The city of Duskfire was a place that had forgotten how to die.
Once a haven of scholars and spiritual artisans, it had become a monument to denial. Towering brass walls etched with forbidden formations guarded the skyline. Lanterns burned with soulflame, crafted from the essence of fallen beasts. Every alley hummed with the thrum of artificial cultivation arrays—shortcuts to enlightenment, sold by silver-tongued merchants and enforced by masked enforcers with empty eyes.
It was the first city Ren Zhe had seen since returning to the surface.
And he hated it.
Not because it was corrupt—he had seen worse.
But because it pretended.
It pretended to be sacred. Holy. Enlightened.
Even as it reeked of the same rot that had once buried him alive.
He stood outside the eastern gate, cloaked in silence, while Meimei negotiated with the guards.
"You're bringing a corpse into the city," one guard said.
"He's not a corpse."
"He smells like one."
"He's my uncle," Meimei lied. "He suffers from spiritual rot."
Ren Zhe remained still.
His cultivation suppressed. His breath slowed to one every ten minutes. His aura curled inward like a blade in its sheath.
The guards eventually relented.
And so they entered.
But it was already too late.
Because something had entered before them.
Deep within the city's central plaza, a young cultivator named Han Lei lit incense for his ancestors. He wore the robes of the Sun-Borne Sect—once a respected order, now little more than mercenaries dressed as monks.
As he prayed, a figure sat down beside him.
At first, he didn't notice.
Then the figure spoke.
"What's it like?" it asked. "To believe they're still listening?"
Han Lei turned.
The man beside him wore no robes. No sword. No cultivation ring.
And yet Han Lei could feel it.
An absence.
A silence that devoured sound.
He tried to stand.
He couldn't move.
"I remember you," the man said. "Not you, precisely. But the type."
He reached out, brushing ash from the altar.
"People like you buried someone once. Someone like me."
Han Lei opened his mouth, but the man continued.
"And now I'm hungry."
A scream started in Han Lei's throat.
It never left.
Ren Zhe felt it the moment it happened.
A pulse.
Not spiritual, not elemental—something deeper.
He staggered in the street, eyes narrowing.
Meimei looked up from a bowl of noodles. "What is it?"
"Something just died."
"Someone dies every second in this city."
"No. Not like this."
He turned, gaze scanning the skyline.
Then he saw it.
A ripple in the air above the central plaza. Not light. Not heat.
Memory.
Folding. Warping.
Undoing.
He dropped the coin for his meal and vanished in a blur of shadow.
The plaza was empty when he arrived.
No. Not empty.
Forgotten.
The incense bowls were shattered. The offering stones were turned to ash. And sitting on the broken steps was him.
Or something like him.
The Echo.
It looked up.
And smiled.
"You took your time."
Ren Zhe didn't move.
The Echo stood.
It wore his face.
But younger. Less tired. Less broken.
Its eyes were wrong.
Too bright.
"Do you remember this place?" the Echo asked.
"No."
"You used to pray here. Before everything."
"I've forgotten much."
"I haven't."
It stepped forward.
People passed by. None reacted. None looked. None saw.
"You're hiding yourself from them," Ren Zhe said.
"Not hiding," the Echo replied. "I simply don't exist in their time."
That made Ren Zhe's stomach clench.
"What do you want?"
"What we always wanted," the Echo said. "To be remembered."
Ren Zhe shook his head. "You're not me."
"But I was. Once. You created me. In the dark. In the silence. I was the part of you that refused to die."
"No."
"I am your cultivation. Your rage. Your obsession. Your revenge made manifest."
"You're a shadow."
"And shadows don't fade. Not in a world without light."
They stood in silence.
Then Ren Zhe asked, "Why kill that boy?"
The Echo smiled.
"I didn't. I ate him."
In a temple halfway across the city, a spirit mirror cracked.
A priestess fell to her knees.
She saw the vision in her mind—a man with no aura, devouring names from memory. Removing people not just from life, but from history.
Erasing them.
She whispered a prayer.
The wind didn't answer.
Back in the plaza, the Echo stepped closer.
"You were always going to come here. You always had to see."
"See what?"
"What the world became. What they let it become."
He gestured to the walls. The machines. The artificial cultivators.
"They forgot the old ways. They spit on the heavens and mock the earth. And they have no memory of who built the path they walk."
Ren Zhe's voice dropped to a whisper.
"You want to destroy them."
"No," the Echo said.
"I want to remind them."
Ren Zhe summoned his blade.
The courtyard trembled.
But the Echo raised a finger.
"I'm not your enemy."
"You devoured a soul."
"He was already empty. A shell. You think I'm the only thing walking this world in borrowed flesh?"
The wind howled.
The sky dimmed.
The Echo stepped back.
"I'm going to the Monastery of Falling Stars. Meet me there—if you still remember the way."
Then he vanished.
Not into light.
Not into shadow.
But into forgetting.
Ren Zhe stood alone.
For the first time in ten thousand years… he wasn't sure what path to take.
He turned back toward Meimei.
She was staring at something in her hands.
A small scroll.
Red ink.
A symbol he recognized.
The Empress wants you dead.
His past had found him.
Somewhere Else.
A woman in jade robes lowered her brush.
Her face was veiled.
Her fingers were stained with black lotus dye.
"She's coming for him," she whispered.
A shadow behind her nodded.
"Shall I prepare the armies?"
"No," she said. "Prepare the tombs."