The Hollow Flame's burst had not only shattered the crystal at the Tower's core—it had sent a pulse echoing across the multiverse.
It traveled not with sound, but with meaning.
It reached mountains where time slept coiled beneath layers of unmoved snow. It slipped through cracks in once-lost ruins where old gods had buried their regrets. And it found the Dreaming Root—the last breath of the Eternal Spiral, slumbering deep beneath the Sapphire Reaches—stirring it.
For the first time in centuries, the Spiral groaned in its sleep.
And Riven felt it.
He stood still at the Tower's base, ash falling like snow around him. The fire that had erupted from the spire's summit was gone, replaced by a low, pulsing glow that hovered above the ruins like a mourning lantern. Xiyan crouched beside a broken glyph-stone, fingers gently tracing the jagged cracks.
"You're bleeding," she said, her voice softer than the ashfall.
Riven glanced down at his hand. Thin rivulets of crimson ran along his palm, the flesh split by the force of the memory-song he'd released. It had not been meant to harm—but truth, sung aloud, had its own price.
"I'm fine," he said, though he felt far from it.
Behind them, the rest of the expedition gathered slowly, expressions ranging from awe to fear. Even the Seers, those who claimed to see beyond the surface of things, seemed rattled.
One of them—an older man named Jinrao—approached carefully. "Lord Riven… the crystal. That tower. It wasn't just a vessel. It was… listening."
Riven didn't look at him. "I know."
Jinrao hesitated, then added, "And it answered. Through you."
Xiyan glanced at Riven, her expression unreadable. "Are you going to tell them what you saw?"
He remained silent.
Because how did you explain to someone that the ghosts they feared weren't just real—they were remnants of themselves? Echoes of lost paths. Fractured possibilities.
How did you say: "I saw the version of myself who failed"?
Three days later, the skiffs returned to the Reaches.
News had traveled faster than their vessels. By the time Riven and his team disembarked, the air around the Spiral Citadel was thick with anticipation. Runners carried messages between sects. Adepts moved with sharpened purpose. Elders emerged from seclusion to listen. The Tower's awakening had not gone unnoticed.
In the central chamber of the Crescent Hall, Zhao Lianxu waited—calm as a lake before stormfall.
Riven entered alone, his blood-stained robes still unwashed, a deliberate message: I do not return clean from what I've touched.
Zhao did not rise from his seat atop the jade dais.
"What did you see?" the elder asked.
Riven stepped forward. "A heart that refused to forget. A flame that fed on silence. And echoes of us—versions we never became—trapped in a dying memory."
Zhao tilted his head. "Did they recognize you?"
"They did." Riven's voice was flat. "And I recognized them."
"Were they hostile?"
"No," he said, after a pause. "They were… repeating. Caught in a loop of our own making. The Hollow Flame didn't die. It imploded. And the implosion froze parts of the past in place."
Zhao rose now, his expression grave. "And the crystal—was it destroyed?"
Riven hesitated. "Shattered. But not gone. It left… fragments. Residual will. The city is stirring."
Zhao's eyes narrowed. "Then we're out of time."
That night, Riven sat alone atop the Moonbone Terrace.
Below, the Reaches pulsed with life. Lanterns floated across shallow streams, each carrying a silent prayer or remembrance. The Cultivation Confluence had begun—a tradition of unity, meant to honor the sacrifices of those lost to war.
Xiyan found him there, cloaked in starlight and his own silence.
"They're talking about what happened," she said, sitting beside him. "Some are afraid. Others think it's a sign of hope."
"It's both," he replied.
They sat without speaking for a time, the wind threading around them like a curious child tugging on sleeves.
Finally, she asked, "What did you see, Riven?"
He didn't answer at first. Then—
"I saw myself in chains," he said, voice low. "In a version of the Spiral that never recovered. A broken sky. A world without will. I saw myself begging the Dominion for death."
Xiyan stiffened.
"I saw you, too," he added. "But you weren't you. You were their Blade. Bound to a Throne of Hunger. You didn't remember me."
Xiyan said nothing. The wind stilled.
"But the worst part," he said, closing his eyes, "was seeing a world where we won. And became them."
Far across the realms, in a place that should not have endured, a figure stirred.
Shadows coalesced into limbs. Limbs formed a body. And in that body burned memory—not of a person, but of an intention.
It remembered the Tower.
It remembered the boy who sang.
And it smiled.
The next morning, Yanmei arrived at Riven's quarters with urgency in her step.
"The Heartseed bloomed again," she said. "Not just a leaf. A flower. With Spiral markings."
Riven stood. "What does that mean?"
She handed him a parchment. "It means you were right. The crystal's rupture reawakened more than fragments. It called something old back into the weave."
He unrolled the parchment and stared at the diagram.
A spiral, yes—but not like any from the Spiral Sect.
This one was twisted. An inversion.
"A false Spiral," he murmured. "A mimicry."
Yanmei nodded. "Something is trying to rebuild the Hollow Flame. From memory. From us."
Later that week, a gathering was called. All major sects. All surviving realm-watchers. Even wandering cultivators came, drawn by whispers of awakening.
The meeting was held in the Hall of Eight Mirrors—an ancient sanctuary designed to reflect one's truest self from all angles.
Zhao stood before them, flanked by Riven and Yanmei.
"The Dominion is not dead," he began. "It is dormant. Broken—but not erased. And now, because we disturbed its remnants, it is stirring."
Murmurs spread like wildfire.
"What proof do we have?"
"What does it want?"
"Can it be reasoned with?"
Riven stepped forward.
"I faced its echo," he said. "It didn't speak. It replayed. It wants to remember itself into existence. And it is using our memories to do so."
Gasps.
One elder rose. "Then we must bury those memories."
"No," Zhao said sharply. "We must integrate them. To deny them is to feed their return."
Riven added, "We must go to the other fractures. The Shattered Realms. If it's using pieces of us to rebuild itself, we must retrieve those pieces first."
"And what if we find pieces we don't like?" someone asked.
Riven's eyes hardened. "Then we face them. Because if we don't, they'll face us—and they'll wear our faces when they do."
Three weeks later, the expedition was ready.
Five realms.
Five echoes.
Each one holding a shard of the old Dominion, seeded with reflections of what could have been. Riven would lead the first incursion. Xiyan at his side. Yanmei to follow in the next.
As they stood before the gate—its edges shimmering with Spiral and Hollow Flame energy intertwined—Xiyan touched Riven's arm.
"When this is over," she said, "what do you want?"
He turned, surprised.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I've spent so long chasing what was. Maybe I just want to be real again."
Xiyan gave him a faint smile.
"Then let's start with remembering who we are."
The gate opened.
And they stepped into the first realm—
—where memory bled, and truth wore a stranger's face.