The road west was no road at all.
They moved across jagged hills where the sand shimmered like gold under a dying sun. The sky, torn and bleeding, blinked with stars even in the harsh light of day. The world was no longer whole.
And ahead, the Hollow Sea called.
Li Zhen, Ruo Lin, and Tian Lei trekked through forgotten lands, their bodies weary, their minds untethered. The fragments within Li Zhen stirred—an eerie sensation, as if a distant twin reached out across the void. A silent connection. A pull.
"We're getting close," he muttered.
Tian Lei grunted in response. "Too close. I can taste it."
Ruo Lin squinted into the horizon. "And I hear the waves. But... there's no sea."
They crested a dune. And then, there it was.
A sea that wasn't a sea.
The Hollow Sea stretched before them like an open wound in the earth, vast and empty. But instead of water, it was filled with a dense, reflective air. Currents of invisible forces shimmered across its surface, distorting reality, twisting the world like a thousand reflections in a broken mirror.
At its center rose an island—small, craggy, and shrouded in a violet glow. Upon it stood a tower, twisted like a spine, as though the earth had itself writhed to bring it into being.
"That tower..." Li Zhen murmured, his voice distant.
Ruo Lin's voice followed, soft and knowing. "It's not just a place. It's a memory."
Tian Lei frowned. "How do we cross it?"
Li Zhen eyed the Hollow Sea. As his foot touched its edge, a ripple spread across the surface. And then, as if summoned by his will, a path of stone steps appeared—one after the other—reconstructed by nothing but memory, belief, and the power of the fragments.
"This sea responds to memory," Li Zhen said, his voice more certain now. "To fragments."
Without further hesitation, they stepped forward.
The journey across the Hollow Sea was not long in distance, but here, time twisted. The farther they walked, the more the world around them shifted. Mountains from forgotten childhood dreams rose and fell like the tides. Faces—some familiar, others strangers—swam in the illusionary waters. The path behind them dissolved with every step they took, forcing them forward, always forward.
"Don't look too long," Ruo Lin warned, her voice strained. "If you stare too long, you'll forget which version of you is real."
Li Zhen barely heard her. His thoughts were slipping, his mind wandering through the sea of reflections.
He saw a version of himself with white hair and hollow eyes. Another—bloodied, his hands stained with something far darker than just blood. And then there was another, laughing, joyful, innocent, a version of him he couldn't recognize.
He saw himself die, over and over, in a hundred different ways.
But none of them truly died.
It was Tian Lei's voice that pulled him back, sharp and grounding.
"Li Zhen! Don't get lost now!"
He blinked, returning to the present. They had reached the island.
The tower loomed before them, crooked and fractured, standing like a sentinel to a forgotten time.
And there, at the base of the tower, stood the Sixth Fragment.
It was not a thing. It was not an object.
It was a mirror.
Cracked. Bleeding light.
Li Zhen approached it, his heart beating loudly in his chest.
When he gazed into its depths, his reflection was not his own.
It was the First.
"You've come far," the reflection spoke, its voice both haunting and familiar. "Too far."
Li Zhen steadied himself. "I won't stop."
"You should," the First said, its voice cold, dismissive. "It's too late for you. Too late for everything."
"Why?" Li Zhen asked, his voice strong despite the fear rising within him.
The First raised a hand, and with a single gesture, pain exploded through Li Zhen's body. It was not the pain of a wound, but of memories—clawing out of his skin like smoke, desperate to escape.
He saw himself drown as a child. He saw his first mentor's body lying lifeless on the ground, his own hand the one that had struck the fatal blow. He saw Ruo Lin's lifeless body in a timeline he had erased with his own hands.
"You think you can carry all of us?" The First's voice rang in his head, mocking him.
Li Zhen stood tall, despite the blood dripping from his body. He clenched his fists. "No. I think we carry each other."
With that, he reached out and placed his hand upon the mirror.
The world trembled.
The mirror shattered.
Light erupted in every direction, blinding, overwhelming.
And then... everything went dark.
When Li Zhen opened his eyes again, he was on the beach.
Ruo Lin was beside him, breathing softly. Tian Lei groaned nearby, his form just barely moving.
The tower was gone.
The sea was gone.
Only sand remained.
And in the wind, there was a whisper:
"One more remains. Then we begin again."
Li Zhen stood, feeling the weight of the Sixth Fragment settle within him, fusing with the others. He felt its pull, its essence. And he knew what came next.
The Seventh Fragment.
The end.
He turned to his companions, determination in his eyes. "It's time."
And together, they walked west.
Towards the final fragment. Towards their fate.