by ArkGodZ | DaoVerse Studio
The passage descended in silence.
Jian Yu moved slowly, one hand brushing the stone wall beside him. The surface was rough, yet warm—pulsing faintly, like the memory of a fire long extinguished but never forgotten.
Behind him, Yuan walked without sound. She didn't speak. She didn't need to.
Each step took them deeper into something ancient.
Not just a structure.Not just a test.
A memory carved into the bones of the mountain.
The walls began to change.
Dark stone gave way to smooth, blackened metal veined with slivers of silver light. Symbols flickered in and out of sight—runes long erased from mortal record, yet still resonant.
Jian Yu felt the fragment within him stir.
The shard he had absorbed after the battle with the construct was no longer quiet. It pulsed.
A heat.A vibration.
A presence without voice.
He stopped at a curve in the passage, one hand pressing against his chest.
The sensation wasn't pain—but it was close. Like pressure blooming from within, threatening to push outward.
"Something's wrong," he murmured.
Yuan was already beside him.
She didn't ask what. She simply placed her hand against his back, steadying him. Not to hold him up.
To remind him he was still here.
Still whole.
Jian Yu took a breath.
The Sutra pulsed in answer.
But this time, it didn't offer strength.
It offered… caution.
The fragment was trying to connect.Not just with Jian Yu.With the place itself.
He looked around.
The air had changed again—thicker now, laced with something metallic and sharp, like lightning trapped in earth.
They had crossed into the heart of the forgotten forge.
The corridor opened.
A vast chamber stretched before them—circular, lined with obsidian pillars etched in twisting, ancient runes. At the center stood a massive forge. Cold. Silent. Blackened with time.
It had no chimney. No bellows. No fire.
Yet Jian Yu felt heat on his skin.
The forge was not fueled by flame.
It was fueled by presence.
He stepped forward.
As his foot crossed the edge of the chamber, a pulse surged through the floor.
A thin circle of light spiraled outward from beneath the forge—reaching the walls, climbing the pillars.
And then...
The forge ignited.
Not with fire.
With memory.
Light poured from the seams in the stone—shifting golden currents that moved like molten breath. The air vibrated. The walls groaned.
Jian Yu staggered back. The fragment in his chest blazed like a second heart.
He gasped, falling to one knee.
The Sutra within him screamed—not in agony, but in warning.
The forge was responding to him.
To the fragment.
To something that had waited for too long.
Yuan rushed to his side, kneeling.
"Jian Yu—"
He gritted his teeth, shaking his head.
"I'm not in danger," he whispered. "I think it's… waking up."
The ground beneath the forge shifted.
Stone folded inward like petals, revealing a recess beneath the anvil.
From within it rose a shape—a figure sculpted from obsidian and gold, humanoid but incomplete. Its surface was etched with the same runes Jian Yu had seen in the trial before. But it was lifeless.
A husk.
An echo.
The forge burned brighter.
The runes on the figure glowed faintly.
And Jian Yu felt the truth before the image was complete.
This wasn't a weapon.
It was a mirror.
He stepped closer, breath shallow.
As he approached, the figure flickered.
Its shape shifted—its limbs lengthening, chest narrowing, facial features softening into something familiar.
His.
The forge was showing him what he could become.
Or what he already was.
He stared into the face of the reflection—not expressionless like the construct from the arena.
But blank.
Waiting.
As if it didn't know which version of him it would take.
"Why show me this?" he asked aloud.
The forge answered not with voice, but with warmth.
With weight.
With memory.
Images danced across the surface of the forge:Yuan's face, caught in firelight.His clan, falling to ruin.His bloodied hands at the gates of a sect that would never see him as more than a ghost.
Jian Yu clenched his fists.
The fragment in his chest pulsed harder, syncing with the light around the chamber.
He looked again at the reflection.
And it had changed.
Its eyes now burned faintly.
Its face was still his.
But now… it looked like someone who had chosen.
He didn't realize Yuan had stepped beside him until she spoke.
