The deeper they ventured into the temple, the heavier the air became. It wasn’t just heat anymore—it was something else. Sorrow. Lingering, suffocating, wrapping around their lungs like fog. Every whisper of the wind seemed to echo with faint cries, almost intelligible, almost real.

Xiulan led the way, each footstep reverberating too sharply in the unnatural stillness. “Something’s wrong. Do you feel that?”

Yanmei’s eyes narrowed, her hand resting on her sword. “It’s not the fire. This place… it remembers.”

Turning a corner, they entered a vast circular chamber. Ancient murals danced along the cracked stone walls, depicting warriors in vibrant robes battling monstrous beasts. One figure at the center bore flaming wings—and Xiulan’s breath caught. The likeness was uncanny.

Before he could speak, the air shivered with movement.

Voices—dozens of them—all at once: screaming, pleading, laughing, crying.

Spectral figures emerged. The first was a young cultivator, translucent, glowing faintly with flickering fire.

“Welcome… heirs of fire,” he intoned, eyes hollow. “We are the remnants. Those who failed. Those judged unworthy.”

Behind him, more appeared—men and women in scorched robes, faces twisted in agony and regret. Some bore signs of fire consuming their cores; others were empty husks, hollowed by failure.

Xiulan tightened his stance. “What do you want from us?”

“We want… to be remembered,” the first spirit replied. “To show you the path ahead… if you fail to control the flame within.”

Without warning, the spirits surged forward.

Yanmei raised a protective barrier, but it was useless. The ghosts passed through as mist, whispering illusions of betrayal, loneliness, and death directly into her mind.

Xiulan screamed as a memory—not his own—pulled him under.

He saw a young cultivator, prideful and fierce, setting his own sect ablaze when his fire spiraled out of control. He fell to his knees, begging as his master disintegrated before his eyes, dying alone in the temple’s depths.

Snapping back, Xiulan gasped. “These aren’t just spirits… they’re memories. The temple holds them!”

Yanmei’s grip on her sword tightened, pale but determined. “And it’s feeding them to us…”

Xiulan’s eyes hardened. “Then we’ll give it something stronger to feed on.”

His phoenix flame ignited—white-hot, unwavering. With fluid precision, he drew an ancient symbol in the air: a Rune of Remembrance.

“I honor your pain,” he said, voice steady. “But I will not join you. Not today.”

Light burst from his palm, cascading over the chamber. The spirits screamed—not in anger, but relief—before dissolving into sparks that drifted upward like fireflies.

Silence returned.

The murals glowed brighter, revealing a hidden doorway at the chamber’s back.

Yanmei, shaken but composed, looked at Xiulan. “You gave them peace.”

He nodded, eyes scanning the shadowed stairs beyond. “And they gave us a warning. This temple… it’s more than a trial. It’s a graveyard.”

They stepped through the doorway, descending a staircase swallowed by deeper darkness.

Whatever awaited below would not show mercy.