Trials of Echoes

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Chapter 5: Trial of Echoes

Stone groaned beneath their feet.

The marble dais lifted them into a vast chamber suspended over a void of stars. Above, constellations spun like a clockwork mechanism, ancient and slow. Surrounding the platform were statues—twelve in total—each a different figure: warriors, scholars, monks, even a child holding a lantern. Every face bore the same expression—solemn, expectant.

[Trial Initiated: Trial of Echoes – Step 1: Answer the Memory]

Objective: Relive and withstand a lost memory of Qingxuan. Only those with karmic ties may proceed.

Without warning, the stars dimmed—and the world shifted.

Yue blinked. The court vanished. In its place was fire.

---

She stood in the center of a battlefield. Sects clashed in the sky—thousands of cultivators fighting like immortals from a forgotten age. Runes flashed in the air. Mountains cracked under pressure. Pillars of light burned through clouds.

But it wasn't the carnage that froze her.

It was the figure in the sky—her. Or rather, someone who looked exactly like her, cloaked in silver robes, standing atop a lotus platform of crescent moonlight. Around her, spirits wept and sang in equal measure.

"She's me..." Yue whispered. "But not."

She turned as a presence approached.

A man in black and crimson armor stepped forward—his eyes were molten gold, his aura thick with ancient Qi. Shen Liang. But not quite. Younger. Unscarred. And proud.

"You would betray the Court for their sake?" the past Shen Liang asked the moonlit girl.

She smiled softly. "They're not ready for this world, Liang. If we destroy Heaven now, we only create another tyrant."

"I would rather tyrants than cowards," he spat.

She raised her hand. "Then come. Show me you are worthy to speak for Qingxuan."

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[Memory Anchor Stabilized. Step 2: Defeat the Echo]

The battlefield snapped like broken glass.

Yue and Shen Liang were back on the platform—but now, a glowing replica of the moonlit woman stood between the statues, radiant and grim.

"She's... me?" Yue asked, her voice shaking.

"She's who you were," Shen Liang said. "Or who you carry the will of."

The Echo raised her hand. Blades of moonlight formed around her.

[Boss Echo: Moon-Blood Saintess - Level ???]

[Condition: Scales to Soul Potential]

The battle began.

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Shen Liang moved first.

Drawing a blade from thin air—a construct of Qi shaped from his will—he slashed at the echo with force that cracked space. But the Saintess danced around him like water, her movements fluid and impossibly fast. Moonlight sliced the ground behind her steps.

Yue felt panic surge. She had no blade. No technique. No strength like his.

But the pendant at her chest began to glow.

[System Alert: Legacy Detected. Inheriting Echo Technique: Moon-Ear Invocation Lv. 1]

[Technique Type: Soul | Effect: Channel latent memory to disrupt constructs and illusions]

Yue gasped as ancient script flooded her mind. The symbols weren't foreign—they were hers. Muscle memory from a past that was never hers guided her hands into a sigil-forming stance.

She thrust her palm forward.

The echo's next strike wavered, then shattered midair.

Shen Liang blinked. "You disrupted her projection!"

"I didn't mean to—" Yue ducked another arc of light.

"Do it again!"

She focused. Invoked the sigils again, but this time reached deeper—not into her own thoughts, but into the memory space around them. The Court. The trial. The sadness in the echo's eyes.

She saw not a saintess, but a prisoner.

And so she spoke.

"You never wanted to fight. You wanted him to understand."

The Echo faltered. For the first time, its face changed.

[Alternate Path Discovered: Compassionate Resolution Achieved]

[Echo Resolved: Trial Passed – 1/3 Trials Completed]

[Reward: +2 Soul Stat | Technique: Moon-Ear Invocation (Advanced Potential Locked)]

---

The court shimmered back into view.

The statues bowed. One of them—a warrior in scholar's robes—glowed faintly before dissolving into motes of light.

Shen Liang said nothing for a long moment.

"You reached her," he said finally.

"She was sad," Yue whispered. "Lonely. I think... she wasn't just me. She was all of them. All the ones who remembered what came before."

"You saw the Saintess in truth," he said. "Then you're further along this path than I thought."

He turned to the center of the chamber, where a new door was opening—a spiral staircase descending into deeper darkness.

"The next trial will test your will," Shen Liang said. "And mine."

Yue nodded.

Together, they walked into the next memory.

....