The fire had long faded from the valley.
Only silence remained—thick, heavy, the kind that followed apocalypses. Jin stood alone at the center of the crater where the Chainbearer had fallen. The chains had turned to dust, the rusted bones consumed by the gravefire he'd awakened.
But something still echoed.
A presence.
Faint, feminine, familiar.
He felt it not with his senses, but in the hollows of his soul.
She was near.
He turned slowly, scanning the cracked terrain. Qilin had gone ahead to scout, leaving him in momentary stillness—but now, the stillness was wrong.
Too quiet.
Then—a bell rang.
A soft, silver chime. Impossible in this ruin.
Jin froze.
That sound…
It rang again.
Not from the earth.
From memory.
The bell was tied to her wrist.
A leather strap, worn and faded. She'd insisted on it, even as a child. "So you can always find me," she'd said with a smile that outshone the sun.
Her name was Mei.
He hadn't spoken it in ten thousand years.
Not because he forgot.
But because to remember it meant remembering the scream. The blood. The fire. The chain through her throat as she was dragged away while he—powerless—watched.
That bell had stopped ringing that day.
And now it rang again.
He turned.
She stood across the crater.
Small. Barefoot. Dressed in ceremonial silks woven from silver thread. Her eyes were wrong. Too dark. Not from shadow, but from absence—like someone had scooped out her soul and left a throne for something else.
"Mei," he whispered.
She tilted her head.
"You remember me?" she asked, voice flat, curious.
His knees nearly gave.
Even the voice was hers.
"I—watched you die."
She blinked. "No. You watched me change."
Something shimmered across her skin—a ripple of golden glyphs.
The Mark of the Crown.
His heart went still.
"They used you."
"They freed me," she replied, walking forward. Her bell rang with every step. "You left me behind. They found me. Showed me truth. Showed me what you wouldn't."
"What truth?"
"That suffering is a gift."
She raised a hand.
Chains erupted from the ground, surrounding her in a halo of glistening metal—liquid-like, coiling, singing.
"I am no longer Mei," she said softly. "I am the Herald of Remembrance. And I have come to remind you of what you lost."
Jin stepped back.
This wasn't a normal Herald.
This was personal.
The Crown had taken his most fragile memory and twisted it into a weapon.
"Did they make you forget who you were?" he asked, voice low.
"No," she said, walking forward. "They made me remember who you are."
She stopped just short of the edge of his blade.
"You left me to die in that burning temple."
"I didn't," he said.
"You chose your path. Your power. You chose to become a monster."
"No."
"Then prove it," she said—and the chains lashed out.
The first strike tore through the air like a scream.
Jin moved, but the chains curved, bending in impossible arcs. He deflected one, then another, each blow heavier than the last. These weren't normal weapons—they moved with her intent.
She didn't need to aim.
They struck where he would be.
Predictive sentience, he realized.
He activated Grave Step, slipping between moments. One chain grazed his cheek, drawing not blood—but memory.
A vision.
He was young again. Holding Mei's hand as they crossed a field of fireflies.
"I want to be strong like you," she whispered.
"You will be," he said.
She smiled. "Promise?"
"I promise."
The vision shattered.
Another chain struck his chest.
More memories—this time darker. Mei screaming, bound, dragged into the pit while he bled on the stones. He had begged. Crawled. Clawed at the floor.
He had failed her.
Jin roared, severing the chain with a downward slash. "I never stopped looking for you!"
Her expression didn't change.
"You're not fighting me, Jin. You're fighting yourself."
She vanished—then reappeared behind him.
Her hand touched his back.
And a surge of everything flooded him.
Guilt.
Grief.
Loss.
He fell to one knee.
Nihil slipped from his fingers.
The memories crashed over him like a storm—every failure, every betrayal, every death he couldn't stop.
The grave wasn't under the earth.
It was in him.
"You can't kill me," she whispered.
"I don't want to," he said through clenched teeth.
"Then surrender."
He looked up. Her face—the same face that once hid behind him in terror—now gazed down with cruel serenity.
"I can't."
"Why?"
He stood, slowly, pain laced into every joint.
"Because if I surrender, I bury you again."
He opened his palm.
And from the dirt, Nihil flew to him.
But it had changed.
No longer black steel.
Now—a gleaming blade of white and silver, etched with flowing script.
A new form.
A blade of remembrance.
He slashed the air.
The world bent.
Mei's chains shattered mid-strike.
She gasped—not in fear, but in confusion. "You… what did you do?"
"I remembered who I am," Jin said. "And who you are."
The blade hummed.
"I am Jin, the Severed Grave."
He pointed the sword at her.
"And you are the girl I swore to protect."
Tears welled up in her eyes—but they didn't fall.
"I don't want to remember," she whispered.
"I know."
He stepped forward.
And embraced her.
The chains fell.
Her aura cracked.
For a moment—just a breath—her arms wrapped around him in return.
Then she screamed.
Her body burst with black fire. The Crown's seal flared, consuming her.
Jin stepped back, sword raised.
"No," she whispered.
And vanished.
Only the bell remained.
Qilin arrived moments later, eyes wide. "What happened?"
He didn't answer.
He just stared at the bell in his hand.
Then, softly, he said, "They're not just sending monsters anymore."
She nodded. "They're sending ghosts."
Jin looked to the horizon.
"I'll burn them all," he said. "Even if I have to die doing it."
And somewhere, deep within the Hollow Crown, the true Heralds stirred.
The game had changed.