Dawn did not break gently.
It cracked over the ruined valley with golden violence, spilling light over scorched stone and shattered bone. Meiran stood at the cliff's edge, watching the mist rise like smoke from the earth. The robes of the Jade Celestial Court still clung to her shoulders, but her insignia had been burned away. She had done it herself.
Behind her, Mo Lianyin meditated, his body surrounded by faint threads of violet flame. His cultivation had grown fiercer—sharper, even. Ever since she'd joined him, the winds had shifted. The air around him felt… hungrier.
Not for power.
For vengeance.
She turned to him. "You're drawing too much attention. The seal around your spirit isn't holding anymore."
"I know," he said, eyes still closed. "But if I don't let the sixth art breathe, the seventh will remain asleep."
"The sixth?" Her throat went dry. "You've already unlocked it?"
He opened his eyes.
In them was a fire she hadn't seen before—neither cruel nor kind. Just inevitable.
"The Art of Hollow Flames," he whispered. "It feeds on grief. And I have no shortage of that."
Meiran stepped back. "Is it safe?"
"No." He stood, brushing dust from his sleeves. "Nothing about me is."
They moved before the sun reached its peak, treading narrow paths through haunted cliffs and dead forests. Lianyin had carved new sigils into his arms—protection marks, though they looked like curses. Meiran didn't ask why.
At dusk, they reached the edge of a shattered village. The wind howled between crumbling homes. The well was bone-dry. Silence pressed against them like a blade.
"This was once a boundary town," Meiran murmured, kneeling beside a burned gatepost. "Between the Eastern Sects and the Free Regions."
"There are no boundaries anymore," Lianyin said. "Only survivors and the ones hunting them."
As if summoned by his words, a sharp hiss split the air.
They turned.
At the edge of the field stood a man draped in white and blood.
Velomir—the Hollow Hunter.
Meiran inhaled sharply. "That's… He's from the White Lotus Assembly. The emperor's personal reaper."
Lianyin didn't answer. He simply stepped forward.
Velomir tilted his head. His eyes were milk-white. Blind, yet somehow all-seeing.
"Mo Lianyin," he said, voice like bone scraping frost. "Your soul bleeds in seven places. You've awakened the Hollow Flame."
"Yes," Lianyin replied. "And I know why you've come."
Velomir raised a finger. "Then you know your death must be an offering."
Meiran drew her sword, stepping beside Lianyin. "You'll have to go through me."
Velomir didn't even blink. "Two broken spirits clinging to ashes. How quaint."
His foot touched the earth.
The wind collapsed.
Meiran flew back, crashing into stone. Her bones screamed.
Lianyin remained standing.
But just barely.
Velomir's spirit pressure was unlike anything he'd faced. It wasn't immense—it was hollow. A void. Like fighting absence itself.
"You've burned too hot," the hunter whispered. "The sixth art was never meant for mortals."
Lianyin's mouth bled. "Then let me be the first."
He threw his hands forward, summoning the Hollow Flame.
It blazed from his veins like a dragon of grief and fury.
Velomir did not flinch.
Instead, he stepped into the fire.
And smiled.
Meiran screamed, "NO—!"
But it was too late.
The flames shattered.
Lianyin fell to one knee, coughing blood. Velomir stood unharmed, untouched.
"You fight like a man who's already dead," the hunter said.
And then—
A blade pierced Velomir's chest.
Meiran.
She had moved in silence, faster than any hunter expected from a former Jade disciple.
Velomir's smile faltered.
She twisted the blade.
"You forgot something," she whispered in his ear. "Broken spirits bite back."
The hunter staggered.
Lianyin surged forward, summoning the last of his flame.
"Flames of the Hollow Moon," he roared.
The blast engulfed Velomir, swallowing him whole in a storm of violet fire.
When the light faded—
Nothing remained.
Only silence.
Only scorched earth.
Meiran collapsed, breath ragged.
Lianyin caught her, trembling.
"You didn't have to do that," he said, voice hoarse.
She grinned weakly. "You're right. I didn't. But someone has to stop you from dying like an idiot."
He laughed.
It sounded like something breaking—and something beginning.
In the far distance, thunder rolled.
And in the heart of that storm… the Seventh Art stirred.