Chapter 14: The Hidden Path

Lian Yu stood alone amidst the remains of the guardian. The golden light that had once burned with immense power was now nothing but a faint glow fading into the air. The echo of its last words still hung in the atmosphere, heavy and foreboding.

"Your name... was once feared across the heavens."

He clenched his fists. The weight of the words gnawed at him, stirring an itch in the back of his mind. There was more to this story, far more than he understood. Who was he really? What had happened to him? Why was he erased?

"Focus."

Lian Yu shook his head, pulling himself back into the present. He couldn't afford to dwell on the past now. There were bigger matters to attend to.

The temple around him seemed to pulse, like a living organism. The walls, once silent, now groaned and shifted. Something within this ancient structure had been disturbed—and it was reacting.

He stepped forward, his footsteps barely audible on the stone floor. His hand instinctively went to the pendant at his chest, which was now emitting a faint hum, vibrating in harmony with the temple's movements. The air seemed thicker, charged with a power that felt both familiar and foreign.

Then, in the distance, something caught his eye—a slight shimmer in the stone wall. His heart skipped a beat.

Lian Yu approached, his fingers tracing the wall, and at the exact moment his touch made contact, the stone shifted under his hand. A hidden doorway.

With a deep breath, he stepped forward.

The door slid open with an almost imperceptible sound, revealing a narrow passageway, far darker than the rest of the temple. The air was cooler here, the smell of damp earth and ancient dust hanging heavily in the air.

His instincts screamed that this was the path he was meant to follow.

The passageway seemed endless, winding deeper and deeper into the bowels of the temple. As Lian Yu moved forward, he noticed something strange—faint whispers that seemed to dance in the air. At first, they were indistinct, but as he walked, the words began to clear.

"...forgotten..." "Not meant to..." "Erase him..."

The voices seemed to come from all around him, reverberating off the cold stone. They spoke of him—the name, the one that had been erased.

"Who...?" His voice was barely a whisper, but it felt as though the passageway itself heard him. The voices stopped.

Silence.

And then, ahead of him, a flicker of light. Lian Yu quickened his pace, reaching the end of the passage.

What he found there made his blood run cold.

At the heart of the dark chamber stood a stone altar, its surface carved with strange symbols. Around the altar were glowing runes, and they seemed to pulse with the same energy that had come from the guardian.

But the most terrifying sight of all was the crystal at the altar's center—an immense, dark crystal that seemed to suck the light from the room. Inside it was a shifting image, barely perceptible at first.

Lian Yu's breath caught.

The image in the crystal was a figure—his figure, but it was different. This version of himself was clad in dark armor, his eyes glowing with an intensity that was both terrifying and familiar. The figure moved, raising a hand. And just as quickly as it had appeared, it flickered out, leaving only a dark void in its place.

"What is this?"

Lian Yu reached out toward the crystal, his fingers brushing against its cold surface. The moment his skin made contact, a blinding flash filled the chamber, and Lian Yu was thrown backward.

He hit the stone floor hard, gasping for air as the world around him spun. When the light finally faded, he looked up.

And saw something that made his heart skip a beat.

A figure stood in the doorway, its form silhouetted against the dim light from the passage.

It was another version of him. This one was more polished, with an aura of immense power, like a reflection of something he could not yet fully comprehend.

But unlike the version in the crystal, this figure's eyes were sad.

"So, it begins..."