Chapter 37 – Shadows in the Maze

The cavern narrowed into a winding pathway, its jagged walls damp with condensation and the faint echo of dripping water marking the silence. Li Tian led the way, his steps purposeful yet cautious, his senses tuned to the smallest disruption in the air. Yin Yue followed closely, her frustration palpable even in the charged quiet between them.

The shard, still clutched tightly in her hand, pulsed faintly with an uneven rhythm, like a heartbeat out of sync. Occasionally, its glow would catch Li Tian's eye, casting fleeting, fragmented light across his face. He wanted nothing more than to bring the fragment under control—to bind it, to explain it—but the words caught in his throat every time he thought to start.

"Do you know where you're going?" Yin Yue broke the silence, her tone sharper than the knife she carried at her belt.

"Yes," Li Tian answered tersely, not bothering to look back.

She scoffed softly behind him, her footsteps less measured now, the uneven ground hardly slowing her pace. "You always have answers, don't you? Just never the ones I need."

"Yin Yue," he said, his voice calm but heavy, "this isn't the time."

"And when is the right time, Li Tian?" she shot back, her frustration bubbling over. "I've been dragged through shadows, through lies, and now through whatever that was back there—" She pointed vaguely in the direction of the rift, though it was long behind them. "All while you're holding the reins and deciding exactly how much of the truth I deserve!"

Li Tian stopped abruptly, his shoulders stiffening before he turned to face her. The narrow path forced them closer, the flicker of the shard's glow illuminating the tension settling between them.

"I'm not deciding how much you 'deserve,'" he said, his voice low but laced with a rare edge. "I'm deciding how much you can survive."

The words landed like a blow, silencing her for a brief moment. But she wasn't ready to relent. "And who made you the judge of that?" she demanded, her voice softer now, but no less resolute.

For a heartbeat, they stared at each other, the weight of all that had been left unsaid hanging thick in the air. Then, without answering, Li Tian drew a measured breath and turned away.

"This way," he said simply, his tone leaving no room for argument.

Yin Yue hesitated, torn between the anger rolling beneath her skin and the undeniable sense of urgency clinging to the air around them. Finally, she followed, though not without muttering under her breath, "You can't run from this forever, Li Tian. Not from me."

The paths grew darker as they descended deeper into the Earth Division's labyrinth, the stone walls closing in like the ribs of some ancient beast. Li Tian kept one hand braced against the cold rock, his steps instinctively avoiding the scattered debris that hinted at long-abandoned use. He knew these paths well—a forgotten vein of the academy's architecture used generations ago for reasons now mostly lost to time.

It would buy them some time, but not much. He could feel the tension in the air shift, a faint static buzz that made the skin at the back of his neck prickle.

System Notification:

Residual anomaly energy detected. Probability of pursuit by external faction increasing. Estimated threat level elevated.

The system's monotone echoed within him, detached and logical as always, but this time it only fed the knot tightening in his chest. External faction. Li Tian clenched his jaw, his steps quickening. He had been hoping for more time, but clearly, the rival factions within the academy had already picked up the trail.

"Something's coming," he said, his voice clipped.

Yin Yue shot him a wary look but said nothing. She had learned to sense danger too, though her instincts were still unpolished.

"What is it?" she asked after a beat, her grip on the shard instinctively tightening.

"Trouble," he muttered.

They emerged into a hollowed chamber hidden beneath the Earth Division, its domed ceiling ribbed with ancient stone supports. The sparse light filtering from luminescent moss on the walls gave the place an eerie, faint glow. Li Tian took a moment to scan the area, his system overlay mapping potential exits and hazards in the room.

"It'll hold us for now," he said finally, gesturing for Yin Yue to sit near one of the walls.

"This place looks like it could collapse at any moment," she muttered but obeyed.

Li Tian stayed standing, his back to her as he checked the faint readings still pinging on his system's display. He could feel her watching him, the shard pulsing faintly in her lap as though it, too, demanded answers from him.

"You're quiet," she said after a while, her tone cautious but not unkind. "Too quiet."

He didn't respond immediately. The hum of the system filled the silence as he calculated, recalculated, and adjusted their next steps. But eventually, her words got through the defenses he hardly realized he'd raised.

"You want to know why I'm like this," he said slowly, his voice softer than she'd expected.

Yin Yue blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift in his tone. "I—" She paused, choosing her next words carefully. "I want to understand, Li Tian. You say it's to protect me. To shield me. But… from what?"

He turned to face her fully for the first time since they had entered the chamber. She saw something there she hadn't before—a crack in the polished facade that made him seem made of stone.

"When I was twelve," he started, his voice steady though his gaze flicked away, "my division sent me on my first classified mission. It was a test—sink or swim, survival of the fittest. We failed."

The quiet in the room deepened, his words slicing through it.

"There were three others with me—students who had trusted me because I had answers. Strategies." His lips twisted into something that was almost a grimace. "But I didn't know enough. I thought I could get us through it if we followed the logic, the plans. But I didn't see the collateral damage coming."

Yin Yue leaned forward slightly, her brows furrowing. "Collateral damage?" she asked softly.

His gaze flicked to her, meeting her eyes briefly before settling back on the ground.

"Two of them didn't make it back," he said quietly. "The division buried the mission. Said it was training gone wrong. We promised not to talk about it. But I never forgot their faces. I never forgot the moment I realized that my answers didn't matter, because the game was rigged before we even started."

The shard's light dimmed faintly, as if in response to his words. Yin Yue watched him carefully, the anger she'd been holding bleeding out into something softer.

"I learned one thing that day," Li Tian said finally, his voice hardening. "If you don't hold the pieces close, someone else will take them—and you—with no hesitation. I need you to trust me, Yin Yue. And I need you to trust that I will be the one to hold those pieces."

Her fingers curled around the shard in her lap, tension thick between them once again. But before either could say more, the faint sound of movement rippled through the air.

Li Tian's head snapped up, alert in an instant. He didn't need the system to tell him what was coming. He could feel it—the charged energy of approaching presences, closing in quickly.

"They found us," he said coldly, rising to his full height.

Yin Yue stood as well, her hand instinctively clutching the shard as the pulsing glow intensified once more. Shapes moved through the shadows at the chamber's edge, figures stepping forward in coordinated silence.

A low voice cut through the heavy air. "Going to be hard to keep running now, Li Tian."

Rival students, clad in dark uniforms that signaled their allegiance—an academy faction hungry for power and drawn by the shard's energy. Their leader, tall and smirking, stepped forward.

"We've been tracking you both," he continued, his tone almost mocking. "That shard's little tantrum left quite the trail. Hand it over, and maybe we'll make this quick."

Li Tian's hand curled into a fist, his system already calculating their chances.

"Yin Yue," he said quietly, his tone razor-sharp. "Stay close."

The opposing faction began to circle, their movements deliberate and hungry.

The shard pulsed again, brighter this time. And even in the gathering darkness, the light in Yin Yue's eyes burned brighter still.