Chapter 66: The First Trial Begins

Li Feng stood at the threshold of the Abyss, his heart hammering against his ribs. The great stone gates behind them groaned shut, sealing them within the cursed domain. The air thickened instantly, the weight of something unseen pressing down on him, on all of them. The ruins stretched endlessly before them, a vast graveyard of blackened stone pulsating with eerie, crimson energy. The ground itself seemed to breathe, exhaling a whisper of old sorrows and lingering despair.

Mei Lian exhaled sharply. "This place… it's wrong." Her voice, usually composed, trembled at the edges.

Yan Shun tightened his grip on his blade, scanning the endless ruins. "It's more than wrong. This entire realm is feeding off something—power, souls, maybe even time itself. We shouldn't be here."

"No," Zheng Wei rasped, barely able to stand, "but we don't have a choice. If Shen Longwei is ahead of us, we can't let him claim whatever is buried here."

Suddenly, the ruins trembled, and ancient symbols ignited along the walls in a ghostly golden glow. The inscriptions pulsed, revealing a trial written in a forgotten script. Before anyone could react, a deep voice boomed through the chamber, its tone both judgmental and emotionless.

"Those who enter must prove their strength, wisdom, and will. If you fail, the Abyss shall consume you."

A spectral guardian materialized before them, shifting between fire and shadow, its form unstable yet impossibly vast. Its hollow eyes burned like molten gold, unblinking as they swept over the group.

"What is it?" Mei Lian whispered.

"A judge," Yan Shun answered grimly. "And executioner."

The guardian raised its skeletal arms, and the ground beneath them split apart with a thunderous crack. Chasms tore through the stone, dividing the group, forcing them apart.

"Li Feng!" Mei Lian's voice cut through the chaos, but she was already being pulled away, her footing lost as the shifting ground carried her into darkness.

Zheng Wei and Yan Shun disappeared into the void, their shouts fading as the abyss swallowed them whole.

Li Feng tried to move, but the force beneath his feet wrenched him away. He was thrown into a confined chamber of obsidian walls, a space both infinite and suffocating at once. The very air hummed with an unseen power, and then—

A figure emerged from the shadows, stepping forward with slow, deliberate steps.

Li Feng felt his breath hitch in his throat.

The figure was him.

Not merely a reflection, not merely an illusion—this was him, but twisted, corrupted, cloaked in the power of the Black Phoenix Talisman.

The doppelgänger's eyes burned with dark fire, its expression void of humanity. When it spoke, its voice was Li Feng's own, but layered with something else—something ancient, something waiting to devour.

"You cannot escape what you are meant to become."

The chamber pulsed violently, the shadows curling like living things, and Li Feng knew the trial had truly begun.