The dust of the capital had not yet settled when Liu Shen stood amidst the ruins of the divine altar, the Third Abyssal Beacon pulsing behind him like a second heart. Around him, silence reigned—not from fear, but from awe. Even the Hollow Empire's surviving nobles, once arrogant and aloof, bowed their heads before the one who had forced the Echo Crown to kneel.
Yu Meixing approached the broken figure of the Echo Crown, now unarmored and human once more. Her name—Lian Yue—lingered in the air like a long-forgotten hymn.
"She remembers now," Meixing said, voice unreadable. "But what will you do with her?"
Liu Shen didn't answer immediately. Lian Yue knelt, eyes closed, awaiting judgment—not from the heavens, but from the Sovereign she had once sworn to follow.
"I will not chain her," Liu Shen finally said. "The heavens stole her will once. I will not do the same."
Lian Yue opened her eyes, tears glimmering beneath long lashes. "You gave me back my name… I will give you back my oath."
She lowered her head fully, her voice steady despite the trembling in her frame. "From this day onward, I am yours. Not as an enforcer… but as your blade."
The pact was made—not of contract, but of memory, of bond once severed and now reforged.
Liu Shen turned toward the gathered crowd of cultivators, lords, and survivors of the Hollow Empire.
"Listen well," he declared, voice ringing across the ruined city. "This realm is broken not because mortals are weak, but because the heavens decree weakness to be law."
He raised his hand, revealing a fragment of a broken chain—once divine, now useless.
"We were born with the right to rise. And I will not kneel to a sky that fears its own reflection."
Cheers rose from some. Fear flickered in others. But all understood—this was not the same Liu Shen who had once reigned as a tyrant. This was the Sovereign reborn, tempered by death and betrayal, wielding purpose sharper than any blade.
Later, within the palace remnants, the core group gathered—Yu Meixing, Lei Qing, Arthis, and now Lian Yue.
"The beacons are awakening faster than we thought," Arthis warned. "Three now burn. If the heavens have sent the Echo Crown, then others will follow."
"Let them come," Lei Qing muttered.
"No," Liu Shen said quietly. "They won't send more enforcers. Not yet. They'll send a Voice."
Meixing's expression darkened. "You don't mean—"
"I do," Liu Shen replied. "A Herald."
The Heralds were not fighters. They were oracles, arbiters, and lawmakers who did not kill—but erased. Realms, bloodlines, names, and truths—unwritten from history by divine authority.
"If a Herald is dispatched," Lian Yue said, regaining some of her former clarity, "they will not strike with blades. They will strike with memory. They will erase your existence from fate."
"And I," Liu Shen said, "will make them remember why they tried to forget me."
He opened a scroll—inked in abyssal runes, sealed in time. It bore the ancient crest of his former court. He laid it flat on the stone table, and the flames of the Abyss responded.
"What is that?" Lei Qing asked.
"A pact," Liu Shen said. "One made before the heavens betrayed me. A binding made with a force older than gods."
As he pressed his blood into the scroll, the world around them pulsed.
From across the Void, a presence stirred.
The Abyss watched.
And it remembered.