The image rippled—and vanished.
Li Wei's breath caught in his throat. "Illusory apparitions… but why here?" His eyes narrowed, scanning the mirror-like basin that moments before had shown them a living garden. Now, it was just water. Still. Lifeless.
Such fine illusion arts were rare in the lower planes, a remnant of the high sects and sovereign enclaves where power bled into every breath. To encounter it here, in a forgotten ruin, was unnatural. No—it was wrong.
"Not sure," Leng Yue murmured, rising from her crouch. "It could be showing us something. This place was not always like this." She glanced around, her gaze catching on a branch above. "Perhaps the answer we're looking for is closer than we think."
The leaves above hung in unnatural suspension—as if the fall of autumn had been commanded to pause. She reached up and plucked one.
It disintegrated between her fingers. Dust. No stem, no wetness, no life. A husk. An illusion.
