The Hollow had no wind, yet the air moved.
Not in the way forests breathed or mountains whispered, but as if the space itself twisted around what passed through it. As Gu Yan walked deeper, he began to feel pulled—not by gravity, but by intention. The Hollow was guiding him, folding in behind him with every step.
At some point, he stopped trying to track direction. It didn't matter. There were no stars here. No sun. Only that red sliver of sky, carved like an open wound above the jagged cliffs.
He passed the ruins of what might once have been a pavilion. The stone tiles were burned clean of symbols, and the broken pillars leaned like blind monks at prayer. Something in him tightened.
This wasn't a place people built to live.
This was where they came to die.
His ribs ached with each breath, still sore from the second thread. He could feel it gnawing at his thoughts like a second mind—more desire than memory. It didn't speak, not like a sentient weapon or an arrogant spirit.
It simply wanted.
And it didn't care that its wants were not his.
His hand hovered briefly over the Mirror embedded at his side. The obsidian plate was cool, silent. Watching. Its presence grew heavier the longer he remained here. It hadn't forced anything onto him. No guidance. No reward. Only fragments.
The first had shown him pain.
The second, ambition.
What would the third cost?
A sound echoed ahead. Soft. Rhythmic.
Footsteps.
He slowed immediately and crouched near the shadows of a collapsed tree trunk, heart steady. Not afraid. Not excited. Just… waiting.
The sound continued—uneven, dragging. One foot fell heavier than the other, as though whoever it was walked with a limp. Gu Yan narrowed his eyes. His senses had grown sharper since entering the Hollow, but this was the first living thing he'd encountered.
It turned the corner.
And it was a man.
Barefoot. Tall. Clad in tattered brown robes faded to ash-gray, his hair a wild, matted nest reaching past his shoulders. He walked slowly—not because he was weak, but because he was walking backward. Step by deliberate step, never turning his head.
Gu Yan didn't speak.
The man stopped.
Then, without turning around, he said, "If you follow me, you'll reach where I began."
Gu Yan stepped from the shadows, cautious. "And if I don't?"
"Then you'll reach what you fear."
The voice was clear. Dry. Like paper burned once and cooled again. It didn't sound mad, but neither did it belong to someone who lived by the same rules as other people.
"You're alive," Gu Yan said quietly.
The man gave a slight tilt of his head. "By some standards."
"Are there others?"
"There are always others. But they don't speak to the ones who walk backward."
Gu Yan took a step closer. "Why walk like that?"
"To remember."
The man finally turned his head.
His eyes were black, not in color but in reflection. Like a mirror that had lost its silver and now showed only shadow. Gu Yan met the gaze without flinching.
"What are you remembering?" he asked.
"My name."
Something in Gu Yan's spine shifted.
"You're one of them," he said slowly. "A fragment. But not dead."
"No," the man said. "Not yet. But not whole, either."
The Hollow's air thickened between them. The Mirror pulsed. And for the first time, Gu Yan felt something inside the artifact… hesitate.
As if warning him.
This one was not like the others.
"What do you want from me?" Gu Yan asked.
The man's mouth curled into something too tired to be a smile. "A trade."
Gu Yan didn't move.
The man lifted one arm and opened his hand. In it lay a twisted strip of black ribbon, barely a finger's length. It pulsed faintly, not like a thread—but like something even more primal.
"This isn't a fragment," Gu Yan murmured.
"No," the man said. "This is memory. But not yours."
Gu Yan reached slowly, not touching it. "Whose, then?"
"Mine. Or what's left."
He understood now.
This was no ordinary thread. This was a will—torn from the mind of someone who had once walked forward, and paid the price.
"Why give it away?" he asked.
"Because it's too loud. I can't forget it. I've walked backward for a hundred years, and it still whispers in my dreams."
"Then why me?"
The man's eyes flickered. "Because you're still silent inside."
The Mirror pulsed. This time, not with warning. But… invitation.
Gu Yan closed his hand over the ribbon.
A shudder passed through his spine. Not pain. Not fusion. Something else.
He blinked.
And he was no longer in the Hollow.
He stood on a cliff—high above a burning city. The sky split in half, and lightning fell like rain. Screams echoed from below. Dozens of figures in white robes fought along the walls, blades clashing, spirits shrieking.
And beside him stood the man—younger, proud, laughing. In his hand was a spear made of black glass and bone. His eyes were full of fire.
"This," the man said beside him, "was the last moment I believed I could win."
Gu Yan turned. "You were a cultivator."
"I was a prodigy. I thought I would write a new law. I thought fate was negotiable."
"And?"
The man looked away.
"It is. But only in the language of loss."
The vision flickered.
Gu Yan gasped and staggered, back in the Hollow, the memory burning cold in his lungs. The ribbon had vanished.
The man was already walking away—backward again.
"Wait," Gu Yan said hoarsely.
The man stopped.
"What was your name?" Gu Yan asked.
The man didn't answer.
He simply raised one hand—three fingers lifted, two folded—and pointed at the sky.
Gu Yan followed the gesture.
A line of black fire stretched across the red sky, like a scar torn through creation. It hadn't been there before.
When he looked back down, the man was gone.
Only the earth beneath Gu Yan's feet remained warm—like someone had been burned there not long ago.
He stood in silence for a long time.
The Mirror pulsed softly.
Thread Assimilation Potential: 93%
Memory Core Acquired
Effect: Retrospective Insight
Side Effect: Temporal Displacement (Minor)
He sat down slowly and began to breathe.
Not meditate.
Just breathe.
The Hollow was starting to let him in. But it wasn't because he was chosen. It was because he was willing to accept what others buried. Memory, ambition, regret.
Even the unbearable kind.
He would not become a hero. He would not become the villain. He would become the one thing no sect trained for.
The man who remembered.
He stood again, steps heavier than before.
Not because he was weak.
But because the weight of what he carried was no longer imaginary.
And the Hollow had more to offer.
He only had to keep walking forward… through what others had left behind.