The sky turned gray on the eve of battle.
Smoke, not from fire, but from war banners—thick braids of woven incense and ritual bone-char—rose in the distance, carried on unnatural winds. Below the Phoenix Monastery, the mountain paths writhed with approaching shadows. From the forested trails to the river gorges, thousands of figures advanced in silence. Their armor was shaped like twisted scripture. Their blades hummed with malice.
And at their head walked a figure robed in veils of iron thread—a Scourge Marshal of the Hollow Council.
From the monastery's northern tower, Li Shen watched them arrive. He felt no fear.
Only stillness.
The kind of stillness that came just before a blade was drawn.
The Hollow Council's forces advanced without fanfare. There were no war horns, no shouted challenges—only the slow beat of bone-drums thudding beneath the earth like a second heartbeat. The enemy moved like a tide of midnight: Hollow Monks with their mouths sewn shut, shadow beasts shaped from ash and glass, and hollow-armored giants with burning runes etched into their flesh.
Atop the Phoenix Monastery walls, archers stood in disciplined silence. The youngest among them, Initiate Jin, trembled slightly, his knuckles white around the shaft of his arrow.
Then Li Shen spoke.
"Do not shoot in fear," he said softly. "Shoot in remembrance."
Jin blinked. "Remembrance?"
Li Shen nodded. "Every arrow you loose is a name remembered. A friend. A brother. A home."
Jin's hand steadied. He lifted his bow.
The wind shifted.
A single black raven—marked with silver ink—screeched from the enemy lines.
And then—
Thrum.
The first arrow flew.
The sky erupted in storm.
Hollow beasts charged the gates, snarling like things from forgotten nightmares. The Phoenix monks responded with flame-bombs, igniting oil-lined paths that turned the cliffside staircases into infernos. Fire screamed across the battlefield in spirals, guided by monks trained in the Breath of Ash technique, who moved their hands in arcs to fan and guide the flames.
Li Shen dropped into the fray.
He landed beside the southern gate, where a squad of young disciples struggled against a Hollow brute wielding a pillar like a club. The beast's mouth was sewn shut, but it growled with every breath, its runes glowing hotter the closer it came to the wall.
Li Shen unsheathed Sērahn's Echo.
With a sweeping flourish, he sang its blade-song—an aria of slicing wind and burning memory. The echoes of former wielders flared around him like ghosts, and together they struck.
The brute howled as Sērahn's flame carved through its armor, singing not just its flesh, but its essence. With a twist and upward slash, Li Shen opened its chest and spilled its curse-forged heart upon the stones.
"Hold the stairs!" he called to the disciples. "They'll break formation when the second wave comes!"
And come it did.
From above the treeline surged a massive, serpent-shaped spirit beast, formed entirely of bones lashed together with chains. Its skull bore the sigil of the Ashen Pact, and its maw opened with a screech that shook the cliffs.
Li Shen's eyes narrowed.
He stepped forward.
The bone serpent spiraled through the air, its chains whistling. A half-dozen phoenix archers loosed flaming arrows into its ribs, but the creature shrugged them off, its spirit-forged armor crackling with cursed wards.
Li Shen leapt skyward.
He switched to the Ocean Soul Blade, summoning water from the mist around the peaks. As he soared, the blade formed an aqua-crescent arc, slicing across the serpent's coils. With a roar, the serpent turned mid-air, whipping a tail of bone and chain at him.
He dodged mid-fall, spinning into a backflip, landing atop the beast's spine.
Drawing the Eidolon Blade, he stabbed down.
Ghostfire ignited.
The serpent reeled, writhing and spinning. Li Shen ran along its back as the sky blurred around him, dodging arcs of lightning-like spirit energy. With a final lunge, he vaulted into the air and plunged both blades into the beast's skull.
BOOM.
The creature exploded into spectral light, its chains snapping like thunder.
Li Shen landed in a crouch amidst falling bone, smoke rising from his shoulders.
A cheer went up from the southern wall.
But it was far from over.
The Scourge Marshal raised her hand.
A monolithic siege engine—shaped like a demonic centipede—lurched forward. It smashed into the monastery's lower gate, deploying spires of black iron that dug into the mountain and twisted it open like peeling bark. From its underbelly poured ash-ghouls, creatures formed from melted memories and souls tortured into servitude.
Li Shen rushed to intercept them.
Behind him, Master Ren and the Feather Guard followed. The clash was immediate and terrible. Ash-ghouls screamed in wordless agony, their claws raking stone and armor alike. The monks fought with fire-laced spears and polearms, but they were outnumbered.
Li Shen released the full force of the Crimson Feather Codex.
He drew flaming symbols mid-air, each stroke of his hand inscribing runes of memory and flame. With a final chant, he called:
"Tian Xu Zhi Yan—Flame of the Fallen Sky!"
A phoenix of pure fire burst forth, spiraling into the enemy ranks, igniting them from within. The air turned crimson. Ghoul after ghoul collapsed in pyres of their own sins.
Then—
The Scourge Marshal stepped forward.
Her voice was a whisper of bone and wind.
"Li Shen," she said. "Your name is ash on the tongues of the dead."
He faced her with four blades drawn—Mirror Vale Blade in his left, Ocean Soul Blade in his right, the Eidolon and Sērahn's Echo sheathed but pulsing with intent.
Their duel was like nothing the monastery had seen.
She wielded a whip-blade of black light that twisted with anti-chi. Every strike she made unmade the world, stripping light from air and warmth from fire. Li Shen met her attacks with flowing counters, switching blades mid-movement, shifting stances like a tide.
She struck downward.
He parried with Mirror Vale.
She spun and vanished.
He turned and struck behind him—meeting her hidden blade with Sērahn's flaming edge.
Back and forth they went, chi clashing in bursts of thunder and inverted flame. The sky above turned blood-red.
Finally, he called upon the final technique of the Phoenix Manuscript.
"Shēng Huǒ: Rebirth Flame."
His body ignited—not burning, but ascending. His strikes now moved in eightfold rhythm, guided by past lives awakened within him. His blades blazed like suns. With a final flash, he struck her heart.
The Marshal screamed.
And crumbled into ash.
As her form faded, the remaining Hollow forces faltered. Some dissolved. Others scattered into the wind.
By dusk, the monastery stood, but barely.
Flames still burned across the cliffs, and the dead were many. But Li Shen stood at the top of the stairs, all five blades on his back, as the sun pierced the clouds.
Jun, wounded but smiling, walked up beside him. "We held."
Li Shen nodded, though his gaze turned east.
"They'll send more."
"And we'll be ready."
"No," Li Shen said, eyes hardening. "Next time, we won't wait for them."