The Hall of Withered Flames had long been abandoned by the sect's main disciples. Once a proud training ground for fire-path techniques, it was now used only to store broken furnaces and cracked cauldrons.
But beneath its charred floors and forgotten sigils, a hidden passage trembled with subtle power.
Mei Yao descended slowly, her candle flickering in the stale, dry air. The jade token in her hand pulsed faintly, guiding her to a seal-etched wall. As she approached, the wall shimmered, then parted like paper burned by invisible flame.
She stepped into the chamber.
It was circular, silent, and impossibly cold. A ring of faded talismans floated in the air, forming a soft, humming barrier around a single figure seated at its center.
Lin Wuxie.
Or rather… the being who had chosen that name.
Amon opened one eye.
He had been meditating, attempting to adapt his residual Sequence 1 instincts to this world's spiritual framework.
"This body is fragile," he mused, "and the concept of pathways no longer exists. No Beyonders, no Sequences, no Fool."
But old habits bled through.
He glanced at Mei Yao—not through her—but around her. Weaving a dozen hypothetical versions of her thoughts, motives, even her regrets. A technique he'd once called "Causal Sketching." Crude in this world, but still useful.
For a heartbeat, Amon allowed a smile—one that never reached his eyes.
"I remember what they called me: Mr. Error. The Uninvited Guest. A lie given flesh."
"I wasn't a god. Not yet. But even the Kings of Angels feared to meet my eyes unguarded."
"I bent saints to my will with suggestion, unraveled cults with a whisper, walked into palaces wearing another man's face."
"And now? I'm a low-born servant in a backwater sect… teaching a girl how to deceive reality."
His smirk twitched. Not bitterness. Just hunger.
"This world resists theft. Good. The Dao cannot be stolen—it must be... spoken."
"And when I learn its tongue, not even the Fool will see me coming."
His smile vanished. He stood and stepped from the circle, approaching Mei Yao with the silence of a ghost.
"You came."
"I don't trust you," Mei Yao said.
"Good. That's the first requirement for true understanding."
He gestured for her to sit.
"This chamber amplifies memory," he said. "Not your past, but the world's memory of you. What people believe you are. If you wish to shed your mask, you must first see it."
Mei Yao frowned. "And if what the world sees is all I am?"
"Then burn it," Amon said, voice flat. "Until something truer remains."
As Mei Yao closed her eyes and began her first guided trance, Amon turned back toward the fading sigils on the stone wall and began re-inscribing them with a stolen brush. Each stroke hummed with minor illusions, layered like veils.
Elsewhere, beneath a blazing lotus tree in the inner sect courtyard, Shen Ziyao opened her eyes.
Born of a noble cultivator clan and disciple of the Heavenly Flame Tribunal Dao, her every breath shimmered with scorching truth. She had long sensed distortions in fate—lies hidden within the patterns of fire.
And today, something had cracked.
"Someone," she murmured, "is walking between truth and falsehood. Wearing a name that is not his own."
She stood, her crimson inner robe swirling like a blaze at dusk.
"Time to burn the illusions from this sect."
In the outer sect, Elder Sun Zhen received a scroll.
Another incident. Another sparring partner was left unconscious by a masked nobody who seemed to mirror his skills. No signs of spiritual roots. No clan name. Just a borrowed sword and a forgettable face.
"The fox again," Sun Zhen whispered. "But even foxes leave footprints in snow."
He turned to a disciple kneeling beside him. Summon Shen Ziyao. It's time the inner flame reveals what hides in the outer dark."
Back in the chamber, Mei Yao gasped.
Visions flickered behind her closed eyes—shadows of herself in chains, voices telling her she was nothing, scenes of her half-brother inheriting her father's techniques.
Then she saw it—a face she did not recognize, wearing her skin, laughing.
"That's not me," she whispered.
"It is," Amon said softly. "It's the lie they expect you to become."
"Then I'll make a new truth," she said, teeth gritted.
Amon tilted his head slightly.
"She may not be a Fool, but she's learning to deceive fate."
"Good."