One clan will be torn apart; another will seek the truth in the shadows of the past. Dark secrets, hidden from the eyes of even Lady Sun, will at last be revealed, and the Age of Man rests uncertainly on the shoulders of two unlikely heroes. The most hidden truth will be revealed: the greatest enemy of humanity is not the anger of a forgotten god, but the machinations of humanity itself…
The tale of Yume is one of the few that has survived. He is said to have once been a great warrior, even before he became the servant of the Shadow, and his war is against all of the souls that have lived in the past. He fights not to destroy the samurai who tread upon Rokugan's soil, but to destroy the spirits of the past, the ancestors who guide their children in the ways of bushido and the spirit. He fights for the Shadow that is his master, and he fights to destroy the Empire of Rokugan by killing its past. Called the spirit-killer, Yume stands at the gate to Jigoku and slaughters the souls of the dead.
Against him, it is said, fight a legion of samurai from Rokugan's past, their swords blazing with honor. For a thousand years, the war has raged between Yume and his dark warriors and the Spirit Legion, and for a thousand years, the Tenth Kami and his legion have beaten back the Goju.
But that time is ending, and soon, the ancestors will speak no more.
Before the world existed, there was Nothing. Nothing realised is was alone and it became afraid. So it created one third of the world. It desired a companion so it created another third of the world. When it realised it had ruined the perfect nothingness of the universe and regretted what it had done, the world became complete.
Osugi had written the New Tao, and now her blood stained its sacred parchment. If the words within were false, then only the Emperor knew the truth.