The ruins were older than time.
Every stone Luo Yun touched felt like it had once held purpose—before that purpose was stolen by silence. The circular platform still hummed softly underfoot, though the projection had long faded. The seven broken pillars that surrounded it had once held inscriptions, but now only dust and half-buried runes remained.
The woman knelt by a nearby wall, brushing away moss with her gloved hands.
"There's more beneath," she said. "I can feel the echo."
Luo Yun crouched beside her, pulling out the bone needle she had given him.
"What do I do with this?"
She pointed to a triangular hollow in the stone.
"Insert it here."
The needle slid in perfectly.
A quiet click.
Then—a rumble.
The ground beneath them shifted.
And the stone platform descended.
⸻
They stood in darkness.
A shaft opened beneath the ruins, circular and deep. Blue light flared along the walls, tracing ancient script as the platform slowly sank into the earth. It wasn't a burial chamber. It wasn't a vault.
It was a memory core.
"Every major sect has one," the woman explained. "A place where founders stored their teachings. But this one was buried. Someone didn't just want it lost—they wanted it forgotten."
Luo Yun said nothing.
The shard inside his satchel pulsed faintly, in sync with the lights around them.
⸻
When the platform stopped, they stepped into a vast underground chamber.
Unlike the ruins above, this place was untouched. Pristine. The air was still and dry. In the center was a tall crystal obelisk, surrounded by floating fragments of stone covered in inscriptions.
Luo Yun approached the obelisk.
It pulsed once.
Then again.
Then… it spoke.
"Memory integrity: 41%."
"Access granted: Heir of the Shard."
"Initializing sequence: [Echo – Archive – Starcloud]."
The floating stones lit up.
Images danced in the air—flickering memories of battles, cultivators in flowing robes, and one central figure with long dark hair and starlight circling his hands.
The Fallen Star.
Luo Yun watched as the memories played:
A cultivator standing alone against four sects.
A council of elders calling him heretic.
His sect—Starcloud Pavilion—standing behind him, defiant.
The sky cracking open as divine lightning fell.
Then static.
The images shattered.
"Corruption detected."
"Several memory sequences damaged."
"Would you like to restore from shard?"
Luo Yun hesitated.
Then placed the crystal shard onto the obelisk.
The room trembled.
⸻
Above ground.
A shadow moved through the trees.
Silent. Masked. Fast.
A Shadow Veil assassin, dispatched from the Black Blade Hall.
He crouched on a ridge above the ruins, eyes narrowed beneath a soul-sensing veil.
"Two targets confirmed," he murmured into his spirit transmitter.
"Activating kill phase."
Three more assassins materialized behind him—silent as wind.
Below, Luo Yun had no idea death had arrived.
⸻
Back underground, the obelisk began to change.
Golden script flared across its surface.
Then—a voice, deeper and older than the one before.
But not from the obelisk.
From everywhere.
"You carry my name."
Luo Yun froze.
So did the woman.
The chamber grew colder.
"You walk with my shard. But do you know what you hold?"
A figure stepped out from the wall—not solid, not spirit. A construct of memory and will. Eyes of starlight. Robes like flowing dusk.
The Fallen Star.
Or what remained of him.
⸻
Luo Yun tried to speak.
The figure raised a hand.
"I left my legacy for one reason: to find the question I could not answer."
"What lies beyond cultivation?"
"Not ascension. Not immortality. Something greater."
"I walked toward it. I died for it. But maybe… you can go further."
The figure turned toward the woman.
"You carry no shard. But your will is iron. Stay."
Then back to Luo Yun.
"If you truly wish to inherit my path, then pass my final trial."
"Not strength. Not mind."
"Memory."
⸻
Suddenly—
The light around them shattered.
The chamber dissolved.
And Luo Yun was standing in a memory that wasn't his.
He stood at the edge of a cliff, looking down at thousands of enemies below. His body ached. His robes were torn. Behind him, his sect—Starcloud Pavilion—stood ready to die.
"Are you ready?" a voice asked beside him.
He turned.
It was the Fallen Star, younger, alive.
He looked directly at Luo Yun.
"You have one choice: burn the path behind you to light the one ahead."
"Will you make it?"
The wind screamed.
The sky opened.
Luo Yun felt it — the power. The cost.
"Will you choose?" the voice asked again.
And the world held its breath.