Her voice was soft. Clear.
"Whatever this place is… it sees more of you than you do."
He nodded slowly.
"I think this place… was built by someone who failed."
Yuan turned to him.
"Then make sure it doesn't end the same way."
He exhaled.
Slow. Steady.
The forge dimmed slightly, as if accepting his resolve.
Then one of the runes on the wall cracked open.
A new path revealed itself—leading downward again, but not in darkness.
This time, the tunnel pulsed with faint red light. Warm. Alive.
Jian Yu turned to Yuan.
"I don't know what's down there."
She gave a small smile.
"You never do."
He chuckled once.
"Fair."
They walked side by side into the passage.
The reflection remained behind—still blank-eyed, still waiting.
But something told Jian Yu…
When he returned,It would no longer be just a reflection.
The passage narrowed.
The walls pulsed with faint red light, as if veins of magma pulsed beneath their surface. The air thickened, not from heat—but from pressure. From meaning.
Yuan said nothing.Neither did Jian Yu.
Each step forward felt like walking into a memory not his own.
At the end of the tunnel, the path opened into a circular chamber.
It was smaller than the forge above—intimate, suffocating in its silence.
At the center stood a single anvil.Old. Cracked.Yet whole.
Around it, a circle of runes burned faintly into the stone floor. They weren't glowing.They were smoldering.Waiting.
As Jian Yu stepped into the ring, a breath of wind passed through the chamber.
There was no source.
But he felt it all the same.
Not against his skin.
Against his soul.
A voice spoke.
Not in the air.
In his mind.
"You carry the shard. You carry the Sutra. You carry the choice."
Jian Yu's breath caught.
His chest burned.
The fragment inside him pulsed once, then again—each throb sending waves of heat down his spine, into his limbs, into his fingertips.
The Sutra stirred, restless.
The forge below recognized it.
"You will forge.""Not a weapon. Not a shell.""But a truth."
The runes flared.
The anvil groaned.
Jian Yu staggered back half a step, but caught himself.
Yuan reached out, but didn't touch him.
Her eyes never left his.
"You don't have to do this alone," she whispered.
"I'm not alone," Jian Yu said softly, eyes fixed on the forge. "But the hammer must still be mine."
He stepped fully into the circle.
The ground hummed.
The anvil ignited—not in fire, but in liquid light. Molten energy bled up from beneath it, swirling in the air, forming tendrils that shimmered with colors Jian Yu had no words for.
They hovered, waiting.
Not to be used.
To be chosen.
"Forge what?" he asked aloud.
The chamber answered:
"Something only you can bear."
The mist above the anvil twisted.
Images flickered in the light:
His father, kneeling in defeat.His mother, fading in his arms.The shattered gates of the Clã Li.Yuan walking through smoke, reaching for him.
Jian Yu stepped forward.
The heat didn't burn.
But it peeled away his hesitation.
This wasn't a battle of fists.
It was a conversation.
Between who he was.
And who he might become.
He reached toward the mist.
The tendrils reacted immediately—curling toward his hand.
One wrapped around his wrist.
Another spiraled around his chest.
The fragment in his body flared—
And the Sutra released.
Golden energy poured from his palms, his breath, his bones. Not Qi. Not spirit.
Intention.
The first image formed in the mist:
A blade.
Then a book.Then a mask.Then a heart made of ash.
Each one flickered, unstable.
Each one whispered a different truth.
Each one demanded something of him.
Jian Yu closed his eyes.
What am I truly forging?
He let the answer rise from within.
Not glory.Not power.Not revenge.
A symbol.
A memory.
A future.
The mist responded.
The shape stabilized.
A pendant.Lotus-shaped.Split down the center.Half radiant gold.Half scorched black.
It pulsed with every beat of his heart.
The Sutra echoed its rhythm.
He stepped forward and placed his hands on the anvil.
The shape descended.
Rested between his palms.
The runes on the ground flared.
The pendant hissed.
And the forging began.
There was no hammer.
No fire.
