Morning came quietly.
A thin mist clung to the plateau, curling low around the stone edges of the Nameless Gate. The air was still, the kind of stillness that came just before something sacred was disturbed.
Ryu stood alone before the monolith, the others keeping a respectful distance as he studied the glyphs spiralling outward from its base. The markings responded to his presence, glowing softly as if waking from a long sleep.
He placed his hand over the centre sigil, a pattern of nine stars surrounding a dark flame, identical to the one now burned into his own flesh.
The glyphs reacted instantly.
Light spiralled upward in silver threads, forming a dome of energy over the platform. The air grew heavy with pressure, not hostile, but vast.
Yan stepped forward cautiously. "What's happening?"
Ryu's eyes remained locked on the gate. "It's reading my Qi. Testing me."
Elyra joined them, face tense. "This structure isn't just a door, it's a recorder. It remembers those who've touched the void. You're unlocking its memory."
Kalavan kept his hand near his blade. "And what happens when it remembers something it shouldn't?"
No one answered.
Ryu focused.
He pushed a stream of Qi into the gate, allowing it to sync with his internal flow. The connection pulsed through him like a second heartbeat, not painful, but reverent.
A new ring of glyphs revealed themselves, hovering in the air. They formed a map, not of this world, but of constellations drawn from memory. And at the centre: a symbol none of them recognized.
A door.
One that wasn't closed.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them shuddered.
Not an earthquake, something deeper, like the bones of the world shifting.
The silver dome above rippled, and then a voice echoed from within it. It wasn't a voice in any language they knew, more like sound given shape through thought.
Ryu's eyes widened.
He could understand it.
"You stand at the threshold of the first path."
"This gate was opened once before. Those who passed… did not return."
"To open it again is to invite the gaze of what lies beyond."
Elyra paled. "This is the same energy that destroyed my world's barrier. I know this resonance."
Yan stepped beside Ryu. "We don't want to open it blindly. Let's learn first, then prepare."
Ryu nodded. "Agreed."
But the gate wasn't finished.
A flare of memory surged outward, projecting an illusion into the air above the platform.
They saw them.
Nine figures, each standing at a point around the platform, their Qi signatures immense, far beyond anything in the current age. They bore no flags, no sect markings, only the star-flame sigil. Their stances were proud. United.
And at the centre… was the Void Emperor.
Younger than the statue Ryu remembered. Fierce, radiant, with a cloak like night and a sword of glass and starlight.
He spoke, his words distorted by time, but clear.
"We did this to prevent a war."
"We sealed it to stop the void from devouring the skies."
"we have failed."
And then,
Darkness.
Screaming.
Not sound, but pressure. A pulse of black Qi surged outward from the memory, disrupting the vision.
The projection ended.
Ryu staggered back.
Yan caught him, steadying him with both hands. "What was that?"
"A memory," he said hoarsely. "Of their last attempt."
Kalavan looked around warily. "So... is this gate sealed or not?"
"It's sealed," Ryu replied. "But barely. Whatever's on the other side… is still watching."
Elyra knelt near the glyphs, tracing one slowly. "They didn't close it fully. They couldn't. The emperor left it for someone else to finish."
Ryu looked down at his hand.
The mark pulsed once.
And he knew.
It was his task now.
They stayed at the gate for two more days, recording every glyph, every trace of Qi. Ryu began to form a connection with the structure, not just with the symbols, but with the space around it. His understanding of spatial flow, of gravity and distortion evolved as the days passed.
Yan watched him carefully.
They spoke often in the evenings, away from the others, quiet, close.
Their hands sometimes brushing. Their words no longer guarded.
Kalavan, meanwhile, scouted the surrounding ranges, observing increasing Qi activity, not natural, but directed. Something was moving nearby.
Elyra stood vigil at the edge of the platform, gazing skyward each night, tracking stars no one else could see.
On the morning of the fourth day, Ryu opened his eyes with a quiet certainty.
"We're done here."
Yan raised a brow. "You sure?"
"Yes," he said, looking up at the faint remnants of the energy ring above them. "This gate is closed… for now. But it's not the only one."
Kalavan stepped forward. "You're saying there are more?"
Ryu nodded.
"And they're waking up."
They left the Nameless Gate behind before sunrise, its glyphs once more dim, the air around it settled but waiting.
Elyra led them through a pass along the cliff ridgeline, retracing a path she remembered from years ago. Or perhaps years ahead, Ryu still wasn't sure how her version of time worked.
They were five days' walk from the nearest settlement, a small trade village nestled where old spirit veins once intersected. A place once forgotten by the kingdoms.
They hoped for quiet.
They found silence.
The village of Isen's Hollow stood empty.
No signs of destruction. No signs of resistance. Bowls of food still rested on tables. Lanterns were left half-lit. Doors hung open, undisturbed by weather or scavengers.
Ryu stepped into a house near the centre square. Dust lay thick on the ground.
But no footprints.
No Qi trails.
Nothing.
It was as if every living person had simply stood up… and walked away.
Yan moved through the village slowly, her senses open, Qi hovering faintly around her hands. "There's a trace of something here," she said quietly. "But it's faint. Almost like it was meant to erase itself."
Kalavan crouched by an overturned market stall. He ran his fingers through the air above the stones. "Displacement," he muttered. "This wasn't just a departure. This was relocation through force."
Elyra's voice drifted across the square. "They took them all."
Yan turned sharply. "Who?"
Elyra pointed to the edge of the square, where someone had carved a symbol into the side of the well. A fresh mark.
A spiral of thorns encircling a broken flame.
The Ash Sect.
That night, they made no fire.
They slept in shifts.
And Ryu dreamed.
He stood in a barren sky, suspended in a place that wasn't land or void, just the space between things.
Across from him stood a figure, shrouded in robes of ash and iron, its face veiled by a swirling mask of Qi. It didn't speak.
But Ryu felt it.
Recognition.
The mark on his hand pulsed, and the figure raised its own.
Same symbol.
But inverted.
"Watcher," it said.
"You were not meant to awaken."
Its voice was like stone scraping in a cavern.
Ryu stepped forward. "Who are you?"
"We are the hand that holds the hinge.
The ones who remained when the others turned away.
And we have seen what lies beyond your rift."
Its tone darkened.
"You carry the key. But you do not yet know the cost."
Ryu raised his blade, but the figure simply vanished.
And the void closed around him.
He awoke before dawn, heart pounding.
Yan sat beside him with a concerned look upon her face. "Another vision?"
He nodded. "They know me now."
Elyra stepped forward and held out a scroll, marked with a strange seal, one of star and ash.
"This was left for us," she said. "At the edge of the village."
Yan took it, unrolling it slowly. Her eyes narrowed.
"It's a warning," she said. "Or a challenge."
Ryu glanced at the writing.
It was in the old tongue.
But the message was clear.
"Come find us in the dark or stay blind."