---
The gates whispered.
It was not a sound of welcome.
It was the creak of ancient hatred, of things buried that remembered breath and longed to kill it. The entrance to the Bone Garden cracked open, not with force—but reluctance.
Even the mountain seemed to resent giving passage.
Yun Mu stepped forward.
His spirit pulse was calm. But beneath the surface of his skin, the Hollow Seed moved. A slow, coiling hunger, tasting the stagnant qi that oozed from within.
The pale-robed girl beside him tilted her head. She held no torch. Her eyes reflected nothing.
"You understand," she said softly, "that the Bone Garden isn't meant to test your strength."
He didn't reply.
She traced the air with a finger. "It devours false intentions. There is no glory to be earned. No prize to be claimed. Only revelation."
Still, he said nothing.
"You may come out different. Or not at all."
Yun Mu met her gaze.
"I'm already not the same."
Then he walked in.
---
Mist swallowed him.
His first breath burned.
The qi here was dead. Not empty—rotted. Like the air of a tomb that had never been opened.
Roots curled along the stone path, resembling veins across old skin. Bones were embedded in the walls like coral in reef—some clean, others shattered. A few still clutched rusted blades.
Yun Mu passed a kneeling corpse in faded sect robes.
Its jaw hung open.
Whispers hissed from its hollow mouth:
> "You won't leave.
You won't leave.
You won't—"
He kept walking.
---
The first illusion came silently.
One blink—and the world was no longer stone.
It was mud.
Yun Mu stood in a village. The air was thick with the scent of cooking oil, sweat, and fear. Children ran barefoot through the alleys. Adults labored without hope.
He knew this place.
The outer zone of Hollowspire City. The slum district known as Ashgut.
He was small again.
Hungry.
Bruised.
Dirty.
Standing before a butcher's stall with a knife in his hand and one chance to steal without being caught.
> "What did you choose?"
The voice came from behind him.
He turned.
A man stood there.
Not a vision.
Not a memory.
A shadow made of ash and qi, wearing his own face, but aged. Taller. Stronger. Crueler.
"I remember this day," the older Yun Mu said. "You took the knife. But you didn't kill the butcher."
Yun Mu clenched his fist.
"I needed food. Not blood."
"But blood would've kept the food coming," the shadow replied.
The market twisted.
The butcher turned, saw the blade, screamed. Guards ran.
He was beaten. Left in the street.
He remembered.
The pain. The cracked ribs. The week of crawling before he could stand again.
"You hesitated," the shadow said, stepping close. "You pitied. Do you still?"
Yun Mu didn't answer.
The shadow grinned.
"You will never reach the peak if you carry that weakness."
Yun Mu looked up.
"I don't carry it," he said coldly. "I buried it."
He stepped forward—through the shadow.
It shattered like smoke.
The market burned.
---
The second trial came deeper in.
A black lake.
Still.
Silent.
Bones floated atop it like lotus petals.
In the center was a platform of white stone, and upon it—a girl.
Wei Lin.
She was older than he remembered. Her body thin, robes torn, wrists bound with spirit chains.
When she saw him, her face lit up.
"Yun Mu!" she cried, joy and pain tangled in her voice.
He froze.
> It's not real.
It's not real.
But the scent of her was real.
The warmth of her smile.
The memory of how she had once shared her food with him, starved for his sake.
How she'd tried to stand between him and a slaver's whip.
How he had left her behind.
"Help me," she begged.
Yun Mu stepped forward.
Then stopped.
She blinked.
"Why… why won't you move?"
He looked at her with calm eyes.
"I killed the part of me that needed saving."
Tears welled in her eyes.
"You don't mean that."
He did not respond.
The lake bubbled.
Black arms reached up—skeletal, inhuman—and dragged her under.
She screamed.
And he watched.
Unmoving.
The Hollow Seed pulsed once.
Then silence.
---
The final trial was no illusion.
It was a battle.
A creature rose from the dust—his reflection, shaped from qi and memory. Not just his body, but every technique, every wound, every instinct.
They clashed beneath a blood moon that did not exist.
Steel met steel. Whip met light.
Yun Mu fought like an animal—unpredictable, brutal, without pattern.
The mirror-Yun Mu fought like a warrior honed by the sect—precise, tactical, relentless.
He lost blood.
He broke bones.
He grinned.
Because the Hollow didn't need to win. It only needed to endure.
He baited. He suffered. He broke his own arm to land a single blow.
And when the chance came—he devoured his other self.
Literally.
The Hollow Seed cracked open.
And drank the mirror's spiritual essence.
Yun Mu screamed as it surged through his body—new insights, painful clarity, and a new blade form.
> [Path Blade Manifested: Phantom Maw]
Effect: May consume mirrored qi techniques during battle. Absorbed abilities become temporary Hollow Echoes.
He fell to his knees.
Laughing.
---
When the elder arrived, Yun Mu was soaked in blood, clothes torn, but kneeling in meditation.
The old man watched him with sharp eyes.
"You bled," he said. "You remembered. You walked away from your past and stabbed it in the heart."
Yun Mu didn't open his eyes.
The elder nodded once.
"You are my disciple now. No longer outer trash. You will live in the High Sky Hall. And you will be targeted by every other faction."
He tossed something down.
A scroll.
A jade crest.
A knife.
"Study. Claim. Defend."
Then he vanished.
---
Yun Mu left the Bone Garden at dusk.
The girl waited outside.
"You came out different," she said.
He looked at her.
Then past her.
At the Ironcloud Sect's towers glowing in the twilight.
"No," he replied. "I came out clearer."
---