The Soul Forge had grown quiet, but its flame still burned.
Li Fan knelt before the obsidian anvil, hands soaked in blood and ink, breathing in the old power like a man starved for truth. Beside him, Yan Mei rested with her back to a pillar, polishing her blade in silence.
She hadn't spoken since the soul echo vanished. But her gaze flicked toward him every few minutes watchful, assessing.
She was no longer just curious. She was wary.
Li Fan drew a symbol in the air, one composed of nine rotating layers each a specific alchemical element drawn from the Ten Thousand Cauldrons Codex, a secret he'd memorized from a fragment unearthed in the archives. This was not common pill-making. This was soul-fire alchemy, a lost art.
"Step back," he said. "The next part might draw... attention."
Yan Mei rose without a word and circled behind him, her blade ready.
Li Fan tossed a dried lotus heart, a blood crystal, and a tiny iron vial into the air. He clapped once and the forge ignited with swirling cyclone of violet and silver flame roared upward, devouring the ingredients mid-air. They melted into a dark, oily essence. As it coalesced above the anvil, Li Fan leapt forward, drawing a short curved sword from his back one she hadn't noticed until now.
Yan Mei's brow rose. "You use a blade?"
Li Fan smiled faintly. "I don't believe in being predictable."
In a flash, he slashed a sigil into the air, channeling martial intent into the formation. The liquid alchemical essence responded shaping itself into a hovering orb.
"Cauldron of Shadows," he said. "A poison pill that dissolves spiritual defenses. Banned by all sects during the War of Nine Sects."
"You know it's forbidden," Yan Mei said, stepping closer.
"I also know it's necessary."
He placed the pill into a jade case and slid it into his robe. Then the cave shuddered.
Yan Mei instantly had her blade up. "What now?"
Li Fan's eyes narrowed. "Something followed us here."
From the entrance of the Soul Forge, a sliver of shadow peeled itself from the wall and took shape. A figure cloaked in crimson stepped through the veil, their face hidden behind a veil of golden thread.
No footsteps, No Qi, Only silence.
"Li Fan," the figure said, voice androgynous, distorted. "You were not supposed to reach the forge."
Yan Mei stepped forward, blade low. "Friend of yours?"
"Not one I remember," he said, fingers already tracing symbols into the air.
The figure tilted its head. "Of course not. Your memories were sealed when you fled the Celestial Archive."
Li Fan froze.
Yan Mei's eyes snapped toward him. "You fled what?"
"I—" he began, but the figure raised a hand and the world twisted.
The forge cracked. Flames roared and suddenly, Li Fan saw a flash of himself younger, different, eyes like burning ink standing before a massive gate covered in golden runes. Behind him, bodies, dozens. A broken quill in his hand. He staggered.
"What did you show me?" he demanded.
"A reminder," the figure said. "You are not the boy the sect raised. You are the weapon they failed to bind."
Yan Mei slashed forward.
The blade passed through the figure. An illusion. The real presence was gone. The forge dimmed again. Yan Mei helped Li Fan to his feet.
"What did you see?"
He was pale now. Cold sweat soaked his collar.
"I saw... a gate. Chains. A place called the Celestial Archive."
He looked at her.
"And I saw myself killing people I don't remember."
Yan Mei sheathed her blade slowly. "You're bleeding from the chest, your memories are fractured, and someone just tried to erase your soul. Are you going to explain what's happening?" Li Fan didn't answer immediately. He was staring at the forge wall. A set of ancient glyphs had begun to pulse behind the anvil ones only visible now that the soul echo had been defeated. The markings formed a sigil: half a blade, half a scroll, locked in eternal balance.
"It's a bloodline seal," he said, eyes narrowing. "Your fight must have triggered it."
Yan Mei stepped forward. Her hand hovered near the wall, and the sigil flared in response. The glyphs rotated, and with a low hum, a hidden passage opened stone sliding aside to reveal a descending stairway carved in obsidian.
From the darkness below, a whisper of wind rose carrying with it the unmistakable scent of spirit lotuses, old incense... and seduction.
Li Fan's expression hardened. "This isn't a forge extension. It's a buried tomb."
"A tomb that opened because of me," Yan Mei murmured. "Something down there... wants me to remember."
"Then we go together."
As they stepped into the stairway, Li Fan glanced over his shoulder. Unseen in the darkness above, a sliver of shadow slipped into the forge chamber. It followed.
Far above, in the observatory cloaked in starlight, the hooded observer closed the jade slip.
He lowered his hood.
Beneath it was a face nearly identical to Li Fan's older, crueler, and bearing a brand across his forehead: a broken quill crossing a blade.
"He's awakening," the man murmured. "Too soon." He sent massage to the shadows.
"Activate Protocol Nine. If he reaches the Tomb of Mirrors before I intercept him… kill Yan Mei."