The air within the trial circle thickened as the ancient lunar array activated, lifting Elena into a realm of moonlight and memory. Ethan stood just outside the invisible barrier, fists clenched, watching helplessly as the shimmering glow consumed her.
Inside, Elena found herself in a vast chamber of starlit mist. Illusions of her ancestral home flickered across the space spires of silver, gardens woven from moonpetals, laughter echoing from a past long buried. But then, it all darkened.
The image shifted.
A battlefield replaced the serenity clan members cut down by masked traitors, crimson staining the snow. And there, standing in the center, was the face Elena had never wanted to see again.
Uncle Kael,
she whispered.
The man, cloaked in violet and gold, smirked. His eyes gleamed with hollow power,
You should've remained hidden, little moonling. The stars chose wrong.
Kael had once trained her as a child, taught her sword stances under frostlit waterfalls. But now, the illusion of him radiated a foul power void Qi tangled with celestial energy. A corrupted ascendant, once part of the clan's honor guard.
He raised his hand.
Face me, and prove you're not just a remnant of a broken bloodline.
Twin sabers formed in his hands crescent-shaped and crackling with abyssal lightning.
Elena summoned her storm-forged blade. A swirl of thunder and frost gathered around her as she charged.
Their swords clashed once, twice, then dozens of times in a matter of seconds. Each strike forced echoes of doubt into her mind. You were abandoned. You were forgotten. You're not worthy. But with every heartbeat, Elena pushed back harder.
Outside the circle, Ethan felt the tremors in the air. Her spiritual pressure was rising, twisting between despair and defiance.
Suddenly, a pulse surged beneath the tomb.
Ethan turned sharply as part of the floor behind him cracked, revealing a sealed compartment carved with unfamiliar runes not of the Moon Clan.
A fragment of obsidian metal pulsed within. Cold. Dangerous. Whispering. Ethan hesitated before reaching toward it, but the moment his fingers touched the edge, a searing vision struck him.
A burning battlefield. Cultivators falling from the sky. A rift in the heavens vomiting corrupted spirits. And in the center a throne forged of abyssal bone.
He yanked his hand back, breath shallow.
This isn't part of her legacy, he murmured. This is something else. Something planted here.
Meanwhile, inside the trial circle, Elena unleashed her bloodline's sealed technique Lunar Reversal Art. Her blade spiraled in silver arcs, reflecting Kael's own corrupted attacks back upon him. His illusion began to fray.
You think this ends the curse?
he growled.
No,
She said, voice steady,
But it begins my path to cleanse it.
With a final cry, she drove her sword through the illusion. The image shattered into silver dust.
The trial circle cracked open.
Elena collapsed into Ethan's arms, eyes shimmering not just with exhaustion but with clarity.
I saw it all,
She whispered.
What he did. Why our clan fell. And the seal he tried to break it wasn't just the Abyss. It was a gate to something worse.
Ethan nodded grimly, glancing back toward the corrupted fragment behind him.
I think,
I may have found it.