The Seventh Person

Clad from head to toe in black beneath a wide bamboo conical hat, with hints of metallic mechanical components visible at his waist and wrists.

Every operative within the Order is mandated an alias, with true names guarded so zealously that only the closest companions ever learn them, shrouding their origins in near-total anonymity.

Among them, the Seventh Messenger remained The Order's greatest enigma. Elusive and unpredictable, he stayed swathed from head to toe in a pitch-black cloak that revealed only his lower face. Apart from the former Underworld Master, no one knew his true visage, his past, or the clandestine missions he undertook.

What little is known reveals that he befriended the former Patriarch in their youth, becoming one of his closest confidants and one of the mere three individuals present at the formal inception of the Order.

Through forty subsequent years of triumphs and tribulations, the ranks of Emissaries in The Order rose and fell. The lone constant was the elusive 'Seventh,' lingering forever in the First Master's shadow.

What the Seventh Member truly accomplished for The Order remains known only to them and the Old Master. Rank-and-file members only know that during Year 12's assault on the Demon Citadel, the Seventh served as the Old Master's chief lieutenant with great distinction, holding the line to ward off any citadel reinforcements while the Master fought the final Demon Citadel lord in single combat.

That brutal clash cost The Order dearly, wiping out two of its four Nether Emissaries and inflicting permanent, debilitating wounds upon the Seventh Man. Slipping into obscurity over the next 18 years as newcomers Void, Xiao Si, and Dark Zen stepped in as new Emissaries, the Seventh Man vanished from sight until his name became nothing more than a ghost of the past.

In Year 30 of The Order, after their Southern Wulin networks were utterly dismantled and the dispatched agents vanished without trace, the Old Master deployed his two prized foster sons, Soul and Zuo Shang, to investigate. To guarantee success, he made an unprecedented concession, permitting each of the four Nether Envoys to assign a personal agent to assist the duo on their mission.

As it turned out, the former Underworld Master had long known that Madame Red-White—matriarch of Mount Mushan in the Southern Martial World—was once a star courtesan at Void's Gold Jade Pavilion. Should they ever reconnect, the truth behind the historic Gold Jade Pavilion tragedy would likely be laid bare, inevitably driving Void to betray The Order.

The former Patriarch devised a cunning scheme within a scheme. He disguised Mirage City—an agent loyal to the Seventh Man—as his own personal emissary and sent him south at the head of a convoy. Concurrently, a forged letter was planted claiming the Seventh Man was gravely wounded and required the Eye of Xuan Yu for treatment; under this pretense, Mirage City and the Seventh Man ostensibly faked the Patriarch's orders to lure Xuan Yu to the South Wulin, condemning him to perish at Mirage's hands.

Those who intercepted the letter were bound to place Haishi under house arrest. Haishi could then deliberately thwart Void's underling Envoy Yuzhu from executing Lady Hongbai. By doing so, Yuzhu would become all the more convinced that Lady Hongbai was truly a traitor—ultimately orchestrating her demise and coercing Yuzhu into feeding Void a fabricated truth.

Soon after, word arrived that events had unfolded precisely as the old Underworld Lord foresaw: the Red and White Maidens were slain, and Yuzhu capitulated once her secrets were seized.

"Ever since that fateful day, you had a coffin readied for me—yet in the end, you're the one lying inside it. Who would have guessed you'd be the first to go?"