The moment the last sword dissolved, time fractured.
Ye Qingxiao's next breath took an eternity to complete. Frostmourn's Echo hung suspended mid-vibration, its seven pits emitting light in frozen tendrils. A'Qing's silver tears crystallized in the air between her cheeks and the ground. Only the dragon seemed capable of movement—and even its mighty wings beat as though pushing through molten lead.
The child—the Abyssal Heir—stepped lightly across the unraveling lattice. His shadow stretched in all directions at once, each version performing a different action: one drawing a sword, another weeping, a third devouring its own hands.
"You brought me a present!" the child sang, his mirror eyes reflecting the frozen dagger. "The Seventh Key is almost complete!"
His fingers—too long, too jointed—reached for Frostmourn's Echo.
The Xuanlong Zhenjian roared. Blue fire erupted from its maw, breaking the temporal stasis just enough for Ye Qingxiao to twist aside. The child's grasping hand closed on empty air, his fingernails screeching against the star-metal dagger's edge.
A sound like shattering glass filled the chamber as time resumed its flow.
A'Qing collapsed, her veins pulsing violently beneath her skin. "It's eating the dragon's song!" she gasped. "Don't let it touch the dagger!"
Ye Qingxiao backpedaled, barely avoiding the child's next lunge. The Abyssal Heir moved with unnatural precision—each step calculated six moves ahead, his shadow-clones telegraphing attacks before they occurred. Frostmourn's Echo burned in Ye Qingxiao's grip, the Taiyi Sword Treasury flooding his mind with frantic updates:
Warning: Abyssal Corruption DetectedDefensive Protocol: Dragon-Sword Symbiosis Required
The dragon swooped between them, its tail lashing at the child. The Abyssal Heir simply wavered, his form dissolving into smoke as the attack passed through harmlessly. He reappeared perched on the dragon's skull, tiny hands petting its scales like a favored pet.
"Poor broken guardian," he cooed. "You were supposed to keep me sleeping until all seven keys were forged."
The Xuanlong Zhenjian bucked violently, but the child clung like a burr. His shadow stretched downward, sinking into the dragon's skull through its eye sockets. The great beast shuddered, its blue flames flickering erratically.
A'Qing screamed—a sound that became the dragon's roar halfway through. She convulsed on the ground, her own eyes rolling back to reveal the same void as the child's.
Ye Qingxiao acted on instinct. He drove Frostmourn's Echo into the chamber floor, unleashing a pulse of star-metal energy that rippled outward in visible waves. The sword-lattice remnants glowed in response, momentarily reforming into a barrier between the child and his companions.
The Abyssal Heir paused, his head tilting to an impossible angle. "Oh? You can still use the prison's bones?" He giggled, kicking his feet against the dragon's snout. "But I already ate most of them!"
As if to demonstrate, he opened his mouth far too wide—revealing a swirling vortex where his throat should be. The reformed sword-lattice shuddered, individual blades peeling away to spiral into that endless hunger.
The Taiyi Sword Treasury projected a single desperate tactic:
Solution: Sever the ConnectionMethod: Mirror Fracture
Ye Qingxiao didn't understand—until he noticed A'Qing's silver eyes had become perfect mirrors, just like the child's. And in their reflection...
He saw the truth.
The Abyssal Heir wasn't a separate entity. It was a reflection—a twisted echo of the first warden's sacrificed child, given form by the void beyond. And its connection to this world flowed through those mirrored eyes.
Ye Qingxiao lunged—not at the child, but at A'Qing. Frostmourn's Echo flashed downward, its tip aimed directly for her left pupil.
The dragon bellowed in protest. The Abyssal Heir shrieked—a sound that cracked the chamber walls.
At the last possible instant, Ye Qingxiao twisted his wrist. The dagger's flat side tapped A'Qing's eyelid just as its sharpened point stopped a hair's breadth from the child's reflected image in her iris.
The effect was instantaneous.
A'Qing's body arched off the ground as silver fire erupted from her eyes and mouth. The dragon's blue flames inverted to the same metallic hue. The Abyssal Heir howled, his form distorting like a reflection in disturbed water.
"NO! SHE'S MINE! SHE'S ALWAYS BEEN—"
The scream cut off as A'Qing's hand shot up, clamping around Ye Qingxiao's wrist with inhuman strength. Her voice, when she spoke, was layered with the dragon's growl and something older:
"Now. Strike true."
Ye Qingxiao drove Frostmourn's Echo into the reflection.
The world exploded in silver light.
Memory Fragment: The First Sacrifice
A child wept in darkness.
Not A'Qing—this boy was younger, his cheeks still round with baby fat. The same mirrored eyes brimmed with tears as seven shadowy figures forced him onto an altar of fused swords.
"It must be you," whispered the tallest figure. "The Abyss hungers for innocent sight."
The child struggled weakly. "Will it hurt?"
"Only until the dragon comes."
A blade flashed downward. The child's scream became the first note in a song that would echo through millennia.
Present: The Aftermath
Ye Qingxiao came to with Frostmourn's Echo embedded in the chamber floor. The dagger's seven pits now glowed steadily, their light revealing a changed world.
The Abyssal Heir was gone—or rather, contained. A'Qing knelt nearby, her silver eyes now flecked with blue like the dragon's fire. Between them floated a perfect silver sphere, its surface occasionally rippling to reveal a tiny, furious face pressed against the inside.
The Xuanlong Zhenjian lay coiled around the perimeter, its scales dulled but intact. "The connection is severed...for now."
Ye Qingxiao wrenched his dagger free. "What was that?"
"The price of our first failure," A'Qing and the dragon answered together. She held up the sphere, where the tiny Abyssal Heir raged silently. "When the original wardens sacrificed that boy to seal the void, his reflection fell inward instead of vanishing. Over centuries, it grew hungry."
The Taiyi Sword Treasury finally stabilized:
Containment AchievedTemporary Solution: Mirror PrisonWarning: Other Fragments May Exist
Ye Qingxiao studied the sphere. "This isn't the real threat, is it?"
A'Qing shook her head. "Just a whisper of what's coming. The true Abyss wears no face we can comprehend."
The chamber trembled. Distant collapses echoed through the fissure—their exit sealing itself. The dragon nudged them toward the only remaining intact passage—a tunnel lined with sword hilts pointing inward like accusing fingers.
"The other wardens must be warned. The cradle may be broken..." Its voice faded as A'Qing slumped against its side, the silver-blue veins in her skin finally calming.
Ye Qingxiao sheathed his dagger and lifted her onto the dragon's back. As they entered the tunnel, the sphere in A'Qing's hand pulsed once—a heartbeat out of sync with them all.
Far above, in a world that didn't yet know to fear, seven swords embedded in seven distant locations cracked in perfect unison.