Chapter 17: Descent into the Mirror Depths
Night fell with a suffocating silence.
The stars above the Heavenly Lotus Sect shimmered faintly behind thin clouds, but no light reached the stone corridors beneath the outer compound. Only darkness and dampness remained in the abandoned tunnels below the mountain — relics of a time before even the current Sect Master.
Luo Qingshen moved without hesitation.
Each step down the spiral stairwell was laced with ancient dust and timeworn talismans. Most would never have known this path existed. The sect had buried it in history — along with the Mirror Depths.
He paused briefly at the shattered seal that once blocked the entrance: a lotus sigil, cracked down the middle.
So she really came this way. That girl... Who is she truly?
Stepping past the seal, he entered a narrow corridor. The air here was heavy, unnaturally still — like something was waiting.
He activated a basic illumination rune, casting faint silver light. Moss clung to the walls, and faint runic markings pulsed beneath his feet, warning intruders in a forgotten tongue:
"Tread not where reflections lie, for the self you abandon may return with teeth."
The Mirror Depths.
A forbidden realm buried beneath the sect — said to be the shattered remnants of a divine testing ground, where reflections of fate took form and twisted.
Deeper Still
He walked for what felt like an hour. Silence pressed on all sides, broken only by the drip of condensation and the hum of suppressed energy.
Then, without warning, the corridor widened into a vast chamber.
Thousands of floating mirror-shards spun silently through the air. Some glowed faintly with illusionary scenes — battles, memories, faces long forgotten.
Luo Qingshen stepped forward. As he did, a hundred mirror shards flickered to life.
He saw versions of himself — a child crying in the rain, a bloodied teen glaring at the heavens, and… a man clad in black divine robes, standing atop a mountain of corpses.
So this is the Mirror Realm. It doesn't just show illusions — it shows what could have been. Or what still might be.
A voice echoed through the chamber.
"You came."
He turned.
The silver-haired girl stood atop a floating platform, her hair flowing like mercury in the reflectionlight. Her expression was unreadable.
"I wasn't sure you would."
"I don't like riddles," he said, stepping closer. "Start explaining. What is this place truly?"
She looked toward one of the glowing shards. In it, a battlefield burned — divine warriors falling to something unseen.
"This was once the testing ground of the First God. Long before systems and sects. Before cultivation even had a name."
Luo Qingshen narrowed his eyes. "Impossible."
"I thought so too. Until I found this."
She held up a fragment of crystal. It pulsed — not with qi, but something older. It sang in his bones.
Void energy.
"I believe this place was part of the Thirteenth Seal," she said. "A fail-safe. Or a prison."
"Then why show me?"
"Because the seal is breaking. And you may be the only one who can either restore it — or destroy what's inside."
A Glimpse Beyond the System
Luo Qingshen stepped forward until he stood beside her. Together, they stared into a dark mirror floating in silence.
No reflection stared back.
Only a vast void. Stars dying. Realities bleeding into one another.
"I've seen this," he whispered. "In my dreams."
She nodded. "Because you were part of it. Before the exile. Before your power was sealed."
His eyes turned sharp. "What do you know about me?"
"Only what the Codex revealed." She handed him a page — a torn fragment written in golden ink.
'The Exiled One shall return clothed in mortality, but even bound, his presence will stir the Depths. The Lotus shall tremble. The Void shall awaken.'
Luo Qingshen's hand trembled slightly. This fragment came from a divine text no longer known to mortals. It shouldn't exist.
"I need answers," he said. "The truth. Not hints."
She stepped closer. "Then follow me deeper. To the Gate of Echoes."
The Gate of Echoes
They passed through a narrow passage carved with ancient sigils. Beyond lay a chamber unlike anything he'd seen — a spherical room where the walls were polished obsidian, reflecting every angle infinitely.
At the center stood a black archway pulsing with threads of starlight and shadow.
"This," she said, "is a remnant of the First Cycle. A true void artifact."
Luo Qingshen approached it. The closer he got, the more unstable the world felt — like his soul was being pulled apart and rearranged.
A voice whispered from within the gate.
"Luo Qingshen... Do you wish to remember?"
He froze.
The silver-haired girl didn't speak. She watched.
"You were not erased. You were sealed. And the seal weakens with every choice you make."
Images flooded his mind.
A divine city floating in the stars.
A spear made of pure absence.
The betrayal of gods.
His knees buckled.
But then, from deep within, something stirred — not rage. Not fear.
Resolve.
He stood.
"I don't need full memories to know what I must do. I will find the truth — and choose my own path."
The gate pulsed once more — then dimmed.
The whisper faded.
And in that silence, something ancient smiled.
Outside the Mirror Depths
Far above, within the inner sect, a masked elder opened his eyes.
"So. The Void stirs."
He turned toward a shadowy figure behind him. "Assemble the Tribunal. The Thirteenth Seal is weakening. And the Exile has begun to awaken."