The First Watcher

Liang Ming followed the red thread.

It wove through a valley shrouded in mist, its path visible only when the light caught it just right. The blade of fate at his side pulsed faintly, vibrating with each step as though attuned to the fabric of the Spiral. The thread led not just forward, but inward—into truths buried deep within himself.

The terrain shifted around him. Trees twisted into unnatural forms, bark shaped like screaming faces, leaves whispering his name. The Spiral's influence was stronger here. The very world trembled with the tension of unchosen possibilities.

He came upon a clearing.

The red thread ended at a pool of obsidian water. Across it stood a tower made of glass and bone, spiraling into the clouds like a needle stitching the heavens to the earth. This was the Watcher's sanctum.

Ming stepped to the edge of the water. His reflection rippled, but it was not his face that stared back. It was him—the other self, the one he had seen in the vision. The man who stood at the center of the web. The ruler of the fractured city.

He blinked, and the image vanished.

A boat waited, carved from a single piece of ivory. Without hesitation, Ming stepped in, and the vessel moved of its own accord, gliding across the still waters. As he neared the tower, the air thickened with pressure. Time warped. Seconds felt like hours, minutes like moments.

He reached the base of the tower. No doors, no guards—only an open archway leading into darkness.

Liang Ming stepped through.

Inside, the tower stretched far beyond what physics should allow. Each floor was a memory not his own. He walked through wars he never fought, loves he never felt, betrayals that stung despite their unfamiliarity. It was a hall of echoes.

And at the top, he found him.

The First Watcher.

A figure draped in robes of midnight blue, standing before a massive circular window that looked out into a sky swirling with galaxies. His back was turned.

"You've come," the Watcher said, his voice as smooth as polished stone. "Just as I did. Just as they all do."

Ming stepped forward cautiously. "You know me?"

The Watcher turned. His eyes were silver, reflecting the Spiral in their depths.

"I know versions of you," he replied. "I've watched you break and rebuild across a thousand spirals. But this you... you are raw. Unwritten."

Liang Ming squared his shoulders. "I was told to find you. That you could guide me."

The Watcher tilted his head. "And yet, guidance is the first illusion. You don't need a guide. You need a reckoning."

He raised his hand.

The room vanished.

Ming stood in the city of silver skies. The one from his vision.

But this time, it was burning.

Buildings collapsed in on themselves. The sky cracked open, threads of fate unraveling in violent spasms. And at the center, a throne of bone.

And himself, seated upon it.

Liang Ming recoiled.

"This is what I become?" he asked.

The Watcher's voice echoed from the air itself. "If you give in. If you mistake control for wisdom. If you confuse destiny with domination."

The throne-bound Ming rose, eyes glowing with Spiral power. "There is no other way," he said in a voice deeper, colder. "The Spiral must be ruled or it will consume all."

"I don't believe that," Ming whispered.

The vision shattered.

They were back in the tower.

The Watcher approached. "Then you must prove it. You seek to rewrite your path—but every stroke of your will must bear the weight of responsibility. Are you ready to bear that burden?"

Liang Ming nodded slowly. "I didn't ask for this. But I will carry it."

The Watcher studied him. "Then listen well. You are not the only one seeking the Loom. Others have taken different paths. Some seek to destroy it. Some to merge all spirals into one. The Spiral is not a game. It is war."

He gestured to a crystal shard floating beside him. It glowed with pale light.

"This holds the location of the next key. But know this—your presence shifts the balance. You will be hunted."

Ming reached out and took the shard.

A surge of information flowed into him: an island suspended in the sky, guarded by wind spirits and the remnants of a forgotten cult. The next key to the Loom.

"Why help me?" Ming asked.

The Watcher turned back to the window. "Because once, I too turned the first page. And I failed."

A heavy silence settled.

As Ming turned to leave, the Watcher spoke one last time.

"The Spiral deepens, Liang Ming. And within it, even truths can betray."

Outside, the world had shifted again. The red thread continued, now pulsing with urgency.

The next trial awaited.