The Mirror That Eats fell like a god descending from its throne.
Wind and dust screamed as Jin surged forward, Nihil blazing in his grip, cutting through the haze of illusions the mirror spewed into the air. Each reflection it cast wasn't a simple image—it was a living echo, tethered to regrets he thought he had buried.
Faces flickered in the shards of floating glass. His mother's eyes, blood-filled and accusing. His old sect brothers, smirking behind masks of hypocrisy. His master, staring down at him from a scaffold of ash.
Jin didn't blink.
He had buried them all before.
He would bury them again.
Qilin loosed a shot from her soulbound bow, the arrow splitting into seven upon release, each one carved with a different heavenly seal. The arrows struck the mirror's surface—and shattered instantly.
"Not good," she muttered, already drawing again.
Jin didn't wait.
He leapt.
The mirror's surface warped, and his own reflection lunged to meet him—twisted, contorted, eyes black and mouth sewn shut. Its blade was curved like a sickle, made of screaming shadows. It didn't speak. It invaded.
Their weapons clashed in the air. Jin spun mid-flight, dragging Nihil across the reflection's torso, but it didn't bleed—it broke apart into shards, and each shard screamed as it tried to worm its way into his skin.
"Bastard," he spat, striking again with a downward slash.
The mirror shrieked in a thousand voices, and suddenly, Jin was falling—not toward the ground, but into the mirror.
He landed in silence.
The world around him was... cold.
Endless corridors of broken memories. Hallways filled with floating scenes of his life—but wrong. Twisted by loss and laced with sorrow.
There, he saw himself accepting the Sect Leader's betrayal.
There, he watched himself crawl out of the grave—but never rise again.
In one corridor, he saw himself walking away from vengeance. Becoming a farmer. Dying in obscurity.
"These are not my futures," he growled.
"No," a voice replied. "These are your failures."
From the end of the hall came a figure.
No weapon. No armor.
It looked like Jin—but sickly, shriveled, hollow-eyed.
It walked barefoot on broken swords.
"I am what you could have become," it said. "The version of you that surrendered. That accepted the pain as punishment. That deserved the grave."
"I deserved to rise."
"Then prove it."
It rushed him, hands wreathed in black flame.
Jin didn't hesitate.
He met it head-on—Nihil clashing against hands born of despair. Every impact of their fight bent the memory corridor, cracking the illusions on the walls. The fake futures screamed as they burned.
His Hollow Self didn't bleed. It leeched.
Every strike drained strength, chipped at his will.
But Jin had something this thing didn't.
Hope.
He remembered the girl in the shrine who called him her ghost guardian. He remembered the child in the ruins who shared rice with him, even when starving. He remembered the look in Qilin's eyes when she said You survived.
Jin screamed.
Not in fear—but in refusal.
With a final strike, he drove Nihil through the Hollow Self's chest. "You are not me."
It collapsed, whispering a single phrase before it faded into dust.
"Then why do I still remember?"
The illusion cracked.
Jin exploded out of the mirror like a comet.
Glass rained across the battlefield as the Mirror That Eats split from top to bottom.
Qilin stared in awe. "You escaped the trap?"
"No," Jin said. "I broke it."
Behind him, the shattered Herald screeched as it collapsed into itself—fragments devouring fragments, trying to reform.
Qilin touched her communication jade. "We need to move. The Crown will send another Herald."
But before she could speak further, a voice boomed across the valley.
Deep.
Cruel.
Amused.
"So the little corpse remembers how to fight."
The sky darkened.
Clouds churned in reverse.
A second Herald descended—this one in the shape of a chained titan made of rusted bones, eyes weeping molten gold.
Jin looked up, breath steady.
"How many more?"
Qilin didn't smile. "Seven."
He cracked his neck. "Good. I have seven reasons to keep going."
At the far edge of the continent, within the hidden chambers of the Ninefold Heaven Sect, a cloaked figure watched the battle unfold through a tear in space.
He turned to his apprentice.
"The one buried under the grave. He's alive."
The apprentice trembled. "But he was... forgotten."
The elder placed a hand on the boy's head. "No. He was forged."
Back in the valley, Jin stood amidst the ruins of the Mirror That Eats, staring down the next Herald.
Each battle was feeding him.
Not just in cultivation, but in clarity.
The Hollow Crown wasn't just testing his power.
It was peeling back his soul.
And soon… Jin would return the favor.