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The sky above Twin Peaks split open.
Thunder rolled across the summits, the sound so deep it seemed to tremble in their bones. Runes carved into the mountain’s face ignited one by one, tracing the outline of a vast lotus whose petals unfurled in burning light.
From the cliffside platforms, disciples shielded their eyes. The final trial had begun.
A voice — ageless, resonant, neither male nor female — echoed through the air like the toll of an immortal bell:
“The Heart bears truth unhidden.
Those who would ascend must stand within its flame,
And see not with eyes, but with what they fear most.”
The jade at He Yan’s chest flared — twin lights, gold and silver, fusing again into one.
He met Shen Xun’s gaze. There was no banter this time. Only understanding.
“Together,” He Yan said softly.
Shen Xun nodded once. “Together.”
The ground vanished.
They fell — weightless, soundless — through a sea of clouds that glowed crimson and white. When their feet touched earth again, the air felt wrong. Too still. Too alive.
They stood in what looked like a forest, yet every tree was made of glass, and through the trunks flowed faint streams of light, pulsing like veins. The ground beneath them shimmered like frozen water.
“This place…” He Yan murmured, turning slowly. “It’s not real.”
“It’s made from us,” Shen Xun said. His voice was quiet, strained. “From what we carry.”
The moment he said it, the air rippled — and something in the distance moved.
The forest stretched, bending inward, until they stood in a long corridor of light, mirrors forming on either side once more. In each, a flicker of memory.
He Yan saw himself at fifteen, standing before a cold furnace that refused to spark, elders whispering about wasted potential. He saw Shen Xun in another reflection, kneeling alone on the training grounds long after sunset, striking until his palms bled.
Their reflections looked at each other through the glass.
Then, the first heart-beat of the trial sounded — a deep, resonant pulse that shook the ground.
From the shadows of the forest emerged figures — pale, formless, born from qi and regret. They were not illusions this time, not quite.
Each carried a fragment of their inner truth.
He Yan’s wore his own face — but cold, distant, eyes like shuttered lanterns.
Shen Xun’s double carried his sword with a smile that was too sharp, too calm.
“You can’t protect him,” Shen Xun’s mirror sneered. “You fail everyone you guard. You’ll fail him too.”
“And you,” He Yan’s counterpart said, voice silky as poison, “hide love behind arrogance. How long before it eats you alive?”
The words struck deeper than any blade.
Shen Xun moved first. Steel flashed — his mirror parried. Sparks rained down, slicing through the glass leaves overhead. He Yan threw a talisman, sealing the air between them, but his reflection walked through it unharmed.
“They feed on what we deny,” He Yan shouted. “They are us!”
“Then we end them,” Shen Xun said, coldly resolute.
He Yan smiled — the kind of smile one makes before a storm breaks. “Side by side?”
“Always.”
The forest exploded into chaos.
Sword qi tore through the crystalline trees, sending shards spinning like falling stars. He Yan’s talismans erupted into radiant bursts, weaving ribbons of fire around them. The doubles mirrored every movement — every strike, every hesitation — until the air itself seemed to shimmer with confusion.
He Yan’s pulse thundered in his ears. “They move when we move! They are linked—”
“Then break the link!” Shen Xun’s blade met its twin with a metallic cry.
He Yan pressed a palm to his heart, channeling qi into the bond. The jade token blazed — and instantly, he felt it again: Shen Xun’s energy pouring through him, cold and precise, intertwining with his own burning fire. Two incompatible forces — and yet, somehow, they balanced.
Their qi merged.
He Yan whispered an incantation; Shen Xun caught the rhythm mid-breath. His sword moved in perfect accord with the seal, slicing through the air in a single blazing arc. The shockwave struck both doubles simultaneously — and for the first time, they faltered.
But the forest responded with fury.
The ground cracked, bleeding light.
Above them, the mirrored trees twisted, merging into a towering figure — a fusion of both reflections: a creature of blade and flame, half sword, half furnace, its voice echoing like thunder in a cathedral.
“You cannot fight what you are.”
The creature lunged.
They fought as one.
