The world did not scream. It simply forgot.

  Where the Herald walked, identity unraveled like silk. Villages became silent shells. Lovers forgot one another’s faces. Cultivators stared at their hands, unsure whether they had ever clenched a fist or held a sword.

  The Herald had no face, no voice, no name.

  It was born in the Abyss, shaped from the memory of things never spoken, from gods who died before they could be named.

  It moved like fog, not needing speed—only inevitability.

  Mount Xinglan — Cradle of Names

  Mount Xinglan was one of the few sacred places untouched by time. Its stones were etched with the True Names of heroes, mortals, and gods. A library of identity carved into stone.

  The Herald arrived at its base.

  Every monk and guardian who had once known their duty fell to their knees—not from pain, but absence.

  They forgot the mountain.

  They forgot why it mattered.

  They forgot who they were.

  The Herald began to climb.

  With each step, names were peeled from stone.

  Xinglan's summit grew dim.

  The final True Name at its peak—a name sealed behind a ward of ancient power—flickered.

  Li Fan.

  Elsewhere — The Crownless Meditation

  Li Fan sat beneath a waterfall of falling stars, still deep in his reverse cultivation path. He had willingly descended from Genuine Celestial King back to the Qi Refining Stage, walking it again with eyes now open to the structure of the world.

  And he had discovered something:

  Qi is memory.

  It was not simply energy—it was will refined by story.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  The Abyss fed on what was left unsaid, what was forgotten.

  And now, something was eating those stories.

  A flicker—his name pulsing in danger—reached him. Not a divine warning. Something more intimate.

  Yue Xian gasped. “The Herald… it's consuming Mount Xinglan!”

  Li Fan stood, surrounded by a spiral of the Seven Laws, but now they were shaped like pages, like a book rewritten.

  “I must go.”

  The Summit of Xinglan

  The Herald reached the peak.

  It extended a hand of void toward the final name—Li Fan's—etched in divine flame.

  But just before it could erase the sigil, the air shattered.

  A flaming brand carved through space, striking the Herald’s form and causing the air to snap like a broken seal.

  Li Fan appeared, barefoot, hair trailing like fire, his cultivation fused across all stages, from Qi Refining to Celestial King, blended rather than stacked.

  He had no crown.

  But behind him—a trail of names.

  All those forgotten.

  All those erased.

  He carried them.

  Battle: Name vs. Nothing

  Li Fan attacked not with sword or flame, but with story.

  Each punch invoked a tale—of a fallen soldier, a forgotten lover, a nameless mother who waited by a window. Each strike brought identity.

  The Herald responded with silence.

  With every clash, Li Fan lost a part of himself—moments, dreams, names of people he had loved—but his will remained.

  And then Yue Xian appeared beside him, not as a weapon, but as memory incarnate.

  “You are not alone in remembering.”

  Together, they chanted his name:

  “Li Fan.”

  And then—

  All of Xinglan did.

  Defeat

  The Herald, fed by emptiness, could not withstand being seen.

  Being remembered.

  It screamed, and in its cry, mountains reformed, names were rewritten, and people gasped awake.

  The Herald collapsed, unmade by identity, scattered into wind.