Long before dawn, the sanctuary stirred.
Mist rolled in from the edges of Sea God Island, thicker and colder than usual, wrapping the cliffs and towers in damp gauze. Atop the high balconies, the bells of the Sea God's altar rang unbidden—soft chimes stirred not by wind, but memory. The sea was remembering again.
Hai Shen Ling stood before the central stone gate that led to the Undercurrent Passage—a path forbidden to all except Bo Saixi and the Seven Douluo. Today, it would open for him.
Bo Saixi, clad in ceremonial sea-blue robes with the threads of divinity glistening faintly across the sleeves, raised her palm. The runes on the gate shimmered with deep azure light.
"Beyond here lies no charted place," she said. "Not even the Sea God recorded these waters. This realm has no name. Only voices."
"What am I to find?" Shen Ling asked, the weight of the ocean in his voice.
"You won't find. You will be found."
The gates opened with a low rumble, revealing a stone corridor slick with condensation, its walls carved with spiraling sigils and sea-beast imagery older than even Bo Saixi's memory.
Sea Spear Douluo stepped beside him. "You carry seven voices now. But eight echoes mark the path to transcendence. We do not know what waits. Only that it hears."
He stepped into the passage, the sea breeze dying behind him. With each step, the air grew colder, not in temperature, but in meaning. The kind of cold born of forgotten truths.
Mist swallowed him. Light faded. And the world he knew—dissolved.
There was no clear passage in the nameless realm.
The corridor gave way to open waters—not by descent, but dissolution. One moment, Shen Ling stepped upon carved stone, the next he drifted in a world with no ceiling, no floor, no orientation.
It was not the ocean. It was the concept of it.
Faint shadows darted through the deep around him. Fish? Spirits? Memories? He couldn't tell. Here, even light traveled like memory—distorted, delayed, reluctant.
The Siren's voice echoed softly within him.
Where they were forgotten, they still wait. They do not seek vengeance. Only recognition.
He released a breath, allowing his soul power to stabilize.
"Soul Skill: Voice of the Abyss."
The waters pulsed outward. But instead of dread, they returned an answer. A tone. A voice like his own, but not his own.
Then came the wail.
A deep shriek—ageless, toneless—tore through the waters. It wasn't anger. It was mourning that had outlived its memory.
Ahead, in the folds of the deep, a silhouette appeared: a massive stone structure, twisted and sunken. Doors carved from pearl and obsidian. A place that once held names.
The Temple of the Forgotten Choir.
The temple welcomed him not with grandeur, but with sorrow. Statues lined the front—every face chiseled blank. Their mouths open, as if mid-song.
As he stepped through the gates, the resonance of the Abyssal Choir soul skill stirred again, unbidden. Illusions flickered in the air—images of sirens with broken throats, of sea kings without heirs, of forgotten oaths whispered into oblivion.
At the heart of the temple stood a platform encircled by thrones—seven, just like those who surrounded him at Sea God Island. But these were empty, cracked, and crumbling. At the center, a crystal harp floated, untuned and cracked down its side.
Shen Ling stepped forward.
He raised his hand. The Siren's mark on his palm began to glow.
"Requiem of the Abyssal Choir," he murmured.
And the harp responded.
A single note echoed.
Then another.
A third.
Until the temple filled with broken harmony, as if even now, the forgotten ones tried to sing once more.
From the shadows, something stirred.
Not a beast. Not a spirit. But a form of memory made flesh. A drowned remnant.
A being without a name. The First Forgotten.
It gazed at Shen Ling, not in threat, but in longing.
Then it sang.
And Shen Ling sang back.
It was not a battle of fists or claws. It was not even a clash of spirit skills.
Shen Ling and the First Forgotten stood in the center of the temple, surrounded by thrones of memory and a harp that mourned.
Every time the creature sang, a wave of lost history surged toward him. Images of drowned cities, broken promises, betrayed oaths.
He responded with his own soul skills:
Soul Lure Mirage: illusions of redemption
Song of the Abyssal Trial: chains of judgment forged in empathy
Elegy of the Drowned Crown: a crown not of conquest, but mourning
Each song he offered was not to overpower, but to embrace.
The First Forgotten paused. For the first time in uncountable centuries, it lowered its head.
Then it knelt.
The harp at the center of the chamber split open, revealing a shard of light. A soul ring—but not from a beast. A resonance given willingly.
A fifth ring.
And as it spun into place behind Shen Ling, he understood:
This was not conquest. This was acceptance.
And the temple—the choir—would remember.
With the soul ring integrated, the temple began to crumble—not in collapse, but in release. Statues shed their masks. Names filled the air like starlight.
Whispers poured from every corner.
I was...
They called me...
We swore to protect the song...
Shen Ling stood at the center of it all, eyes closed, absorbing not power, but memory. The sea did not tremble. It listened.
When he opened his eyes, he was outside the temple once more. The gates sealed behind him.
In his mind, the voices faded. All but one.
The Siren.
You carry our truth. Not as burden. As birthright.
And as he rose through the rift, the sea shimmered around him.
The eighth voice stirred in his core.
And the silence that had once haunted him—sang.