He Yan’s talismans spun around Shen Xun’s sword like orbiting stars, amplifying every strike. Shen Xun’s qi surged into He Yan’s seals, strengthening them beyond their limits. It was as if the heavens had decided they were two halves of a single art — alchemy and sword, logic and instinct, ice and fire.
But the creature was vast — a storm given form.
Each time they struck, it reformed. Each time they drove it back, it adapted. And the harder they fought, the more their link burned.
He Yan’s body shook. The energy between them overloaded, golden light crackling along his veins. “If we keep this up, one of us—”
“I can take it,” Shen Xun said. His eyes were fierce, unyielding. “Keep going.”
“Don’t you dare—”
But it was too late. The creature’s blade of fire swung toward him, faster than sound. Shen Xun moved without thought, stepping into its path, sword raised — too slow. The impact struck him full force, sending him crashing into the glass ground.
He Yan screamed his name.
Lightning tore through the sky.
He dropped beside Shen Xun, pressing trembling hands over his chest. The wound shimmered with qi burns, deep and pulsing. Shen Xun’s breath came ragged.
“Why—” He Yan choked. “Why would you—”
“You said we’re halves,” Shen Xun rasped. “One half must shield the other.”
“That’s not what I meant!” He Yan’s voice broke. “You idiot— you absolute—”
The creature loomed again, gathering flame.
He Yan turned. His vision blurred. He could feel Shen Xun’s heartbeat slowing through the link, his qi dimming, fading like an ember in rain.
Something in He Yan snapped.
He rose slowly, eyes burning with light. The air around him shimmered — talismans igniting one by one until hundreds swirled in orbit. The jade token against his chest melted into raw qi, fusing with his blood. The entire arena trembled.
The creature struck.
He Yan didn’t dodge.
He caught the blade in bare hands — and the world ignited.
Fire and frost collided, exploding into blinding light. His seals unraveled, becoming streaks of runic energy that poured into the creature’s form, burning through it from within. The monster screamed — but the sound was not rage. It was release.
Through the light, a voice whispered — faint, familiar, maybe his own:
“The Heart is not what you protect,
but what you share.”
He Yan staggered forward, half blind, half burning. The creature shattered — a rain of glowing fragments falling like stars — and beneath it, in the center of the wreckage, Shen Xun stood. Bruised, blood at the corner of his mouth, but alive.
Their bond pulsed once — then burst into a sphere of white light that consumed the forest.
When the light faded, they were back on the jade arena.
The sky above was calm, impossibly blue. The lotus sigil in the mountain glowed faintly before dimming, its petals folding inward.
He Yan was on his knees, gasping, vision swimming. Shen Xun knelt beside him, one hand steadying his shoulder.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Finally, Shen Xun’s voice, low and rough: “You burned your own qi.”
“You nearly got yourself killed.”
“Are you keeping score?”
“Yes,” He Yan breathed, smiling weakly. “And I’m winning.”
Shen Xun huffed something that might have been a laugh. His thumb brushed He Yan’s cheek—just once, an unconscious gesture, wiping away soot. The touch lingered a heartbeat longer than it should have.
“Idiot,” Shen Xun murmured.
“Yours,” He Yan whispered back, before his strength gave out and he slumped forward.
Shen Xun caught him easily, pulling him close. Around them, the disciples above were cheering, unaware that the real battle hadn’t been against monsters or illusions but against themselves — and that the victory written across the heavens was not merely of skill, but of something far rarer.
Later, when He Yan woke in the quiet of the infirmary pavilion, the first thing he saw was Shen Xun seated by his bed, asleep upright, sword across his knees, hair undone.
The jade token lay on the table between them — fused now into one piece, neither gold nor silver, but a color that shifted like morning light. He reached out, fingers brushing its edge.
The moment he touched it, it pulsed, and he felt it again — the faint echo of Shen Xun’s qi intertwined with his, steady and warm.
For the first time, He Yan smiled without words, because he understood:
The Trial of Heart wasn’t about surviving.
It was about choosing—and in that impossible moment on the bridge, in the forest, in the fire—
they had already chosen each other.
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