The walk had been long, the rhythmic crunch of boots on the grassy forest floor repeating for what felt like the millionth time.

  And yet, a new, dissonant quiet had settled over their journey. Only one set of footsteps thudded against the earth.

  Bi Kan paused, a flicker of irritation crossing his face as he slowly turned, his gaze sweeping over the empty path behind him.

  The others were nowhere in sight.

  "Where have they gone off to now?"

  A low groan escaped his throat.

  He turned back fully, his ears catching the faint, distant sound of excited chatter.

  With a sigh that carried the weight of a long-suffering guardian, he began to walk back, his pace quickening.

  "I leave them be for a few seconds, and this happens…"

  Slowly, they came into view, a huddled group surrounding something at the base of a small, overgrown hill.

  "Do you idiots want to be caught in the fire of the upcoming war between the Inner Disciples and those damned bandits?!" he called out, his voice sharp with frustration.

  They slowly turned to him, but it was Ying Xia’s face that caught his attention.

  Her usual mischievous smile was gone, replaced by one of pure, unadulterated excitement.

  She ran towards him, her golden spear held loosely in her hand, and pointed back towards the hill as she came to a breathless stop just inches away.

  "You've got to see what we've stumbled upon, Bi Kan!"

  Following her direction, his gaze settled on the source of their fascination. Etched into the rock face of the hill was the clear outline of a hidden door, its seams almost perfectly camouflaged by moss and time. Before it stood four small, waist-high stone pillars.

  As he watched, Ran Ji planted his palms against one of them and pushed with all his might. The pillar budged, but only just, grating with a sound of ancient, stubborn stone.

  "H-Hagh..!" Ran Ji grunted, his muscles bulging with the effort.

  W-What the hell?! How can this be so hard?! Eventually, after a relentless eight minutes of straining and heaving, the pillar finally gave a loud CLICK and completed a full turn.

  "Wow, how impressive."

  A slow, mocking clap echoed from the branches of a nearby tree. Ying Xia sat perched above them, her pink pigtails flowing in the breeze, a smug look plastered on her face. "I didn't know disciples were this weak! I'm starting to regret following you, Bi Kan, hahaha!"

  Ran Ji clenched his fist, his face flushed with a mixture of exhaustion and fury as he planted his feet before the cave entrance. Gu Moyu’s hand came to rest on his shoulder, a calming presence. "It takes all your strength to turn one simple pillar," he observed, his mind already deconstructing the puzzle. "This must be a pattern of some sort. It would have been easier if they weren't so hard to turn; we could have tried every combination."

  Bi Kan crossed his arms, his own observant gaze sweeping over the scene. "Do any of you have any idea what this scripture means?" He hopped down into the small recess before the door, his palm tracing the strange, unfamiliar carvings on the stone. "As you've said, they must be turned into a certain pattern. If only we could decipher these symbols."

  Ran Ji stared at the symbols, his earlier frustration giving way to a simple, direct approach.

  "Why not just try our luck? If we've found this cave, who's to say our luck won't boom again?" He flashed a small, hopeful smile at the group.

  Ma Niu, on the other hand, was not amused. "You want us to waste our strength trying our luck?" he countered, his voice tight with nervousness and anxiety. "Who knows how many tries it would take! We'd surely be caught up in this battle the longer we stay."

  "It wouldn't hurt to try it a few times, now, would it?" Bi Kan stated, his own curiosity overriding his caution. He pressed his palms against a different pillar. "Here we go…"

  Each of them took a pillar, following their instincts, pushing against the immense resistance as they listened for the satisfying click of a correct turn. Ying Xia, having leaped down from her perch, came to an abrupt stop at her third turn.

  "This feels right!" she grinned widely as the sound of the internal mechanism locking into place filled her ears.

  The others slowly came to a stop as well, taking a step back to stare expectantly at the stone door.

  Nothing happened.

  "A failure?" Gu Moyu breathed out, a note of disappointment in his voice.

  "Damn it… and here I thought it clicked right," Ying Xia pouted.

  A few seconds passed. Then, the symbols on the pillars slowly began to glow. A faint, eerie black aura, cold and unsettling, surrounded each one.

  "W-What the hell is happening?" Ma Niu voiced out, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of his dagger.

  Before anyone could answer, the pillars themselves seemed to waver, their solid stone forms dissolving like smoke on the wind, before disappearing completely into the void.

  Bi Kan stepped forward. The moment his boot crossed the invisible threshold where the pillars had vanished, the world dissolved.

  The solid rock of the cave floor, the familiar faces of his companions, the very air he was breathing—it all warped and twisted before melting away into a vast, starless abyss of absolute black. He found himself standing utterly alone, a solitary island in an infinite, silent ocean.

  "Where am I?" he whispered, his own voice a small, fragile sound in the profound emptiness.

  "Is this an illusion array?"

  He took a hesitant step.

