[ Third Person ]
The high-altitude fog thickened with unnatural velocity as the vanguard pushed further across the vast, undulating plain. The sharp, crisp scent of wild mountain grass saturated the freezing air; high above, the full moon was fast approaching its absolute peak, casting a pale, silver sheen over the landscape as the temperature plummeted toward a bitter frost.
At the front of the line, the tiny brass needle of the scholar's crow-tit compass swung sharply to the west, vibrating violently as it mapped the shifting currents of the wind.
"This is the final barrier," Lady Suan Ming announced, her smooth voice cutting through the whistling wind. "Once we breach this threshold, we shall officially step into the perimeter of the Night Pavilion."
With trembling, pale fingers, the blind seer drew her golden hairpin from her bound hair. Moving with practiced, rhythmic grace, she struck the solid air, using the tip of the pin to carve intricate, glowing red runes directly into the empty space. The crimson encryptions flared to life with blinding intensity, and with a resounding hum, a narrow, rippling fissure parted in the middle of the invisible wall. Behind the tear lay a completely different, silent plain field—so close that one could practically reach out and touch the looming shadow of the pavilion.
Lady Suan Ming immediately stepped through the threshold, planting her feet and raising her bleeding wrist to anchor the volatile runes open from the inside.
Prince Tae Hua and Eun Jo surged forward first, their boots easily crossing the invisible line. But as Princess Xiao'er moved to follow their lead, the ground beneath her silk boots gave way. The slick mud caused her footing to violently slip, sending her tumbling directly toward the bottom of the closing rift as the magical energy began to constrict like a snapping jaw.
The remaining candidates erupted into a collective panic.
"No!" a chorus of voices shouted, everyone frantically lunging forward to halt the collapse.
The Princess screamed, her hands clawing at the empty air as she began to fall backward into the closing void. Reacting on pure academic instinct, Bai Ku Ji's hand shot forward like lightning, his fingers clamping tightly around her wrist in the nick of time, arresting her descent.
Still anchoring the heavy, vibrating runes, Lady Suan Ming strained against the pressure, her blind, veiled face twisting as she rapidly analyzed the anomaly. "Something is rejecting her presence. Prince Tae Hua! Eun Jo! What is the common semblance of your births?"
Tae Hua creased his brow, his dark eyes wondering as he called out over the roar of the magical pressure. "We were born within the exact same month of the year!"
"Which month?!" the seer pressed, her teeth gritting from the strain.
"The twelfth month of the year!"
A knowing, enigmatic smile suddenly touched Lady Suan Ming's pale lips. The hidden figures of the barrier's ancient puzzle had instantly connected within her mind. "The matrix is attuned to the turning of the cosmic wheel! Anyone born within the last quarter of the year, step forward immediately!"
The candidates exchanged a look of deep confusion, their brows furrowing.
"I was brought into the world during the tenth month," Lady Suan Ming explained, her voice strained as the runes began to fracture. "And the two of them were born in the final month. If we look at the celestial geometry, Princess Xiao'er is being actively repelled because her natal star belongs to the first quarter of the year! The barrier will not accept her spirit!"
Eun Jo nodded his head in immediate, urgent agreement, his eyes tracking the collapsing edges of the rift. "Anyone else who fits the alignment? Jump, now!"
Before the barrier could completely seal itself from the other side, Master Dan Pu Chi aggressively thrust his heavy iron staff directly into the center of the opening, using his raw martial arts strength to wedge the magical jaws apart. The structural pressure was immense, the iron vibrating violently beneath his palms.
Weicheng was violently pushed forward toward the front of the line as the rest of the capital candidates instinctively backed away from the dangerous, sparks-spitting hole. The sheer force of Master Dan's intervention caused the barrier to briefly shudder and open up one final time.
"Jump!" Master Dan roared, his veins bulging against his neck.
Weicheng didn't hesitate. She threw her weight forward and leaped through the narrowing gap at the exact, microscopic second the rift snapped shut, cutting off the outside world completely.
"We shall maintain our perimeter and wait for your return on this side!" Master Dan's muffled voice echoed through the solid wall of space just before the magical resonance fell completely silent.
Weicheng dropped heavily to the frozen ground, the wind knocked from her lungs. Before she could steady herself, Eun Jo was already beside her, his hands extending to assist her to her feet.
Suddenly, a sharp, ragged scream of absolute agony cut through the quiet. On the other side of the clearing, Lady Suan Ming collapsed to her knees, her body convulsing as the anchor runes shattered into dust.
The three of them hurriedly rushed to her side. Weicheng knelt in the dirt, her fingers flying to Lady Suan Ming's forearm. She aggressively folded back the damp, red silk sleeve, and a collective dread settled over the group.
The second fire flower petal had officially materialized on her wrist, glowing with a fierce, burning crimson light.
The ancient curse was actively searing into her skin, the supernatural heat causing blisters to rise across her flesh. "Ahhhh!" the seer cried out, her head bowing toward the earth.
Acting without a moment of delay, Weicheng reached into her uniform, retrieving the numbing medicinal pill that Princess Xiao'er had provided earlier. She pressed the capsule directly against Lady Suan Ming's pale lips, forcing her to swallow it down.
"The fourth flower petal will definitively kill her," Eun Jo noted, his jaw tightening as he stared down at the terrifying progress of the curse. "I can scarcely believe we have already consumed an entire hour of our limit just to breach the outer fields."
