CHAPTER 37 — The Threshold of Judgment
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The stone beneath their boots changed.
It was no longer the uneven shale of the canyon floor. It was seamless, a single expanse of obsidian-dark rock that didn't just feel solid—it felt intentional.
As the group moved deeper into the throat of the tunnel, the temperature didn't drop; it flattened. There was no wind, no moisture, and no echo. Even the sound of their footsteps seemed to be swallowed by the walls before it could travel a foot.
Serik's amber light-pendant began to flicker, its glow shrinking until it barely illuminated their knees.
"The formation is being suppressed," Serik whispered, his voice tight. "Not by a counter-seal... it's just being starved. Whatever is in here is eating the light."
"Stay close," Kael commanded. His hand was on his sword, but the flame-qi he usually kept at the surface had vanished. He looked less like a leader and more like a man walking through a lion's den while the predator slept.
They reached the end of the tunnel and stopped.
Before them stood a gate.
It was not made of wood or metal. It was a vertical slab of white stone that looked like it had been poured into the canyon wall. There were no runes, no carvings, and no handles. But as Ren looked at it, he felt a sensation that made his skin crawl.
It wasn't the pressure of a Sovereign.
When the Tribunal Master had appeared in the Auction Hall, his presence had been like a mountain—immense, heavy, and undeniable.
This gate felt like the Sky. It wasn't pressing down; it was simply so vast that the very concept of "strength" felt like an insult.
"I've stood in the presence of the Sect Leader," Rovan murmured, his face ashen. "I've felt the weight of a Sovereign's intent. This... this is different. This is older."
Kael stepped forward and reached out a hand, but he stopped six inches from the stone.
A hum resonated through the floor. It wasn't a sound; it was a vibration that traveled through their bones.
Suddenly, a thin line of violet light traced itself across the center of the white stone. It didn't open. Instead, a voice—or the memory of one—vibrated directly into their minds.
[Weight Measured.]
Kael gasped, his knees buckling. He wasn't being hit, but his "weight"—his cultivation, his history, his very essence—was being scrutinized by something that saw him as a mere number.
One by one, the others were scanned.
Kane and Serik stumbled back, sweat pouring down their faces as if they were holding up the world. Rovan growled, his hand white-knuckled on his hilt, resisting the urge to draw steel against an invisible judge.
Then, the invisible gaze settled on Ren.
Ren didn't resist. He stood in the Initial Inner Realm stillness he had cultivated in the basin. He kept his breath steady, his mind a quiet pool. He didn't offer his strength; he offered his solidity.
The violet light lingered on him longer than the others. It didn't feel like a scan. It felt like a question.
[Path: Correct.]
The white slab didn't slide open. It dissolved.
The stone turned into a fine mist of white particles that drifted to the floor, revealing a hall of such architectural impossibility that Kane let out a low, breathless whistle.
The pillars were made of liquid-looking silver that flowed upward toward a ceiling lost in shadow. There were no lamps, yet the room was filled with a soft, sourceless radiance.
"Why didn't the Sovereign find this?" Kane whispered, his voice trembling. "It's only twenty miles from his gates. He would have felt this resonance."
Kael looked at the entrance they had just passed. "He couldn't feel it because it didn't exist for him. This place doesn't just hide behind stone... it hides behind Standard."
Kael looked at Ren, his eyes filled with a new, sharp realization.
"The Sovereign is a master of this world's rules," Kael said quietly. "But whoever built this... they were the ones who wrote them. If the temple didn't find the Sovereign 'correct,' he could have stood right in front of this wall for a thousand years and seen nothing but a dead end."
"We weren't supposed to find this," Serik whispered, looking at the silver pillars.
"No," Ren said, stepping over the threshold. The fox followed him, its shadowy fur standing on end, eyes wide and alert. "We were permitted."
As the last of them stepped inside, the white mist behind them swirled and solidified.
The gate was closed.
They were no longer in the Sunless Canyons. They were in a place where the world's power meant nothing, and where the only currency was the "Weight" they carried within.
CHAPTER 39 — The Silver Archive
The hall stretched on for what felt like miles, the liquid silver pillars pulsing with a slow, rhythmic light that mimicked a heartbeat.
