[Scene: Deep within the cave – Descending the Spiral]
The torchlight trembled in Lian Yue's hand. The spiral staircase curved endlessly downward, walls narrowing as they descended. Every breath echoed like whispers caught in ancient stone.
Max walked ahead, each footstep deliberate, the fan folded in one hand, fingers twitching. His Origin Eyes flickered with faint pulses of violet light. Glyphs etched onto the wall shimmered when he passed.
Not with light.
But with recognition.
"This… place," Max murmured, brushing his hand along the cold surface. "It's reacting to me."
The air had changed. No longer just damp and ancient—it was charged. Thicker. As if time itself strained to remember.
⸻
[Scene: The First Chamber – Relics of the Forgotten]
The stairs finally ended at a domed sanctum. A vast hall, its center dominated by a crumbled altar surrounded by floating stones and shattered orbs suspended in frozen time.
Runes danced across the air, carved not on stone but etched into the void itself.
Around the edges were pedestals with relics—armor faded to dust, weapons dulled by centuries, scrolls that whispered when near. Lian Yue dared not touch them.
But Max stepped forward.
His eyes flared open wide—violet turning to cosmic black, galaxies spinning in his pupils.
"Max—?" Lian Yue reached out, concern in her voice.
But his body trembled.
Not from fear. From resonance.
A flood of visions crashed into him—warriors cloaked in divine fire, celestial beasts falling from the heavens, a figure standing above all, robes like the sky, eyes like his.
A whisper entered his mind.
"Bearer of the Origin… you are not the first, but perhaps… the final."
⸻
[Scene: The Guardian Awakens]
The altar cracked.
A groan shook the earth as stone flaked from a towering statue behind it—an armored giant over ten feet tall, embedded into the wall.
Its eyes lit up.
Crimson.
The relics shook violently. Scrolls disintegrated. Runes flared bright and then dimmed, fading into the stone once again.
The guardian moved—massive limbs creaking, joints sparking as if life had been forced back into dead metal.
"Lian Yue. Behind me."
Max's voice had shifted. Calm, commanding, cold.
Lian Yue didn't argue.
The guardian stepped forward. It did not attack—yet. It raised a massive halberd and struck it against the ground once.
BOOM.
A challenge. A ritual. A test.
⸻
[Scene: Origin Eyes Rebellion]
Max's vision distorted.
Suddenly, he saw everything—layers of time peeling back. The sanctum's history bled into his mind like ink.
He stumbled, grasping his head. Blood leaked from his eyes, but he didn't stop gazing.
"Laws of this realm… fractured but present," he muttered, teeth clenched.
The Origin Eyes had flared into overdrive—seeing through dimensions, examining ancient intentions carved into the stones themselves.
His knees buckled.
But then… the pain stopped.
No, it didn't stop—it flowed into his core.
His dantian, previously stuck between stagnation and resistance, began to vibrate.
A warmth pooled in his gut.
A crack sounded inside him—not physical, but spiritual.
"The bottleneck," Max whispered. "It's… loosening."
⸻
[Scene: A Step Beyond the Past]
The guardian stopped its movement.
And bowed.
Not in respect.
In recognition.
The altar lit up behind it, revealing a sealed archway—an entrance deeper into the ruins.
Max stood slowly, his breath uneven but his gaze calm again.
He looked down at his hand.
It trembled slightly—not from weakness, but from suppressed excitement.
"This place isn't just a tomb," he said to Lian Yue. "It's a legacy."
⸻
[End of Chapter 8]