---
Regret is not a memory.
It is a chain.
Forged not in action, but in what was not done.
To bind a soul with force is difficult.
To bind a soul with fear is dangerous.
But to bind it with regret?
That is eternal.
And only the Binding Sect knew the ritual.
---
Ji Shen's preparation chamber was not of this world.
It existed in the Scarred Echo, a dimensional fold torn open by his master decades ago—outside the flow of Heaven's law, soaked in memory, littered with broken selves. Here, time moved like bleeding ink.
And here… Ji Shen knelt before a chained altar.
Before him writhed a creature made not of flesh, but of moments that never happened. A beast born from the Regret of the World. It had no face. Only fragments:
—A mother never held.
—A path never taken.
—A sword never drawn.
—A life never lived.
Ji Shen bit his tongue and let his blood mark the altar.
> "I offer what was almost mine."
"I offer the boy I could have been."
"Forge me a chain to bind the Hollow."
The beast screamed.
And from its howl, the Seventh Chain was born.
---
Elsewhere, Yun Mu meditated on the peak of Hollow Fang Ridge.
A place feared even by Ironcloud's elders.
The air here trembled with spiritual wounds. The trees were twisted, roots exposed like veins. The earth whispered to itself in forgotten tones.
Yun Mu didn't fear it.
Because the Devouring Root within him fed easily on death.
Around him, spiritual qi swirled unnaturally, like it had a mind of its own.
Not long ago, he would have fought to control it.
Now? It obeyed.
His Hollow Core pulsed steadily.
His cultivation had entered the late-stage Spirit Condensation Realm—but that was meaningless. The Hollow Path wasn't about stages. It was about control.
Not of the world.
But of self.
He sat in silence.
Until the world changed.
---
It happened with no warning.
The air shattered like glass.
A chain tore through space and looped around his shadow. Not his body—his shadow. And shadows could not be cut.
He stood instantly, but the world had already turned.
The mountain disappeared.
The sky dimmed.
He stood in a city. Familiar. Wrong.
Children ran past. Lanterns floated. Spirit-kites danced in the air.
> "The Harvest Festival," Yun Mu whispered.
He recognized it.
His hometown.
The day before everything was taken from him.
Before the fires.
Before the betrayal.
Before his soul cracked open and the Hollow whispered his name.
> "No," he said.
But the city was real.
And he was there.
A younger Yun Mu—fifteen, smiling, running through the crowd with a spirit flute in his hands. No burden. No darkness. Just… joy.
Yun Mu staggered.
> "This is an illusion," he told himself.
"A binding of memory."
But his hands shook.
Because he remembered this day.
He remembered what came next.
And for a single, fatal moment… he wanted it to be real.
---
> "Regret is your anchor."
Ji Shen stepped from the crowd, wearing no mask this time.
Just a simple black robe.
The Seventh Chain floated behind him—thin, silver, and flickering like it barely existed. Yet it had already looped itself around Yun Mu's soul.
> "Do you feel it?" Ji Shen asked.
Yun Mu turned, voice hoarse.
"What is this technique?"
"The Chain of Regret," Ji Shen said.
"It shows you the life you could have had. The one you wanted. The one Heaven denied you. And it lets you choose it."
Yun Mu narrowed his eyes.
"That's not a technique. That's a curse."
Ji Shen smiled faintly.
"That's what we do."
He snapped his fingers.
---
The world shifted.
Suddenly Yun Mu was seated at a table.
A woman laughed beside him—his mother. Alive. Her face unmarred.
His sister danced nearby, carefree.
He held the hand of a girl he once loved, who never died.
And across from him sat his younger self, eyes full of light.
> "Stay," the boy said.
"You don't have to fight anymore."
Yun Mu closed his eyes.
> "This isn't real."
> "It could be," the boy whispered. "If you let go."
---
Outside the illusion, Ji Shen watched.
He bled from his eyes. The Seventh Chain took its toll.
But he smiled.
"No one escapes their regret."
---
Within the dream, Yun Mu stood.
He looked at the version of himself that never suffered.
He looked at the family, the life, the joy.
And then he said quietly:
> "You are a lie."
"You are the gift I was never meant to have."
"And I am the one who devoured that fate."
The boy's smile faltered.
"You would throw this away?"
Yun Mu reached into his chest.
His Hollow Core pulsed.
He pulled out a black flame—the Devouring Root's embryonic form.
> "I am not made of what I lost."
"I am made of what I survived."
And with a single motion, he burned the vision.
The city screamed.
The sky wept.
And the Seventh Chain shattered.
---
Ji Shen fell to one knee, coughing blood.
Yun Mu stood above him, robes tattered, eyes burning with shadow and starlight.
> "You tried to chain me with regret," he said.
"But I have none left."
Ji Shen whispered, "Then what are you?"
Yun Mu looked at the sky.
> "The one who walks the path you fear exists."
And behind him, the shadows formed again.
Not maws this time.
But a throne.
Empty.
Waiting.
---
Far away, in the Scarred Heaven Archives, a decree was written in divine script:
> "If the Hollow reaches Sky Ascension…
The Mandate will fall."