"Don't touch the walls," Kael warned, his voice echoing in a way that sounded like multiple people speaking at once. "We don't know what the 'Weight' limit is for physical contact."
Ren walked in silence. He noticed that the deeper they went, the more the silver pillars changed. They began to sprout intricate carvings—not of dragons or beasts, but of Movements.
He saw a figure carved into the silver, caught in the middle of a strike. The lines were so precise that Ren felt his own meridians twitch in sympathy.
This isn't a temple, Ren thought. It's a record.
"Look at this," Rovan called out, pointing to a pedestal made of the same white stone as the gate.
On the pedestal lay a single, dried leaf. It looked like it could crumble at a touch, but it radiated a pressure that forced them to stay three feet away.
"A leaf from a World-Tree?" Serik guessed, his eyes wide. "If we could take even a fragment of that back to the Pavilion..."
"We take nothing," Kael snapped. "Did you not hear the gate? We are here because we are 'Correct.' Thieves are never correct."
Kael turned to Ren. "You were the one the gate questioned the longest. Do you feel anything? A direction?"
Ren looked around. He didn't feel a "pull" like the mysterious crystal. Instead, he felt a sense of equilibrium. In this hall, the heavy, dense nature of his Second Path cultivation felt perfectly at home.
"The hall is narrowing," Ren noted.
Indeed, the liquid pillars were clustering together, forming a corridor that led toward a massive, circular chamber at the far end. In the center of that chamber stood a single figure.
It was a statue.
It depicted a man sitting cross-legged, his hands resting on his knees. He wasn't wearing armor or robes; he was wrapped in what looked like simple, coarse bandages. His face was a blank slate—no eyes, no mouth, no features.
But beneath the statue's feet, engraved in a language that none of them knew, yet all of them understood, was a single line:
[TO RULE THE HEAVENS, ONE MUST FIRST LEARN TO STAND ON THE EARTH.]
The fox suddenly stepped forward, letting out a low, guttural growl toward the statue.
At the same time, the silver pillars throughout the entire archive turned a deep, angry red.
"The weight is shifting!" Kane yelled, his spear snapping in his hands from the sudden increase in gravity.
Kael slammed his sword into the ground to keep from falling. "Something is wrong! The 'Correct' status... it's being revoked!"
Ren looked at the featureless statue.
He didn't feel the gravity. While the others were being crushed toward the floor, Ren felt lighter than he ever had.
He realized then: The statue wasn't a judge. It was a Mirror.
The "Weight" was being applied based on how much the person was resisting the earth. Kael, Kane, and the others were trying to use their qi to push back against the gravity—and the room was answering by doubling the pressure.
"Stop!" Ren shouted over the roar of shifting stone. "Don't fight it! Drop your qi! Let the ground take you!"
Kael looked at Ren, his face purple from the strain. "If I drop my qi... I'll be crushed!"
"You'll be crushed if you don't!" Ren replied, his voice echoing with a strange authority.
To prove it, Ren sat down. He completely retracted his Inner Realm circulation. He became nothing but a vessel of flesh and bone.
The gravity around him vanished instantly.
Kael saw it. He gritted his teeth and took the ultimate gamble. He suppressed his flame-qi.
He slumped to the floor, gasping. The pressure on him evaporated. One by one, the others followed suit, until the group lay panting and qi-less on the cold stone.
The red light in the pillars faded back to silver.
The featureless statue's head tilted—just a fraction of an inch—toward Ren.
[Trial of the Humble: Passed.]
A small compartment in the base of the statue clicked open.
Inside was no legendary weapon. No Sovereign-grade pill.
It was a small, lead-weighted wooden cube.
Kael looked at the cube, then at the featureless god-statue, then at Ren.
"Thirty-five thousand mid-grade stones for a crystal," Kael wheezed, wiping sweat from his brow. "And we almost died in a forbidden ruin for a block of wood. This world is a cruel joke."
Ren picked up the cube. It was heavier than it looked.
"It's not wood," Ren said, feeling the vibration within the cube. "It's a Key."
But he didn't say what it was a key to.
High above, the liquid silver pillars began to flow faster. The exit wasn't opening—the temple was preparing to move again.
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Chapter End