Jiang Xuan's POV
The Valley of Forgotten Fires was nothing like the maps described.
There were no flames now — no smoke, no burnt soil. Just silence.
Thick, unnatural silence.
The kind that made your ears ring.
Jiang Xuan stepped onto the brittle grass, his boots crunching over ash so fine it stuck to his skin. The valley stretched wide before him, framed by broken cliffs that leaned inward like teeth.
The sky above looked wrong.
Gray, not from clouds — but from memory.
As if the world had forgotten what this place once was.
Or tried to.
---
They had come in a small group.
Yao Xi.
Elder Wen.
Three formation masters.
And Jiang Xuan — not by order, but by choice.
The sect hadn't stopped him.
Maybe they wanted to see what would happen.
Or maybe… they were afraid to say no.
---
Elder Wen took the lead, his robes brushing the dead vines that clung to the cliffside. He stopped at a ruined altar, half-swallowed by the earth.
"This is it," he said. "The core of the old soul-sealing formation. Where the Echo Seal was born."
The formation masters began unpacking talismans, crystals, and long scrolls inscribed with mirror-ink.
Jiang Xuan didn't help.
He didn't need to.
His head was already buzzing.
As if something buried beneath the altar was calling to him.
---
Yao Xi watched him carefully.
He didn't look panicked.
Or angry.
But his fingers twitched — barely noticeable, like he was trying to grasp something just out of reach.
When he walked toward the altar without being told, she followed.
The formation masters paused, unsure.
But Wen didn't stop him.
"He may be the key," Wen said quietly.
Or the fuse, Yao Xi thought.
---
Jiang Xuan crouched by the altar, fingers brushing ancient stone.
It was warm.
Not from the sun.
From inside.
He closed his eyes.
And the whispers returned.
This time… clearer.
Not words.
Names.
He didn't recognize them.
But his heart did.
They echoed through his bones like old friends — or enemies — scratching at the doors of memory.
He opened his mouth.
And spoke one.
"Shenlian."
The wind stopped.
---
The ground beneath the altar groaned.
Runes long hidden under dirt and lichen flared to life, glowing a dull red. The formation masters backed away. One shouted for the barrier to be raised.
But Jiang Xuan stood calmly in the center.
And smiled faintly.
"I remember this light."
---
The earth split beneath his feet.
A pulse of shadow — not like demonic qi, but something older — shot up from the core of the valley.
A single image flashed through his mind:
A man with silver eyes.
Standing where he now stood.
A blade made of fire stabbing through his own heart.
Sealing something into the stone below.
Sealing himself.
Jiang Xuan staggered back, clutching his chest.
It felt like being stabbed again — but in reverse.
As if something had just been unsealed.
---
Yao Xi was already by his side, catching him before he fell.
"What did you see?" she whispered.
He looked up at her.
And his voice came out quieter than it had ever been.
"Me."
---
"I saw me," he whispered.
Not just a reflection.
Not a twisted dream.
But himself, in another life.
With the same eyes.
The same voice.
Standing in this very valley, sealing something ancient into stone — and sealing himself along with it.
His heart beat faster. Not out of fear.
But out of recognition.
The memory had broken loose.
And it was still alive.
---
The formation masters didn't understand.
One of them shouted, "He's activating the seal again!"
"No," Wen said quietly. "He's undoing it."
Jiang Xuan stood up, swaying slightly. His mark had spread. The black lines along his neck were now spidering down his arms like veins of ink.
Yao Xi caught his wrist.
"Look at me."
His gaze was distant.
"I remember the oath," he murmured.
"What oath?"
"I burned the world once to protect something. Someone."
Yao Xi's grip tightened.
"Who?"
His answer was soft.
"I don't know. I only remember the feeling."
---
The runes beneath the altar blazed red-hot.
A voice — not his — spilled into Jiang Xuan's mind. Smooth, amused. Familiar.
"So… you've come back."
He stiffened. "Who are you?"
"A mistake you once made. A choice you buried."
"I don't understand."
"You will. You always do. Just before the end."
The vision that followed came not in pictures, but in sensations:
Ash in the lungs
Screaming crowds
The cold satisfaction of killing someone who begged
A woman's voice saying, "This isn't you"
And his own answer: "It is now."
---
Jiang Xuan fell to his knees.
Yao Xi was beside him in an instant, sword drawn — not against him, but against what might come out.
"Talk to me."
"I think I killed someone," he whispered.
"You've killed before."
"No. I mean… someone important. To me. In the last life."
Yao Xi said nothing.
But her grip on her blade faltered slightly.
"Why did I seal myself away?" Jiang Xuan asked, half to her, half to the sky.
No one answered.
Except the altar, which cracked down the center — and a cold red light seeped upward like fog.
---
Suddenly, the valley shifted.
The cliffs seemed taller. The sky darker.
The world warped — not physically, but emotionally.
Everyone felt it.
It was like falling into someone else's trauma.
Yao Xi grabbed his shoulder.
"Jiang Xuan! Snap out of it!"
He blinked rapidly.
For a second, he didn't recognize her.
His eyes glowed faint red.
Then dimmed again.
He exhaled, trembling.
"I'm still me."
"For how long?" she whispered.
He looked down at the cracked altar.
And for the first time, he wasn't sure.
---
Elder Wen stepped forward, his voice sharp.
"The altar's awakening the soul. We have to shut it down."
"No," Jiang Xuan said, standing.
"You'll lose yourself."
"I was never mine to begin with."
Yao Xi stood between them.
"We're not killing the seal," she said. "Not yet."
Wen's mouth opened to argue, but the Grandmaster's voice echoed from the spirit mirror hovering above them:
"Let it be. If the seal must break, let it break on his terms."
Wen clenched his jaw but stepped back.
---
As the light from the altar faded, the runes dulling back to stone, the group gathered their things in silence.
But something had changed.
Jiang Xuan was quiet on the walk back.
Yao Xi stayed beside him.
Before they reached the mountain path, she asked, "Do you feel more like yourself now?"
He paused.
Then said—
"I don't know which 'self' you mean anymore."
---
That night, while the sect slept, Jiang Xuan stood before his reflection in the river that ran through the back forest.
He studied the face.
His face.
But when he blinked, he saw another face for just a second.
Older. Wiser.
Colder.
And he heard that same voice again.
"You sealed me to protect them.
Now they must decide if they're worth saving."
----
End of Chapter 14