Chapter 11 – The Whispering City and the Soulforge Blade
The journey south took them five days.
Across broken mountain passes, over mist-choked bridges, and through valleys where qi itself shimmered like mirages in the air. The farther they walked, the more unnatural the world felt.
Zhao felt it in his bones. The trees whispered things that didn't make sense. The rocks hummed faintly with curses. And each night, his dreams showed him a forge burning without fire — a sword being tempered by something older than flame.
"Zhao," Tang whispered on the fourth night, as they sat beside their dwindling campfire. "Do you ever feel like we're being pulled, not led?"
He glanced at her.
"Every moment."
Arrival at the Whispering City
They reached the gate at dusk.
Not that there was a gate in the traditional sense — just a circle of statues half-sunken into the marsh, each one carved with broken mouths and hollow eyes.
Between them hung mist like gauze, and the air shimmered with an unnatural pressure.
Zhao stepped forward and pressed the jade token Bai Qian had given them into the center of the circle.
A pulse of light rippled outward.
Then… the mist parted.
And the city appeared.
The Whispering City was built into the walls of a massive underground crater, buildings rising like jagged teeth along the rim and spiraling downward in tiers toward a glowing core of molten crystal.
The noise was immediate — not loud, but endless. A constant undercurrent of murmurs, laughter, chants, and the clash of metal. The streets were filled with cultivators from all sects, rogue alchemists, wandering soulshapers, and masked warriors who bore no clan mark at all.
"Welcome to the place the righteous sects pretend doesn't exist," Tang muttered. "The city that teaches you everything they're too scared to admit."
A girl with lavender eyes brushed past them, flicking her fingers in a mocking gesture.
"Newbonded, huh?" she said. "Good luck not dying your first week."
Zhao glanced at Tang.
"Friendly place."
The Soulforger
They found him at the very bottom — beneath the molten heart, in a chamber carved from obsidian.
Master Yao.
He was not what Zhao expected.
A hunched man, barefoot, hair tied in iron wire, with arms blackened from years of exposure to soulfire. His left eye was a polished gemstone, constantly shifting color as if reacting to unseen currents of qi.
"You come with a bond forged in pain," he said without greeting. "But pain isn't enough. What do you feel when you touch your blade?"
Zhao pulled his sword and laid it down.
"It feels… heavy. Like it's waiting."
Yao snorted.
"That's because it doesn't recognize you. This is metal. What you need is a soulblade. A weapon that drinks your essence. Breathes your rage. Hums with your love."
Tang folded her arms. "And how do we get that?"
"You bleed."
The Trial of the Forge
Master Yao led them to a separate chamber — dim, quiet, filled with floating shards of crystal and a single anvil carved from a fallen meteor.
"Place your blade on the anvil," Yao said. "Then place your palm above it."
Zhao hesitated.
Tang took his hand and looked him in the eyes.
"Whatever happens… I won't let you fade."
He nodded.
Blood touched steel.
And the chamber erupted with light.
Flames rose from the floor — not red, but white. Silent, devouring, unreal.
Zhao screamed.
But not in pain.
In memory.
He saw flashes: his childhood, his mother's death, the loneliness of his early years. And then... he saw Tang. Laughing. Weeping. Screaming his name in the trial.
His blade shimmered.
[SOULFORGE LINK INITIATED]Forming core…Tempering emotional resonance…Bonded Weapon: Soulmirror Fang
The flames vanished.
Zhao collapsed forward, breathing hard.
The sword that lay on the anvil was no longer plain.
Its blade shimmered with translucent lines, like glass forged from lightning. The hilt pulsed with his heartbeat. When he lifted it, the air around him bent ever so slightly.
Yao smiled.
"It lives now. And it remembers."
Tang stepped closer and touched the hilt beside his hand.
The blade sang.
A soft, chime-like sound, as if acknowledging both of them.
The Warning
That night, as they settled into a rented loft above a quiet tea house, Zhao stared out the window toward the crater's molten core.
Tang joined him.
"Do you feel it too?" she asked.
He nodded. "Something's building."
Tang bit her lip.
"I asked around. The emblem on the assassin's token — it's not just some cult. It's old. Like, pre-Sect War old."
"Who are they?"
"They call themselves The Pale Moon Covenant. And they believe bonded cultivators are cursed... that our connection opens a gate to something we were never meant to touch."
Zhao turned toward her.
"Then why help me form a soulblade?"
Tang didn't answer.
Because deep down, she wasn't sure anymore if Bai Qian was truly guiding them — or preparing them for something far worse.
A Stranger in the Loft
Later that night, as Zhao lay sleeping, the wind shifted inside the room.
Tang opened her eyes.
And saw someone standing by the window.
A woman in white robes, face veiled, holding a jade flute.
"You should leave him," the woman said softly. "Before the Reaper takes you both."
Tang reached for her dagger—
—but the woman vanished.
Only one word remained, carved faintly into the window glass.
"Awaken."
TO BE CONTINUED...