The world didn't feel different.
But it was.
Yan Xuanlanbin walked a narrow forest path as the morning sun filtered through the trees. Birds chirped like any normal day. The breeze carried the scent of moss and pine. Nothing about the scene said the bearer of the Supreme Sword was passing through.
And yet, deep within him, something had changed.
It wasn't strength.
It wasn't confidence.
It was presence—as if something was awake inside him, walking beside him in silence.
His sword hadn't spoken since the fight at the river.
But it didn't need to.
It was guiding him.
Each step he took wasn't random. He wasn't lost. He knew where he was going, even if he couldn't name the place yet.
Hours passed.
The forest thinned. The ground turned rocky. Birds vanished. Shadows grew longer.
Ahead, rising like a blade from the earth, was a lone mountain. Not tall, not grand. Just… there. Covered in fog, even in daylight.
Locals called it Wu Shen's Watch.
They said it was cursed.
Yan stopped at its base and looked up.
He didn't feel fear. But his body tightened—like it remembered something his mind didn't.
His hand hovered near the sword's hilt.
Then he stepped forward.
The path up Wu Shen was unnatural. Too clean. Too silent. No insects, no wind. Every sound he made echoed just a bit too long.
Halfway up, he found the first stone tablet.
It stood beside the trail, cracked and half-buried in moss. One word was carved deep into it:
"Why?"
He frowned.
Another ten steps. A second tablet.
"Would you?"
He looked behind him.
Nothing.
The fog thickened.
Another tablet.
"If you could?"
He didn't stop this time.
More tablets lined the path, scattered like questions someone had screamed into the mountain a hundred years ago.
"Would you kill to protect?"
"Would you die to be free?"
"Would you destroy to rebuild?"
At the top, the last one simply read:
"Will you choose, or be chosen?"
He stepped past it.
The summit opened into a circular clearing, empty but for a raised stone platform in the middle. No altar. No shrine. Just the mountain and sky above it.
Yan walked forward.
As his foot touched the edge of the platform, the world trembled.
A circle of light ignited beneath his feet — nine symbols etched in glowing lines.
One for each realm.
His sword pulsed once at his side.
And then a voice filled the air.
Not from a person.
Not from a beast.
But from the mountain itself.
"Bearer of the Supreme Sword, you have stepped upon the First Trial."
Yan's hand moved to his hilt. "What kind of trial?"
The voice ignored him.
"Each bearer faces a different test. Based not on strength… but on what they lack."
The light flared.
The wind stopped.
The sword in his hand vanished.
Yan looked down, stunned. His blade — gone.
Then something shifted in the fog.
Footsteps. Dozens.
Figures began to emerge — men, women, children — dressed in torn robes. Faces burnt. Eyes hollow.
They were from his past.
His village.
The one that burned two years ago.
The one he couldn't save.
They stood in a circle, staring at him.
Among them, a tall man stepped forward. His robes were simple, his face calm — but familiar. Painfully so.
"Master," Yan whispered.
His old teacher. The one who trained him when he had nothing. The one who died protecting him when the sect fell.
"I watched you leave me to die," the man said, his voice low and firm. "You ran while others stayed."
Yan's throat tightened. "You told me to run."
His master didn't blink. "And you obeyed. Like a coward."
The words hit harder than any blade.
Then the voice returned.
"This is your first trial: Guilt."
"To face what you buried. To see who you let down. To fight what you could not fight then."
Yan dropped to his knees.
The faces around him began to whisper.
"You left us."
"You survived when we didn't."
"You carry a sword now — but where was it then?"
He wanted to shout.
To fight back.
But his sword was gone.
He had nothing.
No qi surged. No technique answered.
Only silence.
And pain.
Then… a whisper — not from the mountain, but from deep inside.
A whisper like a heartbeat.
"Draw."
His hand reached for nothing.
But his fingers closed around something solid.
The sword was back.
No flash. No glow. Just there.
Waiting.
He stood slowly.
Looked at the faces.
And bowed.
"I did leave," he said. "And I regret it every day."
The figures didn't move.
"But I was a boy with no power. I had no sword. No skill. No chance."
He raised the blade. "I'm not that boy anymore."
The circle flinched.
He stepped forward.
The vision cracked like glass.
One by one, the illusions shattered into dust.
Until only his master remained.
The man looked at him for a long moment… then smiled.
And disappeared.
The light beneath Yan's feet faded.
And the voice returned.
"Trial complete."
"One burden lifted. Eight remain."
Yan stood alone at the mountain's peak, breathing hard.
The sword in his hand hummed gently.
Below, the fog began to part.
And far in the distance — across valleys and plains — nine pillars of light rose into the sky.
Nine trials.
Nine realms.
Nine choices.