---
When Yun Mu touched the altar, the world turned inside out.
Not with noise.
Not with light.
But with hunger.
It was not a sensation. It was a truth—deeper than bone, deeper than soul. As if the altar remembered every drop of blood that had ever been spilled before it.
---
He fell.
Through shadow.
Through time.
Through names—each one swallowed, erased.
> "Xun-Li the Saint-Eater"
"Void Monk of the Ninth Sun"
"Goddess-Breaker, who gnawed the Wheel"
Each name was carved in celestial script… then devoured mid-sentence by an unseen mouth.
And then…
He saw it.
---
A dragon.
But not of scale and claw.
This one was made of spiraling void, a black serpent of devouring will.
Its body stretched across the stars, chewing through constellations like fruit.
Its eyes were pits of ancient memory.
Its breath? Oblivion.
> "I am the First Maw," it spoke.
"The Hollow is not a path. It is a mouth."
"And you… are my heir."
---
Back in the altar room, Su Xiren watched in silence.
Yun Mu stood completely still, hand on the altar, eyes wide.
A faint mist coiled around him—made not of spirit qi, but memory threads, unraveling from his core like unraveling fate itself.
Then his mouth moved.
But it was not his voice.
> "The Heavens once made rules," the voice said.
"I was born to unmake them."
"Now… through this vessel… I will return."
Su Xiren stepped forward.
"No. He is not your puppet. He has will."
The mist snapped toward her like fangs.
She didn't flinch.
Instead, her Fate Eyes burned amber-white, and she drew a lotus dagger—etched with karma-rending runes.
"I chose him because he was not bound," she whispered. "Don't you dare bind him."
The mist recoiled.
Yun Mu's eyes blinked once. Twice.
Then—clarity returned.
But his breath was slow. His expression unreadable.
"I saw it," he said.
Su Xiren nodded.
"What was it?"
He looked past her.
Beyond her.
As if remembering something that hadn't happened yet.
> "The First Maw wasn't a beast. It was a cultivator. One who reached the end of the path… and refused to ascend."
"Instead, he turned around… and began eating the heavens."
---
Thousands of miles west, in the lands once ruled by demons, a lone traveler sat beneath a dead tree.
He wore crimson robes stitched with black prayer-seals, and a blindfold that covered eyes he had never used.
Around him, the wind moved backwards. Trees bent away from him even when there was no breeze.
He spoke to the air:
> "He touched the altar."
"The Hollow Inheritance has begun."
A voice answered from the void.
> "Will you challenge him, heir of the Sealed Temple?"
The blindfolded man smiled.
"No. I will greet him."
He stood.
"Yun Mu and I… are siblings born of a dead star. I merely remembered first."
---
Back at Ironcloud, Yun Mu now sat alone in his quarters.
But he could feel something had changed.
Inside his dantian, where once his Hollow Qi coiled like a serpent… there was now a second pulse.
A new root had grown.
Not of gold or jade.
Not wood or flame.
But void.
A Spirit Root of the Devouring Dao.
And it whispered constantly.
> "Eat."
Eat what?
Yun Mu wasn't sure.
But something inside him was changing—not his cultivation, but his essence.
The Hollow Path had accepted him.
Now it was awakening.
---
Later that night, Su Xiren appeared again.
Her robes were wet with rain. She didn't speak for a long time.
Then:
"I saw something."
He waited.
"In your fate… there is a split."
"One path ends in darkness. You will devour everything. Heaven. Earth. Me."
A pause.
"The other… I can't see. It is wrapped in your will."
She reached into her sleeve again.
Pulled out a talisman.
Offered it.
"If you choose to devour Heaven… I will not stop you."
"But if you choose your own path… I'll walk it with you."
---
Yun Mu took the talisman.
Did not speak.
But in the silence, a wind rose outside.
A cold one.
Carrying the scent of blood, ash, and something deeper—
Fate splitting.
Because someone—somewhere—had just offered the Heavenly Judgment Faction a prophecy:
> "The Hollow Dragon has opened its eye. You may not be able to kill him. But perhaps… you can bind him."
And so, a decree was given.
> "Call the Heir of Chains."
> "Bring the Binding Sect back from exile."
> "Unleash the Curse of Ten Thousand Leashes."
---