Far from the mortal realm, beyond the edges of the sky and deeper than the underworld, the Abyss stirred.
It was not a place of darkness, but of unmaking. It remembered what the world had chosen to forget—names lost to history, wars scrubbed from records, gods dethroned by their own fear. And now, Liu Shen's blood had summoned it once more.
In the ruined palace chamber, the pact scroll burned with abyssal fire, its flame dancing with ancient symbols that no language could hold. Shadows on the walls twisted and moved, not cast by flame, but by memory.
Yu Meixing steadied herself as the temperature dropped. "What did you bind?" she whispered.
"I didn't bind a creature," Liu Shen replied. "I bound a law. One forgotten when I died—when they made me vanish."
Lian Yue's expression was pale. "You summoned an Echo from the First Abyss. The last time one answered a pact... an entire empire fell into silence."
A crack split the air, not of stone or wood, but of sound breaking. A fissure opened midair, a vertical line of absolute stillness.
From within, a figure emerged.
It wasn't a person. It had no face, no limbs, no body—only shape. A towering silhouette of shifting shadow, with eyes like cracked glass that reflected truth. It hovered above the ground, its presence pressing into their bones, scraping at their souls.
Liu Shen stood unflinching.
"I am the Sovereign," he said. "Once betrayed, now risen. I seek what was taken—my army, my history, my name in the stars."
The Echo regarded him with silent stillness.
Then, a voice—not heard, but known—resounded.
"Do you still remember the vow?"
Liu Shen closed his eyes and spoke the words etched into the very foundation of his past:
"To defy the heavens that fear truth.
To guide the lost who remember the war.
To raise a realm not built on mercy, but memory.
I am the Sovereign—not of mortals, but of those forsaken."
Silence reigned.
Then the Echo knelt.
Chains of nothingness wrapped around Liu Shen's wrist, cold and weightless. One by one, black sigils appeared on his back, burning into his flesh with no wound—just reclamation.
Yu Meixing gasped. "Those marks…"
Lei Qing stepped back. "That's not a contract. That's a calling mark. He's… he's summoning the Forgotten Court."
Arthis's usual calm cracked. "You're waking them up."
Liu Shen opened his eyes. In them, the reflection of the Abyss shimmered.
"They were never dead," he said. "Just silenced."
The Echo vanished, and in its wake, a gate of obsidian and bone spiraled open behind the throne. From its depths came whispers—names, ranks, blades once wielded, and banners long torn.
Liu Shen turned to his allies. "The first of my generals waits on the other side."
"But the Abyss changes people," Lian Yue said. "They won't be the same."
"I know," Liu Shen answered. "But neither am I."
He stepped into the gate.
And behind him, the ruins of the palace trembled—not in fear, but in remembrance.
The Sovereign had begun calling his army home.