They did not rest when the last hound fled. There was no rest now. The air in Hollow Sky hummed with spirit scars where the devourers fell — cracks in the old stone humming with pale echoes of prayers that no sect elder would ever claim again.
Yue Lan knelt by the broken bell, pressing a fresh binding over her temple wound. The silver threads that had once danced like silk now drifted sluggishly from her palms — frayed at the edges, spirit force drawn thin by too many binds in too few nights.
Li Shen leaned against the bell's cracked lip, blade across his knees, Codex runes flickering low along his throat. Even bound, Ku Mo's presence was a coil of teeth and whispers behind his heart — but Li Shen's chain held. Barely.
"Drink," Yue Lan murmured, pushing a gourd into his hands. "There won't be time when the next ones come."
He drank — stale river water laced with spirit herbs. Bitter, but alive. Like them.
---
By dawn, the shrine-tower was nothing but drifting ash. They left its bones behind and climbed to the Hollow Sky's highest ridge — an ancient stone gate carved with a single sigil older than any sect's founding. The wind there burned raw through torn sleeves and old scars.
Li Shen pressed a palm to the gate's cold stone. Beneath the frost, a faint pulse answered him — something in the mountain older than prayers, older than Ku Mo's hiss, older even than the Nine Heavens' chains.
"What is this place?" Yue Lan asked, voice thin from the climb.
Li Shen did not know for sure — but the Codex did. He felt it. An echo through cracked marrow.
"An old door," he said quietly. "Where monks bound spirits so they wouldn't swallow the sky."
He looked at her — at her eyes raw from loss and blood and faith torn down to a single vow.
"Can you hold the ridge?"
Yue Lan did not flinch. "Until I die."
---
They didn't have to wait long.
By midday, the wind carried a new tremor — not devourers now, not sect blades in silk and jade. These ones came wrapped in drifting clouds, carried by talisman banners that shimmered in daylight.
Immortal envoys — not illusions. The Nine Heavens had cracked the gate.
They appeared on the ridge like ghosts drawn in ink: five figures in pale robes, masks of pearl and iron hiding their eyes. Each step they took left frost blooming behind them, spirit frost that coiled into the old stone like a slow poison.
Li Shen felt the Codex's chain rattle. Ku Mo's whisper was a blade drawn slow across bone.
Unleash me. Let me devour them. Let me wear their crowns in your name.
Li Shen's jaw clenched. His fingers tightened around his blade's hilt until the frost cracked under his boots.
---
One envoy stepped forward — mask split with nine lines like an open fan.
"Li Shen," she said — her voice an echo, as if the wind spoke her tongue. "The Broken Heaven greets you."
Li Shen spat blood onto the frost. "Polite."
Another envoy lifted a hand. A dozen talisman banners unfurled behind him, each one burning with runes that bled light into the snow.
"You are an abomination," the second envoy said. "A human chain over a demon's teeth. The Nine Heavens cannot allow your shadow to stand."
Yue Lan stepped between Li Shen and the banners. Threads drifted from her shoulders — thin as breath but bright as starlight.
"He is no one's shadow," she said. Her voice did not tremble. "And you will not bind him."
---
The envoys did not answer with more words.
Their talismans flared — rivers of light slamming into the ridge. Spirit force so thick it turned the air to molten frost. The mountain stone cracked under the weight of Heaven's decree.
Yue Lan's threads slammed forward — a net of silver that drank the first wave and hurled it sideways into the sky. The blast ripped a chunk of the ridge away — old stones tumbling into the mist far below.
Li Shen moved before the second wave hit. His blade caught the frontmost envoy mid-step — steel grinding against a talisman shield so dense it rang like a temple bell at dawn.
The Codex inside him roared — more, more, more. But Li Shen fed it only what he chose. Just enough. No more.
He struck again — spirit steel cracking pearl mask, the envoy stumbling back into drifting snow.
---
But the third envoy reached Yue Lan before she could weave a new snare.
A single flick — pale fingers pressing a seal of pure frost to her chest.
She gasped — threads flickering out like broken feathers. Li Shen felt the echo through the chain between them. Pain. Real. Cold.
He moved — too late.
The envoy's mask turned to him. "Your chain breaks here."
Li Shen's breath turned to steam. The Codex's leash bucked — Ku Mo's laugh a crown of thorns wrapping his heart.
Now, the demon crooned. Open the last link. Let me feed. Let me show you how the sky burns.
Yue Lan's hand found his wrist. Even half-frozen, her grip was iron.
"Li Shen." Her voice was raw air and frost. "Don't lose your name."
The wind howled. The envoys closed their circle. Talisman brands spun overhead — a halo of broken prayers.
Li Shen's pulse thundered.
One chain left.
---
He met Yue Lan's eyes. Saw his name reflected there. Saw the grave she'd dig for him if he let Ku Mo devour everything.
He grinned — raw, cold, alive.
"Hold on."
She didn't flinch. Her threads coiled around his wrist — binding them together in that heartbeat when the sky cracked.
Li Shen tore the Codex open — not all of it, just the heart. Enough to devour the frost, the seal, the talisman chains that slammed toward them like falling stars.
The envoy's masks flickered. For the first time — hesitation.
Li Shen's voice cut the wind.
"If you want chains — come taste mine."
---
The Codex's roar swallowed the ridge. Frost turned to steam. Stone turned to ash. The envoys' spirit brands buckled — talisman banners catching fire mid-air.
Yue Lan's threads bound the last flickers of Heaven's light — feeding it back into Li Shen's blade as he stepped forward.
One step. Ten paces.
Steel met mask.
Bone met sky.
And the ridge shook under the weight of a mortal name that refused to kneel.
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⚡ End of Chapter Twenty-Four
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