The Forbidden Pavilion had no guards. No protective talismans. No heavenly seals and yet, no one entered.
It wasn't fear of traps—it was worse.
No one returned the same.
Rumors called it cursed. A place where cultivators lost their reflections and found madness staring back. A collapsed archive of failed techniques and broken dreams.
Ren Kairo stood before it now.
Half its roof had caved in. Vines crept over shattered doors. Wind whispered through broken windows, but no birds sang. It felt like a place the world had tried to forget.
Perfect.
[Codex Alert: Throne Candidate Detected – Mirror Affinity 78%]
[Subject Name: Yi Meilan – Status: Sealed Presence. Location: Second Level Hall of Glass.]
[Warning: Reflective Trauma Field Active.]
Kairo stepped through the threshold.The world changed the instant his foot crossed the threshold.
Not outside but inside the Forbidden Pavilion.
The Codex went silent. His Ember Veil flickered. Even his heartbeat felt like it echoed in reverse.
The entrance room was littered with cracked mirrors and discarded cultivation manuals—most missing pages. Some still bled ink that twisted into shapes of eyes and mouths.
He didn't speak. Sound here felt... wrong.
Instead, he walked through glass corridors that bent the light. Through stairwells that spiraled too many times for a two-story building.
And then, on the second level—he found her.
She sat in front of a mirror taller than a spirit beast, framed by spiderweb cracks and half-covered in ritual seals made from silver thread. Her robes were plain, tattered, and her long black hair fell like a curtain around her.
She did not look up when he entered.
She was just watching her reflection. Or trying to.
Because it didn't move, Ren Kairo's breath caught for a moment. Not in awe.
In recognition.
He had seen her before.
In a Memory Echo.
Not from his own life—but from the Voidheart Codex.
The girl in the mirror had no face and yet… she wept.
A tear ran down the cheek of the reflection—but not the real girl.
It was the kind of madness that broke lesser minds.
He approached quietly, stepping around shards of shattered technique scrolls, until he stood beside her.
"You're not her," she said without turning.
"I didn't say I was."
"You're not here to save me."
"No."
She turned slowly, eyes hollow, voice flat. "Then what do you want?"
"The mirror throne," Kairo replied, just as flat.
She smiled—just a crack.
"Of course you do. Everyone wants power. Even the clever ones who say they don't."
"I don't need the throne," Kairo said. "But someone will claim it eventually. Someone unworthy. And when they do, the curse will spread."
Her smile vanished.
So he pressed further. "You've held the curse long enough, haven't you?"
Her eyes flicked toward the cracked glass.
"…It's not the curse that frightens me. It's what the mirror shows.
[Codex Reactivation: Throne Dialogue Initiated]
[Mirror Throne Candidate Response – Fragmented. Emotional rupture likely.]
[Engagement Strategy: Share Memory Echo.]
Kairo sat beside her. His knees touched cold stone. He tapped a finger against the floor, and let the Codex open a Memory Echo. But not his, it was hers.
A girl knelt before an elder, her hands bloodied from practicing inscription techniques. She cried quietly, lips stitched shut by a vow not to speak until she earned her place.
The elder tore the scroll in front of her.
"Your Dao is an illusion. A mirror can't cultivate. It can only reflect what others project."
"You were born without a soul flame. You're nothing."
They left her there, bleeding under the stars, her reflection cracked in a silver basin of water.
And yet—She stayed.
She stayed until her shadow began to weep for her.
Back in the present, her breathing turned ragged.
"I didn't ask for your pity."
"It's not pity," Kairo said softly. "It's proof. You saw the truth of cultivation—and didn't break. That's what Thrones respond to. Not talent. Not bloodlines. Not fate."
"They respond to pain," she whispered.
"And what you do with it."
The mirror pulsed.
Not with light.
With recognition.
It began to ripple—glass turning to water, water turning to shadow.
Then the reflection stood.
The girl's mirrored image stepped out of the glass and stared at her with cold, knowing eyes.
Kairo stood as well.
The throne was coming.
[Throne Trial Initiated – Mirror Domain Manifest]
[Participants: Yi Meilan (Original), Ren Kairo (Witness)]
[Curse Level: Dual Personality Reversal]
[Trial Condition: Accept, deny, or destroy the reflection.]
The air cracked.
They were no longer in the Pavilion.
They stood inside a vast white space—endless mirrors floating in all directions, each one reflecting different scenes.
Some showed Yi Meilan smiling with sect robes and glory behind her.
Some showed her impaled on spears.
Others showed nothing.
And in front of her stood the Mirror Self.
"You think he understands you?" the reflection said.
"He's just another liar playing the truth act."
"I know what we really are."
"Weak."
The real Yi Meilan trembled but Kairo stepped forward.
"No," he said, locking eyes with the reflection. "She's not weak. You're just the part of her that's still begging for approval."
"You're the ghost of failure. And ghosts burn."
He raised a hand—Ash Flame sparking.
The Mirror Self hissed. "This isn't your trial!"
"No," Kairo said. "But I'm making it my problem."
He stepped beside Yi Meilan.
"Burn it."
Her hands rose slowly. Not shaking this time.
A white spark formed in her palm.
Then two.
Then nine.
Each a memory she had buried.
She threw them into the reflection—And it shattered.
The throne appeared.
Silver and glass, floating between shards of memory, light bending around it.
Yi Meilan collapsed to her knees. Her reflection gone. Her eyes clear for the first time.
[Mirror Throne Claimed – Curse Sealed: Dual Self]
[New Ability Gained: Shardstep – Phase through reflective surfaces within 10 meters. Limited by mental stability.]
[Codex Sync: Resonance Detected – Compatibility with Void Codex: 67%]
Kairo helped her up.
"You're not alone," he said quietly.
She stared at him, still unsure.
"…You're insane."
"I get that a lot."
Outside the Pavilion, night had fallen but Kairo smiled.
Two Thrones.
One ally.
And far more enemies than he could count.
Let them come.