The real one flicked her wrist, fan pointing lazily toward the cocoon. "Hey, let him out. What will he do by staying here any longer? Get him out of this realm."
The woman on the tiger gave a theatrical bow, peacock feathers trembling with faint laughter. At her gesture, the flame around the boy swelled, petal by petal, until it folded over his entire body like a giant lotus bud sculpted from burning silk. The red silk beneath rose up to meet it, weaving itself into outer petals.
Then—shuaaa—
Like a lotus rising from dark water, the burning bud lifted, cracked open that inner space, and went out from heart with a blinding yet strangely cold light. His body floated weightlessly outside, suspended in a moment, then dropped gently onto the pit of that mud, where he was killed.
Every cuts, every bruises, every bones that had shattered before, now perfectly mended.
For a heartbeat, everything was still.
Then—
A force shoved them outward like an unseen palm. The realm rippled violently, and in the blink of an eye they were flung back into the outside world. The sea churned beneath them; the sky seemed to tilt. And the island, Gone.
Not even a fragment, not a shimmer of residue, like the world had swallowed its own footprint.
The tiger woman smiled with soft, ancient mischief. "Thank you for helping me. Let him journey through diversity, darkness, light, hope… May his path run smooth on the lines rewritten for him."
The real one snapped her fan open. "Can I start now?"
The tiger woman clicked her tongue. "What a slowpoke. Still waiting for her to break out of the cocoon? Or are you hoping she'll crawl out and bow before giving you a 'proper fight'?" She tilted her head. "Oh, and I forgot to mark his body… your husband is wandering free. Tch. Wife losing her husband on the very first day—how pitiful."
A vein pulsed on the real one's forehead. "Huh…" A single sound came in anger towards her, but it was so colder than a killing intent would drop.
Inside the reformed silk realm, the scenery had changed completely. The world was nothing but endless silk, shining, dripping, quivering like the inside of some enormous creature's stomach. The platform where the real one stood had become a sheet of pale, ghostly silk, stretched tight enough to hum under her footsteps.
The demoness, her copy, her shadow, her sin, was bound in thick ropes that pulsed like veins. She struggled, but every twitch only tightened the threads with a wet, fibrous sound.
The tiger woman leaned back on her beast, grinning."You know… if she breaks free while you're still hesitating, it'll be embarrassing. Should I help you? Or will you keep acting like a shy maiden?"
The real one lowered her fan an inch."I'm waiting for her to fully awaken. At least give me a complete opponent."
The woman snorted."You sound like those old cultivators who complain the tribulation isn't dramatic enough."
Light began to leak from the cocoon, faint at first, then brighter red light, almost painful. The silk realm trembled. Threads crawled along the ground like searching fingers. Air thickened into a suffocating, metallic scent.
Still, no movement is shown in silk realm.
.........
That island, invisible to everyone else, had not vanished for him.No, something else was rising in its place, something woven of fog and memory.Even lying half-conscious in the bloody pit, he saw without opening his eyes, as though the illusion pressed its fingers directly into his mind.
A woman stood there, that guzheng woman, her eyes were covered in red cloth, she looked at him with an expression of loneliness. Same face, same shape… but her mood was colder, more detached, like she was carved from the edges of a forgotten dream.
She sighed softly."Hey… do you really have a death wish? I pulled you out from that place, and look how you treat your saviour."
His voice was dry, mocking, too steady for a half-dead man."Did I ask you to save me? First you drag me into your illusion, then drop me into that monster's mouth, and now you call yourself my saviour?"He spat into the sea."Tch. What a load of bullshit."
She paused—then her lips curved into a devil's smile beneath the red cloth."Then I should've left you there. You would've fallen into illusions again anyway."
He smiled back, a smile so unbothered that it cut straight through her confidence."Let's go back. You don't have to carry dead weight."
Her smile thinned to a blade."Fine. Let's go."
They drifted over the water on the cloud-like silk fog she rode. But just as she moved closer to the island's direction, a dense white fog rolled in, swallowing horizon, sky, and sea.
Within the fog—a shadow rose.
She stopped so abruptly that the cloud shuddered beneath them.Her fingers tightened on the strings of her guzheng, ready to strike.But when the fog parted…
She froze.
The cliff, the same cliff that should have vanished with the realm, was standing there with its solid and clear proof that it became reality itself, was refusing to let go of its shape.
The boy shouted, voice echoing unnaturally in the fog:"There, drop me there!"
He tried to move, but the cloud wrapped around his limbs like soft ropes, binding him mid-air.
He glared down."Hey! Open these bindings."
She flicked her wrist dismissively, and the fog loosened like obedient servants.He jumped off the cloud the moment he was free, landing on the cliff with the steadiness of someone who had died too many times to care about danger.
