The air thickened as Raen stepped deeper into the ruined heart of the Mirror Mist Pavilion, the newly acquired Heaven-Split fragment still warm against his chest. The whispers that had haunted the outer layers now became voices—clear and maddening. They weren't speaking to his ears, but to something beneath the surface of his thoughts.
"They knew the path. But knowing wasn't surviving."
His sword spirit's tone was distant, wary. It rarely sounded uncertain.
Nira kept glancing at the old inscription on the stone fragment. "This language is older than the common script," she murmured. "Half the runes are broken, but... this mark—it's not just a sect symbol. It's a seal."
Talin scoffed, tapping his blade on his shoulder. "Of course it's a seal. Everything around here is sealed, cursed, or whispering to us like a dying grandma."
Raen didn't smile. His eyes were fixed on the circular chamber ahead. Its doors were intact—untouched by time, and completely unlike the rest of the ruin. Black stone embossed with a symbol split clean down the center, forming a jagged blade motif.
"This was the Hall of Transcendence," Raen said quietly. "Where the Heaven-Split Sword Hall conducted their final ceremony."
The door opened not by force, but by presence.
As Raen drew closer, his blade—the Silent Edge—hummed. With each step, it glowed faintly, resonating with the runes embedded in the stone. The doors creaked open with a sound like shattered glass reforming, and the trio stepped inside.
The interior was unlike anything they'd seen—untouched by decay, preserved by a mixture of time magic and sword intent. In the center stood a pedestal of obsidian, upon which hovered a single, broken hilt. No blade. Just the handle.
But it radiated power.
Raen approached it instinctively.
"That hilt once belonged to the Heaven-Split Master," his sword spirit whispered. "He who cut the sky and sealed his fate. This is the remnant of his will."
The moment Raen's fingers brushed the hilt, the chamber responded.
A blinding pulse. Wind without wind. Light without fire.
And then—vision.
---
A memory not his own:
Blades clashed in the skies above the Mirror Mist Pavilion. Dozens of sword masters weaved impossibly complex forms, their blades drawing runes mid-air, carving apart reality. The Heaven-Split Master stood at the center, bleeding heavily, his eyes glowing with violet fury.
Opposite him stood a being—formless, immense, composed of swirling ink and shadow. It had no face, only a gaping smile of hundreds of eyes.
> "You stole what was never yours, sword-wielder," the creature hissed. "Return the Whispered Edge."
> "No," the Heaven-Split Master declared. "I sealed the knowledge. I buried it in the silent blade. Let it slumber… until the worthy awaken it."
Then the vision shattered.
---
Raen gasped, reeling. His palm still clutched the broken hilt—but now, his own blade, the Silent Edge, vibrated violently.
A new symbol had appeared near its guard—matching the hilt's engraving.
Nira's voice broke through the silence. "Raen… that blade… it's evolving."
Talin's eyes were wide. "It's absorbing the Heaven-Split's legacy."
Suddenly, the sealed doors slammed shut. From the shadows emerged a figure—tall, cloaked, with no face, only a dark mirror where the head should be.
Raen's instincts screamed.
"Who dares touch the Master's Will?" the figure asked in a voice that wasn't sound, but weight—each word pressing on Raen's lungs like a mountain.
He stepped forward, blade half-drawn.
"I do. Raen of the Silent Edge."
The air turned cold.
The trial wasn't over.
---
To be continued...