The moon hung low as Lian Yu stood before a pair of stone gates, half-buried in creeping ivy and brittle vines. They stood at the edge of the Nine Rivers Sect's inner grounds, hidden behind rows of spirit trees whose bark shimmered silver under moonlight. Above the gates, a faded inscription read: Garden of Withering Truths.
Elder Xuan had said little before handing him the sect token and a half-cracked jade scroll, but the meaning behind his words lingered.
> "Inside, you will find no enemies. Only truths long forgotten… or deliberately buried."
Jin Mu had wanted to follow, but Lian Yu insisted he stay behind. This journey felt personal—an echo that tugged at the soul. As he stepped forward, the gates opened with a whisper, ancient mechanisms responding not to strength, but to presence.
Inside was silence.
The garden was vast, far more than the outer view suggested. Stone pathways wound between overgrown flora, some glowing faintly with spiritual energy, others drooping as if weighed by sorrow. The trees were old, older than the sect itself. Their twisted limbs reached out like they remembered what they once held and lost.
Each step Lian Yu took stirred something in the air—memories, not his own. Faces blinked in and out of view, flickering like lanterns in fog. A child weeping beneath a petrified tree. A man kneeling before a shattered tablet. A woman casting a scroll into a river of light.
Illusions. No... echoes.
He paused by a weathered stone bench, where a half-buried statue sat, eroded beyond recognition. Its hand pointed toward a sealed archway covered in dead vines. The air thickened. The energy here felt... warped. Not malicious, but burdened.
Lian Yu reached into his robes and retrieved the jade shard—his pendant, now subtly fused with his essence. It pulsed faintly. A thread of blue light extended from it and slithered into the archway ahead.
The vines recoiled.
With a soft groan, the archway creaked open, revealing a chamber beyond—hidden beneath the earth.
He descended.
The underground room was circular, its walls inscribed with ancient markings, different from those at the Temple of the Erased. These were older, yet clearer. Not just instructions—but records. Histories.
He stepped closer. One mural depicted a figure standing between two towering forces—Heaven and an indistinct, veiled shadow. Above the figure, a six-petaled lotus burned with celestial fire.
Another mural showed a tree—the same as in his vision. Its roots pierced into a sea of stars, while its leaves formed the outline of a gate.
There were realms beyond Earth Soul. That much was certain now.
As he examined the walls, his gaze settled on a single line, written in a dialect that translated itself in his mind:
> "Truth withers in the hands of Heaven, yet endures in the soul of the defiant."
His breath caught.
The chamber pulsed.
Suddenly, the air shimmered—and a figure formed in the center of the room.
It was not real. A projection, left by someone long gone. The man wore robes not of this era, and his eyes burned with knowledge and sorrow.
"If you see this," the illusion began, "then the garden has chosen to remember."
Lian Yu listened in silence.
"There was a time when the six realms were not the end, but the beginning. Beyond Earth Soul lies Sky Root—not a realm of strength, but of anchoring one's truth. Few reach it without shattering."
The projection paused, as if pained.
"And beyond Sky Root… the worlds diverge."
Lian Yu's heart pounded. He had suspected this, but to hear it confirmed...
The illusion continued, "This place holds remnants—truths erased by the hands of Celestial Order. Cultivators who remembered, who resisted. Some became myths. Others were buried. If you seek to rise... understand this: your path is not one of ascent. It is one of reclamation."
As the vision faded, a sealed pedestal opened. Inside lay a scroll—its surface covered in glowing ink that shifted with the light.
A name was written across it:
> Yan Xi.
His chest tightened.
He did not open it yet. Some part of him knew it wasn't time.
Instead, he took the scroll and rose. As he turned to leave, the walls shimmered once more. This time, they did not show illusions or memories.
They showed doors.
Three.
Each glowing with faint, colored light—blue, gold, and crimson.
He knew, instinctively, they represented the relics. The paths.
And each one would challenge more than strength.
Lian Yu walked out of the chamber and emerged once more into the starlit garden. The air was clearer now. The burden, lighter.
The Garden had not tested him.
It had reminded him.
As he returned to the sect grounds, scroll in hand, he whispered to the night sky:
"I am beginning to remember."
And from far beyond the heavens, something stirred.
Awaiting his defiance.