—a void that pulled at the edges of his thoughts. Not with force, but with curiosity.
Like something was watching from inside his own skull.
"Will it attack?" he asked.
"No," Qilin replied. "It wants you to enter willingly. That's how it works. That's how it learns."
Jin stopped at the base of a broken archway. Strange symbols were etched into the stone—twisting, flickering between alphabets. Some he recognized. Most he didn't.
All of them burned when he looked too long.
"This is the Gate of the Forgotten Self," Qilin said softly. "You'll see a version of you inside. A reflection twisted by desire, regret, and possibility."
Jin nodded once. "And if I lose?"
"You don't die," she said.
He relaxed—until she added, "You become it."
Without another word, Jin stepped through the arch.
The world turned inside out.
He was standing in a palace.
Golden banners hung from obsidian spires. Slaves bowed as he passed. Cultivators knelt at his feet, shouting his name:
"Sovereign Jin! Lord of the Grave-Star Sect! Conqueror of Heavens!"
He blinked.
A throne rose behind him—black jade encrusted with soul-gems. Upon it sat… himself.
But older.
Taller.
Colder.
Eyes like voids, filled with distant galaxies.
"You made it," the Other Jin said. "Finally."
"What is this?" Jin asked.
The Other smiled. "Your future. If you stop pretending to care. If you stop hesitating. If you accept that power is meant to be taken, not earned."
Jin frowned. "I didn't come for illusions."
"Oh, but this isn't an illusion." The Other stood, descending the steps. "This is a promise."
He drew a blade.
Nihil.
But the version in his hand pulsed red—twisted. Alive.
"I killed the Hollow Crown in my timeline," he said. "I consumed it. Became it. And with it, I rewrote the Heavenly Laws."
"You became the monster," Jin said.
"I became the answer."
They moved at the same time.
Two Nihils clashed—one forgotten, one remembered.
Their duel echoed through space, cracking the palace walls, splintering pillars with each blow.
Jin gritted his teeth. Every strike from the Other Jin felt heavier, as if it came from an entire life of unrepentant choices.
"You're holding back," the Other growled. "Still clinging to your petty morals. Still thinking pain has to mean something."
"It does," Jin snarled. "Because I remember all of it. I earned every scar."
The Other's smile cracked. "Then let's see what happens when I give you a few more."
He thrust Nihil through Jin's side.
Jin gasped—but didn't fall.
He let the pain in.
Let it anchor him.
Then he raised his blade and whispered the word Qilin had taught him:
"Unname."
Nihil vibrated.
The Other Jin froze.
And then, piece by piece, he began to unravel.
Name first.
Then title.
Then form.
Until only dust remained.
Jin stood alone.
Bleeding.
Breathing.
But victorious.
He stumbled out of the archway. Qilin caught him.
"You survived," she said.
"Barely."
She pulled his shirt aside, eyes narrowing at the wound.
It hadn't healed.
The blade the Other had used—its memory lingered in his flesh.
"This will fester," she said. "You need to find an Ancestral Healer. Or bind the wound with a soul contract."
"I don't have time for healers," Jin said. "What's next?"
A ripple moved across the valley. The sky cracked.
In the distance, the Hollow Crown's laughter echoed.
Qilin's face hardened.
"He's testing you. Sending fragments. Projections. The real body is still dormant."
Jin looked up at the sky.
A figure began to descend—massive and silent. A mirror the size of a mountain, floating down toward the valley.
"What is that?"
"The Mirror That Eats," Qilin whispered. "The Hollow Crown's first Herald."
The mirror shimmered, and Jin saw faces in the glass.
His mother.
His master.
His betrayers.
Himself.
All screaming.
Qilin drew her glass bow.
"I'll hold it back. You run."
"No."
She looked at him sharply.
"You have no idea what that thing is—"
"I do," Jin said. "It's everything I've buried. Everything I thought I could forget."
He stepped forward.
The mirror screamed.
Thousands of voices.
One purpose.
"JOIN US."
Jin raised Nihil.
The blade pulsed—not with forgetting, but with refusal.
"I've already been buried once," he said. "Not again."
And then he charged.
The battle for his soul had only just begun.