The descent was silent.
Lin Xuanyuan's boots thudded softly against the worn alloy steps of the spiral staircase. Each step deeper into the darkened heart of the mountain temple echoed like a war drum in his chest. Behind him, flickering torchlight clung to the stone walls, thrown by the hover-lantern strapped to his belt. The AI embedded in his neural core pulsed gently, feeding diagnostics to his mind like a second pulse.
> Energy stable. External interference: 12%. Recommend scan delay until deeper penetration is achieved.
He ignored it. Something about this place was breathing. Ancient power slumbered here—and every cell in his body could feel it stirring.
His companion, a silent nomad named Jinhai, kept pace behind him. Jinhai was one of the few who had survived the purge of the lower sects. Quiet, calm, and deadly with his twin boneblades, he said little—but his loyalty was absolute since Lin had spared his life in the arena ruins.
"Ever seen anything like this before?" Lin murmured as they passed a wall covered in scorched prayer seals and half-melted servitor nodes.
"No," Jinhai replied. "This is older than the Old Sects. Possibly Pre-Calamity."
They reached the bottom. A circular chamber opened before them—vast, mechanical, and humming with a forgotten heartbeat. Metallic vines coiled around rusted pylons. In the center stood a broken altar—half-machine, half-stone, and fully unnatural. A control pedestal rose from it, covered in layers of dust and dried blood.
> Unstable energy signatures detected. Parsing… Success: Legacy Node located.
Lin stepped forward. "This is where it begins."
As his hand touched the pedestal, pain lanced through his mind like fire in his veins. Images exploded behind his eyes—battlefields of fire, banners falling, blood pouring from the sky. A voice screamed in ancient dialect.
> Initiating Phase One: Tactical Dominion Mode…
The AI rebooted with a cold flash, and suddenly Lin could see it all—heat signatures through walls, optimal attack paths, enemy weak points highlighted like glowing veins. A tactical overlay unfolded around the chamber, turning the world into a puzzle he instinctively knew how to solve.
> Phase One unlocked: Predictive Combat Matrix online.
"Xuanyuan?" Jinhai's voice cut through the data storm.
Lin staggered back, breath ragged. "It's… it's not just knowledge. It's instinct. Like it's always been mine."
On the far wall, a hologram blinked to life—dusty and unstable. A regal man stood at a war table, his eyes sharp like falling stars. Lin gasped. The Emperor of Ashes.
The hologram glitched.
"…Brother… why?" the Emperor said. Then the betrayal unfolded—his blood brother driving a soulblade into his back as legions burned behind them. The final emperor fell alone, cursing the heavens with his last breath.
The image vanished.
Jinhai was speechless. Lin's hands trembled. For a brief moment, he felt the blade in his own back. Felt the betrayal. The rage.
"Why show me this?" Lin whispered. "What do you want me to become?"
The AI offered no answer.
Instead, the pedestal slid aside, revealing a sealed compartment beneath it. Inside: a skeletal metal frame and a dormant nanospirit core—the components of a proto-weapon never completed.
> Blueprints incomplete. Recommend fabrication via tactical fusion: nano-metal + soul-core matrix required.
Lin's eyes burned with resolve. "Then I'll finish what he couldn't."
He pulled out the parts, cradling them with the reverence of someone touching the bones of a god. As he turned, the chamber began to shift—gears grinding, walls folding. A hidden door opened, revealing a tunnel leading deeper into the mountain.
"Where does it go?" Jinhai asked.
"To the Dead Meridian," Lin said. "The place where empires died."
As they stepped into the darkness, Lin glanced once more at the broken hologram—at the moment of betrayal, forever looped in time.
He clenched his fist around the nanospirit frame. I won't fall like you did. But I'll remember.
And in the stillness behind them, the chamber sealed shut, erasing all signs they had ever been there.
The tunnel was colder.
The further they descended, the more it felt like the mountain itself was closing around them—an ancient leviathan slumbering in stone, disturbed by their trespass. The light from Lin's hover-lantern dimmed inexplicably, flickering as if frightened. Walls here were no longer alloy or stone—they were something else. Dark. Pulsing. Almost alive.
Jinhai drew one of his boneblades with a quiet rasp. "Do you hear that?"
