The titan touched down like a falling mountain.
The ground shuddered. Old trees snapped like twigs. The valley fractured beneath its weight.
It was shaped like a human, but grotesque—stitched together from ancient, rusted bones and wrapped in barbed chains that writhed like living things. Each step it took tore open the land and left behind trails of golden fire. Where the Mirror That Eats had been subtle madness, this Herald was pure, brutal annihilation.
Jin's instincts screamed. Even without his cultivation, even if his soul had still been shattered, this thing would've made him run.
But he didn't.
Qilin's breath caught beside him. "That's the Chainbearer."
"You know it?"
She nodded, slowly. "Second Herald of the Hollow Crown. It dragged entire sects into silence. No survivors. No witnesses. Just—emptiness where cities used to be."
Jin gripped Nihil tighter. "Then it dies here."
The Chainbearer raised one arm.
The air cracked.
A line of barbed chain shot out, faster than lightning. Jin barely twisted aside, the tip grazing his shoulder—where it struck, his flesh burned black and hissed with cursed heat.
"Not just physical," he muttered. "It's sealing Qi with contact."
"Don't get hit again," Qilin warned, loosing an arrow toward the creature's eye socket. The shot curved mid-air, drawn toward one of the floating chains instead—and consumed.
"No projectile attacks," she said grimly. "It bends trajectory using curse gravity."
Jin didn't reply. He was already moving.
He flickered forward using Grave Step, appearing beneath the Chainbearer's towering legs. With a rising slash, he carved across its thigh. Nihil dug in, but only sparks flew—metal on metal. The chain tightened, and from the wound emerged a face.
His own.
Twisted. Screaming. Mouth stitched with golden thread.
Jin staggered back.
The Chainbearer laughed—a deep, gutless sound that echoed inside his skull.
"You don't kill me with strength," Jin murmured. "You kill me with self."
He raised Nihil and forced his will into the blade.
Not just to destroy.
To reject.
To sever.
"Severance Form," he whispered.
A new stance—born in the grave, refined through pain. A movement not of brute force, but of conceptual destruction.
He slashed sideways.
The chain reaching for him disintegrated.
The Chainbearer shuddered, actually recoiling.
It looked down at its missing limb. Then, at Jin. Then it laughed again—but this time, the sound wavered.
Jin stepped forward.
For once, the giant hesitated.
Qilin drew back, awestruck. "He's severing the Herald's bindings. That's not just swordplay. That's…" she trailed off.
"Conceptual override," murmured a voice behind her.
She turned. A man stood behind a fallen pillar—cloaked, hooded, barefoot. No spiritual pressure. No presence at all.
"Who are you?" she demanded.
"I am a witness," the man said. "Nothing more. I came to see if the one who crawled out of the grave could bleed the Crown."
"And your judgment?"
He watched Jin drive Nihil into the Chainbearer's chest.
The titan screamed—not from pain, but fear.
"He's not bleeding them," the man said. "He's unmaking them."
The battle hit its peak.
Jin danced between death, weaving through collapsing chains, slicing through them with clean, decisive cuts. Every time Nihil met the cursed metal, it screamed—not from stress, but liberation.
He wasn't just cutting matter.
He was cutting memory.
"Every piece of you was once stolen," Jin whispered. "Every soul you devoured, every chain you forged, every city you erased—I'm taking them back."
He slammed Nihil into the ground.
A pulse echoed from the grave-scarred blade.
And the earth answered.
The valley cracked wide, bones rising from the depths—the bones of the cities the Chainbearer erased. Ghosts formed, silent and weeping, circling the titan.
The Chainbearer thrashed.
But the ghosts reached for it—not with hate, but longing.
Forgiveness.
That, more than Nihil's edge, tore the creature apart.
It shattered.
Chains fell lifeless to the dirt. Its core—an iron heart forged from molten names—lay exposed.
Jin picked it up.
The heart screamed, each name it held a soul the Crown had bound.
He didn't crush it.
He placed it in the earth.
And whispered, "Rest."
Silence returned.
Qilin approached slowly. "You're changing," she said.
Jin nodded. "I know."
"You're becoming something else. Something… not human."
He looked at his hands.
The veins glowed faintly with black fire. His scars were gone. Replaced by ancient script he couldn't read.
"I was never human," he said. "Not after they buried me."
She stared. "You still want revenge?"
"No," he said.
She blinked. "You don't?"
"I want to finish what they started."
He turned to her.
"And then I want to burn the heavens they built."
Far away, in the Hollow Crown's dark palace, a cloaked figure screamed.
"He's severed two Heralds already."
Another voice answered—cold, and feminine.
"Then it's time."
The figure bowed.
"Shall we send the Leviathan?"
"No," she said. "Send the girl."
"The—? But she's still—"
"Send the girl. The one he used to protect. The one who now wears the Crown's mark."
The messenger nodded and vanished.
The woman turned, her face hidden beneath a veil of void.
"The corpse who climbed from the grave thinks he's free," she whispered.
"But soon, he'll remember the chain we left in his heart."