Beneath the Root-Vault — The Whisper Breaks
The air in the Rotspire cavern turns thick. The glowing coils etched into the walls begin to shift — not with light, but with hunger.
Feng Xian, still reeling from the dream of fire-bound serpents, is jarred awake as the Oracle's roots violently retract from the central altar.
"The Crown thirsts…" the Oracle rasps, voice fraying like leaves in wind. "But not for power. For remembrance."
At Feng Xian's side, Luo Fen draws her glaive — her senses screaming with primal alarm.
Something has breached the Grove.
Shore fall — The Pavilion Arrives
A silver-sailed ship cleaves through storm-laced waters toward the Isles. From its deck, Ji Yuren gazes toward the clouds spiraling over the jungle interior.
"The coils are unraveling," he murmurs. "And it's not just Feng Xian."
Kai'lao sharpens his twin daggers, his gaze locked ahead.
He doesn't trust the mission. Nor the Crown-bearer.
Not after what happened to Kai'ren.
"If he's touched by rot… I'll do what my sister could not."
Behind them, the masked Whisper Current says nothing — but the water around their feet flows upward, as if answering something beneath the waves.
III. Grove front Collision
The emissaries arrive at the Grove's threshold, just as Luo Fen leads Feng Xian out — blades drawn, senses raw.
Feng Xian speaks first:
"This place is unraveling. The Rotspire is no longer still."
Kai'lao doesn't wait. "So it's true. You carry the mark now."
Blades flash. Sparks strike. The Grove's protective spirits begin to stir.
But the Oracle's voice cuts across the air:
"Enough. He is not the cause — he is the warning."
Before more can be said, a scream echoes across the Grove — a twisted serpent, black-veined and Hollow-Touched, crashes through the trees.
It carries a sigil scorched into its brow:
A hand with a missing thumb. The mark of the Devouring Hand.
Luo Fen lunges. Ji Yuren unleashes water-threads. The fight begins — but it's not the true threat.
Atop the Outer Waves — Szuul Awakens
Deep below the ocean trench… something opens an eye.
Szuul, bound no longer in sleep, hears the Crown's pulse like a distant drumbeat.
It reaches toward the Isles not with limbs — but with currents, storms, and the dreams of hollowed beasts.
Fish beach themselves. Coral turns to ash.
And across the reef line, Lan'Fei, riding a beast newly bound to her blood, looks toward the Isles' jungle and whispers:
"He's calling it. He doesn't even know."
Final Image: The Crown's Pulse
Back in the heart of the Grove, as the Hollow serpent is slain and silence descends, Feng Xian staggers to his knees.
The Seventh Crown — invisible to all but him — forms for just a moment in ghostly shape before him, its surface rippling with flame, serpent-scale… and water.
It speaks with many voices:
"The world forgets what was sealed.
We do not.
Will you bear that memory… or drown beneath it?"
Interlude: The Feast Unsealed — The High Hollow Priest's Command
Temple of the Drowned Oath — Blackwater Deep
Far below the known oceans, beyond the trench where light has never touched, a cathedral of bone and pressure hums with ancient malice. Its walls are shaped not by hands, but by hollowing currents — writhing coral and fossilized serpents, their mouths open in silent screams.
At its heart, the High Hollow Priest kneels before a rotted effigy of Vel'Korr's original body — now twisted into a spire of congealed memory and salt.
The waters darken further as he lifts a hand wrapped in writhing runes of anti-life.
"Three of the Echoes have perished," he intones, voice a mix of bubbling rot and forgotten syllables.
"Writhe-Veil is gone. The Coil's Echo broken. The seed of flame has bitten deep."
Across the temple's floor, dozens of Hollow-Touched lieutenants kneel — robed in barnacle-woven silks, their bodies barely holding shape.
The Priest opens his jaw — revealing not a tongue, but a flickering memory-sigil torn from the Reef's dream-records.
Feng Xian's face. His aura. The Crown.
The Command: Release the Drowned Choir
"Call forth the Drowned Choir," the Priest commands. "Let them scream the sky open."
A ripple passes through the congregation.
The Drowned Choir are not mere warriors — they are singers of despair, creatures who once possessed minds but now only echo the screams of the Leviathan that first Hollowed them. Their song corrodes steel and soul alike.
At their waking, seaquakes begin across four trenches.
III. The Vessels: Bone Armada Assembles
Throughout the Sunken Dead sea, organic ships begin to rise — built from the carcasses of sea beasts and anchored by Hollow spires.
The Bone Armada, long-sleeping, begins its churn toward the Jade Serpent Isles.
Leading them is the Devouring Hand, whose flesh has begun to peel away, revealing something older beneath — a thing without name or loyalty, only hunger.
"The fire-child awakens what should have stayed dead," the Priest murmurs, walking the temple as storm-tides gather.
"So we will devour his future before it roots."
One Final Gesture — A Crown Memory Claimed
Before he departs, the High Hollow Priest performs a rite none have seen in centuries.
He reaches toward a captured memory-fragment — torn from a failed Hollow-Touched agent who died near the Grove.
Within it: the voice of the Seventh Crown whispering to Feng Xian.
The Priest devours the memory whole.
His body burns briefly — but in his eyes now swirls a map. A prophecy. A path directly into the Pavilion's heart.
He grins — or something like it.
"You've touched the old fire, child.
Now burn with us."