No one asked where I went.
That's the advantage of silence.
You learn to move without drawing notice.
---
I left the courtyard well past midnight. No torches. No alarm. Just moonlight through pine needles and the soft rhythm of steps on stone.
I knew where I needed to go.
Not because someone told me.
Because something inside me pointed — gently, without voice.
The same way memory sometimes walks beside you, even when you've forgotten what it looked like.
---
The sect's lower paths twisted downward, toward the outer cliffs.
No disciples trained here. The formations were broken. The air thinner. Old vines curled around statues whose names had been erased by moss.
And beneath it all—
The feeling.
Not spiritual energy,Not Qi.
Something deeper.
Something quiet.
Soul-rooted.
---
I followed it.
Past stone gates half-swallowed by earth.
Past a collapsed prayer hall that still echoed without sound.
Down into what had once been a meditation cave — and wasn't.
---
He was already waiting.
The boy.
The same one I'd seen in the soul-vision.
He didn't look surprised.
He looked older now. Not in years. In presence.
His back was straight. His face calm.
But his eyes held the same tiredness I'd felt once — beneath the cave, after the fire went out.
He nodded once.
"You found me."
I didn't ask how.
I didn't ask why.
---
I stepped closer, then sat down across from him, legs folded beneath me.
We faced each other without speaking.
The room was stone. Empty. Barely big enough for two people to sit.
But it felt wider than the sky.
---
After a long time, I asked the only question that mattered.
"What broke you?"
He looked up.
His voice was steady.
"The soul fusion wasn't the hardest part," he said.
"It was knowing that no one could teach me how."
Ohh"So you failed?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"I survived. But I burned everything else away doing it."
---
I didn't flinch.
"Tell me."
---
He raised a hand.
Traced two fingers across the center of his chest.
"Phoenix fire eats what it loves.
Dragon will refuses to kneel.
If you carry both… you'll tear."
"Unless?"
He looked at me carefully.
"Unless your soul isn't trying to be both."
He pointed to the ground between us.
"It has to be something else."
---
I was quiet for a long time.
His words didn't shock me.
They felt… familiar.
Like I'd already known, but needed someone else to say it out loud.
"You don't fight the fusion," he said softly.
"You give it form."
---
The silence returned.
But it wasn't hollow anymore.
It was full.
Like a room filled with memory.
---
When I finally stood, he didn't stop me.
Didn't ask where I'd go next.
Didn't offer advice.
Just looked once toward the ceiling.
Toward the stone.
"If you go deeper, it'll try to break you."
"I know."
> "Good," he said.
"Then you might survive it."
---
I left the chamber without sound.
The sect above was still asleep.
And beneath the earth, the soul-fusion mark on my chest glowed faintly beneath my skin—
Warm.
Steady.
Ready.
---
End of Chapter Eighteen