The mathematics of the soul contract were brutal and absolute: each completed petal marked the passage of thirty minutes. Once the fourth and final leaf turned red, the supernatural flame would fully consume her physical body from the inside out, sealing her soul into the architecture of the Pavilion forever.
With the remaining members of the vanguard securely locked on the opposite side of the barrier, the four remaining travelers had no choice but to push forward. They moved in absolute, focused silence across the plain until the heavy gray clouds above suddenly cleared, exposing the towering, magnificent peak of their destination.
[ Tae Hua's POV ]
"It is... indeed majestic and powerful," I muttered between my ragged breaths.
I stood entirely in awe, my eyes wide as I followed their lead from behind. The tall grass field we had just traversed was completely worth ignoring when compared to the sheer, reality-defying gravity of the gigantic Night Pavilion. The structure was colossal, its multi-tiered pagoda roofs covered in thousands of softly glowing paper lanterns that stretched so high into the upper atmosphere they seemed to touch the absolute stars.
"The absolute top of the spire is where Lord Dame traditionally manifests his presence," Lady Suan Ming murmured, her blind eyes tilting toward the sky even as she continued to shiver from the searing pain in her wrist. "We have precisely an hour left. We must hurry inside."
We all nodded in silent, grim agreement. As we began our approach toward the grand entrance, I noticed Weicheng quietly accelerating her pace, poking Eun Jo's shoulder from behind to draw his attention.
"Eun Jo," she whispered, her voice low as she gestured toward the massive walls. "Why exactly must we venture into such a dangerous structure if we are merely searching for a singular person?"
"Lord Dame once prophesied that a secondary, history-altering omen would manifest specifically for Tae Hua—" Eun Jo started to explain, but he abruptly cut himself off, his gaze shifting back toward me with a sudden, cautious hesitation.
"Should there be the..." Weicheng began, trying to prompt him to finish.
Deciding I had no desire to hide behind imperial secrets any longer, I stepped alongside them and finished the sentence myself. "If a phoenix will rise from the ashes after years of deep sleeping," I said flatly, my eyes locking onto theirs.
Both Weicheng and Eun Jo stopped, gazing at me with a profound, unreadable intensity.
Yes, every thread of this campaign was inextricably connected to my own bloodline. The Empress had been remarkably quick to engineer this expedition, utilizing every resource of the throne to guide us here. She wanted to ensure that whatever cosmic destiny awaited me could be secured—a divine intervention to protect my life and mend the deep political rot fracturing the Arghon Empire.
"The second prophecy?" Weicheng asked, her brow furrowing as she tried to calculate the gravity of my words.
Before either of us could utter another syllable, the massive, iron-reinforced mahogany doors of the pavilion suddenly burst open with a deafening crash.
A hollow, dusty lobby welcomed our arrival. We collectively took a cautious step forward, our boots echoing against the pristine floorboards, but the moment our heels completely cleared the threshold, the massive doors slammed shut behind us with a violent, concussive boom. The interior erupted into light as hundreds of oil lanterns hanging from the ceilings ignited simultaneously, illuminating a breathtaking expanse of high-caliber wood and soaring, shadowed ceilings.
"Every independent level of the Night Pavilion comes equipped with a lethal task," Lady Suan Ming warned, her voice echoing through the vast lobby. "We must conquer each floor with absolute velocity, or we shall never be permitted to return to the living world."
If the ancient records I had meticulously memorized within the imperial archives were correct, the Book of the Full Moon explicitly detailed the terrors of this threshold. The first level of the Night Pavilion was traditionally known as the Trial of the Piercing Steel.
Suddenly, my ears twitched. A sharp, incredibly faint metallic whistling sound resonated from the shadows of the high pillars.
"Daggers!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.
My warning instantly triggered absolute havoc. From hidden slats within the walls and ceilings, a massive, overwhelming deluge of gleaming iron daggers erupted from each side of the room, raining down upon our coordinates like a iron storm.
"Do not let the steel scratch your flesh!" I commanded, drawing my jade-accented sword in a blur of green light. "The blades are saturated with an airborne poison designed to induce severe hallucinations upon contact!"
Eun Jo moved with flawless military precision, his dual blades clinking furiously through the dark as he deflected a dozen incoming daggers from his left flank. Beside him, Weicheng didn't even bother to draw a blade; she fluidly unslung her heavy bow, using the reinforced wooden limbs of the weapon as a shield to bat away the incoming projectiles while executing quick, tactical sidesteps.
The CLANG and CLINK of steel echoed deafeningly through the lobby. I kept my eyes moving, noticing Lady Suan Ming had retreated toward a massive pillar, her fingers frantically tracing protective runes into the wood to shield her form.
"Encircle her!" I roared to the other two.
Leaving Eun Jo and Weicheng to form an ironclad defensive perimeter around the seer, I channeled my inner focus and surged forward into pure, aggressive offense. My jade sword became a spinning shield of light as I raced directly toward the source of the trap, ruthlessly slashing and shattering the hidden wooden mechanisms concealed inside the pillars.
Just as my patience was about to completely evaporate, the remaining daggers in the air suddenly froze, suspending perfectly in mid-air for a single heartbeat before dropping harmlessly to the wooden floorboards with a massive clatter.
Silence returned to the lobby.
Lady Suan Ming let out a long, ragged sigh, her shoulders slumping against the pillar. "That was... remarkably intense."