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"When Heaven writes law, it carves it in stars.
When I write law, I carve it in silence."
—Inscription, Throne of None
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I. Mandate Unfolds
The sky was a broken scripture.
Light coiled and wept as Heaven's Mandate descended. The stars were no longer burning—they were reciting, chanting words older than time. Each one etched a divine edict into the fabric of the world.
> "Yun Mu," the voice echoed from above. "You have severed lineage, broken ascension law, and dared to seat the Unwritten Throne."
The Judgment Envoy hovered like a statue carved from cosmic law itself—its features inhuman, body composed of ancient spiritual runes burning in slow orbit.
Below, the Ironcloud Sect shuddered. Pillars cracked. Disciples screamed. Even the highest elders fell to one knee—not out of reverence, but compulsion.
Elder Mu Wan spat blood, barely lifting her head. "Heaven sends not judgment, but execution."
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II. Return of the Hollow
Yun Mu's body fell from the rift in space like a meteor of shadow and fire. He landed at the center of Ironcloud's Sky Formation Courtyard, the very arena he once bled in during his earliest trials.
But he was not the same.
No name. No past. No fear.
He rose slowly.
Hollow Qi clung to him like a second skin—threads of void-laced spirit energy spun in rings behind his back, forming inverted halos.
Sect Master Tao Jin dared to speak:
> "Yun Mu. You returned…"
Yun Mu looked at him—and didn't speak.
Not because he was silent, but because his name no longer existed.
The Sect Master lowered his gaze. "We… will not protect you."
Yun Mu nodded once.
Then turned toward the sky.
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III. Law Versus Hunger
The Judgment Envoy pointed its blade—a length of transparent fate-crystal inscribed with commandments. Each rune flared with enforced obedience.
It swung once.
And gravity inverted.
The world tilted.
Disciples flew upward, trees unraveled into spirit strings, rivers climbed into the sky screaming.
Yun Mu raised his hand.
And whispered:
> "I reject."
The Hollow Qi spiraled outward like a scream across realms. The force canceled the Envoy's law—not with power, but with contradiction.
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Thus began the battle of Law versus Hunger.
—The Envoy cast the Heavenly Commandment Field—a domain where all beings must kneel.
—Yun Mu activated Void-Crowned Dissent, which nullified submission within a ten-mile radius.
—The Envoy invoked Edict of Purity—attempting to cleanse the Hollow Qi from the world.
—Yun Mu countered with Mark of Corrupted Origin, infecting the edict with paradox.
The skies roared with unseen forces.
But power alone was not the cost.
Memory began to fade.
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IV. Memory for Power
To fuel the Hollow Severing Art, Yun Mu needed more than Qi.
He needed pieces of himself.
He reached into his soul-core.
And offered memory.
First:
> "My childhood name."
He no longer remembered what his mother once called him before abandonment.
Second:
> "The warmth of spring."
He would never again feel comfort from sunshine.
Third:
> "My master's last lesson."
Gone.
Each sacrifice unlocked a deeper law of the Hollow.
His body no longer bled—it leaked absence.
A growing ring behind him formed—a symbolic Void Sigil, each petal a memory forgotten.
The Judgment Envoy reeled back. "You… you are no longer within cause and effect…"
Yun Mu said nothing.
He had already given up the right to mourn.
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V. The Hollow Revealed
Mid-battle, the world pulsed. A Hollow Memory Rift opened beside Yun Mu—unbidden.
A flash of the past.
Yun Mu, seven years old, begging at the gate of Ironcloud.
A disciple spat on him. An elder turned away. No one helped.
In the vision, he looked up to the heavens and whispered:
> "Let me disappear. Let me not feel this anymore."
Back in the present, the adult Yun Mu stepped into the memory—and shattered it.
> "I do not need pity," he said. "Not even from myself."
With that final act, the Hollow Sigil completed.
He was ready.
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VI. Mandate Severed
The Judgment Envoy gathered all its power. Every law. Every edict. Every divine backing.
It raised the Mandate Severing Blade—a weapon that only strikes once every thousand years, and never fails.
But as it descended—
Yun Mu did not dodge.
He whispered:
> "I offer my name."
The blade touched him.
And failed.
Because there was nothing left to strike.
He no longer existed within Heaven's registry.
He was invisible to law.
And so, with a single step, Yun Mu touched the Judgment Envoy's core.
And said:
> "Your law is written in stone.
Mine is written in the void.
Stone breaks. Void endures."
He pressed his palm forward.
And the Mandate was severed.
Not just for him.
But for the world.
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VII. Fallout
The sky turned black.
Seven realms recorded a shift in spiritual law.
All formations referencing the Mandate began to fracture. Cultivation techniques reliant on fate calculation began to fail.
Prophets screamed and tore their eyes out.
In the Sky Tribunal, six of the Seven Heavenly Thrones flickered. One shattered.
The final seat—the Empty Throne—whispered.
> "Prepare the Exterminator."
And far beneath the world, deep in the Seal of Heaven's Core, the last daughter of the Mandate opened her eyes.
She had a name.
And she remembered everything Yun Mu had forgotten.
> "I am the Witness," she said.
"And I will burn the Hollow from existence."
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