Echoes Beneath Stone
The shrine on the eastern ridge looked like a place the world had forgotten.
Built directly into the mountainside, it had no visible guardian, no warding talismans, no protection array humming in the air. Just cracked stone steps swallowed by weeds, and pillars strangled by old roots.
Xian Ye stood before it as the first light of dawn broke over the horizon.
The folded paper with the crimson symbol rested in his hand, its weight far heavier than it should've been.
No one followed him. No one knew he had come.
But still… he felt watched.
Not by people.
By the place itself.
The shrine pulsed with something quiet. Not Qi. Not divine energy.
Something older.
Something beneath the surface.
He stepped forward and pressed his hand against the smooth, rune-covered stone wall. The surface was cold at first—but warmed quickly beneath his palm.
A hum vibrated beneath his feet.
The ancient runes lit up, glowing with silver light. The paper in his other hand trembled.
Then a seam appeared, and the shrine slowly opened.
No sound. Just motion.
As if the mountain had been holding its breath… and finally exhaled.
Inside, the air was still and heavy.
The chamber beyond was circular, domed, and dimly lit by blue crystals embedded in the walls. There were no altars. No statues. Only a dais at the center, surrounded by faded carvings on the stone floor—markings he couldn't read.
He stepped forward.
Each step echoed—not through the air, but inside his own thoughts. Like walking deeper into himself.
He reached the dais and laid the paper down.
Then he ignited it.
The flames caught instantly, burning bright crimson with no heat, no smoke, and no scent. The symbol glowed once more—then disappeared.
The light dimmed.
And then—he heard it.
A voice.
Not from outside.
From within.
"You came."
It was familiar and distant, calm and unyielding. It didn't ask questions. It remembered answers.
"You are not whole."
"No," Xian Ye whispered. "I'm not."
"You are one of seven."
His chest tightened.
"The fragments."
"Yes. Bound by memory. Scattered by fear."
"Who… was I?"
"You were the one who chose to fall."
He blinked.
"Fall?"
"You stepped off the throne before it broke."
The dais rumbled.
A hidden panel slid open, revealing a single orb of dark stone, etched with faint silver lines. It pulsed in rhythm with his breath.
He reached out.
The moment he touched it, his mind was ripped open.
Visions.
Fire raining from shattered skies.
A war without sides—only power, clawing at existence itself.
A figure standing alone atop a broken world, screaming without sound as the stars collapsed inward.
And above it all—a throne.
Suspended between realms.
Empty.
Waiting.
He gasped and fell to one knee.
The orb dimmed.
But something had been left behind.
A beat. A pulse. A rhythm buried deep within him.
Not pain. Not strength.
A truth.
He was not just remembering.
He was returning.
Then he felt it.
Another presence.
Someone else was in the chamber.
He stood quickly, eyes scanning the shadows—
And saw her.
A figure at the far edge of the shrine. Robes of grey and black. Hood down. Pale eyes, calm gaze. A scar curved above her left brow like a crescent moon.
She looked at him for a long moment.
"You don't remember me."
Xian Ye's voice was rough.
"No."
She stepped forward, slowly, with the careful grace of someone trained in too many lifetimes.
"I fought beside you. Once. When the sky turned black, and the first gate shattered."
He frowned.
"I've seen flashes. Battles. A throne."
The woman nodded.
"Then it's beginning. You've awakened the first fragment."
He narrowed his eyes.
"How do you know what I saw?"
"Because I saw it too," she said softly. "A long time ago."
"You're like me."
"Not quite. I didn't hold a fragment. But I followed one. You."
He stared at her.
"What do you mean?"
"You led us once. Before the fall. Before the throne cracked."
He shook his head.
"That's impossible. I was born in the eastern provinces. My parents—"
"—were never yours," she interrupted. "They were memories given to a shell."
He stepped back slightly, pulse rising.
"So what am I?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Then:
"You are a vessel of remembrance. A part of something ancient… trying to become whole again."
He looked down at the orb. It had stopped glowing. But the pulse inside him had not.
"What happens when I find the others?"
"You remember everything."
"And if I don't?"
She met his gaze.
"Then the throne stays broken. And the world breaks with it."
The shrine was silent again.
But it wasn't the silence of absence.
It was the silence that came before a storm.
Xian Ye stood motionless, trying to piece together the weight of her words.
"You're saying… I'm not who I thought I was."
The woman nodded slowly.
"You were created with a purpose—though even that truth was buried. The soul inside you is not new. It's ancient. Older than the sect. Older than this land."
He looked at the orb again.
"The first fragment… I felt something unlock. But not completely."
She stepped closer, her footsteps soft against the smooth stone.
"Because fragments don't give power. They give memory. And memory is heavier than most realize."
Xian Ye exhaled slowly.
"Why would anyone seal something like that?"
"Because the full truth threatens everything that holds this world together."
"That throne I keep seeing…"
She nodded again.
"It was real. Once."
He narrowed his eyes.
"And I sat on it?"
"For a time. But you stepped down."
"Why?"
A shadow passed across her face.
"Because you saw what the others became. Power without memory becomes madness. Memory without control becomes despair. You chose to forget. But others didn't."
She turned and placed her hand on the wall beside the dais.
A section of stone lit up, revealing an embedded pattern—seven points arranged in a circle, with one darkened in the center.
"The Seven Fragmented. That's what we called you. You shattered yourselves willingly. Scattered your essence across the realms. Hid from the cycle."
"The cycle?"
She looked over her shoulder.
"The cycle of ascension and decay. Creation and collapse. The heavens rise… then burn. Again and again. But you—"
She pointed at him.
"You broke it."
Xian Ye frowned.
"Then why do I feel like I'm repeating something?"
"Because the cycle fights back. It doesn't want to be broken. It reshapes reality, rewrites time, rearranges fate."
Her voice dropped.
"And now, it's trying to erase you before you remember."
He stepped back from the dais.
"I need to know more. Everything."
She hesitated.
"Fragments awaken with emotion. Pain. Sacrifice. Loss. You won't regain everything by reading scrolls. You'll need to feel it."
He clenched his jaw.
"I'm ready."
"No," she said softly. "You're not."
He looked at her sharply.
"Then help me."
She was quiet for a moment, then reached into her robe and pulled out a pendant.
A thin silver disc, etched with the same pattern of seven points.
"When you awaken the third fragment, this will show you the place where it all began."
She placed it in his hand.
Xian Ye stared at it.
"I don't even know your name."
Her gaze softened.
"In another life, you did."
He looked up.
"But what do I call you now?"
She turned away.
"Call me… the Last Witness."
As quickly as she'd appeared, she vanished—melting into the shadows at the edge of the shrine.
He stood there, alone once more, fingers wrapped around the pendant.
So much had changed. And yet, everything felt inevitable.
He looked at the orb.
Then the dais.
Then the wall.
And he whispered to the silence.
"I'm not afraid of remembering."
A pause.
Then the faintest whisper echoed back.
"Good."
Back in his courtyard, long after sunset, Xian Ye sat beneath the silverleaf tree.
The token, the pendant, and the memory of the shrine lay before him.
He had felt something real today. Not just power—but identity.
And in that identity, danger.
The sect would never allow him to become what he was.
They would try to shape him, or destroy him.
But there were others.
Others who remembered.
Others waiting.
And the cycle—whatever it truly was—had just felt its first fracture.