The entrance to the Red Zone didn't have a door.
It had a threshold.
Not visible to the eye—but etched into space, like a boundary carved into air itself.
Fang Yuan stood before it, breath even, fingertips lightly pressed to the invisible seal.
Behind him, Lei Qing held the bypass key. Their voice dropped to a whisper.
"This breach leaves a trace. Once we step in, we can't hide it."
Fang Yuan didn't look back.
"I'm not hiding anymore."
He stepped through.
The air changed immediately. Heavier. Pressurized. Like walking into the lungs of something buried alive.
The corridor sloped downward, lit by dying red panels and veins of flickering Qi-stabilization lines. The walls were marked with silent names—designations, not identities. None were complete.
But one stood out.
R-0137.
Fang Yuan stopped.
The chamber's vault door stood ahead—circular, layered in shielding talismans and biometrically-sealed scripts. At the center, a blood-stamped sigil pulsed faintly.
He placed his hand against it.
The glyphs flared.
And unlocked.
The door hissed open.
What waited inside was not a cell.
It was a garden.
Dead trees stood in frozen poses across a square room. Their leaves were made of etched copper. The ground was artificial soil. In the center, a stone platform shaped like a meditation dais.
And on it—
She sat.
Eyes closed.
Hair black, bound in a faded silver tie. Robes half-spiritual, half-tactical. Her body unmoving.
Not asleep.
Not unconscious.
Held.
Fang Yuan stepped closer.
And whispered.
"Mu Ruyin."
She opened her eyes.
Golden.
Empty.
The voice that came was hers.
But not.
"You are not cleared for this interaction."
Fang Yuan froze.
"Ruyin… it's me."
The figure tilted her head.
Recognition flickered. Warred with programming.
Faint Qi stirred around her. Inhuman. Broken.
Then—one word.
Not protocol.
Not command.
Just a breath.
"...Shizun?"
Fang Yuan's heart clenched.
She remembered.
And then she screamed.
The scream wasn't loud.
It was layered.
Qi rippled from Mu Ruyin's chest—not in waves, but in jagged pulses, like a shattered bell still trying to ring. The air fractured. The copper leaves of the dead trees shivered in midair.
Fang Yuan stepped forward.
Lei Qing drew back.
"She's unstable," they warned.
"I know."
Mu Ruyin clutched her head, eyes wide now—flashing between gold, silver, and a dull flickering red. Her hands shook. Around her, old formation marks lit up on the dais, reacting to her reawakening like a system startled by its own creation.
The seal on the chamber wall blinked.
CONDITION BREACH: ECHO TRIGGERED
EXECUTING SAFETY PROTOCOL – INTEGRATION OVERRIDE
Fang Yuan turned instantly.
"No—cancel it. She's not a weapon."
The system ignored him.
Above Mu Ruyin, a circle of light activated. It cast beams down on her spine, feeding energy into the very thing trying to consume her.
Ruyin convulsed.
Then stood.
Too quickly.
Not human motion—precise, measured, pre-programmed.
She stepped down from the dais, barefoot, her expression blank. Her voice followed—flat, tonal.
"Target: Fang Yuan. Combat simulation: Full-Force Override. No fatal restriction."
Fang Yuan didn't move.
"Ruyin, you know me. This isn't you."
A flicker.
Her lip twitched.
Then her hand flew toward him—five fingertips glowing with blackened Qi, twisted and hollow. It struck the air like a spear.
Fang Yuan blocked it with his palm.
The shock blasted the dead trees into the walls.
He slid back, bracing.
"She's not trying to kill me," he said through clenched teeth.
Lei Qing's voice echoed across the chamber. "Could've fooled me."
"She's aiming wide. Every strike's a half-inch off. She's still there."
Another strike—faster, sharper. Fang Yuan ducked under it and stepped in, placing two fingers gently against her shoulder.
"Mu Ruyin," he said softly, almost too quietly for the system to hear, "you weren't built to obey. You were born to choose."
Her arm froze mid-motion.
The energy trembled.
He placed his other hand over her Core seal.
Golden light met fractured red.
His voice dropped further.
"I never stopped looking."
The light flared between their hands—
And the override script shattered.
She collapsed forward into his arms, gasping, voice raw.
"…Shizun…"
He caught her. Held her.
And for the first time since the old world burned, Fang Yuan wept.
Her breathing was shallow, as if every breath cost more than it gave.
Fang Yuan sat with her beneath the broken copper trees, one hand still resting over her Core seal. It pulsed faintly now, no longer red, but not golden either. Flickers of grey Qi danced along its edges—damaged spirit, clinging to memory.
Mu Ruyin's voice was hoarse.
"How long… has it been?"
Fang Yuan didn't answer right away.
She looked up at him, her eyes searching. "You're different. Slower. Sadder."
"I died," he said.
Her expression didn't change.
"Then you came back."
"Yes."
"…Me too."
Across the chamber, Lei Qing leaned silently against the wall, watching—half-guard, half-witness.
Fang Yuan adjusted his robe, covering her shoulders with the loose fabric. "Do you remember how you ended up here?"
She closed her eyes.
"I remember burning. Not from fire. From inside. Like my own Core was being boiled." Her fingers twitched. "They said I was… still useful. But I was cracked. So they copied me instead. Fractured me."
Her hand moved to her chest. "Three times. I counted each one."
She looked at him again.
"They made me fight echoes. Reflections. I don't know how many I killed."
