They moved on, stepping through the archway where next chamber waited.
Something changed in Ryu as they walked on, he felt it in the marrow of his bones, his understanding of the Dao of Space had expanded, his grip on the fabric of reality deepened.
He had crossed a threshold.
The next chamber brought silence, and confusion.
A vast open space stretched before them, ringed by smooth walls embedded with faint carvings. The ceiling arched high overhead, lit only by the soft ambient glow of residual Qi. At the centre stood a single structure: an obelisk, eight meters wide on each face and pulsing faintly with dormant energy. It jutted upward like a forgotten pillar of fate.
Around it, etched into the floor in perfect symmetry, was a twenty-point array, an advanced formation carved with lines that glowed faintly, radiating outward from the obelisk like a geometric sunburst. At each ley-line nexus sat an empty socket.
No gemstones. No energy cores. Just open spaces.
Eight arched entrances surrounded the room, two per wall, forming a perfect grid. They had entered from the left side, which now sat at the chamber's midpoint. Two more doors sat on the far wall, and the rest balanced along the other walls like a waiting audience.
Lira stepped toward the formation first, eyes narrowing at the flawless carving. "Is it us? Do we have to… act as the gems?"
Everyone froze.
Ronan folded his arms. "There's only seven of us. That's thirteen points we can't fill."
"Unless it scales," Yan said thoughtfully. "Or this is only part of the puzzle."
"We could try guessing," Veris muttered, "but I'd rather not trigger a death array."
So they sat just outside the formation. Waiting. Observing. Recovering.
And they began to talk.
An hour passed, the tension melting slightly in the quiet hum of meditation.
Akari moved closer to Ryu, adjusting the cream and orange robe of her sect. Her hands sparked with small threads of flame, but her brows were furrowed.
"You use flame too," she said. "I've seen it. Even if it's not your main element, can you… teach me something? Anything to help stabilize mine?"
Ryu opened one eye. "Yan would be the better teacher."
"She burns a bit hot," Akari said with a nervous laugh. "Her fire's different. Yours… felt closer to mine. Calmer."
He hesitated. Then nodded. "Alright. I'll try."
They moved just to the side, sitting across from one another.
Akari held out her hands. Ryu placed his hands lightly on her back, steady, respectful. He closed his eyes and channelled just enough Qi to act as a guide, letting his inner fire flow into hers like a stream tracing the edges of a riverbank.
Flames flared in her palms. Steady. Controlled. But growing.
And then, without warning, something clicked.
Her Qi surged.
The heat between them intensified, Yang energy from Ryu's core spiralled into her dantian, amplifying her inner flame. Akari's eyes snapped open, breath hitching as her power spiked.
She let out a muffled groan and then gasped.
Ryu tried to pull back, but her body kept drawing his Qi, not intentionally, but as if something ancient had begun to align.
The air vibrated around them.
Her cultivation jumped from Elemental Stage Six… to Seven… then Eight in a blink.
Akari stumbled to her feet, arms trembling, flame still dancing along her fingers. She looked down at her hands, then back at him. Her ability peaked and then settled at the bottom of the final stage of elemental, rank nine.
"Unbelievable," she whispered. "I feel… weightless."
The others turned, eyes widening.
Ronan stood slowly. "How did you do that? Normally, to mix Yin and Yang Qi like that, you'd have to… well, you know."
Ryu blinked, rubbing the back of his neck. "I was just trying to help her feel the flow. That wasn't intentional."
Akari's face flushed a deep red. "We didn't, ! I mean, it's not like that. I didn't expect it to, "
Ronan and Veris both had muffled laughter behind their hands.
Yan, sitting near Lira, gave Ryu a long, amused glance. "And here I thought you were all restraint."
"I didn't mean to harmonize anything!" Ryu protested. "It just happened."
Lira smiled quietly, not saying a word.
Ronan whistled under his breath. "Your Yang Qi must be ridiculous to pull that off. She just jumped over two whole stages. She's higher than me now."
Akari turned back to Ryu. "Whatever you did… thank you."
He just nodded, still processing what he'd felt, a moment of true Dao harmony, if only for an instant. He wasn't sure how, but it had deepened something inside him too. His Qi pool felt wider. His threads of flame, more refined, closer to a breakthrough than ever before.
The group settled again into quiet cultivation; the earlier tension now replaced with lingering awe.
The silence broke.
Footsteps echoed from the far-right archway, steady, unhurried.
