The searing sun bore down on the glass-smooth dunes, casting blinding light across the desert as if the sky itself were aflame. Every grain of sand shimmered, not golden, but white-hot, glowing with the reflection of a cloudless, merciless sun.
There was no wind. No shade. No sound.
Only heat.
Ryu, Yan, and Lira trudged across the endless dunes, each breath shallower than the last. The horizon shimmered with false hope, mirages dancing at the edge of visibility, mocking their progress.
Eventually, they reached the largest rock formation they had seen since stepping into the pocket world. A jagged, rust-coloured chunk of sandstone that rose half-buried from the sand, its western edge casting a sliver of angled shadow.
Ryu summoned a blade from his pocket space, its metal glinting unnaturally under the harsh light. With practiced ease, he carved a wide groove into the rock's side, hollowing out a shallow recess.
"Get inside," he said simply.
The three of them climbed into the cove. The difference was immediate, shade wrapped around them like a blessing.
Lira knelt in the sand and closed her eyes. Her fingers pulsed with faint blue light, her Qi flowing outward. Slowly, the sand beneath them darkened, moisture condensing and forming a small pool that sank just enough to cool their feet.
Steam hissed softly as hot met cold.
Lira wiped a line of sweat from her temple. "We need to get to that valley. We've been walking over an hour and the heat's only getting worse."
Yan nodded; lips dry. "We can't stay out here. If it weren't for you, we'd be half-dead already. Since when can you control water this precisely?"
Lira hesitated, her hand twitching as she continued transforming Qi to water.
A memory flickered, the Queen, Liryetta, calm and regal, shaping ocean tides with a gesture, drawing rivers from frozen air. It hadn't been her memory, not truly, but it felt like hers. A whisper inherited in silence, and the memory of Liryetta with the Void Emperor.
Her cheeks flushed slightly.
Yan raised an eyebrow. "You look red. You sure you're not overheating? Might want to douse your head too."
"I'm fine," Lira muttered, splashing a handful of water against her face anyway.
The truth was stranger than she could admit aloud. She remembered how to shape Qi in water, not from training, but from fragments of a life not entirely hers. Liryetta had been a master of several Daos: water, ice, space, even fire in its rawest form. But those techniques were too deep, too refined, Lira could only mimic the surface.
Once cooled, they stood together again.
"Move fast," Ryu said. "We stay too long, we bake. We move fast; we make it to the cliffs."
Yan nodded. "Swift and silent."
They descended into the shallow valley, the land shifting from dunes to cracked sediment. Strange rock formations curled upward in thorn-like patterns, as though some ancient beast had once clawed through the earth. A hot wind began to rise but carried no scent. No insects buzzed. No vultures circled. It was a dead place.
Halfway through, they found them.
Two bodies, already stiff. One wore the robes of the Kaar Council, trimmed in gold, marked with their sigil. The other was a mystery, light armour, unfamiliar crest, belt torn and blade snapped at the hilt.
Ryu knelt beside them, inspecting the wounds. "Crystallized veins," he murmured. "They were drained. Qi ripped from the body, burned from the inside out."
Yan glanced at the horizon. "These are the ones they said never came back."
Lira's voice was quiet. "They didn't just die."
Ryu stood, brushing grit from his palm. "This place is lethal. I can't believe lower-ranked cultivators are even trying to come here. For them, it's suicide."
They didn't linger.
After another stretch of running, they realized something was wrong.
The valley wasn't getting closer.
It was there, visible, solid, cast in the same angle of light, but every step forward only changed the terrain beneath their feet, not the distance.
Yan scowled. "It hasn't moved."
"We've covered at least a kilometre," Ryu said, narrowing his eyes. "We should be closer. But it's like…"
"A mirage," Lira finished. "Is it an illusion?"
Ryu clenched his fists, star-mark flickering, thoughts came to him.
"This entire section of the desert… it's not just terrain. It's a maze. A spatial trap."
They pushed forward through the endless sands, each step grinding beneath the heat. But as Yan and Lira surged ahead, Ryu stopped.
His brow furrowed.
