"—Li Wei, move!"
Xian Yu's shout ripped through the hallway just as the floor trembled beneath us. The cold air thickened, vibrating like strings being pulled too tight. Dust fell in thin lines from the ceiling.
She dragged me away from the collapsed Shadow Pack while the lantern flame twitched violently—as if something unseen breathed beside it.
I swallowed. "It's waking again, isn't it?"
Xian Yu didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
The Hall's walls were glowing faint gold, ancient runes shifting like living ink. The entire place felt alive. Watching. Listening.
Before I could speak again, someone stepped into the corridor.
A girl.
Calm. Sharp. Wearing light-blue robes.
Mei Shuang.
I had seen her once—always silent, always observing from a distance like a snow owl waiting for prey to reveal itself.
Now her gaze locked on me, unblinking.
"You touched the sealed door," she said quietly. "Didn't you?"
My chest tightened. "It… called to me."
Xian Yu stepped in front of me. "Shuang, don't start."
Mei Shuang ignored her. She moved closer, eyes narrowing at the faint spirit-light still flickering around my hands.
"No wonder the Hall shook," she murmured. "Your Inner Eye responded to a forbidden entity."
A slow, distant thump rolled across the corridor.
All three of us froze.
Another thump.
The same heartbeat I had heard earlier… but louder. Closer.
Xian Yu's face went pale. "It's coming from inside the door again."
I felt the sound more than heard it—like someone was knocking from inside my bones.
Then the whisper returned.
Soft. Cold. Too familiar.
"Li Wei…"
My entire body locked up.
Mei Shuang's breath caught. "It shouldn't know your name."
Xian Yu grabbed my wrist. "Stay focused. Don't listen. Don't answer."
But the whisper seeped deeper.
"Don't leave me behind again."
Again?
The Hall's torches flickered violently. Shadows twisted. A single golden crack sliced across the sealed stone door at the far end of the hall.
The heartbeat grew louder—
thump— thump— THUMP.
The corridor shook.
Mei Shuang sucked in a breath. "The second seal is breaking…"
Before she could finish—
Flames roared from behind us.
A figure dropped from a higher floor, landing between us and the door with a burst of red light.
A tall boy. Broad shoulders. Expression fierce.
Yan Chen.
His spirit fire coiled around his arms like living serpents.
"What did you do?" he demanded, glaring at me. "Elders felt the seal crack. Half the Hall woke up because of YOU."
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
The door answered for me.
A sound leaked through the crack.
Not footsteps.
A breath.
Human.
Then—
A hand pressed against the inside of the sealed door.
Thin. Pale. Almost… identical to mine.
Yan Chen's flames flickered.
Xian Yu whispered, "No… impossible…"
Mei Shuang stepped backward, eyes wide. "The erased one… still remembers."
The hand on the door curled its fingers slowly.
Then a single eye—my own eye—appeared in the narrow opening.
My blood froze.
The whisper bled out through the hall.
"Li Wei… open the door."
Pain stabbed behind my forehead.
The Inner Eye blazed open.
[WARNING: Entity Attempts Synchronization]
[Identity Interference Detected]
My vision blurred. The hall twisted. Shadows curled like hands reaching for my throat.
Yan Chen roared, flames igniting fully. "Stay away from him!"
He launched a wall of fire at the door—
—but the flames disappeared before touching it, swallowed by something invisible.
Xian Yu grabbed my face, forcing me to look at her. "Li Wei, LISTEN to me. Whatever is behind that door—"
The whisper overlapped her voice.
"—is you."
My knees buckled.
Me? No.
No.
But I saw it clearly through the gap now:
A boy standing behind the sealed door—
Same face. Same eyes. Same posture.
Except…
His expression was empty.
Like someone whose heart had been cut out.
Mei Shuang trembled. "That thing… that is the Hall's memory of you."
Yan Chen snarled. "Then why is it ALIVE?!"
The sealed door cracked further.
Light burst outward like molten gold.
The figure inside lifted his face toward me.
And he smiled—
slowly, brokenly, as if his mouth had forgotten how to form joy.
"Brother," he whispered. "Come home."
The crack widened.
The door began to open.
Xian Yu pulled me backward. "RUN!"
The hall shook violently, symbols burning bright.
Yan Chen unleashed fire. Mei Shuang threw talismans. Xian Yu dragged me toward the exit.
But the voice behind the door followed us—
soft, calm, devastating.
"Li Wei… you can't escape yourself."
The light swallowed the corridor.
Everything went white.
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, the world shifted.
Cold air hit my face first—real air, not the suffocating stillness of the Hall. The oppressive weight on my chest loosened, just enough for me to breathe without feeling watched by stone eyes.
Behind us, the Silent Hall roared like a waking beast.
