*Chapter 22: Echoes of the Ancients**
The air in the mountain's depths tasted of rust and forgotten prayers. Li Tian traced his fingers along the cavern wall, the stone humming with a resonance that mirrored the fractured Primordial Core in his chest. Old Man Heng's torch flickered ahead, casting jagged shadows over glyphs older than the heavens themselves—glyphs that now pulsed in time with Li Tian's heartbeat.
*"They seek the Obsidian Vault,"* the Kitsune whispered, its voice a serpentine coil in his mind. *"A relic even your Eternal Sovereign could not claim."*
Li Tian froze. "The *what*?"
Before the spirit could answer, Xiu's cry echoed down the tunnel. "Tian! You need to see this!"
---
**The Chamber of Whispers**
The villagers clustered at the mouth of a vaulted chamber, their torches guttering in a wind that had no source. At the center stood a dais of blackened obsidian, its surface etched with scenes of cosmic war—armies of light and shadow locked in eternal combat. Above it hung a shard of crystal, suspended in midair, its facets refracting light into constellations Li Tian had not seen since his fall from the Ninth Heaven.
Old Man Heng knelt before the dais, the fox-sigil scroll trembling in his hands. "The Verdant Lotus isn't hunting *you*, boy. They're hunting *this*."
Li Tian approached, the shard's pull magnetic, inexorable. As his fingers neared it, visions erupted:
- *The Eternal Sovereign, battered and bleeding, sealing the shard within the mountain's heart.*
- *A legion of shadow-clad cultivators—the Verdant Lotus in their prime—sundering kingdoms to claim it.*
- *A figure clad in celestial armor, face obscured, wielding the shard to cleave a black hole into existence.* **The Magic Emperor.**
He recoiled. "What *is* this?"
"A keystone," Wen Lin said softly. She stood at the chamber's edge, her voice carrying a weight beyond her years. "The legends say it's a fragment of the first Primordial Core, forged by the Magic Emperor himself. It can amplify a cultivator's power a thousandfold... or unravel the fabric of realms."
The Kitsune materialized in a swirl of mist, its nine tails lashing. *"Your predecessors hid it here, fearing its power. Now the Lotus seeks to wield it—to become gods."*
---
**The Blooming Matriarch's Gambit**
The attack came as the villagers debated. Lotus assassins erupted from fissures in the stone, their jade-green robes now stained with the mountain's bioluminescent blood. At their helm strode a woman clad in living vines, her face a mosaic of grafted spirit veins. The Blooming Matriarch.
"You've saved us the trouble, hybrid," she crooned, her voice a chorus of stolen throats. "Lead us to the Vault, and your village dies quickly."
Li Tian's dagger flashed, but the Matriarch flicked her wrist. Thorned roots erupted, pinning him to the obsidian dais.
"You think me a fool?" She pressed a blade to Wen Lin's throat. "The Magic Emperor's legacy requires *blood*. Yours... or hers."
The Kitsune's growl shook the chamber. *"Strike now, little thief! The keystone answers to celestial qi!"*
Li Tian's gaze locked on the shard. The Eternal Sovereign's warning echoed: *"Every empire built on the Vault's power has crumbled to ash."*
But Wen Lin's breath hitched, a bead of blood trailing down her neck.
He reached.
---
**The Price of Power**
The keystone seared his palm, its energy a supernova trapped in glass. Visions consumed him:
- *The Magic Emperor, not as a legend, but a man—weary, broken—sundering his own core to create the shard.*
- *The Verdant Lotus's founders, digging through corpses at the battle's end, grafting the Emperor's spilled blood into their veins.*
- *A future where the Matriarch, armed with the keystone, reduced the heavens to a festering garden of flesh and thorns.*
"No," Li Tian rasped, but the shard's song drowned his voice. Power surged—not celestial, not mortal, but something *older*. The chamber trembled, the dais cracking as roots of light and shadow erupted.
The Matriarch laughed, her grafted veins glowing. "Yes! Let it consume you! Become the vessel we need!"
But the Kitsune's claws closed around Li Tian's wrist. *"Remember your oath. The mountain's heart beats with* **your** *rhythm now."*
With a roar, Li Tian *pushed*.
The keystone flared. The Matriarch's vines withered, her stolen veins burning to ash. She screamed, a sound that merged with the shard's wail as the chamber collapsed.
---
**Aftermath**
Dust and silence. Li Tian awoke in a crater of melted obsidian, the keystone now a scar across his palm. Wen Lin crouched beside him, her tears carving tracks through the grime.
"They're gone," she whispered. "The Matriarch... the assassins... just *gone*."
But Old Man Heng stared at the scar, his face ashen. "Not gone. *Transformed.*"
The villagers followed his gaze. Where the Matriarch had stood, a single lotus bloomed—its petals black, its core pulsing with Li Tian's stolen qi.
The Kitsune's voice was grim. *"The keystone cannot be destroyed. You've merely... delayed the inevitable."*
---