Something felt wrong.
The air...
He reached inward, drawing on his Qi. A large pulse spread outward through the sand like a wave of pressure. The sky shimmered. The dunes around them seemed to tilt, and then realigned, cracking like old glass.
The space around them rippled, the illusion peeling back.
Yan stumbled forward, suddenly thrown off balance as the ground realigned beneath her.
"Oof!" She face-planted into the sand, coughing and spitting grit.
Lira followed half a step later, tripping over a shifting ridge and falling beside her in a cloud of dust.
"What… was that?" Yan asked, brushing sand from her eyes. She sat up with a grimace, coated from neck to boot.
Behind her, Ryu tried, really tried, not to laugh.
"Sorry," he said between breaths, chuckling. "You walked straight into a defensive array. It wasn't obvious, but it was powerful enough to bend space subtly. We were being redirected with every step, never actually getting closer to the cliffs."
Yan shot him a look; cheeks pink with both sun and embarrassment. "You could've warned us."
"I just figured it out," he said, hands raised in mock defence.
Lira muttered something about "poor timing" as she wiped her arms down with a thread of Qi.
"I didn't expect an array this subtle. Whoever set this… they were good. And strong." Ryu's tone shifted, more serious now. "If I hadn't noticed, we could've spent hours, days, wandering in circles. Next time… I might not be able to break it."
Yan stood, brushing off the last of the sand. "Next time, let's not trip into it face-first."
Ryu gave her a grin. "Deal. Now let's move, before it decides to rebuild."
They sprinted across the now-straightened ground, sharp and swift, cutting a path to the mouth of the valley before the array had a chance to reassert itself.
As they entered the narrowing ravine, a sudden gust of wind rushed into their faces, cool, dry, but refreshing after hours beneath the furnace-like sun.
They slowed to a walk, catching their breath.
The cliffs on either side rose quickly, first ten meters, then thirty, then towering far above their heads. The stone here was cracked and layered with time, the colour shifting from soft red to golden yellow. The deeper they walked, the more signs of structure appeared, hollowed rock, arched indentations, and cavern mouths high along the cliff walls.
Ryu stopped briefly near one.
"It might be worth checking these," he said.
Yan gave a quick shake of her head. "Not now. We don't split up in a place like this."
"She's right," Lira added. "Too many unknowns. The array back there wasn't meant to scare us off. It was meant to test us. There'll be more."
Reluctantly, Ryu nodded. "Alright. We stay on path."
And then they saw it.
The valley widened into a circular basin, stretching miles in every direction. A low murmur of wind passed through, kicking up dust and dry leaves that spiralled briefly before vanishing again.
At the far end, nearly hidden against the backdrop of time-smoothed stone, was a maze, massive, complex, and silent. Its walls were tall, worn by centuries, and marked with faded symbols. At its centre, rising just beyond, stood a golden-yellow palace.
It wasn't pristine. The stone was chipped, the metal tarnished, and dust clung to the curved arches like an old memory. But it stood. And it beckoned.
Ryu narrowed his eyes.
"The palace…"
"It's real," Yan whispered.
"For most, that maze would take days," Lira said. "Weeks even and they'd still fail."
"Then we're lucky, we're not most."
Without another word, the three of them summoned Qi beneath their feet. Wind spiralled, flame flickered, space folded. In a blur of motion, they rose upward, each one landing atop the maze's high stone walls with the silence of seasoned cultivators.
From this height, the maze spread beneath them like a living map, intricate, shifting in some places, with inner paths that pulsed faintly with Qi.
No traps triggered. No warnings flared.
They began walking along the top of the wall, toward the heart of the forgotten kingdom.
They continued along the top of the maze wall, the golden palace growing ever closer.
That's when they heard it, a crackling pulse, followed by shouts echoing across the sandstone labyrinth.
Ryu halted. Yan was already moving, vanishing into motion with a burst of Qi.
"I'll check it out," she called back, her figure leaping between corners and ledges.
She moved quickly, darting along the curved edge of the maze, keeping high above the paths, and after about a mile's distance, she saw them.