He extended a hand without looking at her."My hat and sword."
She returned them wordlessly, her silence carried something missing, something uneasy. He felt it but not able to do anything.
He placed the hat on his head, tied it firmly, and slid the sword onto his back.Then he looked at her and smiled, "anyway, miss… you don't have to wait for me. I'll find my path on my own." A shallow bow. "Thank you for taking care of me this time. And… sorry for shouting."
For the first time, she laughed with brittleness."You can ask me for help, you know. I can take you to the next place."She raised her chin slightly."There are many like that thing you faced earlier. You couldn't defeat even one. Without me, you'll just die again."
His answer was immediate. "It's fine. You don't need to take care of me." He took a step back toward the cliff's edge, facing the fog-wrapped sea. "I came here alone. I'll survive alone."
She shouted again, "I'm really going. Last chance—you can leave with me."
He stared at her, silent, unreadable. For a heartbeat she felt a strange anticipation pinch her chest, as if she expected him to beg her to stay. Now show your pleading… she thought, lips curving faintly.
But before he could answer, the sea behind them bulged. A massive serpent-shaped creature, easily the length of a fortress wall, rose halfway out of the dark water, slick black scales dripping thick seawater, its maw lined with thorn-shaped teeth. It hissed, then sank slowly back into the depths like a shadow returning to its master.
She pointed at it sharply. "See? There are beasts even larger than that one in this sea. Come with me, just ask me one more time."
He smiled toward her and expressed in a way even he refused to believe. "Leave me now," he said softly. "I like your… tendency. But something is wrong with you." For a moment she said nothing, just stared at him, face unreadable behind her red-bound eyes. Then she turned away, her robes fluttering like torn banners caught in a dying wind. She rose toward the sky, her form dissolving into streaks of pale mist, then vanished entirely, as if she had never been there in the first place.
He exhaled slowly.
Silence fell. Only the tide's roar heard. He scanned the surrounding cliffs, stepping closer to the edge and lifting his hand to shade his eyes. Far in the distance, faint stair-like cuts descended the stone, one path stretching left, another to the right, half-hidden under creeping fog.
After a few breaths of quiet observation, he chose the left."Let's see what waits."
He moved carefully. The air here felt heavier, as though each breath sifted through forgotten memories. Soon he reached a stone slab built into the cliffside, framed by moss and cracks, yet pulsing faintly, as though the rock remembered something ancient.
Words spiralled around a symbol carved at its centre:
"May Mara's Echo howl in his heart,Let the Dharma Wheel rise in that polluted core,The Celestial Void moulds his form,The Harmonious Order refines his soul,And Kundalini unveils the Origin Path of the universe."
The inscription circled around a white lotus tightly bound by coiled serpents. Rings—some complete, some half-shattered, surrounded the lotus like faded halos. Beneath it, tiny symbols of line was carved.
Below that, the stone split sharply, revealing a second emblem, a black lotus with mirrored symbols. But the rock had shattered long ago; the letters beneath were broken beyond recognition, scattered like pieces of a forgotten scripture.
He stared for a long time. The wind brushed his cheek, cold butt yet warm, then he tightened the string of his hat. He blinked. The memories of cruel faces, the blood, the pit, everything remained crystal clear. Too clear.
"Is this… afterlife?" he muttered. "But there's no path in that direction."
He began pacing slowly in a circle, deep in thought, but then, A sudden pressure surged inside him, an overwhelming force, not violent, but dense enough that his breath stilled. His wounds throbbed, then slowly numbed, as if invisible threads were pulling the pain out of his body. His consciousness dipped.
Something inside him called. Not a voice, not a sound. A pull.
His knees buckled.He collapsed onto the stone.And sleep swallowed him whole.
When he woke, the world felt tilted, quiet in a way that wasn't natural. He found himself lying inside a shallow pit, the earth around him cracked like something had burst upward from beneath. Dried streaks of blood stained the inner walls, not fresh enough to alarm him, but enough to tell him someone, maybe he himself, had struggled here moments before.
He pushed himself up slowly. As he rose out of the pit, he heard a faint grinding sound behind him. He turned. The pit was closing on its own, soil shifting, cracks knitting together, stones sliding back into place as if the land was gently healing itself.
A cold shiver crawled up his spine.
His eyes widened as he remembered the rotating symbol he'd seen earlier, the white lotus bound in serpents, the shattered black counterpart beneath it. He spun around scanning the cliff wall behind him.
And there it was.The exact same sigil.Unbroken, complete, gleaming faintly.
He didn't even have time to react.
A thunderous roar tore through the air as a massive wave slammed against the lower portion of the cliff. The impact shook the ground under his feet. Spray shot upward like violent mist, and for a moment he thought the cliff itself would collapse.