  Each footfall was met not with solid ground, but with a soft, spreading ripple, as if he were walking on the surface of a shallow, perfectly still body of water.

  "First time being in one," he murmured, his senses on high alert as he tried to find a flaw, a seam in the fabric of the illusion.

  Then, sound began to bleed into the silence. Faint at first, like a distant memory, the sound of metals clashing, of horses galloping. It grew louder, more insistent, a chaotic symphony that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  "Huh..?"

  His body slowly turned.

  The empty, watery abyss was gone.

  In its place was a scene of such epic, horrifying scale that his mind struggled to comprehend it.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He was standing on a vast, blood-soaked battlefield, a literal sea of corpses stretching to a horizon stained crimson by a dying sun.

  Millions of soldiers, their armor glinting with a strange, otherworldly light, clashed in a whirlwind of violence, their roars and screams a physical force that battered against him.

  He could see them manifesting their power, great arcs of energy and shimmering barriers of light erupting from the chaos.

  "What the…"

  A shockwave, born from the clash of two powerful swords a hundred yards away, ripped through the air. It was not a sound, but a wall of pure, kinetic force.

  It slammed into Bi Kan, lifting him from his feet and sending him flying an imperceptible distance through the air before he crashed back down amidst a pile of broken bodies.

  "This kind of power," he gasped, his own 7th Stage cultivation feeling as fragile and insignificant as a dead leaf in a hurricane.

  He pushed himself up, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and a strange, profound awe. His gaze was drawn upwards.

  A shadow was falling over the entire battlefield, a darkness so absolute it seemed to be swallowing the very light of the dying sun.

  A giant dragon, a creature woven from the pure, starless abyss, emerged from the distance, its form so immense it encompassed the entire field of war.

  "B-Black Dragon," he breathed, the words a prayer and a curse.

  And atop its colossal head, a lone figure stood, a glaive held loosely in one hand.

  The man’s presence was the absolute epicenter of this entire reality.

  Bi Kan could feel it in his very soul, a primal, instinctual recognition of absolute authority that dwarfed even the celestial wolf spirit slumbering within him.

  This man… he thought, his heart hammering against his ribs, is the greatest here on this battlefield.

  The soldiers below looked up. A single, unified roar of pure, fanatical devotion erupted from a million throats.

  They pushed their weapons high into the air, a forest of steel raised in tribute as they began to chant his name.

  "All Hail, The Greatest General Under The Heavens! Ri X—"

  The world shattered.

  Bi Kan shot up from the ground, gasping for breath, his heart pumping like it was trying to hammer its way out of his chest.

  He was back in the cave. The cool, damp air was a shocking contrast to the imagined heat of battle.

  Before him, the stone door that had been sealed for centuries now stood wide open, a dark, inviting maw leading into the depths of the hill.

  "What was that just now..?" he whispered, his voice shaky as he clutched his chest. He tried to grasp the details of the vision, but they were already fading, dissolving like mist.

  "I can't seem… to remember it clearly. All I know is… that Black Dragon."

  Is it a powerful being like the celestial wolf? The thought was a jolt of cold, hard fear.

  Was that… on par with the very monster hiding within my soul?

  The world snapped back into focus with the jarring finality of a closing door.

  Bi Kan stood panting in the cool, damp air of the cave, the epic, terrifying vision of the black dragon and the sea of corpses already dissolving into a half-forgotten nightmare.

  As he gathered his bearings, his ears picked up the faint, excited chatter of his companions echoing from deeper within the now-open passage.

  He followed the sound, his own steps still slightly unsteady, and found them rummaging through the scattered contents of an ancient, long-forgotten storeroom.

  "Oh, Bi Kan, you're finally awake!"

  Ying Xia’s voice was a bright, cheerful sound that cut through the gloom. She grinned, holding up a small, flat stone that pulsed with a faint, arcane light.

  "Look what I've found! Gu Moyu told me that this is a rune, something that could be imprinted on my weapon! Once we get back to the sect, you have to help me find someone who can do it!" Her eyes sparkled with an excitement so pure it was almost a physical thing.

  Bi Kan let out a long, exhausted sigh, the last vestiges of his horrifying vision finally swept away by her infectious energy.

  "Fine, fine, I'll definitely help you," he conceded, a weary smile touching his lips.

  She clapped her hands together. "Thanks!"

  Gu Moyu emerged from a shadowy corner, his arms laden with a stack of brittle, yellowed talismans.

  "This will be useful if we ever encounter any danger," he stated, his voice calm and practical, his mind already calculating the tactical advantages their newfound treasures offered. Ma Niu came up right behind him, clutching a small, intricately carved wooden box filled with shimmering Qi Pills.

  "If we ever need to recover fast in battle," he said, his own voice tight with a desperate pragmatism, "even if it might cripple us if we use it too much, it's better than dying without a fight."

  Lastly, Ran Ji emerged, a small, satisfied smile on his face. He had finally found his fortuitous encounter.