Four cultivators, trapped within a barrier. They were deep within the maze, sealed in a glowing dome of transparent light. Cracks shimmered where the array had reacted to their movement. Yan narrowed her eyes. Defensive in nature. Designed to hold and strip Qi away from intruders.
One of the trapped cultivators saw her and dropped to his knees, voice hoarse.
"Please, senior! please, get us out! I'll give you anything, everything I have! Just help us!"
By then, Ryu and Lira had caught up. They looked down into the barrier, its surface pulsed with steady waves of cultivated energy, resisting tampering.
Yan turned her head toward Ryu. "So… what do you think?"
He studied the array.
"It's defence based. Someone didn't want uninvited guests walking into the palace. I'm not sure if its fatal… but it's certainly dangerous."
Lira added, "It's set to drain Qi over time. They would die if they stayed."
"Well then," Ryu said, tightening his grip on his sword. "Let's test its limits."
Yan smiled. "Thought you'd never ask."
She turned toward the cultivators below. "Cover your faces. Defend yourselves."
They responded instantly, flaring their Qi and activating minor protective artifacts, anything they had left.
Ryu focused. Yan raised her sword, her flame surging upward.
Her phoenix-fire ignited, spiralled, and then compressed into a tight vortex of heat. The blue flame deepened, its tip shimmering with a translucent orange, the mark of true sky fire.
She struck.
At the same instant, Ryu slashed, his Qi activated, his blade tearing through the air. The space itself distorted, and a ripple of sheer pressure tore outward with his strike.
The two attacks struck the array within a fraction of a second.
The dome cracked, once, twice,
Then shattered.
Ryu didn't wait. He extended his hand, channelled the space Dao, and tore at the fracture points. The energy snapped. The array collapsed into light, vanishing.
The four cultivators collapsed to their knees in relief.
A moment passed before one of them stood, the one who had yelled.
He stepped forward and bowed deeply, arms crossed in formal respect.
"I am Ronan, of the Ice-Lily Sect. Elemental Rank Eight. This is my junior, Veris a rank two elemental stage cultivator."
Veris, a lean, soft-featured boy around eighteen with short brown hair, stepped forward and bowed as well. "Thank you, Seniors."
Ronan gestured to the other pair, both female.
"These two are from the partner sect, Fire-Cloud Sect. This is Akari, and her junior, Himari."
Akari stepped forward, bowing with perfect poise. She was striking, short, curvy, flawless golden-blonde hair braided at the side, and eyes that didn't look away from Yan's for a moment.
"Senior," she said with calm reverence. " I am Akari a stage six elemental cultivator"
Himari followed, a little taller and slightly more reserved, though just as graceful. "Thank you for saving us. I am rank two also in the same realm."
Yan nodded but said nothing.
The four of them stood carefully now, wary yet reverent.
"You saved us," Ronan added plainly. "We owe you our lives."
Yan tilted her head. "How long have you been inside?"
"Two weeks," Ronan answered. "Our sect sent us when the pulse first flared. We believed it was a realm of inheritance. So did others."
"You're not the only ones here?" Ryu asked.
"No," Akari said. "We saw traces of camps. Scattered. Some already abandoned. Some… not."
"We came willingly," Ronan continued. "But not unknowing. The elders believe this place holds the remnants of a great cultivator's legacy. But whatever this is, " he looked back at the cracked remnants of the array, "we weren't prepared for it."
"You're lucky it was defensive," Lira said quietly. "Some arrays don't stop with a warning or traps, you could have walked into a killing array."
Ronan nodded once. "We thought we could map the valley before others arrived. We were wrong."
Ryu eyed each of them, then glanced at Yan and Lira. No words passed between them, but the agreement was clear.
He stepped forward. "We're heading for the palace. If you can keep up, come."
The four cultivators bowed again. Deeper. Slower.
They had seen the difference in power.
And they chose to follow it.
Without another word, the seven of them turned as one and moved forward, the fractured array fading behind them like a forgotten warning.
The maze walls narrowed. The light shifted.
And in the distance, the palace loomed, weathered, silent, and waiting to be claimed.