That was when realization struck him, something was shifting around him, inside him, everywhere. He was about to check another cliffside path when a voice, clear, resonant, neither young nor old, echoed inside his chest.
"Stop. Sit down where you are standing."
He froze. Not out of fear, but out of instinctual recognition.
"Who are you?" he said quietly, placing a hand on his chest. "When did you get inside me? Or… are you that one we met on that day?"
A soft hum rose inside him, like a breath carried through a vast cavern.
"Your memory is truly something. You even remember the fragments of that day. Then sit."
He sat quickly on the earth near cliff, "how should I see you?" he asked. "If you are here, then can we meet?"
"Time is not right yet," the inner voice murmured, the tone shifting like wind moving between stones. "There is still time left before the meeting…"
He nodded, even though no one outside could see. In the silence that followed, he whispered, "Do I… have a name to call myself? I… don't remember anything."
The voice chuckled, soft, distant, old.
"Your name? Do you have a name?"
He blinked, then realization dawned. "No," he said quietly. "Never had one. I've only walked. A traveller seeking truth. What I understand, I hold. What I cannot, it means the time isn't right to learn yet. Everything else… life, fate… they come later."
"Indeed," the voice replied. "No one arrives with a name, or a body, or a fixed story. We are wanderers in this vast world. We fall, we rise, and we walk again until we reach the thing calling us."
Its presence flickered, like a lantern dimming.
"Do not worry. Your name will come when you call it yourself. This place, this illusion, this crossing, will last only five more days. Go. I will guide you when needed. Your fate has shifted again. Beware the odds that follow."
The warmth faded.
"I will sleep now. Wake up… walk your own path. And remember: give away all the karma you cling to. Choose someone worthy before your true journey begins… Oh, nameless one—may this boy find his paths…"
His eyes opened wider.The cliffs seemed different now.The wind felt heavier.
................
He woke from the earth as if rising from a shallow grave, dust clinging to his clothes and hair. The cliffside air tasted of iron and salt, sharp enough to sting his throat. He blinked, letting his eyes adjust to the shifting greyness around him. When he looked toward the jagged line of cliffs, he noticed something odd, after the third cliff, a staircase descended sharply downward. And on his left, another staircase mirrored it, equally narrow, equally threatening.
He frowned, took his sword, and tossed it lightly in the air. The blade turned with a faint whistle before pointing toward the left when it landed flat on his palm."Left then," he muttered, not sure whether luck or illusion guided him.
He began walking along the narrow ledge connecting the cliffs, a childlike bounce momentarily breaking the tension in his shoulders. Yet every few steps he glanced back. And every time, more of the world behind him was dissolving into fog. Structures, rock, even the path he had just walked, it all collapsed as if the land had never existed.
The sword felt heavier in his grip.
By the time he reached the fourth cliff, he paused. The path ahead dropped sharply. Far below, he saw only the vast sea, violent waves smashing against dark stone. And he remembered that earlier scene: the moment the falling flesh touched the water and turned into drifting dust. A sea that dissolved whatever touched it.
His breath caught.
If I stay, I will die. If I move and fall, I will die. So either way…
He tightened his grip on the sword.
Let's move then.
He started descending. The stone steps were enormous, some as tall as he was—and he had to grip the damp rock surface with both hands to lower himself from one to the next. The carved steps were covered in sigils, ancient mudras, looping letters from a language his mind recognized but his memory could not name. Many carvings were cracked in half, their meanings severed.
A few stones wobbled dangerously under his weight, and one slid off entirely, crashing down into the sea below.
He climbed faster.
Then rain began, suddenly a sharp, cold drops that slapped against his skin. The steps were already wet from the ocean's breath; now they became slick as polished glass. His foot slipped once, his body jolting as he slammed his knee into a carving. He gritted his teeth and kept moving.
By the time he reached the thirty-fifth step, somewhere around the middle of the cliff, he looked up and froze.
There was nothing above.Not broken stones.Not the path.Not the cliff.
Just fog swallowing everything behind him.
"What is this " he muttered under his breath.
He was about to continue downward when he leaned forward, peering over the edge. There were stairs below, but not normal ones, they looked like stone wedges hammered into the cliffside at odd angles. And they were far enough beneath him that a bad landing would shatter them completely.
If I jump, it might break… but it's the only path. He exhaled slowly, preparing to leap.
Then a thought nagged him—what if the upper steps were still climbable? He turned around to check and his heart dropped. The stairs above were also collapsing. One by one, the rock slabs broke free and tumbled downward, falling past him into the sea's roar. Dust burst outward each time a step shattered.
Thirty- second step leaked into mist.Thirty-third cracked.Thirty-fourth splintered.He clicked his tongue in disbelief. The rain intensified.
"What the heck…" he whispered, staring at the dying stones as if they were mocking him.
To be Continued...