  "I found this," he said, holding up a thin book bound in worn leather.

  "Fading Steps, a stealth move. It'll be useful for me in the future." His hand then reached into his robe, pulling out a second, thicker volume.

  "Also, Xia told me to give this to you, Bi Kan."

  Ran Ji tossed the book. Bi Kan’s hand shot out, catching it with a practiced ease. Imprinted on its cover was a stylized sigil in the shape of the legendary Three-Horned Boar. "Could this be..?" he breathed.

  He opened it. The pages were filled not with the precise, elegant script of a sect manual, but with the hurried, passionate scrawlings of a dedicated researcher, complete with detailed anatomical sketches and complex diagrams of Qi flow.

  "This doesn't look official," Bi Kan said, his brow furrowing.

  Ran Ji tilted his head. "Really? I thought it looked really official."

  Bi Kan slowly closed the book. "More like a diary," he concluded.

  "A research of his findings about the legendary boar's technique. It might prove useful… I'll read it as we go."

  This might not be the most credible source, he thought, his own mind already working,

  but it's the only source I have. It wouldn't hurt to learn more about the technique the legendary boar harbors.

  "Are there more treasures inside the cave?" he asked, his gaze sweeping over the dusty, picked-over chamber.

  Ran Ji nodded, turning to gesture at the scattered remnants.

  "Yeah, but most of them are useless. Books with pages torn out, some of the ink has worn away, and weapons on the brink of being broken. Nothing useful other than the stuff we've already grabbed."

  Bi Kan scratched his head, a knot of suspicion tightening in his gut.

  I find that hard to believe.

  How could this place, locked so carefully with the runes outside, only harbor such meager gifts? Wait… His gaze fell back to the book in his hand, a sudden, chilling realization dawning in his mind. He grit his teeth.

  I see. The fact that there's a damn diary within this cave… whoever wrote this has already been here.

  They've already taken everything useful. But, a final, unsettling question echoed in the quiet of his own thoughts, why would he leave his diary behind?

  "Anyways, we should get going," Bi Kan said, the finality in his tone pulling the others from their treasure-induced daze.

  "We've already wasted god knows how long here. I don't even know how long I was passed out."

  Gu Moyu let out a long breath, scratching his head as he looked at the dark, yawning entrance of the cave.

  "You're right. It's time to move."

  Bi Kan tucked the boar-emblazoned book securely within his robes, the worn leather a strange and heavy weight against his chest.

  "What did you guys see," he asked, his voice carefully neutral, "while you were unconscious?"

  Ying Xia planted a hand on her hip, her brow furrowed as she met Bi Kan’s wary gaze.

  "We all saw the same thing, Bi Kan," she stated, her certainty absolute. "A dark, fiery flame in the shape of a dragon. That's what we all saw before falling unconscious."

  The rest of the group nodded in solemn agreement.

  That means… A jolt, cold and sharp, went through Bi Kan. He took a single, deliberate step forward, his hand touching the book through his robes.

  With a flicker of thought, he transferred it from the physical world into the vast, silent ocean of his Soul Sea.

  I was the only one who saw that vision. That vivid illusion.

  A small viper wiggled through the dense forest, its movements a silent, sinuous dance.

  The bushes around it began to tremble, furrowing every 2.5 seconds with a rhythmic, unnatural harmony that shook the very ground.

  The viper, driven by a primal curiosity, wiggled closer, its forked tongue tasting the air to unearth the source.

  SHRUNK!

  "Heh, a pesky poisonous snake!" a bandit giggled, his voice a low, ugly sound. He unsheathed his blade from the viper's corpse, flicking the blood from its tip with a casual indifference. A wide, predatory grin split his face as he took a deep breath, savoring the scent on the wind.

  "I can already smell it," he hissed to his comrades. "The smell of misery. Haha! The fortress is near!"

  Hao Yu rubbed his chin, his calm yellow eyes gazing off into the distance, towards the desolate, rocky lands that his son had claimed as his own territory.

  A long, weary sigh escaped his lips. That boy, he thought, a flicker of something akin to paternal concern in his cold heart.

  Always so stubborn. So reckless. "Do not worry, son," he murmured to the empty air.

  "We'll rid you of your problem soon. We can finally expand again. Even if you said you'd handle it, it wouldn't hurt for a father to care for his own."

  A bandit came running down from a high ridge, his face alight with a triumphant, eager grin. He scrambled onto a tall boulder, raising his hand to command the attention of the assembled forces.

  "Hear me, my fellow brothers!" he roared, his voice echoing across the hills.

  "We are nearing the fortress! At last, we can gather our troops and march! Expand our territory once again!"

  A single, unified cheer erupted from the sea of cloaked figures. They raised their daggers high, a forest of glinting steel that caught the dying light of the sun.

  Hao Yu’s own smile widened, his eyes glinting with a fierce, excited light as he watched the display, the bloodlust of his men a potent, intoxicating brew.

  "We're almost there, my son."