"Where are we?" The stranger pushed himself up to sitting. He proved to be a bear of a man, built like a body refining cultivator, his beard and pale skin burnished by the celestial light. Long dark hair spilled down his back like a waterfall. "What is that radiance?"
"This humble one knows not," Su Luo replied, glancing back at his own chamber. What number marked his place in this grand formation? Was it significant to the trial ahead? "I have only just emerged myself."
The stranger rose to his feet, revealing himself to be a giant among men, his shoulders broad as a city gate, his chest deep as a valley. Despite his size, he moved with the fluid grace of an accomplished martial artist. "Are we dead?"
"The cycle of reincarnation turns ever onward," Su Luo observed, approaching the man. "But before awakening, this one experienced a vision of ending..."
"Of the final moment," the stranger finished, his voice growing steady as his qi stabilized. "I experienced the same. Yet the details fade like morning mist." He looked
down, his brow furrowing in concentration.
Su Luo's own thoughts turned inward. What could he remember of that vision of cessation? Movement like sword strikes, arcs of deadly light, but no. Like trying to grasp water, the memories slipped away.
"This one is called Lei Ming," the large man said, extending a hand that could crush stone. "And you, brother cultivator?"
"Su Luo." They clasped hands in the manner of martial brothers, and Lei Ming's grip was firm but not overwhelming, the control of a true expert.
A new voice drifted toward them, hollow and echoing as if emerging from the depths of a spiritual formation. "Is anyone out there? Fellow cultivators, please answer!"
Both men moved toward the sound, and Su Luo saw a third chamber opened like a dark lotus blooming in the bronze floor.
"We are here, sister," Lei Ming called, his voice carrying the authority of one accustomed to leadership, perhaps a sect elder in his previous life.
"I cannot ascend," the woman replied, panic threading her voice like poison through pure water. "The walls are too smooth, the height too great."
The two men hurried over and crouched on either side of the aperture. A pale face peered up at them, little more than a ghost in the gloom below.
"Take this one's hand," Su Luo said, lying flat to extend his arm. "Do not fear."
She leaped up with surprising grace and grasped his wrist with the grip of a sword cultivator. Lei Ming reached in as well, and together they drew her up into the light.
She was tall and elegant, built like a blade, all sharp angles and deadly purpose. Her hair was so dark it seemed to absorb the golden radiance and reflect nothing back save a single line of blue-black brilliance. She pushed a strand behind her ear as she stared at the pillar of light, and Su Luo saw her eyes widen with the recognition of one who had seen great dao manifestations before.
"Heaven's mercy," she whispered.
Lei Ming balanced on the balls of his feet, his teeth gleaming through his beard as he smiled. "Quite the sight, is it not, junior sister?"
"Forgive this one's ignorance," Su Luo said, turning to face the massive pillar fully. "We know nothing of this place or the trial that awaits. I am Su Luo."
"Lei Ming," the large man murmured, his tone respectful.
"Lin Yu," the woman said, her attention divided between the vast emptiness around them and the way the bronze floor extended into darkness. Even the walls that flanked the golden pillar faded away into the distance, giving no hint of the true size of the space in which they stood.
"I am Su Luo," he said again, then glanced at the base of her chamber. "And your position in this formation is 723."
Lei Ming frowned, studying the carved numbers with the eye of a formation expert. "Do you think the sequence has meaning?"
"In cultivation, all things have meaning," Su Luo replied. "Even the fall of a single leaf follows the Dao. These numbers were not carved carelessly."
"Are we... have we failed our heavenly tribulation?" Lin Yu's voice trembled like a bowstring. "I remember fragments of a vision... but nothing else." She paused, and her frown deepened with dawning horror. "It is all gone."
"All gone?" Su Luo asked. "Speak plainly, sister."
Fear flickered in her gaze like lightning across a stormy sky. "My cultivation life. I cannot remember my sect, my master, my techniques, who I was or what stage I had reached, all of it has been stripped away."
Su Luo's face grew grave as he realized the same terrible emptiness within himself. The sudden awareness of the void where his memories should be hit him like a tribulation lightning bolt to the chest. He staggered backward, nearly falling.
Lei Ming plunged both hands into his long hair and gripped his temples, turning first one way then the other like a man seeking escape from invisible enemies. "She speaks truth. I cannot remember... cannot recall even the name of my sect." He exhaled slowly, steadying himself with obvious effort. "All of it, gone like smoke."
For a moment the three stood in silence, the weight of their shared emptiness settling upon them like a mountain. Finally, Su Luo forced what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Very well. Our memories are scattered like leaves in a storm, save for lingering visions of ending. Perhaps we have failed our tribulation and fallen. This could be the realm of the dead."
"But I draw breath," Lei Ming protested. "And feel pain, I scraped my arm ascending from the chamber."
Lin Yu discretely pinched her own arm and winced at the sensation.
"Who can say what form the afterlife takes?" Su Luo shrugged. "We will solve nothing standing here debating. How about we investigate that pillar of light?"