The gate pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
Then the mist parted.
Shen Yi stepped forward.
As his foot crossed the threshold of the Mirror Path, sound disappeared. The noise of wind, birds, even the low hum of the sect's wards — all gone. What remained was silence. Absolute. Consuming.
The world on the other side was not the sect.
It was not even a place.
It was a memory.
And then it wasn't.
---
He stood in a stone corridor lit by silver flame. The walls were mirrors — not glass, but liquid, rippling as he passed. Each surface showed something different.
A version of him.
Older. Younger. Wounded. Laughing. Killing.
In one reflection, he saw himself drenched in blood, smiling as he held a sword made of bones.
In another, a boy knelt before a burning home, his hands shaking, eyes wide with horror.
He kept walking.
The corridor twisted. Folded.
Time didn't move linearly here.
At one point, he blinked—and found himself walking side by side with himself.
Or someone that looked like him.
"You're not real," Shen Yi said aloud.
The other version grinned. "Neither are you. Not fully."
Shen Yi's hand went to his sword.
"Relax," the doppelgänger said. "I'm not here to fight."
"Then why are you here?"
"To remind you of who you were. Of what you chose. Of what you wanted."
"I don't remember wanting this."
"No," the reflection said. "But part of you still does."
---
The corridor ended.
Before him stretched a frozen plain, endless and grey. Flakes of ash drifted down instead of snow. In the distance stood a single tree — skeletal, wrapped in chains of light, glowing faintly with talisman script.
Shen Yi stepped onto the plain.
His boots crunched over frost. Each step echoed like thunder.
The tree got closer.
With each step, his chest grew heavier. Like the air thickened around his heart. His legs didn't weaken — but the ache was emotional, not physical.
He knew this place.
Or rather… he knew what happened here.
Five years ago.
Or in a dream.
Or both.
---
At the foot of the chained tree lay a sword.
Its blade was shattered.
But he knew it.
Not from sight.
From touch.
He had held this sword once. In battle. In vengeance.
In the slaughter of the one girl who had once made him smile.
He knelt slowly, fingers brushing the fragments.
His breath hitched.
Because as he touched it—
He heard her voice.
Not Yan Xue's voice as she was now — sharp, composed, distant.
But the voice of the girl before.
"Shen Yi," she whispered.
And he saw her — not in the mirror, not in a vision.
In his own mind.
Smiling. Reaching for him.
And then—
Flames.
Screams.
Blood.
And his own voice, laughing as he cut her family down one by one.
---
He stumbled back.
Fell to his knees.
Pain tore through his spine—not from injury, but from memory.
He remembered.
Not everything.
But enough.
The banquet.
The trap.
The tears.
Her voice begging him to stop.
The moment he almost killed her.
And the moment something in him—some shred of himself—let her live.
He sat there, trembling.
Not with fear.
With shame.
"I'm sorry," he whispered into the frost.
The words felt too small.
Too late.
---
A wind swept across the plain, howling like a thousand broken souls.
And in it, he heard another voice.
His own.
But not quite.
More like the thing that lived inside him.
The part that had never stopped hungering.
"You let her go," it hissed.
"She loved you," it mocked.
"She hates you now."
Shen Yi rose slowly, fists clenched.
"Yes."
The wind stilled.
"Yes," he repeated, louder. "She hates me. She should."
"And yet," said the voice, "you still want her."
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't need to.
His silence was the loudest truth of all.
---
Behind him, the chained tree began to crack.
One link snapped.
Then another.
And then—
The world shattered.
Like glass dropped from the heavens.
---
He fell through darkness.
And landed—hard.
In a room.
His old chamber in the sect.
Candles flickered on wooden shelves.
His robes hung neatly.
The scent of sandalwood clung to the air.
And standing in front of the bed…
Was Yan Xue.
Not real.
But real enough.
She looked just as she did the last day before it all broke. Her eyes were soft. Her lips curved in a smile.
"Why did you change?" the illusion asked.
"I got greedy."
"You got cursed."
"No," he said. "I chose the curse."
"Why?"
He looked her in the eye.
"To protect you."
Even the illusion blinked.
"Is that true?" she asked.
He didn't answer.
Because he didn't know anymore.
Maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn't.
But it was the only answer that didn't kill him inside.
---
The illusion of Yan Xue faded without a word.
Only the silence remained.
