The mist clung low after the battle's end, veiling the lake and its broken shrine. Qianyu held the shard close to her chest, its light dim but steady. Around her, silence stretched—too deep, too still.
Fenghua winced as he rose, his shoulder bleeding through bandages. Still, his eyes were searching—not the sky, but the earth beneath their feet.
"There's another shard here," he said, voice hushed. "I can feel it."
Qianyu turned. "How? The Empress took half already—"
"This place hums like memory. It answers to you… but it speaks to me too. Faint, but real."
Rong Xianzhi stepped beside them, his gaze sweeping the ruins. "This isn't just the Sea of Ghost Lanterns anymore. We've crossed into another place."
Qianyu's breath caught. "The Valley of Forgotten Stars."
Xianzhi nodded. "In the Demon Realm, they call it something else—the Abyss of Echoes."
A shiver passed through her. "So it's one of the shard sites... It was right beneath us the whole time."
"Buried under memory," Fenghua said. "Hidden until it was ready."
Mo Lianxue had disappeared after the battle. One moment she stood defiant against the heavens. The next—gone. Whether she'd been summoned back to the Demon King or chose to vanish, no one knew. But the silence she left behind felt heavy, unfinished.
A faint hum rose from beneath the stone altar behind the shrine. Then the ground trembled.
Echoes stirred.
From the shadows, figures emerged—twisted forms of forgotten warriors. Cloaked in tattered celestial robes, hollow-eyed, burned by time. They were Sentinels of the Echo, bound to guard what could no longer be spoken aloud.
"They've merged with shard energy," Xianzhi said, drawing his crescent blade. "Guardians of silence."
One moved with sudden speed—striking at Fenghua, whose blade barely caught the blow.
"They're not like the lake wraiths," Fenghua said through gritted teeth. "These remember who they once were."
Qianyu didn't wait.
The shard in her hand glowed faintly—guiding her to a second pulse beneath a cracked altar. She knelt, reaching deep into the stone crevice. Her fingers brushed metal.
A second fragment.
Cold at first, then warm. Familiar.
Visions surged—celestial gates closing, a promise broken in the rain, her hand reaching too late.
She gasped.
The Sentinels froze mid-strike.
Her memories touched theirs.
She stood slowly, shard in hand. "You're not monsters. You were protectors… once."
The tall Sentinel, helm adorned with star-thorns, lifted its blade. But it didn't strike.
Instead, it knelt.
Then, like a whisper lost to the wind, the Sentinels dissolved into mist—released from their vigil.
The second shard pulsed to life, whole and quiet, now resting beside the first.
From above, the thick mist finally parted. A single star shone through.
Rong Xianzhi lowered his blade, watching her. "You're changing."
"No," she whispered. "I'm returning."
Fenghua leaned against a pillar, breathing hard. "That's two shards. Two pieces of what was stolen."
"But there's more," Qianyu said. "I felt it. This is just the beginning."
From the altar, a single ghost-lantern rose, pulsing gently as it floated ahead.
It lit the path forward—not with flame, but with memory.
And they followed.