The gate shut behind Zhu Yan without a sound.
There was no grand rumble. No roar of sealing magic. Just silence.
A silence so deep, it pressed against his ears like a burial cloth.
The corridor beyond the gate was unlike anything he had encountered before. No walls. No floor. No ceiling. Only drifting fragments of memory—some his, some not—floating in an abyss painted in shades of bone-white and sorrow.
Here, the Manual no longer guided him. There was no scroll. No glowing inscription. Only the weight of what he had sacrificed… and the echo of what he might still lose.
A presence waited.
Not ahead. Not behind. But within.
> "You gave up a name… but not the soul behind it."
The voice did not come from outside. It rose from his chest, threaded into his thoughts like ink bleeding through parchment.
Zhu Yan clutched his robes. The mark of the Manual had spread further — the black veins of Wrathfire now branched into intricate sigils carved along his sternum, pulsing faintly with red light.
He staggered forward, and the void shifted.
A mirror appeared before him.
No—a dozen mirrors. Forming a circle. Each one flickered with a different version of himself. In one, he was the disciple who had died in silence. In another, a tyrant bathed in conquest. In another still, a man who had never picked up the sword.
Each Zhu Yan stared back at him. Some with pity. Some with contempt. One… with hunger.
> "Which one are you really?"
The voice again. Older. Hungrier now.
One of the mirror images stepped forward. Not a reflection—an echo made real. This Zhu Yan wore a crown of living fire, his eyes hollow and burning.
> "You think you're different from us," the echo hissed.
"You burned a name, but clung to purpose. You crave revenge… but call it justice."
Zhu Yan gritted his teeth. "You're not me."
> "No," the echo replied, stepping closer, "I'm the one you'll become… if you forget why you bled."
Suddenly, the mirrors shattered—slicing reality itself.
Glass turned to flame. Shadows to blades.
The echo attacked.
Their clash wasn't physical. It was spiritual. Every blow they exchanged tore through identity, striking not muscle but memory. The echo wielded doubt as a sword. Regret as a shield. Every time Zhu Yan struck back, another sliver of himself splintered.
> "You were never enough."
> "You let her die."
> "They were right to cast you out."
Zhu Yan fell to one knee. Blood dripped not from wounds, but from the edges of his thoughts. The pain was... conceptual.
But then—clarity.
He remembered not her name. Not her face. But the feeling.
A single warmth.
A promise, perhaps.
Not vengeance. Not wrath.
Just a vow:
> "I will walk this path, even if it ends in nothing."
He roared—not with anger, but resolve—and drove his fist into the echo's chest.
The phantom shattered. Not in defeat, but in integration.
Zhu Yan stood alone again.
And before him, rising from the dark, was a throne.
Forged of bone. Adorned in steel.
Bound by memory.
Its back pulsed with the words:
> 「Soulbrand Hollow – PASSED」
Self fractured. Will unbroken. Initiate accepted.
As he stepped toward the throne, his body trembled. Not in fear. In readiness.
The Manual did not promise comfort.
It demanded sacrifice.
But it gave something in return—clarity.
And power.
Zhu Yan sat.
The abyss stirred.
A sigil ignited across his back—the brand of soul mastery. The second true imprint of the Manual.
He did not scream.
He exhaled.
And the gate beyond him opened.
This time, he was the one who broke the silence.
> "I'm ready for the next Gate."