The egg had not pulsed in hours. It simply sat beneath the stone cradle, silent and unmoving, as if it had fallen back into slumber. But as Lin Feng approached again — not to touch, but to listen — the air shifted.
> "Do you feel that?" Han Yu asked.
Lin Feng nodded. A vibration, deep and slow, barely perceptible — not through the ground, but through the blood.
Then the sound came....> A breath long, hollow and ancient. The egg exhaled like it remembered death.
---
Lin Feng stepped back instinctively — but it wasn't fear. It was recognition because the sound the egg made…Was the same as the battlefield memory....> The scream before the sky tore, and it didn't stop there.
From the egg came words — not in voice, but through the soul....> "Not yet whole. Not yet safe, you broke me… to protect me.
Now they come to claim what they buried."
Han Yu felt it too. His eyes darkened...> "They'll come soon," he said quietly. "Whoever left that egg here… they're watching for movement, and they'll know it stirred."
---
As they moved to leave the cradle chamber, the walls around them trembled. The mist flooded back. And from it — came a beast, but this one was not like the others.
It had no face, no body, it was mist itself. Shaped like a massive wolf with countless eyes blinking in and out across its shifting form. A trial guardian.
One designed to mark the one who woke the egg.
> "Run?" Han Yu offered.
> "We're already marked," Lin Feng muttered, stepping forward.
The beast struck first.
---
Every blow it landed didn't wound, It erased — as if its claws devoured memory itself.
Lin Feng blocked one swipe — but part of his sleeve vanished, not torn, simply removed from time. Han Yu attacked with starfire sigils — but they passed through the beast like illusions.
> "This thing's not meant to fight…" Han Yu realized. "It's meant to choose." And then it lunged straight at Lin Feng. He didn't dodge, letting it strike his chest. And in that moment—he remembered everything the beast had taken from others.
Whispers. Screams. Promises.
And something older: > "When the seal breaks, the Remnant will walk again." Then—> The beast stopped. Bowed.
And vanished into a pulse of stillness.
---
A faint hum echoed through the vale.
The boundary that had sealed them flickered… and the exit shimmered back into existence.
> "We're free," Han Yu said, blinking.
> "No," Lin Feng replied quietly. "We're exposed."
---
Far Above, the lders stared into reflecting pools and divining flames. They saw the egg shift. They saw the mist beast kneel. And for the first time in centuries…> "A fragment of the Forbidden Lineage just resonated," one whispered.
The Seventh Elder stood silently....> "Begin sealing the outer records. No one is to speak of this trial again."
> "And Lin Feng?"
He didn't answer, because he knew it was already too late.
---