Below the Valley– The Hollow Sanctum
They erged in darkness.
But it was not cold.
No, it was alive—with torchlight that burned blue, with breath that echoed through cavernous halls. Before him stretched a city carved from black stone, pulsing with veins of crimson ore. Dos and towers rose like teeth. Bridges wove between stalactites. Waterfalls of Crimson light—not water—fell from the cavern ceiling, casting everything in a dreamlike glow.
The Hollow Eye Sect.
A place forgotten by the world. Hidden by ti.
Yet it lived.
Strange creatures crawled along walls—Immortal beasts with translucent hides and eyes like stars. Monks in robes moved silently through the streets, many blindfolded, so barefoot on glass bridges. Massive statues lood in the city center—depicting figures with missing faces, gazing toward a sky that did not exist.
Lin Mu's feet touched down on obsidian stone, still warm from so ancient forge.
The city did not feel hostile to him... Not yet.
It felt like a mory given shape.
Elder Mingshi stepped forward, walking toward the central tower—a monolith shaped like an upturned eye, its pupil a gate of swirling void.
"Welco, Lin Mu," he said. "To the place where all forgotten truths are kept."
Lin Mu did not reply.
But within his heart, the Calming sutras stirred.
As if warning him.
Warning of of the Monolith's Gaze
The tower lood before them—tall, ancient, and silent.
Carved from obsidian and shaped like a colossal, upturned eye, its surface shimred faintly. At its center was a swirling pupil of a strange void, where space bent unnaturally, warping even light.
Lin Mu stood at its base, arms crossed, silent as Elder Mingshi stepped forward and raised a single hand.
"The truth is buried, not erased," Mingshi said softly. "And the Hollow Eye sees… what others cannot bear to rember."
The pupil pulsed once.
Reality trembled.
From the void-light, illusions began to spill forth—not hazy phantasms, but fully ford echoes of the past. A world forgotten, rising from mory like smoke from old incense.
A barren peak appeared.
Jagged and lifeless, it towered over a scorched land. There were no trees, no birds, not even wind—only silence. Yet the people of the land called it sacred, for reasons no one rembered.
For centuries, pilgrims ca. They climbed the jagged slopes and whispered prayers into the emptiness, hoping for rcy, for healing, for peace.
But the mountain gave nothing.
No signs.
No miracles.
No hope.
Yet still, they ca.
Then ca war.
A war that scorched nations. Kingdoms shattered. Rivers turned to ash. Refugees fled like ants before a firestorm.
And so—those too broken, too lost—ran to the sacred mountain.
Families. Children. The wounded and the hopeless.
There, beneath a sky split with fire, they fell to their knees and scread their pleas to the heavens.
"Save us!"
"End this suffering!"
"If there are gods, answer us now!"
The mountain remained silent.
Their enemies found them.
And there was no rcy.
The illusions shifted—drenched in shadow and blood. The pilgrims were struck down, their cries silenced by blades and arrows. The soil ran crimson, and the earth grew still.
But sothing had heard.
Not a god.
Not a saint.
Sothing older.
Sothing born not from love or wrath—but regret.
It was the birth of the Tree.
From the blood-soaked stone, a tremor rippled outward.
And from it—a root.
Thin. Crimson. Pulsing.
Then another. And another. They snaked outward like veins through the stone, coiling upward, twisting, writhing.
Then it grew.
The Ephera Tree.
A tree not of bark and leaf—but of sorrow made flesh.
Its trunk was gnarled like scar tissue, its branches wrapped in crimson thorns. Its leaves were wide and translucent, each bearing a single bleeding eye that blinked with mournful awareness.
The roots pulsed like arteries, dragging in the spilled blood, the tears, the last whispers of broken prayers.
And then—it scread.
A soundless cry that echoed across the illusions.
The sky darkened.
The war halted.
The enemies at the foot of the mountain—those who had slaughtered the innocent—turned their blades in confusion.
And then, the tree moved.
Its roots exploded outward like spears, impaling warriors by the hundreds.
Its leaves ignited in red fla—casting rain down not of water, but ashes and mory. Those struck by it scread, seeing their victims in their final monts, living every regret they had ever buried.
Thorns burst from the earth, entangling siege chariots and ripping war beasts apart.
A single eye blood at the top of the tree—massive and all-seeing.
It blinked once.
The armies ceased to exist.
Not killed. Not obliterated.
They were unmade—as if the tree had erased them from history itself.
In seconds, the mountain stood silent once more.
No corpses.
No blood.
Just the tree, standing alone in the void, its leaves still weeping crimson.
The illusion faded like a dream collapsing into the abyss.
Lin Mu stood still, his fists clenched.
Even with all his cultivation, the vision had touched sothing deep in him—a place of quiet, ancient dread.
Having experienced many events at the Green Temple Monastery, having climbed the steps, Lin Mu had thought him to have beco unshakable. And yet, just like the Abbot had once told him, there were indeed things that could make even the Buddha tremble.
Elder Mingshi's voice returned, soft but certain.
"That tree was born from the hearts of the broken. A reflection of truths that even the Heavens refused to answer."
"And it still lives—beneath it all. At the heart of the Hollow Eye."
"We are its watchers. Not its masters. We cannot command it. We only listen."
Lin Mu looked up at the monolith.
"And what does it want?" he asked.
Elder Mingshi smiled faintly.
"It doesn't want. It waits."
"For what?"
The elder stepped back, letting silence speak for a mont.
Then, softly:
"For soone who carries peace, righteousness and healing. One that thinks them to be the truth. One that will be willing to see past the truth. The one that will beco the vessel."
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