I had been exploring the ruins of the Immortal Bane Sect for hours, piecing together the fragments of a long-forgotten history. Every step through this abandoned stronghold revealed more disturbing signs of a massacre that had occurred thousands of years ago. The sect's main hall lay in ruins, its artifacts scattered and broken, telling a silent story of sudden, overwhelming destruction.
As I examined the crumbling remains of what once must have been a magnificent throne room, my thoughts kept returning to Clara. The mask she now possessed—identical to the one I'd seen in my divine sense vision—connected her to this place in ways I couldn't yet understand. Was she somehow linked to the masked woman who had single-handedly destroyed this entire sect?
A faint sound from outside pulled me from my thoughts. Someone was approaching.
