The obsidian forest loomed like a fortress of nightmares, its gnarled trees clawing at a sky choked with ash-gray mist. The air hummed with distorted qi, every breath tasting of decay and forgotten memories. Li Tian halted at the forest's edge, his corrupted hand trembling as the Primal Core pulsed in warning. Behind him, the group stood tense—Yan Mei's daggers drawn, Goran's bone staff crackling with residual energy, Xia's healing qi a fragile shield against the creeping dread.
"Stay close," Li Tian ordered, his voice cutting through the silence. "The forest feeds on fear. Whatever you see… isn't real."
Goran snorted. "Tell that to the *real* claws in the shadows."
They advanced.
---
**The First Illusion**
The mist thickened, swallowing sound and light. Within minutes, Yan Mei froze, her dagger raised at a figure materializing ahead—a young girl, her face a mirror of Yan Mei's own.
"Sister?" the illusion whispered, blood trickling from a slit throat. "Why did you leave me?"
Yan Mei's blade faltered. "Lian… I didn't—"
"*Focus!*" Li Tian's roar shattered the vision. The girl dissolved into smoke, revealing a nest of venom-spined serpents coiled to strike. Yan Mei's dagger flashed, decapitating the lead serpent, its corpse melting into the mist.
"Thanks," she muttered, though her knuckles whitened around her weapon.
Goran grunted. "Sentiment gets you killed."
---
**The Butcher's Burden**
Goran's trial came next. The forest conjured his clan's massacre—screams echoing, phantom flames licking at his heels. His mother's charred hand reached from the mist. "*You did this…*"
"Lies!" Goran snarled, shattering the vision with a staff strike. The ground beneath him splintered, swallowing him into a pit of writhing roots.
Li Tian lunged, his corrupted hand seizing Goran's wrist. Primal energy surged, dissolving the roots—but the forest retaliated. The Hollow Star's laughter echoed as the pit deepened, dragging both men down.
"Let go!" Goran barked.
"*Never,*" Li Tian growled, the Core's light flaring. The roots recoiled, and he hauled Goran free.
---
**Xia's Silent Fear**
Xia's illusion was subtler. The mist parted to reveal Li Tian standing whole, uncorrupted, smiling as he clasped her hand. "We did it. The Bastion is safe."
Her heart ached. "Li Tian…"
The vision shifted—Li Tian's body crumbling to ash, the Hollow Star wearing his face. "You couldn't save him," it taunted.
"No!" Xia's qi erupted, purging the mist. The real Li Tian staggered, his corrupted veins glowing as her healing energy clashed with the Core's corruption.
"I'm here," he rasped, though his star-flecked eye flickered black.
---
**The Hollow Star's Gauntlet**
The forest's heart awaited—a clearing where the mist coalesced into a towering figure: the Hollow Star, its form a shifting void crowned with frozen flames.
*"Welcome home, Li Tian,"* it crooned, tendrils of shadow lashing at the group. *"Your friends will make fine vessels."*
Yan Mei and Goran attacked, their strikes passing harmlessly through the illusion. Xia's qi barriers shattered.
Li Tian stepped forward, the Core's energy warring with the corruption. "You want me? Then face me alone."
The forest stilled. The Hollow Star's void-eyes bored into his soul. *"You are already mine."*
Memories surged—the Bastion burning, Xia's lifeless body, the Primal Core devouring the sky. Li Tian's corruption spread, his hand crystallizing into obsidian.
*"Submit,"* the Star demanded.
Li Tian's mind fractured. Then—a flicker of light. Xia's voice, cutting through the void: *"Remember why you fight."*
The Bastion's laughter echoed—children in the marketplace, Renshu's booming jokes, Elder Ming's grudging smile.
*"For them,"* Li Tian hissed.
The Core erupted, purging the illusion. The forest screamed.
---
**The Temple's Gaze**
Dawn broke as the mist dissipated. The group stumbled from the forest's edge, battered but alive. Before them, floating atop a inverted mountain, loomed the Silent Expanse—a temple of celestial stone, its spires piercing the clouds. Bridges of light connected its tiers, and at its peak, a throne of frozen flames pulsed with the Hollow Star's essence.
Li Tian collapsed to his knees, his corrupted arm now encased in jagged Voidsteel. "We're… out of time."
Above, the temple's gates creaked open.
---