Only pain.
Each memory sharpened and melted into the object.
Each desire folded into its core.
Each regret was engraved onto its surface.
Jian Yu gritted his teeth.
He remembered the silence after his clan's fall.The bitterness of being invisible in the sect.The fear of becoming nothing more than a vessel.
The pendant drank it all.
Yuan stood just outside the ring.
Her eyes glistened—but she didn't move.
She couldn't help him here.
This wasn't about surviving.
It was about choosing to continue.
As Jian Yu pressed the final surge of intent into the forge, the pendant flared with blinding light—
Then dimmed.
Soft.
Steady.
Alive.
He staggered back, gasping.
The forge cooled instantly.
The mist vanished.
The runes faded.
Only the pendant remained.
Floating above the anvil.
Waiting.
The ground trembled.
The walls groaned.
And a low sound echoed from deep beneath them.
Not the voice of the chamber.
Something deeper.
Older.
Awake.
The pendant hovered above the anvil, still pulsing with the rhythm of Jian Yu's breath.
The forge had fallen silent, but the air remained charged—tense with something unseen. The walls no longer glowed, but beneath the stillness was movement.
Something deep.
Something waking.
Jian Yu stepped forward and reached for the pendant.
The moment his fingers brushed it, a jolt passed through him.
Not pain.
Not resistance.
Recognition.
The object was warm—not from heat, but from memory.
It knew him.
Because it was of him.
The fragment in his chest stirred in response.
A low hum vibrated through his ribs, then spread outward, connecting to the pendant. Jian Yu gasped, stumbling back as the two energies began to sync.
The room darkened.
The anvil cracked.
The floor beneath the forging ring pulsed once—
Then opened.
Stone folded downward in seamless layers, revealing a hidden spiral staircase carved into red crystal and obsidian veins. A rush of stale air surged up from the depths, heavy with dust, metal, and something else.
Desire.
Not hungry.
Ancient.
Dormant.
Watching.
Yuan stepped beside him, her hand instinctively near her blade.
But Jian Yu raised a hand.
"No blades," he said softly.
She nodded.And followed.
They descended in silence.
Each step echoed, not just through the stone, but through the fragment and the pendant—both of which pulsed slowly, like matching hearts.
Jian Yu could feel it now.
The forja acima era apenas uma entrada.
O que despertava abaixo… era o coração.
At the base of the stairs, the passage opened into a final chamber.
Vast.
Empty.
Except for a single pedestal.
And a voice.
It didn't speak like the others.
There was no declaration. No welcome.
Just words, low and steady, entering his mind like a tide.
"What did you forge?"
Jian Yu blinked.
The pendant in his hand warmed again.
He looked down at it.
And said, "A reminder."
The voice paused.
Then spoke again.
"For what purpose?"
He looked ahead.
At nothing.
And answered, "To not forget who I was. Who I might become. And the price of both."
The room trembled faintly.
Not in anger.
In agreement.
The pedestal cracked.
And from within rose a figure—not living, not hostile.
An image.
A projection of someone long dead.
A man, draped in tattered robes, his body half-consumed by the same golden flame that now slept within Jian Yu.
His eyes were hollow.
But his voice…
Carried regret.
"I forged for power," the projection said. "And it consumed what I loved. Because I could not tell the difference between desire… and hunger."
He looked at Jian Yu.
"But you still can."
The projection stepped back into the light.
And crumbled into dust.
Nothing else moved.
No enemy appeared.
No path opened.
Just… silence.
Yuan finally spoke.
"That… was a memory," she said. "A piece of someone who came before."
Jian Yu nodded.
"And a warning."
They turned to leave.
But before they reached the stairs, the voice returned one last time.
"Do not forget what you forged… or why."
The forge above darkened.
The pendant dimmed.
But Jian Yu's eyes glowed faintly in the dark.
He didn't feel victorious.
He felt aware.
And sometimes, that was enough.
End of Chapter
Next Chapter: Whisper of the Flame That Remembers
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