Zhuyan Realm, Day of the Execution
The clash shattered the hush of the Bone Lantern Forest.
Crimson mist roared upward from the cracked earth. The trees screamed again—not from wind or flame, but from memory. Bark peeled back like old skin, revealing bones etched with names long erased from scrolls. Shadows danced with no source. The very soil buckled as if rejecting the idea of conflict.
Yi Mochen stood within the eye of the storm. His chest rose and fell in shallow, trembling gasps. Blood slicked his teeth. Each breath brought knives to his ribs. The Crimson Seal along his spine pulsed with molten agony—he could feel it pulling from his marrow now, drawing on memory like a starving god.
Across from him, Hui Shen of the Azure Vein Sect leveled his broken spear.
"I see it now," Hui Shen growled, voice hoarse. "You don't fight in the present."
"No," Yi Mochen rasped. "I fight in remembrance."
---
Flashback — Azure Vein Archives, Six Years Ago
"Forget him," the scrollkeeper had whispered. "The Bone-Eyed Orphan. He's already lost."
In a sealed record chamber beneath the sect's jade library, a single name had been scratched out with black ink. The entry simply read:
> "Yi Mochen — deemed unworthy for legacy inscription."
No honors. No titles.
He would be a ghost even in the records.
---
Present
Now Hui Shen saw that black ink scrawled across the forest around him.
He lunged again, body glowing with internal light—his Nascent Path surged with divine rhythm. Runes spiraled across his arms, a vortex of sky-blue Qi surrounding him like a personal storm.
Yi Mochen didn't retreat. He couldn't.
Instead, he let Hui Shen strike.
The spear's broken shaft slammed against his shoulder with explosive force. Bone cracked. Mochen's body flew into a twisted tree trunk, splinters driving into his back.
But when Hui Shen blinked—
Yi Mochen was already gone.
In his place stood an image—Mochen at age fifteen, hair matted with blood, eyes burning in silence. A memory.
It grinned. Then exploded in a shriek of soundless agony.
The sound wasn't real—but Hui Shen felt it in his teeth, in his stomach, in the marrow of his spear arm.
> "His Dao is not illusion," Hui Shen realized. "It is suffering. Translated into form."
He turned just in time to block the real Mochen's strike—barely.
---
Above the Canopy — Dawn Temple War-Talisman
The high priestess frowned.
"He's still only at Pulse Awakening, maybe grazing the edge of Mind-Sea in fits. How is he contending with a peak Nascent Path cultivator?"
The elder beside her closed his eyes.
"Because Hui Shen cultivates perfection."
"And Mochen…?"
"He cultivates corruption. Every scar he remembers becomes a blade. Every pain is a formation. He doesn't need Qi dominance—he rewrites the battlefield with history."
---
Ground Level
Yi Mochen's vision blurred.
His left arm was numb. His foot dragged.
But Hui Shen's stance was less steady now. Sweat traced lines down his neck. Not from exertion, but from something else.
Fear?
No—something more ancient.
Recognition.
Yi Mochen coughed blood, then spoke.
"Have you ever walked through your own grave?"
Hui Shen didn't reply.
Mochen raised his blade with his remaining strength. "I have. In memory."
The Bone Lantern pulsed again. Not just bright this time—alive.
A deep hum filled the clearing. No cultivator in sight. But the air warped. Trees bent backward as if bowing.
And then came the names.
Not shouted. Not spoken.
Whispered.
Thousands of names. One after another. Some were Hui Shen's victims. Others were forgotten by history.
Yi Mochen whispered too.
> "Zhao Qing. Hung for theft of bread."
"Wen Jiao. Buried alive beneath the Temple for impurity."
"Yi Mochen. Denied a name at the gates of power."
Each name carried a memory.
Each memory—a weapon.
---
Hui Shen buckled.
The phantoms surged again—this time not from Mochen's side, but Hui Shen's own mind. Regrets he'd buried. Orders he'd obeyed without thought. Sins of silence.
