Echoes of the Hollow Domain

The Mirror Gate did not close quietly.

It fractured.

Fissures webbed across the surface of the stone ring —

fast, like lightning,

but without light.

The glyphs twisted in reverse.

Symbols bled backward.

Magic that had slept for years suddenly screamed.

Something —

on the other side of the gate —

was trying to get through.

Shen Jin and Luo Qinghan had already stepped back from the stele circle.

The mark had stopped releasing glyphs.

It lay silent against his palm,

as if even it knew:

Stay longer,

and you won't return.

Luo Qinghan spoke low:

"Something's trying to push through.

Backwards."

Shen Jin felt it before he heard it.

Not with his ears.

But in his mind.

A vibration.

A voice.

Cracked and slow, like a whisper through stone dust:

"Key… chosen wrong."

"Shell… incomplete."

"God… not dead."

He gasped.

The mark flared violently.

It wasn't his power.

It was something else —

something buried,

not fully sealed.

A memory?

No.

A remnant.

A thought

that had once belonged

to something far older

and far more awake.

The mark tried to push it back.

But it cracked.

A hairline fracture

spilled across his palm

like the first line in breaking glass.

Luo Qinghan saw it.

She moved without hesitation.

Mirror core raised —

strike, seal, bind.

"—clang!"

The sound rang like metal screaming.

She staggered,

blood on her lip,

but the crack —

stopped.

Not erased.

But forced

back in.

Shen Jin dropped to one knee,

his hand shaking.

The fracture remained.

Faint.

Sleeping.

He looked up at her.

He tried to speak.

But didn't.

She helped him up.

Eyes clear.

Voice flat.

"We're leaving."

The ring collapsed.

The gate folded inward,

devouring its own edges.

They stumbled through.

And behind them,

the dream collapsed.

But for one moment —

just one —

as the last shard of mirror stone shattered,

something looked through.

A face.

No eyes.

No mouth.

No name.

Only the blank,

silent mask

of a child.

—

There was no real night in the Greylands.

But as Shen Jin and Luo Qinghan stepped back into the fire circle,

everything felt darker than when they had left.

The flames were gone.

The pillar, blackened and half-cracked, stood like the brittle spine of a vow no longer spoken.

Its heat had vanished.

Its spirit with it.

The old man stood nearby.

Still.

His figure barely distinct from the shadows it cast.

Shen Jin stopped just short of the circle.

He bowed,

the stele resting in his hand —

dim, silent, warm.

Luo Qinghan said nothing.

But her eyes scanned the tribunal.

She frowned.

Someone was missing.

More than one, in fact.

Seats to the left — third and seventh — were vacant.

Their sigils unlit.

The old man spoke first:

"They left."

"Not the Greylands.

Just… the circle."

Shen Jin looked up.

There was no anger in the elder's voice.

No judgment.

Only a quiet verdict:

"You entered the Mirror Gate.

You broke a seal.

You brought forth the first layer of the text.

That is what a Keybearer must do.

But some believe… you woke more than just the mark."

Luo Qinghan stiffened.

"The face,"

she said.

"The child's mask."

The old man didn't confirm.

Didn't deny.

Instead, he drew a talisman from his sleeve.

Ash-gray.

No flame.

Only a slow unraveling of breath-like light.

On it, three glyphs glowed — then faded:

The Silent Writ.

"This is our final reply to the Mirror Ruler."

Shen Jin's eyes narrowed.

"You… dealt with him?"

The old man shook his head.

Slow.

Calm.

"The Greylands do not kill.

We remove."

He let the last of the talisman drop into the circle.

It burned — without burning.

"He is no longer of this land."

"Should he step into the ash again —

the world will not see him.

The spirits will not answer."

Shen Jin said nothing.

But in that silence,

he understood something far colder than violence.

The Greylands didn't bleed you out.

They made you unwritten.

Across the far edge of the circle,

another figure appeared.

The Silent Scribe.

He didn't enter.

Only watched.

Then said:

"You passed the trial.

But the mark… is only the beginning."

Shen Jin didn't answer.

He looked at the mark.

Then at Luo Qinghan.

They said nothing.

But they both knew —

The road ahead

had already changed.

—

On the seventh day after the Greyfire died, silence ended.

It began in the sky.

A silver line —

thin, sharp, precise —

descended from the upper layers of spirit flow

and pierced the breath of the Greylands

like a thread pulling at the seams of stillness.

Shen Jin sat in the back hall,

palms resting on the sealed mark.

He felt no danger.

But something in the bones of his hand turned cold.

Not from outside.

From the stele itself.

He opened his eyes.

The mark pulsed — once —

in answer to something that did not belong here.

Luo Qinghan was already standing outside.

She stood atop the tribunal steps,

eyes locked on the horizon where the silver line touched down.

"It's from Ningyuan," she said.

"Their seal court."

Shen Jin rose.

They walked together into the circle.

Above them, the silver line unfolded,

revealing not a banner

but a scroll —

fine script etched in drifting light.

He knew that style.

A summons scroll.

Issued only by the Ningyuan Seal Court

for cases beyond the lawful territories.

At the center of the circle,

the old man stood.

Unmoving.

His figure like a shadow cut from a monument.

In his hand —

a grey slip.

Already opened.

Further back,

in the shadow of the broken fire pillar,

the Silent Scribe watched.

Expression unreadable.

As if he had been waiting

for this letter

for a long, long time.

The scroll finalized its shape.

Two lines of spirit-text glowed into view:

"By order of the Ningyuan Seal Court:

Hearing of the Greylands Seal Case.

The mark-bearer shall speak for the mark."

The stele stirred.

A faint trace of light shimmered in Shen Jin's palm.

He knew then —

he would no longer just carry the mark.

He would answer for it.

Luo Qinghan's voice was quiet:

"They didn't just come for you.

They came for the whole Greylands."

Shen Jin said nothing.

He looked up.

The scroll hovered overhead.

Burning.

Not with fire.

But with law.

A quiet flame.

A distant gaze.

From a place

called

Ningyuan.