"To wear a dragon's face is to burn your own. The mask never forgets. Even if you do."
— Line scratched into a training pillar deep within the Northern Jade Peaks
🏔️ Northern Reaches – Jade Spine Range
Snow fell in spirals, soft as ash and just as silent.
The cold here wasn't natural. It wrapped around qi and dulled it, like grief steeped in ice. Each breath took effort. Every step left behind more than footprints—it left behind weight.
A lone woman stood at the edge of a crag, her black coat stitched with silver cords of oaththread, wind tearing through her silver hair. Over the left side of her face: a dragon mask carved from frozen jade, fused to her cheek as if grown from her bones.
"He remembers," she whispered, voice barely louder than the wind.
"Even now… after all that time."
She drew a small slip of paper from within her sleeve. On it, a name:
Jin Mu-Won
Echo Status: Living
Memory Class: Forbidden
The paper burned itself to ash.
But she did not forget.
"He survived the Hollow Break."
"Then he's strong enough to remember what I did."
She turned.
And vanished into the snow.
🌀 Back at Ash Vale – Campfire of the Remnants
Jin Mu-Won sat cross-legged at the edge of their makeshift camp. A fire burned low in front of him—not with heat, but quiet. Su Ren leaned against a half-standing column, sharpening her blade with a cloth soaked in oath oil. Ash-Eye Dagan meditated nearby, flames flickering beneath his breath.
"I felt something," Jin muttered.
"Another Hollow?" Ash-Eye asked without opening his eyes.
"No," Jin said slowly. "Something… familiar."
He didn't say it aloud.
But deep in his Hollow Core, a memory flickered:
A face.
Half a mask.
A girl with fire in her hands—and sorrow in her eyes.
🧠 Hollow Flashback – Flicker of Memory, Shard 002-A
Blood on the stone tiles.
A courtyard filled with fire, but no warmth.
She stood in front of him—not to protect him, but to end it before he remembered.
"You weren't supposed to wake up," she had said then.
"Because if you did… you'd remember what I did."
The memory ends there.
Faded. Fragmented.
But real.
📜 Echo Status Update
Memory Shard Recognized: The Jade-Masked Girl
[Designation: [REDACTED] — Class: Echo Suppressor / Former Flame-Bound Agent]
Emotional Residue: High
Recognition Match: 94.4%
Approach: Imminent
⚠️ World Event Notification
Dragon-Masked Flame Echo Detected
Jade Spine Range entering soft memory instability
Resonant activity suggests approach of a memory-class warrior with direct link to Jin Mu-Won's pre-Hollow path
Danger Class: Blue → Red, if emotional suppression fails
❄️ Meanwhile – The Jade Spine Shrine of Remorse
The masked girl knelt inside a circle of dragon bone pillars.
Each pillar bore a name—hers not among them.
She stared at the snow-covered altar in the middle, a single firelit incense burning slowly in front of it.
"Mu-Won," she murmured.
"You were the first to make me doubt the pacts."
She gripped her chest as pain flared across the mask's edge.
"I killed you to protect you from what we'd become."
"But you didn't die."
She stood, shoulders stiff with unspoken guilt.
"So I'll come now—not as an assassin. Not as a spy."
"But as the girl who made a mistake. One that fire couldn't burn away."
The wind howled.
And the mountain answered.
🔥 Combat Prediction — If Encounter Occurs
Potential Encounter:
Echo Suppressor-Class Agent
Past-life Affinity: Linked emotionally and spiritually to Jin Mu-Won
Known Abilities:
Dragon Vein Extraction (Unstable)
Name-Sear Technique – Memory Branding Blade
Phoenix Step Disruption Arts (Modified to suppress Hollow Forms)
Emotion-Triggered Ascension Surge (Mask Burnout Level 1–2)
Risk Assessment: High
Emotional Complication: Extreme
🧠 Inner Monologue – Jin Mu-Won
Jin stared into the fire.
He didn't speak for hours.
Not even when Su Ren asked what he saw.
Not even when Ash-Eye felt the tremors in the Hollow Lines.
Only one thought echoed in him:
"She tried to erase me."
But deeper still, quieter:
"And I let her."
Because even now—after awakening, after learning to remember, after reclaiming forgotten names—
He didn't hate her.
He couldn't.
Not yet.
📚 Chapter Summary
Major Echo Character Revealed: Jade-Masked Girl — a former Flame Pact agent with direct ties to Jin Mu-Won's lost past and emotional core.
New Region Identified: Jade Spine Range — home of the Shrine of Remorse and frozen dragon memory scars.
Next Convergence: The girl is descending from the North. Her memory is fractured, her mask fused, and her intent unknown.