A group emerged from the shadows.
The six cultivators stumbled into the chamber, footsteps uneven and ragged. One collapsed just past the threshold, clutching a blood-soaked bandage around his waist. Another limped in, his leg stiff and wrapped in torn cloth. Two of them supported a barely conscious teammate, his arm blackened to the shoulder and his breathing shallow. Their robes were scorched, torn, and smeared with dirt and ash, battle-worn to the core.
The group spread out along the edge of the chamber floor, falling into place more from exhaustion than planning. Healing pills were exchanged. Bottles uncorked. One of the juniors poured a glowing amber liquid between the lips of their most injured.
Akari, watching from beside the obelisk, narrowed her eyes. "That's a wood-element potion. It promotes rapid healing… hard to make, even harder to keep stable."
Ronan nodded. "Rarer than Qi restoratives. They must've brought elite stock with them."
Ryu stepped closer to Yan and lowered his voice. "One of them is strong. Mid-Ascension Stage… at least Fifth. Maybe Sixth."
Yan nodded. "I feel it too."
The group stayed silent as the new arrivals settled, tension still thick between them. Finally, the strongest among them stepped forward.
He walked with measured pace despite the injuries. His robe, a dark-blue long coat trimmed with steel thread was ripped across one side. His presence was steady, his aura restrained but dense. He looked to be in his late thirties, but with Ascension-level cultivation, that could mean well over a hundred years old.
His voice was calm but carried strain. "Fellow cultivators," he said, "would you share what you've learned here? We encountered… considerable resistance on our way in."
Ryu met his gaze. "We've been here for a few hours. No traps so far. No aggression."
Yan followed quickly. "I'm Yan, and this is Ryu. The others are our juniors."
The man offered a slow nod. "I am Warren, of the Sky-Fall Pavilion. These are my juniors, what's left of them."
He paused, then added: "We began with thirteen. Two fell to powerful elemental beasts. Another three during the golem engagement. And two more… to the disintegration Qi beams. One of them was a senior, a Second Stage Ascension."
Silence followed.
Seven dead. One Ascension among them. That was no minor trial.
"They died fast," Warren said. "Too fast. And now… this is all that remains."
The junior cultivators behind him, bloodied, quiet, faces lowered, seemed to absorb the weight of the words in silence. Some with grief. Others with renewed fire.
Yan crossed her arms. "Rest for now. You'll need it. Even with the thirteen of us, we're not enough for all twenty points."
One of Warren's juniors introduced herself softly as Mira, a dual Qi user, Wind and Ice. She knelt beside a wounded teammate, weaving thin threads of cold Qi through his body to ease the burning pain of disintegration exposure.
Akari and Himari listened closely as Lira explained her theory about the obelisk, while Ronan pressed Warren on the deeper nature of the Sky-Fall Pavilion. That's when something clicked.
Warren mentioned, in passing, that his sect sat in a powerful country which ruled a large portion of the continent of Nohl.
Akari blinked. "There is no Nohl on our realm?"
Warren raised a brow. "What do you mean? Nohl is the largest continent in the realm."
Ryu and Yan exchanged a glance. Ronan stepped forward, arms folding across his chest.
"We're from the Seventh Realm. Under Lord Zeraius."
Warren's eyes narrowed in thought. "I've heard that name before… only in ancient records. The realm of the seventh, ranked of the strength of the sovereigns, correct?"
Ronan exhaled. "Sounds about right."
Lira looked over at Warren. "And us? Our group?"
Warren studied them a moment, then shook his head. "You're not from the Fifth. And not the Seventh. That makes you from a different realm, which one is a mystery, there isn't much known about some of the realms."
Yan's brow furrowed. "Three realms joined in one rift."
Lira stepped forward, turning back to the formation. "What kind of trial is this."
Ryu looked down at the twenty-point array beneath their feet, each leyline socket still empty. "The array isn't keyed to one realm's energy signature. It was made to accept all of them."
Conversations slowly resumed in scattered pockets. Names, sects, and fragments of history were exchanged in murmurs. Ronan and Warren shared observations about the formation lines snaking toward the obelisk. Veris and Himari traded theories on potion refinement. And through it all, Lira knelt quietly beside the central structure, watching. Calculating.
Ryu stood nearby, arms folded, gaze heavy on the array.
"This palace," he murmured, "is older than all of us. I don't know if I could even save this many people if in the next trial devastation came."
Ryu watched the group closely.