The Hollow Crown Opens Its Eyes

"The crown does not rule. It remembers. And in remembering, it decides."

— Inscription carved in the spinal pillar beneath the Hollow Crown

🏔️ Ascending the Stormveiled Summit

The wind howled with runes.

Not sound—but coded breaths.

Each gust etched faint symbols across the snow, glowing faintly and vanishing just as quickly—as if the wind itself was trying to speak in the tongues of dead sects.

Jin and his companions pressed forward through the blizzard, now laced with crackling threads of jade lightning.

Ash-Eye muttered as he kept one hand on the hilt of his curved blade.

"This mountain isn't natural. It's remembering us."

"No," Jin said, eyes narrowed.

"It's testing if we remember ourselves."

Above them, the Hollow Crown hovered in eerie stillness—an inverted palace that floated upside down in the sky, like a reflection drawn from a broken lake.

Its foundation was formed from colossal dragon bones.

Its gates spun slowly in midair, shimmering between solid and phantom.

The closer they climbed, the heavier Jin's chest felt—not from fatigue, but from something ancient stirring inside his spiritual core.

🧠 Jin's Inner World: A Fractured Mirror

As the group paused to rest, Jin meditated briefly at the edge of a cliff.

The moment his breathing slowed, he fell inward—into his dantian, which now shimmered with unfamiliar colors.

A towering obsidian mirror floated there.

Its surface pulsed.

And then—cracks.

Each crack showed another life.

One where Jin ruled a sect with tyrannical glory.

One where he died protecting a child who would become a demonic emperor.

One where he never cultivated, but wandered as a crippled beggar reciting poetry for coin.

"These are my past lives…" Jin whispered.

"But they're bleeding into each other."

From the reflection, a figure stepped out:

A version of Jin wearing dragon-scale robes, golden pupils burning with pride.

"I am the Sovereign Flame," the memory-echo said.

"I burned down the Hollow Crown in my cycle. What will you do in yours?"

Jin looked into the mirror again.

It wasn't just fractured—it was multiplying.

🏛️ The Hollow Crown Awakens

As Jin awoke with a jolt, the skies rumbled.

Above them, the Hollow Crown pulsed once—then opened its central eye.

Yes. An actual, vertical slit-eye formed at the top of the floating palace, made from thousands of dragon scales layered into an iris of memory and judgment.

And from its gaze, a voice thundered—not aloud, but within the mind of every cultivator on the mountain.

"Those who climb with forgotten names.

Those who remember only death.

Those who walk as echoes of what they might have been.

ENTER."

Suddenly, the staircase of void-glass appeared.

Not built from stone, but from memory condensed into a physical form.

Jin and his companions stood before it.

Ash-Eye fell to one knee, overwhelmed by the weight of aura pressing down on him.

Su Ren's armor cracked at the shoulders, soul iron screaming under pressure.

Lin Xue's breath misted, not from cold—but from time fracturing in her lungs.

Jin, however, took the first step.

And the staircase responded.

It did not stay still—it grew beneath his feet, coiling upward toward the Hollow Crown like a dragon offering its spine as a bridge.

👁️ The Gate of Judgment

At the summit of the staircase, they reached a gate carved from seven layers of dragon memory.

Each layer pulsed with a different color:

Crimson (War)

Azure (Wisdom)

Jade (Rebirth)

Gold (Tyranny)

Silver (Sacrifice)

Black (Silence)

White (Truth)

The gate spoke.

"Only one may pass with a full name.

Others must pass as fragments."

"And if none possess a name?" Jin asked.

"Then the Crown shall name you."

That… was worse.

To be named by the Hollow Crown meant to surrender your narrative—your soul's authorship—to the realm itself.

And the realm was not kind.

🐉 Inside the Crown: The Dragon Assembly Chamber

As they entered, reality bent.

The interior of the Hollow Crown was not an upside-down fortress.

It was a hollow plane of swirling skies, where thousands of dragon spirits floated in meditation circles—each one tied to a war that shaped history.

They opened their eyes, one by one, as Jin stepped forward.

"He bears the scar of Sovereign Flame."

"He walks with echoes."

"His memory is incomplete."

And then a voice cut through them all.

A dragon formed from ink and blood drifted down.

"You bear the burden of what you erased," the dragon said.

"Will you now remember it fully, or burn it again?"

Jin did not flinch.

"I came to end the war. Not to rewrite it."

"Then speak your true name."

Jin paused. For in his heart, he now remembered something new.

Not from this life.

Not even from the last.

But from the first cycle, when he was still a child watching stars fall like tears.

He looked up and said:

"I am Jin-Ra. First of the Forgotten Flame. Born before the Hollow Realms fractured."

The Hollow Crown trembled.

Dragons wept ash.

The Eye closed.

And the gate behind them sealed forever.