The Ironwood Sect's walls loomed above him, quiet and aged.
Most disciples returned from Flame Ridge with smiles, wounds, and gossip.
Fang Xi returned with a secret that whispered in his blood.
The mark on his wrist now dimmed during the day… but grew warm at night. As if something watched through it.
He said nothing. But he began searching.
The Forbidden Hall
Ironwood's archives were split into three levels:
Open scrolls – general sect history, techniques, and herb lore
Permission-based tomes – available to Inner Disciples with merit
The Sealed Vault – off-limits to all but Elders and legacy members
Fang Xi did not ask permission.
He waited three days.
Then, just before midnight, he slipped past the Spirit Warding Formation using a fractured amulet he'd stolen years ago — a relic from his past life, barely holding power.
Inside, the air was dry and heavy with silence.
He searched by candlelight. Carefully. Efficiently.
Then he found it:
"Remnants of the Echo Cult – Volume IV"
The Lost Sect
The Echo Cult had once existed four hundred years ago, hidden in the hollowed peaks east of the Cloud Domain.
Its members believed memory was the purest form of power.
They engraved runes on their bodies to store emotion, battle rhythm, and spiritual echoes of death.
"We are not the future. We are the past refined."
The book said little about their destruction.
Only that they had grown too deep. That their techniques fed on trauma, and many members eventually lost their minds or disappeared entirely.
The last surviving elder, Yun Zhao, had vanished during the war against the Grand Sun Pavilion.
But one phrase was burned into the final page:
"The Mark will return when memory is reborn."
Fang Xi closed the book slowly.
So I am not the first.
But I may be the last.
The Invitation
That night, a letter appeared on his table.
It had not been delivered.
No footsteps had disturbed his room.
The seal bore a symbol: an open eye, ringed with glyphs, identical to his mark.
Inside:
"If you seek the truth of yourself, come to the Singing Caves beneath the mountain during the Hollow Moon."
No signature. No threat.
But the rune on his wrist pulsed warmly as he read it.
As if in recognition.
So the Echo Cult is not dead. Or something survived it.
Fang Xi folded the note and burned it in a slow flame.
He said nothing.
But his path had just deepened.