Lin paused. The sound was faint—a distant chime echoing through the tunnel, like temple bells ringing underwater. It pulsed at intervals, each toll vibrating through the soles of his boots and into his spine.
"It's not natural," Lin said. "It's memory. Residual echoes."
They emerged into another chamber—this one circular, its ceiling lost in shadows. Etched into the floor was an ancient sigil spanning ten meters, glowing with faded energy. Pillars of fractured crystal rose around its perimeter, each one wrapped in broken chains and inscribed with forgotten glyphs.
At the center stood a figure.
Not a person.
A construct.
Humanoid in shape, forged of translucent mineral and obsidian veins, its core dimly lit with a reddish glow. Its face was emotionless, a mask of serenity cracked by time.
> Warning: Unknown Sentinel-class entity detected. Designation—"Echo of the First Guard." Combat capacity: Unknown. Defensive protocol—STAND BY.
The AI's voice rang cold in Lin's skull. But the construct made no move.
Lin approached cautiously. "Are you guardian or prisoner?"
The construct's head tilted, the crystal in its chest brightening slightly. Then it spoke, not in words, but in layered voices—dozens of them overlapping.
"...Heir of Broken Thrones… bearer of phase… fragment of Empire… You awaken what should have slept until the Final Accord…"
Lin frowned. "You know who I am?"
"Not you. Your blood. Your code." The voices twisted, fragmented, a shudder in the air. "Your kind forged us… and abandoned us."
"Abandoned you?"
"The Emperor died screaming. But his legacy burned deeper. Protocols locked. Cities fell. Secrets buried in the blood of your line." The construct raised its hand, pointing toward the sigil on the floor. "This is the first Key. You stand on the seal to Kether Core."
Jinhai stepped forward. "What is Kether?"
"A node of inheritance. Mind. Power. Knowledge. But not all gifts are blessings."
Before Lin could respond, the sigil began to glow brighter. A circle of energy spun beneath his feet, and suddenly—he was no longer in the chamber.
He stood amidst stars.
Endless cosmos stretched around him, but directly ahead floated a fractured throne suspended in light. Upon it sat a figure cloaked in burning shadow, unmoving. Chains of plasma bound him—around his wrists, his chest, his mind.
A voice boomed—not from the figure, but from within Lin himself.
> You carry a shard of the Sovereign Will. The Dominion sleeps within you. Unlock it… or die forgotten.
A blade appeared in Lin's hand, forged from thought and fire. In front of him, ghostly enemies began to materialize—shadowy echoes of warriors, monstrous beasts, and spectral lords, all converging on him at once.
He understood. This was a trial.
A test of will.
The first lunged—and Lin moved.
The Predictive Combat Matrix surged alive. Every motion became poetry. His blade slid between armored joints, evaded claws by milliseconds, turned chaos into rhythm. But each foe struck harder. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His arms burned.
One final echo, cloaked in black armor etched with holy runes, raised a scythe the size of a tower and brought it down—
Lin caught the shaft bare-handed, eyes blazing, and screamed.
"ENOUGH!"
A pulse exploded from his chest, disintegrating the figure and leaving only light. The cosmos cracked—shattering like glass—
—and he was back.
Collapsing to his knees in the real chamber, gasping for breath. His muscles ached. Blood trickled from his nose. But in his palm now glowed a symbol—the sigil of Kether—branded into his skin, pulsing with dormant fire.
Jinhai caught him before he fell. "What happened?"
"I saw… pieces. Of what I was. Of what I'm meant to become."
The Echo of the First Guard bowed slightly. "You are recognized. Node One activated. Three remain."
Lin stood, wiping blood from his mouth. "Where?"
"South. Into the drowned kingdoms. West—into the shattered sky. And east… to the place where gods were buried."
The Echo stepped back and began to dissolve into mist.
Lin looked down at the branded sigil. Three more keys. Three more legacies.
He glanced at Jinhai, eyes fierce with purpose. "We move at dawn. I need materials—nano-metal, a soul-core. And the others must never find out until I'm ready."
"Understood," Jinhai replied. "But they'll start hunting soon."
"They can try."
As they exited the Dead Meridian, a storm began to brew over the mountain. Snow fell—not soft, but sharp like ash. The mountain groaned.
Far behind them, in the sealed chamber, the broken throne flickered once more—its prisoner shifting slightly, just enough to whisper a single word:
"Brother…"