The night air was heavy with ash. The ruins of a long-forgotten battlefield stretched endlessly before Mo Lianyin, where swords, spears, and broken banners lay half-buried in the soil. Every step crunched against bones that had not tasted rest for centuries.
He had come here not by choice, but by the whispering pull of the Seventh Forbidden Art. The Blade of Forgotten Names awaited him somewhere among this graveyard of the past. It was said to be a weapon that did not cut flesh, but identity. To be struck by it was to have one's name erased from Heaven's scrolls, as if one had never existed.
The cultivator exhaled, his breath pale in the night. His robes fluttered in a wind that did not belong to this world. Shadows writhed on the broken earth, as if they were watching.
"Lianyin…" The voice echoed faintly, like threads unraveling in his mind. It was not his master's, nor his enemies'. It was his own name, called back at him by unseen lips.
He pressed forward.
The air grew colder, and the stench of rusted iron became suffocating. Statues of warriors lined the path, carved in exquisite detail. Yet each statue was headless. Their swords pointed downward, dripping with frozen stone blood.
Suddenly, the ground split. From the abyss below, skeletal hands clawed their way upward, dragging long-forgotten soldiers out of the soil. Their empty eye sockets glowed faintly, and their armor was still shattered from the war that had once bound them here.
Mo Lianyin did not draw his sword immediately. Instead, he placed two fingers together, channeling qi that crackled like frost. A sigil flared, and the first skeleton to leap at him shattered mid-air, dissolving into ash.
But for every one destroyed, three more rose.
The battlefield itself resisted him. It was not merely haunted—it was alive.
He whispered under his breath, "So this is the test…"
Drawing his sword, Silent Ash, Lianyin swung once. The strike cut not only the enemies before him but also tore a scar into the earth itself, scattering dozens of revenants back into dust. Yet their wails rose like a choir, shaking his soul.
A figure emerged among them. Unlike the others, this one was not faceless. He wore a crown of iron and carried a rusted sword. His eyes glowed with a dim silver light.
"You seek the Blade of Forgotten Names," the corpse king said, his voice a blend of echo and thunder. "But what are you willing to lose in exchange?"
Mo Lianyin raised his sword without hesitation. "I have already lost everything."
The king laughed hollowly. "Then perhaps you are worthy. But prove it, mortal child of betrayal."
The duel began.
The corpse king's blade moved slowly, but with the weight of mountains. Every swing could shatter an army. Mo Lianyin's movements, in contrast, were swift, his strikes weaving through the king's power like threads of light.
But with each clash, he realized something: the king's sword carried no killing intent. Instead, each strike pulled at him—pulling at his name, his essence, his very existence. His strokes grew heavier, his memories blurred.
He faltered once. For the briefest moment, he forgot his master's face.
"No!" He roared, forcing his qi outward. Flames of forbidden energy erupted from his body, black and crimson, swirling like a storm. His veins burned, but he endured.
The corpse king's silver eyes widened slightly. "So you would call upon the forbidden?"
Mo Lianyin pressed forward, his blade cutting through the fog. Each step became agony, each breath a fight against erasure. The battlefield screamed with every movement, the wailing of forgotten soldiers filling the night.
At last, he thrust forward. Silent Ash pierced through the corpse king's chest.
But instead of blood, names poured out—thousands of them, whispered all at once, flooding the air in a storm of syllables. Names of warriors long gone. Names erased from the heavens. Names never spoken again.
The corpse king's voice trembled. "Remember them, and the Blade will be yours."
The skeleton crumbled into dust. Where it fell, a sword emerged from the earth—its blade black, its hilt wrapped in chains. The metal pulsed faintly with runes, each one flickering like a forgotten syllable.
Mo Lianyin reached out, his hand trembling. The instant his fingers touched the hilt, his vision went black.
He stood suddenly in a vast white void. Before him were endless mirrors, each reflecting not his present self, but fragments of who he might have been—smiling as a boy, weeping as a disciple, cold as the man he had become.
A voice whispered from the blade: "If you wield me, you will cut not only your enemies. You will cut yourself away, piece by piece. Until nothing remains."
Mo Lianyin closed his eyes.
"If that is the price… so be it."
His grip tightened, and the Blade of Forgotten Names merged into his hand.
When he opened his eyes, the battlefield was silent once more. The soldiers had vanished. Only the moon bore witness, pale and distant.
Mo Lianyin stood alone, a new weight bound to him.
And in the shadows beyond the battlefield, unseen eyes watched him with a smile.