The seventh relic was believed to rest somewhere beneath it.
But the temple was not abandoned.
Flickering lanterns moved in the distance. Voices echoed—low, guttural, and unfamiliar.
Woon Gihyeon halted, eyes narrowing.
“That’s not the Heaven-Killing Sect. It’s something... older.”
From the shadows emerged masked figures, clad in silver-gray robes embroidered with ancient glyphs.
“The Order of Hollow Echo,” Gihyeon murmured. “I thought they vanished generations ago.”
Mujin gripped the Skycut Fang. “What do they want with the seventh relic?”
“They don’t want it,” Gihyeon said grimly. “They were born for it.”
A secret stairwell opened within the Jade Temple, leading into a chasm of silence.
No sound. No wind. Not even the sound of their own steps.
Mujin felt his heartbeat growing louder—not because it quickened, but because everything else ceased.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“You who walk the Echo Path,” a disembodied voice boomed.
“Leave behind all names.”
Suddenly, Mujin’s thoughts weren’t his own.
He heard fragments from the minds of others. A child crying. A monk praying. A blade slicing through silence.
The relic here… it was no simple object.
It was an echo crystal, absorbing voices, thoughts, and wills over centuries.
To reach it, one had to retain their identity—without sound.
Gihyeon whispered through soul transmission, “Focus on your qi signature. Your spirit must sing when your mouth cannot.”
Mujin nodded.
As they reached the crystal chamber, a lone figure awaited them.
She wore no armor. Her face was veiled in translucent jade silk.
But Mujin sensed her immediately. A pressure—like water around a drowning man.
“I am the Echoblade,” she said wordlessly.
Her speech carried not through air, but thought.
“You seek the seventh voice. Then you must defeat silence itself.”
The chamber lit with invisible strikes. Blades of pure qi clashed mid-air, their sounds eaten by the room’s enchantment.
Mujin fought with nothing but rhythm and intent. His strikes no longer followed martial forms—they danced to a music only he heard.
One wrong move and his essence would be unmade—dissolved into the echoes like so many before him.
But then he remembered—
“I am Kang Mujin.
I bear the Heaven’s Seal not by blood, but by choice.
My voice is not to be silenced.”
With a final burst, he unleashed a Silent Howl Technique—a skill born in that very moment.
The Echoblade fell to one knee. A smile beneath her veil.
“You have not broken the silence.
You have redefined it.”
She pointed to the altar.
Upon it floated a translucent crystal pulsing with soundless waves—the Seventh Relic: Voice of the First Flame.
As Mujin reached for the relic, the Heaven’s Seal flared. All seven glyphs lit at once.
From distant mountains to royal courts, from moonlit forests to buried crypts, countless eyes turned skyward.
Some in awe.
Some in dread.
And in a forgotten chamber of obsidian…
A blindfolded man smiled.
“The Gate… will open soon.”
To be continued.