Lin Yue slammed her palm onto the sealing array outside the archway. Runes flared, linking together like interlocking chains of light.
BOOM.
The door of the Hall snapped shut. The ground beneath our feet trembled as if something inside rammed against it from the other side.
Xian Yu didn't let go of my wrist.
Only when the shaking settled did he finally release me and turn sharply.
"What happened inside?" he demanded.
I swallowed hard. "The door… it knew my name."
Both of them froze.
Lin Yue's face tightened. "That's impossible."
Xian Yu didn't answer. His jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed—calculating, not surprised. As if he already suspected something he didn't want to say.
The sealing array flickered.
A warning pulse.
Whatever was inside the Hall was still trying to reach us.
Lin Yue grabbed my chin and forced me to look at her. "Li Wei, listen. Did anything touch you? Did anything mark you? Did you accept anything?"
"No."
I hesitated.
"Maybe."
Their expressions darkened instantly.
Xian Yu stepped closer. "Maybe?"
"I didn't accept anything. But when I touched the darkness, something… recognized me."
The courtyard outside the Hall was dim and cold—gray stone pillars, ancient vines, cracked lanterns long extinguished. But right now, even this dead place felt safer than the Hall behind us.
Lin Yue exhaled sharply. "The Elders must hear this."
But Xian Yu shook his head.
"No. Not yet."
Lin Yue stared. "Are you insane? The Hall spoke his name!"
"That's exactly why we don't report it."
His eyes slid to me.
"Not until we know who… or what… is calling him."
A gust of wind swept through the abandoned courtyard, stirring dust into spiraling patterns.
The pattern curled—
twisted—
tightened—
until, just for a heartbeat, it resembled a hand reaching toward me.
I stepped back instinctively.
Xian Yu saw it. "It's still following him."
Lin Yue drew her blade. "Then we move. Now."
Xian Yu took the lead, motioning for me to stay between them.
As we hurried across the courtyard, the Silent Hall loomed behind us, silent once more… but not asleep.
Not anymore.
And far in the distance, from deep beneath its sealed stone—
A faint echo drifted after us:
"…Li Wei…"
A whisper that didn't care about walls.
A whisper that would find me again.
The courtyard ended at a long stone bridge leading toward the Academy's outer grounds. Mist clung to the edges like torn cloth, drifting around our legs as we crossed.
For a moment, everything was quiet.
Too quiet.
Xian Yu kept glancing over his shoulder, his expression unreadable. Lin Yue stayed close to me, blade drawn, steps sharp and alert.
When we reached the end of the bridge, a breeze rolled through the valley.
Not cold.
Not warm.
Just wrong.
The mist recoiled from us in slow, unnatural waves.
Lin Yue's grip tightened on her sword. "That… is not normal wind."
Xian Yu raised a hand. "Stop."
We froze.
A shadow appeared near the stone lanterns ahead—thin, stretched, moving without a body to cast it.
My heart stuttered.
The shadow twisted once… twice… then snapped into a shape that made my stomach drop.
A silhouette.
Small.
Human.
Standing upright.
Like someone waiting.
Waiting for me.
Xian Yu stepped forward, shielding me. "Identify yourself!"
The shadow did not move.
The mist behind us thickened, curling around the bridge as if cutting off our retreat. I felt a familiar chill creep up my spine—icy fingers brushing the base of my neck.
The same chill from the Hall.
Lin Yue's voice lowered. "Li Wei. Stay behind us."
But the shadow turned its head.
Slowly.
Precisely.
And though it had no face—
no eyes—
no mouth—
I felt it stare directly at me.
A whisper crawled across the stones:
"Found you."
My blood froze so fast it hurt.
The shadow lunged.
"MOVE!" Xian Yu shouted, slamming his palm down.
A wall of spiritual force exploded forward, but the shadow didn't dodge—it absorbed the blow, melting through the attack like ink through paper.
It reached for me.
Something inside my mind snapped awake.
My System flared:
SYSTEM PROTOCOL TRIGGERED
Undefined Skill awakening…
Source: Silent Hall anomaly
Status: FORCED ACTIVATION
My vision blurred with blinding white.
A mark I had never seen before—
a pattern of intertwined circles—
burned briefly across the back of my hand.
Xian Yu's eyes widened. "Li Wei—what did you just—"
I didn't have the answer.
The shadow struck.
Instinct took over.
My hand lifted on its own—
the mark flashed—
and a shockwave burst out of me, slamming into the shadow like a tidal pulse.
CRACK—
The courtyard stones fractured.
The shadow shattered into black fragments, scattering like ash on wind.
Then silence.
Deep, stunned silence.
Lin Yue stared at me. "That… wasn't ordinary spiritual force."
Xian Yu stepped closer, eyes burning with intent. "The Hall didn't just react to you. It changed you."
