The old door groaned open.

  It wasn’t loud, but it was the kind of sound that dug under your skin—like bones grinding together after too long buried. Ramon stepped through the threshold with quiet steps, his new spear held low but ready. The polished black shaft caught a glint of dim light before it vanished behind him.

  And then—

  darkness swallowed him whole.

  Not the pitch-black of true void, but something stranger. Dim and faded, like the afterimage of light long gone. It pressed around him with a weight that wasn’t physical, more like a memory of pain lingering in the walls.

  Then came the light.

  Not bright. Not warm.

  It bled across the horizon in pale streaks, barely illuminating the world that unfolded in front of him. The trees stretched tall and skeletal, their trunks blackened and charred like they’d been through hell. Their limbs twisted into the sky like clawed hands, frozen mid-scream.

  Ash drifted down in slow spirals. It stuck to his boots, clung to the edges of his sleeves, and painted the dead earth in soft gray.

  Ramon let out a slow breath and watched it mist in front of him.

  No sound.

  No birds. No insects. No wind. Just silence so complete it rang in his ears.

  “This place…” he whispered, more to himself than anything else. “It’s not dead. It’s remembering.”

  The air wasn’t thick with spiritual energy, not in the way sect disciples described. But there was something else here. Something older. Something deeper.

  He walked carefully, the ash crunching softly beneath his steps. Each movement felt deliberate, like walking through someone else’s memory. Every now and then, he passed strange remnants: a rusted lantern hanging from a cracked tree limb, melted iron fused into the dirt, a broken talisman half-buried in soot. The kinds of things people left behind in a hurry.

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  Ramon knelt beside one of them—a narrow shard of black jade wrapped in scorched silk. A token. Maybe from a disciple. Maybe from someone else.

  He picked it up, thumbed its edges, then placed it back gently. Whatever this place had been, it had seen fire. Not just flame, but anger. Rage, maybe. War.

  He moved on, letting the spear’s shaft guide him like a walking stick.

  Time passed strangely in the black castle realm. Maybe minutes. Maybe hours. The deeper he went, the heavier the air became. Not from pressure, but from weightless dread—like walking into the middle of a funeral that never ended.

  Then he saw it.

  Beyond a scorched oak tree that had split clean down the center—like it had been struck by something too fast to see—there was a clearing.

  Flat. Open. Too clean.

  The ash thinned out there, revealing the dirt beneath—hard, cracked, dry. At the center stood a small wooden hut, squat and sunken slightly to one side, its dark walls aged to near black. The roof sagged inward, like it was breathing shallowly. Its door hung slightly ajar, caught mid-swing by a breeze that didn’t exist.

  Ramon stopped at the edge of the clearing.

  Every part of him screamed caution. His grip on the spear tightened, knuckles pale under the strain.

  He circled the edge first—measured, cautious steps. Eyes scanning every corner of the hut, every shadow. No footprints. No movement. But he didn’t need to see it to know.

  Something was inside.

  He stepped forward.

  The clearing seemed to hold its breath as he crossed it. The door, old and warped, gave an eerie little creak as he nudged it open.

  Inside: silence.

  Dust hung in the air, visible in the cold shafts of light filtering through the warped boards. No furniture. No decoration. Just a single low cot pushed against the back wall, brittle and moth-eaten, and a rough wooden table placed squarely in the center of the room.

  And on that table…

  a scroll.

  Ramon didn’t move at first. He just stared.

  The scroll wasn’t ancient, but it wasn’t new either. The parchment had yellowed slightly, the edges curled like they’d tasted fire once and backed away. No seals. No glowing sigils. Just a scroll, sitting exactly where it had always meant to be.

  He stepped into the hut.

  Each footstep creaked on the floorboards, dry and brittle. He took his time. Checked each corner again. Waited. Watched.

  Nothing moved.

  Still holding the spear, he leaned in closer and unfurled the scroll with careful fingers.

  The ink caught the light strangely. Not black. Not quite red. The script curved and looped in strange, flowing lines that pulsed faintly when he stared too long. It didn’t shimmer like a formation. It didn’t glow like a cultivation technique. It just… breathed.

  Ramon’s brow furrowed. “What language is this…?”

  It wasn’t anything from the sect primers or manuals he’d studied. Not ancient common. Not celestial shorthand. It was something else. Something alien.

  But he felt it.

  Not the understanding, but the pull. A resonance, buried deep in his chest—just behind the sternum, where the soul lived. He didn’t know what the scroll said, but it was meant for him.

  That was enough.

  He rolled it back up and tucked it gently into his satchel, fingers lingering on it for a beat longer than they should’ve.

  And then he turned to leave.

  His hand was just brushing the doorframe when—

  CRACK.

  Pain exploded across the side of his jaw like lightning.

  The world spun.

  He hit the ground hard, the air knocked from his lungs. His satchel skidded across the clearing. The spear clattered into the ash behind him.

  Ramon lay there, dazed, cheek burning. His ears rang. The copper taste of blood pooled beneath his tongue.

  He blinked up, vision swimming—

  —and saw the silhouette.

  Tall. Still. Standing just outside the hut’s door. Watching.

  Ramon’s breath caught in his throat.

  What—who—?

  The burnt silence answered with nothing at all.