The night was quiet.
Too quiet.
Only the sound of their footsteps echoed softly against the stones, swallowed by the mist that clung to the valley. The moon hung pale above the clouds, its light barely reaching through the curtain of fog. Jian Wu walked ahead, his breath calm but his heart uncertain as if the silence itself was leading him somewhere he shouldn't go.
Behind him, Mei Xue wrapped her robe tighter. Her voice trembled slightly.
"Are you sure about this path?"
Jian Wu didn't turn back. "I'm not sure of anything. But something here… calls me."
The forest ended abruptly, opening into a hollow that stretched wide beneath the mountain. The air was still. No insects, no wind, no trace of life, only a hum, faint but deep, vibrating through the ground like the slow heartbeat of something ancient.
Mei Xue frowned. "I don't like this place."
Jian Wu's eyes glimmered faintly under the moonlight. "Maybe that's why it feels real."
They descended further until the fog began to thin, revealing a strange stone formation at the center of the valley.
A massive slab, half buried in the soil, shaped like a human eye. From its cracks, a dim pulse of black and white light bled into the mist.
Mei Xue stepped back. "That's not a normal relic. We should leave.."
But Jian Wu had already moved closer, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. The pulse in his chest matched the rhythm of the stone. Each beat echoed through his bones.
"It's breathing…" he whispered.
"What?" Mei Xue's voice shook. "Stones don't breathe."
Jian Wu reached out his hand, fingertips brushing the cold surface.
The moment he touched it, the world vanished.
Mei Xue's cry faded behind him as everything turned white.
Then came the darkness, endless, thick, suffocating. He stood in the middle of an empty field beneath a fractured sky. Lightning crawled through the cracks above like veins of light. And in front of him stood a man.
The man's hair was silver, his face worn and hollow. Yet his features mirrored Jian Wu's own.
"Who are you?" Jian Wu asked, his voice echoing strangely in the void.
"I am what remains," the man said calmly. "You chose a path with no core, a path of sacrifice, not freedom."
Jian Wu clenched his fists. "I didn't choose this. I only wanted to protect them."
The old man smiled faintly, not with kindness but with pity. "Every protection is born from fear. And fear is what binds you to the same fate."
The sky trembled. The light above burst open, raining shards of white fire.
Before Jian Wu could move, the man's voice echoed again, deeper, colder.
"If you keep walking forward, one day you'll have to face yourself."
The world collapsed.
He woke with a sharp gasp.
The mist had returned, thick and heavy. Mei Xue was kneeling beside him, gripping his shoulders.
"Jian Wu! What did you see?"
He blinked, his pulse racing. "Myself," he said quietly. "But… not me."
The stone beneath his hand was now glowing brighter, its surface rippling like liquid glass. Lines of ancient symbols crawled outward, spreading through the soil, forming a great circle around them. The wind began to spiral.
"Jian Wu, we need to go!" Mei Xue shouted. "This place it's not meant for humans!"
But he stood still, eyes fixed on the pulsing stone. "No. This isn't a curse. It's a key."
Mei Xue hesitated, fear and frustration mixing in her voice. "A key to what?"
Jian Wu's lips curved in a faint, tired smile. "To the path that doesn't exist."
The ground shook.
The symbols glowed, then faded one by one.
When the light vanished, all that remained was silence, the kind that made even breathing feel loud.
Mei Xue stared at him for a long moment, her eyes soft and uncertain.
"You scare me sometimes," she said quietly.
He exhaled, looking down at his trembling hands. "I scare myself more."
The mist swallowed their figures as the valley returned to its silence.
Only the faint pulse of the stone remained, steady and alive, as if the earth itself was listening, waiting for what would come next.