Shen Yi stood in the center of his old room, breath shallow. His hands trembled — not from fear, but from the weight of recognition. The Mirror Path hadn't just shown him visions. It had peeled back a piece of his soul and forced him to look.
And the worst part?
There was still more.
---
A door appeared in the far wall.
Simple. Wooden. Unassuming.
But he knew it wasn't there before.
He stepped through.
The world blurred again.
This time, he was back in the Scarlet Immortal Sect's main training hall — the one carved into the belly of the mountain, where only the inner core disciples were allowed to train.
He recognized it from the stories Su Yao had once told him.
The floor glistened with qi-etched runes. Floating lanterns pulsed like stars, casting a soft glow on the banners high above. But what drew his attention was the center of the room — where he stood again.
A younger Shen Yi.
Face sharp with ambition. Eyes too cold for his age.
And he wasn't alone.
Kneeling before him was a figure bound in chains of flame — struggling, screaming, then still.
It was him.
Again.
But broken.
Cracked.
Trapped in memory.
And the watching version of Shen Yi smiled.
"See what you were willing to become," the illusion whispered. "All for strength. All for power."
The bound version opened its mouth.
And instead of words, it screamed.
The sound shattered the illusion.
---
He fell again.
This time, not into memory.
But into himself.
---
He opened his eyes with a gasp.
The silver mist that marked the Mirror Path had thinned. The corridor had returned. The exit stood before him — plain and unmarked.
He had passed.
Or survived.
He wasn't sure which.
His hands still shook as he walked forward.
---
Outside the Mirror Path, Su Yao and Yan Xue waited at the mountain's edge, flanked by two sect watchers.
Yan Xue's arms were folded, face unreadable. But the coldness around her shimmered — a defensive veil of qi more intense than usual.
Su Yao was the first to speak as the mist parted.
"You made it."
Shen Yi nodded, saying nothing at first.
Then: "It wasn't a test."
Su Yao frowned. "What do you mean?"
"It was a reckoning."
He stepped out fully, the mist closing behind him. The watchers moved aside.
Yan Xue studied him with careful eyes. "Did you remember?"
He looked at her, really looked.
And then said, "Enough to know I was a monster."
She didn't flinch.
But her voice was distant when she replied.
"You still are."
He nodded.
"Then I'll learn to cage it."
Her gaze didn't soften, but something behind it shifted — a flicker, like a candle fighting wind.
---
They returned to the guest quarters in silence.
The sect had granted Shen Yi temporary status as an inner ward — not a disciple, not yet an outcast. His behavior and cultivation would be monitored. But for now, he would remain within the mountain walls.
Su Yao stayed by his side.
Yan Xue kept her distance — until nightfall.
---
She found him sitting beneath a balcony overlooking the eastern cliff, where moonlight bathed the lake below in silver.
"You never used to like silence," she said quietly.
He didn't turn. "I still don't. But I don't like the sound of myself more."
She stood beside him, looking at the same moon.
"I watched you in there," she said. "Your qi shifted when you came out. It's different now."
"I'm different."
"Not enough."
He gave a small smile. "That's your line, isn't it?"
Her gaze flicked to him. "Don't make this familiar."
"I'm not," he said.
Then, slowly, he added, "But I hope one day it could be."
She didn't respond.
Only stared at the lake.
"You should rest," she said finally. "The sect won't be kind tomorrow."
"Neither will you," he said.
And for the first time, she allowed a hint of emotion to crack her words.
"No. But I won't lie to you, either."
She turned away.
And didn't look back.
---
High above, in the Sect Lord's hall, Elder Han knelt before the flames of the spirit furnace.
"The Mirror Path accepted him," he said. "But the echoes within… are still dangerous."
The Sect Lord's voice floated from the shadows.
"Let them be."
Elder Han raised his head. "He's unstable. A trigger waiting to be pulled."
"And the trigger," said the Sect Lord, "is already walking beside him."
There was a pause.
Then the Sect Lord added, almost gently:
"We don't need to pull it. Only wait for it to snap."
---
That night, Shen Yi dreamed.
Not of war.
Not of fire.
But of a girl in white laughing beneath plum trees.
Of a summer day long forgotten.
Of a future that never came.
He reached out for her in the dream.
But before he could touch her, she vanished again.
And in her place — a sword.
Dripping.
Waiting.
---
End of Chapter 12