He slashed at them, but his Qi now tore at his soul, recoiling. His Nascent Path, once flawless, now faltered. The memories didn't attack his body.
They rewrote his intent.
And the Nascent Path—being built on intent—fractured.
> This is impossible, Hui Shen's mind screamed.
Memory cannot destroy cultivation. It's just—
He vomited blood.
The crack in his core widened.
Yi Mochen approached, dragging his blade behind him. It sparked against the stone.
"I warned you," he said, voice hollow. "Leave your name. So you are remembered."
---
Flashback — The Day Yi Mochen Fell
He had knelt in the Bone Caverns for three days. Naked. Cold.
Above him, the elders carved a sentence onto stone:
> "The one who did not bow shall not be remembered."
That day, the boy had smiled.
"I will remember me."
---
Present
Yi Mochen raised his blade. Hui Shen, gasping, dropped to one knee.
Then came the interruption.
A second figure blurred into the clearing—a woman draped in gold and white, with talismans ringing from her sleeves.
She raised a fan and swept wind across the space between them.
Mochen staggered, blinking.
Hui Shen was pulled back.
"Enough," she said.
Eyes like sharp moons fixed on Mochen.
"You are not yet to die. Not yet to win."
"Who are you?" he whispered.
She bowed slightly.
"Sister of Silence. Envoy of the Ancestor. I speak now, though I should not."
Yi Mochen's blade lowered. His limbs trembled. The Bone Lantern dimmed.
"Then speak," he whispered.
The Sister leaned close, her breath like winter.
> "She waits for you, boy of memory. But you must come crawling. Come broken."
She paused.
> "The Silent Sect does not hunt you. Not yet.
The Silent Sect wants to teach you."
Then she vanished—dispersing into dust and bone-white paper talismans.
---
Aftermath
The battlefield lay quiet. Trees burned. Hui Shen lay unconscious, bleeding from ears and eyes, murmuring old names.
Yi Mochen collapsed to the ground.
He did not rise again for hours.
The Bone Lantern lay beside him, its glow a whisper.
---
Elsewhere — The Silent Mountain
Atop the jagged throne of the Silent Sect, the Ancestor stirred once more.
"His flame burns. Not with power. But with remembering."
She raised a hand.
"Begin the preparations."
A hundred white-cloaked disciples bowed.
Below, a scroll unfurled. It bore no words—only a handprint. Bloody. Child-sized.
The scroll ignited. Not from fire. From history.
---
On the cliffside
Night had fallen.
Yi Mochen watched the stars through the tangled trees.
He had won. But not without cost. His arm hung limp. His vision blurred. And in his soul, the Crimson Seal flared with warning.
He would not survive another encounter like this.
Not yet.
But even still…he whispered.
> "I am Yi Mochen.
I remember.
And I will not let them forget me."
A single crimson feather drifted from the sky.
He caught it.
And the Bone Lantern glowed again.
It pulsed softly at first, like the breathing of a sleeping beast.
Then it trembled.
Yi Mochen, still half-lying against a blackened root, looked down at it, barely conscious. Blood crusted on the edges of his lips. His body was no longer his ally—it was a prison of fatigue and frostbitten veins.
The crimson feather in his hand slowly disintegrated into fine dust.
And the glow intensified.
Not bright, not divine—remembered. As if a hundred unseen eyes blinked open inside the lantern's pale core, each belonging to a soul whose name the world had tried to erase.
Then he heard the first whisper.
> "Mochen…"
He didn't answer. He had no voice left.
But the Bone Lantern did not require words.
It showed him her.
---
Dream-Flash:
Shuyin, standing atop the frozen bridge at the edge of the Emerald Sect, her white robes smeared with his blood, eyes rimmed with tears she refused to let fall.
"Why did you come back?" she asked the memory.
And the boy—his younger self—replied:
> "To remind you something."
"Remind me of what?"
He had said nothing.