Fang Yuan's voice was steady. "You survived. That's enough."
"No," she said. "I heard the names of the others. From our sect. Stored in the dark. Far below this chamber. Not like me. Not… breathing."
He met her eyes.
"You're saying there are more?"
She nodded. "Not people. Not alive. Just… seals. Pieces of them."
Lei stepped forward now, arms folded.
"You're telling us there's an archive under this archive?"
Mu Ruyin's expression darkened.
"They called it the Catacomb Tier."
Silence fell over the room.
Then Fang Yuan stood, adjusting his Core ring. His expression was steel.
"Then we're going there next."
Mu Ruyin reached for his arm. "You can't. It's deeper than security. Deeper than Xu Ran."
Fang Yuan looked down at her.
"I'm not going to fight Xu Ran."
A pause.
"I'm going to unmake him."
The elevator that led downward didn't hum.
It sank.
Slow.
Too slow.
The shaft was dark, the walls lined with conduits that pulsed with faded green light—barely alive. Fang Yuan stood at the front. Lei beside him. Mu Ruyin leaned against the rear panel, silent, wrapped in one of Fang Yuan's robes, her eyes half-lidded but alert.
The platform stopped with a soft hiss.
There were no doors.
Just an open corridor—black stone, unlit. The air was colder, heavier. It didn't feel abandoned.
It felt sealed.
They stepped in.
The silence pressed down like water.
Lei Qing finally spoke, voice a whisper.
"I don't see cameras. Or Qi stabilizers."
"Because this level was never meant to be seen," Mu Ruyin answered, her voice still dry. "It wasn't logged. It was buried."
They turned a corner—and saw the first vault.
A single glass panel, cloudy with frost.
Inside: a Core.
Cracked.
Still pulsing.
No body. Just the Core, suspended in fluid. Golden. Dim.
Its Qi flickered like a dying heartbeat.
"Who is that?" Lei asked.
Fang Yuan stepped forward.
Then stopped.
He knew the pulse.
Not personally.
But by lineage.
"This belonged to Elder Xuan of the Verdant Shield Pavilion. He died in the Siege of the Southern Path."
Mu Ruyin nodded.
"They salvaged anything that held a fragment of Dao. Even if it was broken. Especially if it was broken."
They kept walking.
Vault after vault.
Some held fragments of bodies. Others, weapons still bonded to spiritual memory. One chamber held nothing but robes, folded and marked with talisman seals to suppress lingering will.
Fang Yuan stopped at a wider chamber. Its door was made not of steel—but bone.
He didn't touch it.
Mu Ruyin spoke without looking.
"That's where they keep the failed vessels. The ones that couldn't adapt."
Fang Yuan's voice was quiet.
"Failed reincarnations?"
She nodded.
"No Core. Just emptiness where belief used to be."
Behind the bone door, something thudded once.
Then again.
Slow. Rhythmic.
Still alive.
Fang Yuan looked at her.
"You said names."
"I remember six," she said. "Yours wasn't the only path they copied."
He pressed his hand to the next seal.
Then turned to both of them.
"Whatever we find beyond this point..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
He didn't need to.
He broke the seal.
And stepped through.
The air was cold.
Not the kind of cold that numbed skin—but the kind that settled in bones, in breath. The kind that forgot how warmth was ever possible.
The room stretched wider than it should have. Walls curved outward. Carved symbols spiraled across the floor, etched in reverse. Not for summoning.
For containment.
Dozens of figures stood along the walls. Upright. Strapped into tall, metal columns shaped like spears stabbed into the earth. Their bodies were human—almost. But their eyes were stitched shut, and their hands had no nails.
They didn't breathe.
Didn't twitch.
Lei Qing whispered, "What are they?"
Mu Ruyin didn't answer right away.
She pointed to one near the far end.
"That one used to be called Sister An."
Fang Yuan's eyes narrowed.
"I trained her. She used to recite the Way of Spirit Roots while balancing tea cups on her head."
Mu Ruyin's voice was thin. "Now she doesn't remember her own face."
They walked between the figures, silent.
And then—one of them moved.
Just a finger.
Fang Yuan stopped.
The movement was slow. Intentional. The body swayed slightly against its bindings.
Another finger twitched.
Then its head rose.
The thread over the mouth had been broken.
And from between dry lips came a sound.
Not a word.
A name.
"…Yuan."
Not "Fang Yuan."
Not "Master."
Just Yuan.
The way only one person had ever said it.
Fang Yuan stepped forward slowly, staring into the hollow sockets.
"Who are you?"
The figure tilted its head.
"…Tea."
Then it smiled.
And the bindings around its arms snapped open.
Fang Yuan turned instantly.
"Get back."
The others were moving now—slow at first, then faster. Muscles cracking. Mouths splitting open. Not screams.
Laughter.
Empty. Unformed. But loud.
Like echoes learning to echo.
Lei Qing raised both hands. "What do we do?"
Mu Ruyin answered.
"We don't fight them. We give them something else to follow."
She stepped beside Fang Yuan.
He didn't hesitate.
He pressed his hand to the floor.
Golden Qi surged—not violent, but resonant.
He spoke—not a command.
A reminder.
"You had names."
The figures paused.
"You had stories."
The light spread.
"You were more than fuel."
And one by one—their laughter stopped.
Some dropped to their knees.
Others simply sat.
Still broken.
But listening.
Mu Ruyin whispered, "They remember you."
Fang Yuan whispered back, "Then I will carry them."