I looked down at my hand.
The mark was gone.
Only the faint warmth remained, lingering beneath my skin like a brand waiting to burn through again.
Xian Yu exhaled slowly. "We're reporting this now. All of it."
Lin Yue nodded grimly. "If even the outside grounds are reacting, then the entity has already breached containment."
I didn't say anything.
Because somewhere behind us—
beyond the mist, beyond the sealed Hall—
A whisper drifted out again.
Soft.
Close.
Unmistakable.
"Li Wei… you woke me."
And this time, I couldn't tell if the voice came from the Hall—
or from inside me.
The tremors didn't stop.
The Hall shuddered again—dust sliding down the cracked pillars, runes trembling like they were struggling to hold on. Xian Yu grabbed my wrist tightly.
"We're moving," she said. "The Hall won't hold much longer."
I swallowed hard. "Outside… is it even safe?"
"Nothing here is safe," she replied. "But staying inside is worse."
She pulled me forward. Lin Yue's presence was already gone—vanished like smoke into the cracks of the Hall—but her words still echoed in my head:
"I'll be watching."
Xian Yu pushed open a side archway I hadn't noticed before. It was narrow, built with smooth black stone, the air colder than the rest of the Hall.
"This leads out?" I asked.
She nodded once. "To the Boundary Steps."
The passage was dim, faintly pulsing with dying symbols. As we hurried down, the Hall behind us groaned, a deep, painful sound—like it was alive… and suffering.
My Inner Eye flickered.
[Warning: Spatial Stability Decreasing]
"What's happening?" I whispered.
"The Hall is rearranging," Xian Yu said. "It does that when someone it recognizes escapes."
"Recognizes?" My breath hitched. "It recognized me?"
She didn't answer.
That was worse than anything she could've said.
The corridor opened suddenly.
A massive stone door stood before us—smooth, ancient, carved with symbols so old my eyes ached just looking at them. But unlike every other door in the Hall…
This one was open.
Wind rushed in.
Cold wind. Real wind. Carrying scents I had almost forgotten—earth, night air, trees.
My heart kicked hard against my ribs.
Xian Yu glanced at me. "This is it. The Hall's boundary. Once you cross… you're in the Outside World."
I stepped forward.
Closer.
Closer—
The moment my foot crossed the threshold, a sharp force struck my chest.
Like the world itself exhaled.
A wave of pressure rolled over me, heavy and ancient. My knees almost buckled.
Xian Yu steadied me. "Don't fight it. Let the world sense you."
The world… sensing me?
Why?
Before I could ask, the pressure vanished—snapped away like a cut thread.
And then—
Light.
A sky.
A real sky.
Endless violet clouds drifted above, illuminated by two pale moons hanging low on the horizon. The land stretched out before us in rolling plains of ghost-grass that glowed in soft silver waves. Broken ruins jutted from the ground—collapsed towers, shattered statues, half-buried roads.
It was beautiful.
It was terrifying.
It was alive.
My breath caught. "This… this is outside?"
"This is the Outer Veil," Xian Yu said quietly. "The world beyond the Hall's borders. Few ever reach it."
I couldn't tear my eyes away.
Everything was too big, too open, too overwhelming after the suffocating halls of stone and shadows.
Then my System chimed sharply:
[New Map Unlocked: The Outer Veil]
[Main Quest Updated]
Escape the Hall's Influence and Discover Your Origin.
My heart hammered.
Origin.
Did this place know who I was?
Xian Yu stepped onto the silver grass, scanning the horizon. "Stay close to me. The Outer Veil doesn't welcome strangers."
"Are we the strangers?" I whispered.
Her expression hardened. "No. You are."
Before I could respond, a sudden gust tore through the plains.
Ghost-grass bent violently.
The sky dimmed.
And from the far distance, something rose—slowly, impossibly—like a shadow peeling itself from the land. A black silhouette, taller than the ruins, taller than the trees, taller than anything I'd ever seen.
Its shape was wrong. Unnatural. As if it wasn't meant to exist in this world.
The ground trembled beneath its steps.
I froze.
"Xian Yu…" I whispered.
"I know," she said, eyes sharp. "A Boundary Warden. It must have sensed your presence."
"Sensed me? Why always me?"
"Because," she said quietly, "you carry something the world has been waiting for."
The Shadow Titan turned its colossal head toward us.
A single, golden eye opened.
The light from that eye cut across the land and landed directly on my chest.
My System screamed:
[!!! ALERT !!!]
A Warden Has Marked You.
Immediate Threat Level: EXTREME.
My legs went numb.
Xian Yu grabbed my arm. "Run!"
The plains erupted with thunder as the Warden took its first step toward us—each one shaking the entire world.
This wasn't a test.
This wasn't training.
This was survival.
And it had only just begun.