Phantom Blade Zero · Character
Mu Tianmiao
Mu Tianmiao founded The Order and led it as Shadow Sovereign for forty years. He is the adoptive father of Soul and Zuo Shang and the father of Mu Xiaokui, and he is dead before the game begins: the Order says Soul killed him.
- FactionThe Order
Who is Mu Tianmiao?
Mu Tianmiao is a peerless martial artist and a keener judge of men still. The Order began with just three people, he and two friends, who wanted rules to take the place of the old fight between good and evil. Over forty years under him it drew countless masters into its ranks, and its rules came to shape the whole Wulin. His teaching to his sons: do not play the hero, never take sides, pull the strings from the shadows, and let all know the Order exists, but never where. As long as the rules endure, the Order is eternal.
Before the Order, the Lóng Clan led the righteous and the Bastion of Mó the unorthodox, and the two fought without end. The Order ended that old Wulin after years of war, and the battles cost Mu his two closest friends. For a decade afterwards he had every trace of the two clans erased. Later the Order broke the Eleven one by one.
He brought people into the Order as well as rules: the two street orphans Soul and Zuo Shang, whom he told to think of it as home; Inanis, the master of Phantom Arts; and the two guards he set over his daughter, Jade Dancer and Iron Fiend. He indulged Xiaokui’s excuses to drag Soul off to sword practice while Zuo Shang kept him company. His own sword lives on in Tianmiao · Wild Oriole, which pairs it with her Wild Oriole Sword.
When the game opens he is dead, and you meet him only in flashbacks and memories, such as Inanis’ Memory Flower in the Crimson Forest, where he comes aboard her Gilded Lotus to recruit her.
How Mu Tianmiao looks in the game
© PARAWULIN PRODUCTION LIMITED / S-GAME
Who Mu Tianmiao is to the others
Adoptive son
He took Soul in as a boy, chose his blade, Sanguine, and saw in him a restless power from birth. He warned Soul to stay calm and to beware the Soulrend Cliff bell.
Adoptive son
His other adopted son, the one who reads the Order’s secret records and questions him about the old Wulin. Zuo Shang succeeds him as Shadow Sovereign.
Only daughter
Xiaokui is his one child. He set Jade Dancer and Iron Fiend to guard and teach her.
“Mu Tianmiao has only one beloved daughter, Mu Xiaokui.”
In-game loading screenOld enemy
The Order and the Lóng Clan stormed the Bastion of Mó together, and Mó Yuan blames his imprisonment on Mu’s schemes. Soul says the man Mu admired most was Mó Yuan.
“Mu Tianmiao locked me away—somewhere no one can reach.”
In-game dialogueRecruited her
He offered Inanis a seat among the Shadow Edicts and the complete Soul Displacement Scroll, taken from the Lóng Clan, to save her dying daughter, if she would help the Order wipe out Meng Hua of the Eleven.
“I am Mu Tianmiao. I'm here to invite you to join the Order—take a seat among the Shadow Edicts.”
In-game dialogueSaved her life
He saved Jade Dancer when she was an orphan in danger, and made her his daughter’s guard.
What happens to Mu Tianmiao
The end of the story for this character
Mu Tianmiao died in seclusion, training for the last layer of a sword art the Order took from the Lóng Clan. To push his Sha-Chi to the brink he rang the bell he had taken from Soulrend Cliff, and wore Mó Yuan’s golden mask to keep himself from breaking. Uncle Zhong gave Zuo Shang the map to that retreat, and Zuo Shang passed it to Soul as a place tied to his bloodline.
The bell set Soul’s Sha-Chi raging. Mu, held back by the mask to barely seventy percent of his strength, fell to the son he raised; his last word was Soul’s name. Zuo Shang had expected the opposite, Mu killing Soul and left badly wounded for Zuo Shang to finish. Later Zuo Shang tells Soul that if he knew what Mu Tianmiao had done, he would have wanted him dead too.
“What... what have I done?”
In-game dialogue
Keep reading
Frequently asked questions
What are the Order’s rules?
Mu’s teaching: never take sides in the Wulin, pull the strings from the shadows, and let all know the Order exists, but never where. As long as the rules endure, the Order is eternal.
Who did Mu Tianmiao bring into the Order?
Soul and Zuo Shang as boys, Inanis, and his daughter’s guards Jade Dancer and Iron Fiend.
What weapon carries Mu Tianmiao’s sword?
Tianmiao · Wild Oriole, which pairs his sword with Mu Xiaokui’s Wild Oriole Sword.
Sources for this page 1
- Phantom Blade Zero Official Phantom Blade Zero launch build: the game’s own dialogue, documents, bestiary, quest log and loading screens, read 3 November 2026. Quotes are the game’s English text, unchanged.