CHAPTER 129: CHAPTER 129: BENEATH THE PAVILION’S VEINS

The air below the koi pond was damp and close, smelling faintly of moss and metal. Each step Li Wei took down the narrow stairway echoed softly, tak... tak... tak, as if the stones remembered older feet. The light of the spirit pearl glimmered faintly against the walls, revealing carvings of cranes and serpents entwined in eternal conflict.

The deeper he went, the quieter the world became. Even the rain above seemed to vanish, replaced by a pulse—a rhythm like a slumbering heart within the earth itself.

~Thum... thum... thum...~

At last, the stairs opened into a cavernous hall. The ceiling arched high overhead, its beams fashioned from dark cedar lacquered to a mirror sheen. Ancient runes lined the pillars, their meanings long forgotten by mortal tongues. In the center, an iron gate barred the way forward, marked with the sigil of the Council—twin dragons devouring one another’s tails.

Li Wei approached it slowly, unrolling the parchment cipher once more. The golden runes upon it shimmered in recognition, whispering faintly as though awakening from long slumber.

"By word and by will," Li Wei intoned, his voice echoing softly against the stone. "By ink sanctified through ages of deceit—open, and bear witness to your sins."

The runes flared with sudden brilliance. The iron gate trembled, groaning like a wounded beast. Chains retracted into the walls with a chorus of metallic sighs.

~Clank... clank... shhrrrkkk...~

When the final lock fell, the gate parted, revealing the true threshold of the Inner Archives.

The chamber beyond was vast, circular, and cold. Rows upon rows of scrolls lay upon blackened shelves, each bound in silk faded by centuries. Between them stood glass urns filled with vaporous light—spirits bound for study, their forms flickering like half-remembered faces. The air was thick with the taste of old paper, incense ash, and unspent grief.

Li Wei stepped inside, the pearl casting ripples of light across the chamber. As he passed, the urns pulsed faintly in response, as though the souls within recognized him.

"Rest," he whispered, almost gently. "Your burden nears its end."

His voice carried through the vault, stirring the dormant qi that lingered there. Scrolls rustled on their own accord. The stone underfoot thrummed.

Then, from the far end of the room, came a voice—low, echoing, and wrong.

"You tread where no living soul is meant to walk, Seeker."

Li Wei froze. His eyes narrowed.

A figure emerged from the shadows—a tall man clad in the robes of a Council enforcer, though the insignia on his chest was distorted, as if the metal itself rebelled against its wearer. His face was pale as paper, eyes clouded with a faint sheen of darkness.

Li Wei bowed his head slightly. "A guardian, then? Or the remnant of one?"

The figure’s lips curled into a grim smile. "Once, I was Keeper Shen. I safeguarded these halls from trespass. When they brought the relic from the Western Ruins, I warned them. They silenced me. Now I serve what they unearthed."

"The black jade idol," Li Wei said quietly.

The guardian inclined his head. "It woke beneath the Council’s greed. It calls to all who have bartered their honor for gain. And you, too, carry its scent."

Li Wei’s hand brushed the sleeve where the pearl lay hidden. "Perhaps. But I do not kneel to it."

A hiss, long and serpentine, filled the air. The shadows along the shelves stretched unnaturally, coiling toward him like tendrils of smoke. The spirit urns began to rattle, one by one.

Li Wei drew a slow breath and extended his hand, palm up. "If you are bound, Keeper Shen, then I offer release."

The specter laughed, a hollow sound that set the scrolls fluttering. "You offer chains disguised as mercy."

With a sharp gesture, the shadows lunged. Whsshhh! The air itself darkened, a tide of black qi rushing toward him.

Li Wei’s expression did not falter. He raised his other hand, and the spirit pearl flared—its blue light piercing the gloom like a blade. Symbols of warding flared in the air around him, forming a circle of pale fire.

"Return to the dust, where hunger has no hold," he said calmly. "By Heaven’s balance and earth’s root, I sever you."

The shadows struck the barrier and screamed—a sound not of pain, but of memory unraveling. The walls shook. The urns cracked. A thousand whispers spilled into the air.

For a moment, Li Wei thought the vault might collapse, but as the sound reached its peak, the darkness fractured like glass. Keeper Shen staggered backward, his form flickering.

"You... you would undo us all," the wraith rasped. "The idol is awake. It watches from beneath the river’s bed. Even now, it dreams of flesh."

Li Wei stepped closer. "Then I will see that dream broken."

He pressed his palm to the specter’s chest, and the pearl’s light surged outward. The chamber filled with radiance. When it dimmed, only ash motes drifted where the guardian had stood.

Li Wei exhaled slowly, exhaustion catching in the edges of his breath. "Peace be with you, Keeper."

Yet as he turned toward the far alcove, something else stirred—a faint heartbeat from beneath the floor.

~Thum... thum... thum...~

He knelt, brushing his fingers over the stone until they found a faint seam. With a whispered charm, the slab shifted aside, revealing a stair descending deeper still, into the unseen marrow of the archives.

"This is the root," he murmured. "Where they buried what even the Council feared."

He began to descend, each step slower, more deliberate. The walls here were slick with condensation, and veins of faint light ran through the stone, pulsing in rhythm with the heartbeat below.

When he reached the bottom, the passage opened into a small, circular chamber. In its center stood an altar of black jade, carved in the likeness of a many-eyed serpent. Upon it rested a small urn, cracked and oozing faint wisps of darkness.

Li Wei’s breath caught. "The heart of the idol..."

The pearl in his hand trembled, its light dimming as though in dread.

From the urn’s crack came a whisper—not loud, but ancient, curling around his thoughts like smoke. "Li Wei... descendant of oathbreakers... do you think the heavens have forgotten the transgressions of your past life?"

He stood motionless. The whisper was not merely heard in his mind, echoing through the very annuals of the hall they stood in. "Your ancestors from this plane bound us beneath the dunes," it hissed. "Now their blood weakens."

Li Wei drew the pearl close to his chest, his eyes hardening. "Then their blood shall end what it began." He thrust the pearl toward the altar. The chamber erupted in light—searing, blinding, divine. The air split with a sound like a hundred temple bells shattering at once.

~KRAAANG—~

Darkness screamed. The jade cracked, splintering into a spiderweb of fractures. But before it broke completely, something vast and unseen surged upward—escaping through fissures that led beyond stone and air.

Li Wei staggered, barely catching himself on the altar’s edge. "The evil has not been destroyed... ," he gasped. "By the heavens... it was never a prison, but a seal."

Above, the rumble of thunder shook the earth. He could feel the qi of the city itself stir uneasily, as if roused from dream into nightmare.

He pressed a bloodied hand to the floor, whispering one final incantation to contain what little remained of the curse’s essense. The pearl, dimmed to gray, lay in his palm—spent.

When he finally rose, his eyes burned with a grim luster.

"Then it begins anew," he murmured. "The serpent wakes... and I must find its head before it finds mine."

He turned, ascending once more toward the faint promise of starlight far above.