This is the day the land of the forgotten was born.
They called it Yanzhou.
A land untouched by time, forgotten by stars, unseen by the heavens themselves. Shrouded in perpetual twilight, it was as if the sun dared not lay its gaze upon the soil, nor the wind carry the memories of this place beyond the horizon. There were no birds here, no flowers that bloomed, and the trees,twisted and gnarled..stood still as if holding their breath. Mist hung low over the earth, and silence ruled supreme. Not the peaceful kind, but the kind that crushed hearts.
No man had walked these shores for millennia.
And then, it began.
The sky cracked.
A thin line of light tore open the fabric of the heavens. It was silent at first, then a pulse of energy followed, rippling through the mist and soil. From the rupture descended a figure. He did not fall. He glided.
The first to land upon Yanzhou in countless years was a man who looked nothing like the thousands who followed. His skin shimmered faintly with the hues of dawn, and his robes flowed with energies that defied the natural order. Qi pulsed along his arms like golden lightning. Mana circled his feet, an unseen current that responded to his very breath. Prana bloomed from his chest in gentle waves, and Nether curled at the edges of his hair like a whisper of death.
He was a paradox...life and death in harmony.
Shen Lu, The Duality.
Behind him, a thousand more descended.
No wings, no grace. They fell like droplets from a broken sky, cast down from the world they once belonged to. Men, women, and children, clothed in confusion, their eyes wide and empty. Their mouths trembled with questions they could no longer form. They had forgotten who they were.
They were the cursed. The Xuji.
Once, they had names. Clans. Legacies. They had stood tall as Shenzes, wielders of one of the Four Great Energies. Now, all of it was gone.
Their memories,shattered. Their power....erased.
The Hereditary Silence had claimed them.
They stumbled on the soil of Yanzhou like newborns, some crying, others silent. The children clung to unfamiliar hands. Lovers searched for warmth they couldn't recall. Old men looked up at the sky as if searching for the stars they once named.
The Duality stood before them all, his gaze sweeping over them. His face was carved in marble resolve, but in his eyes was an ocean of sorrow.
Above him, the sky shimmered once more.
A dozen figures appeared, floating in midair, robes fluttering though no wind blew. They were regal, distant. Not as radiant as him, but still gods in the eyes of mortals. Their expressions were grim, unreadable. Each hovered, arms folded, watching. They were HeavenKeepers. Each bore two energy affinities, power cascading off their forms like waterfalls. They stood in a circle above the island, watching with grim silence.
This was not a rescue. It was a burial.
Shen Lu rose into the air.
He hovered above the sea of the lost, above those whose lives had been stripped clean. He looked upon them not as a god, but as a man burdened with a decision.
His voice never came. He only raised his hand.
The wind moved.
It was soft. Gentle. Like the caress of a mother to a sleeping child. But with it came something deeper—a wave that swept through the crowd, brushing against their foreheads, entering their minds.
And then came the screams.
The memories poured in like a flood bursting a dam. Faces flashed. Names. Laughter. Pain. The moment of loss. The moment of betrayal. Entire lives condensed into seconds. Souls shuddered beneath the weight of what was stolen from them. Some fell to their knees. Others clutched their heads.
And then came silence.
They forgot again.
Clean. Empty. New.
A man in black beside Shen Lu floated closer, his eyes filled with unease.
"What about the prophecy, my lord?" he asked, his voice hushed, as if fearing the answer.
Shen Lu didn't move for a moment. Then he spoke.
"If that is what fate has written..." he whispered,
"...then we shall break fate itself."
The air trembled.
From the edges of the island, the ground groaned and cracked. Stones rose,slow at first, then faster, erupting into the sky like great pillars of judgment. The walls grew, higher than mountains, seamless and smooth. They circled the entire island, sealing it from the world.
One of the HeavenKeepers, clad in violet armor, stood high above with one palm extended. It was he who commanded the wall. A master of earth and will.
A prison had been born.
Shen Lu descended slightly, just above the heads of the now-silent Xuji. He looked at them one last time. No words could be given. No explanation would suffice.
Only hope remained.
He turned his gaze to the misty horizon. The wind caught the edges of his robes.
"Yanzhou," he whispered.
"Till we meet again...."
Then he vanished, his body dissolving into light and shadow.
One by one, the HeavenKeepers followed. The sky sealed shut behind them, the crack in the world mended.
And Yanzhou was forgotten.
A prison. A cradle. A tomb.
A cursed land that remembered what the world had chosen to forget.
The people finally emerged from the trance, gasping, trembling, some collapsing to their knees. Whatever vision had seized them was already slipping from memory like sand through open fingers. The warmth of loved ones, the screams of loss, the thunder of judgment....it all faded into a void.
They looked around, disoriented.
The skies had cleared. The godlike figures who once hovered above the heavens were gone. No voice echoed. No breeze stirred. Just silence,crushing, hollow.
Then the realization struck.... they were surrounded.
Towering walls of stone and spirit had risen around the island, vast, ancient, and seamless. Not one gate. Not one crack. They stood like sentinels, whispering of isolation. Beyond them, only mist.
A child cried. A woman stared at her hands, as if seeing them for the first time. An old man looked up and murmured, "Where... where are we?"
But no one could answer.
Their names, their pasts, even their pain....gone.
All that remained was the island... and the haunting certainty that they were trapped, not by chains, but by something far deeper: a forgotten fate.