But the lantern remembered the look in her eyes—betrayal, yes—but beneath it, something older.
Hope.
The kind that hurt worse than blades when it broke.
---
Present
Yi Mochen exhaled slowly. The vision faded.
The lantern's glow settled into a low thrum.
And then he noticed it.
Etched into the forest floor beneath him—a new sigil, drawn in old blood. Not his.
He didn't recall drawing it.
And yet…it was familiar.
Twelve concentric circles. Twelve broken lines. One center spiral.
His spine ached with sudden heat. The Crimson Seal pulsed like a heartbeat syncing with the Bone Lantern.
This was not just memory anymore.
> This was an invitation.
He tried to stand. His body screamed.
But he forced himself upright, one slow, trembling breath at a time. His fingers gripped the Bone Lantern. Warm now. Warmer than it had ever been.
A wind stirred. Not natural. Not from the heavens.
It came from beneath the roots.
The forest shifted.
And then, ahead of him—through the branches—a path revealed itself. Unlit. Winding.
It hadn't been there before.
He stared.
Then, from the shadows beyond that path, a voice rose:
> "Mochen…"
Male.
Elderly.
Half-decayed.
A voice from the first generation of the Crimson Dao.
> "Your execution was only the beginning."
---
Elsewhere — Southern Front, Mistfang Province
The Dao Mirror Sect caravan arrived at the edge of a withered valley.
Disciples halted. Flags lowered.
One elder dismounted and peered into the night fog.
"Bone Lantern Forest has awakened," he said.
Another replied, "Do we strike now?"
The elder shook his head.
"No. Not until the Bai Clan arrives. Not until we understand what memory defends him."
"Memory?" one disciple asked. "He's just a fugitive."
The elder turned slowly, face unreadable.
> "He's the only one who cultivates like the old gods did.
Before remembrance became taboo.
Before truth was outlawed."
He looked to the sky, where crimson streaks clouded the moon.
"And truth… is more dangerous than any blade."
---
Elsewhere — Bai Clan Carriage, Eastern Path
Within a bone-decorated war-chariot, two twin-headed hounds paced beneath their mistress's gaze.
Bai Xuelin, dressed in white funeral garb, ran a finger along a scroll inscribed in raw flesh.
She paused.
"His soul-thread is shifting," she murmured. "Something has changed in the forest."
Her brother, lounging nearby with a wine gourd, snorted.
"Still playing with corpses and memory?"
She didn't answer.
Instead, she smiled faintly.
> "If he unlocks the inner gate of the Bone Lantern… even the Silent Sect will not contain what comes next."
---
Back at the Forest — Yi Mochen Walks
Yi Mochen's steps were uneven. He used a burnt tree as a crutch, dragging his broken frame through the winding, hidden path.
With each step, his surroundings shifted—not physically, but perceptually.
The air shimmered with forgotten things.
— An old woman calling her dead child's name.
— A disciple reciting a forbidden scripture in a cave.
— A god kneeling before his killer, asking to be remembered.
Each memory whispered to him. Not all were his.
But they found home within him.
The path ended at a clearing. At its center: a cracked monolith made of bone, thorn, and ash.
The same sigil from the forest floor was carved into its face.
Yi Mochen approached.
Then came the voice again:
> "To walk deeper into the Crimson Dao…
You must sacrifice the last of your name."
Mochen's eyes narrowed.
"My name?"
"Your name has protected you. Tied you to pain. But now, it must be surrendered."
He paused.
Then: "What am I, without my name?"
The voice answered:
> "You are remembrance itself."
And the monolith opened—like a maw unsealing in the earth.
Crimson light poured from the crack. And within it: a staircase of bone descending into memory deeper than death.
Yi Mochen gripped the Bone Lantern.
And stepped inside.
---
Above the forest, the moon turned red.
At the Silent Sect, the Ancestor's eyes opened wider.
At the Empire, the throne cracked.
And in the shadowed corners of the world, the Crimson Dream began again.
---