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*"When a man becomes emptiness, he believes he is free.
When a woman bears what he cast away, she believes she is duty.
But neither can see the truth:
There is no freedom in forgetting."*
—Epigraph, Last Record of the Hollowed Flame Sect
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I. The Hollow Awakens
A mountain collapsed in silence.
Not from a strike.
But from unmaking.
Yun Mu sat atop its ruins, his Hollow Qi flickering erratically. Behind him, three Void Sigils spun—no longer stable halos, but cracked, bleeding symbols.
The strike from Yu Ling's blade hadn't just wounded his body.
It had pierced his soul-core.
And now, the memories he'd once sacrificed returned in broken, jagged fragments.
> —A child crying in rain.
—A sibling's laugh, now faceless.
—A promise to never kneel, carved into a dying man's hand.
He gripped his skull and roared.
The Hollow craved clarity. But memory fed confusion. And confusion bred resistance.
> "I chose the Hollow," he gasped. "I gave everything to be free…"
But what did freedom mean, when the past began to scream?
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II. Yu Ling's Pilgrimage
Far below the mountain, Yu Ling walked the Redwind Gorge, where every stone bore the scars of ancient rebellion. This place was once where the first Witness died—burned alive for remembering the truth about Heaven's manipulation of fate.
She stopped before the Witness Shrine, lighting a torch.
Her fingers trembled.
Yun Mu's memories still rattled inside her like caged ghosts.
> "What am I now?" she whispered. "A thief of someone else's pain?"
The shrine whispered in return.
> "You are what Heaven fears: a memory that refuses to fade."
There, she uncovered a forbidden scripture—The Book of the Nameless Flame.
It told of a technique:
"Soul-Mirror Reflection."
A cultivation method that allowed two minds to temporarily merge.
> "To truly understand him…" she breathed, "I must walk his path."
But the cost was severe.
> "Half of what I am may never return."
She took the scroll.
And kept walking.
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III. Fractures in the World
Across the continent, chaos bloomed.
The Heavenly Fate Formation—an invisible net that once guided destinies, ensured noble bloodlines, and predicted sect rise or fall—began to shatter.
Sects could no longer foresee tribulation.
Talent awakened in beggars and madmen.
Cursed bloodlines bloomed with divine Qi.
The structure of the cultivation world had begun to mutate.
And at the center of the collapse…
…Yun Mu's name began to appear in prophetic dreams.
A name that Heaven had deleted.
> "He is the anomaly," said an Oracle of the Nine Phoenix Court.
"Neither Hollow… nor Whole."
And worse:
> "He is being remembered."
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IV. The Meeting
On the edge of the Dreamless Sea, where stars bled into the waves, Yun Mu and Yu Ling met again.
No weapons drawn.
No posturing.
Only the sound of waves that forgot their shore.
Yun Mu turned, eyes no longer empty—but fragmented, scattered like shattered jade.
> "You… carry pieces of me," he said softly.
Yu Ling nodded.
> "I tried to give them back."
He looked away. "You should have let me remain Hollow."
She stepped closer.
> "Then who am I, if not the one who remembers you?"
> "You forgot because it was pain."
> "But I remember because it was you."
His breath caught.
And in that still moment, he whispered:
> "What if I can't be either?"
> "Not Hollow. Not Whole."
Yu Ling didn't answer.
She sat beside him.
And shared silence.
Because sometimes, a broken soul doesn't need answers—only acknowledgment.
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V. A Soul Shared
That night, Yu Ling enacted the Soul-Mirror Reflection Technique.
Yun Mu allowed it.
Their spirit cores aligned—for only a moment.
But in that moment…
She lived his fall.
And he saw her loyalty.
She saw:
The night Yun Mu slept under a bridge, using his own blood to write talismans of survival.
The day he killed his first sect elder not for power, but to protect a child from being sacrificed.
The despair when he realized no path would ever accept him without chains.
He saw:
How Yu Ling grew up alone in the vault, her only friends memories.
How she cried while watching others live what she could only remember.
How she chose her name as an act of rebellion—and faith.
Their minds touched.
And for one breath, they were the same person.
Then, the technique shattered.
And both fell unconscious.
But when they woke, Yun Mu spoke without hesitation:
> "I remember… the river."
Yu Ling's eyes widened.
He smiled, barely.
> "And I remember your voice… whispering my name."
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VI. The Threat Awakens
But not all was still.
Far above, in the Outer Heaven Ring, a being stirred.
The Devourer of Records.
A forgotten celestial entity whose sole purpose was to erase all aberrations from history.
It had slumbered for eons.
Until Yun Mu's name re-entered the tapestry of fate.
Now…
It opened a single, unblinking eye.
> "The Hollow must not be remembered."
Its wings unfurled—made of ink and silence.
And it began its descent.
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