Chapter 38: The Assistant of the Divine Doctor Appears
The Trial of Reflection faded slowly, like fog peeling away from old stone.
Ashen inhaled deeply, grounding himself. The faint crack in his will pulsed, a reminder that the illusion had left something behind—something he didn't want to acknowledge yet.
He glanced around.
Scar Jaw was curled against a pillar, trembling.
The broad man gasped for breath as if drowning in air.
The woman knelt with her head down, tears dripping.
The quiet one stared blankly at the floor, completely hollow.
Ashen didn't intervene.
This ruin had already made its intentions clear.
Those who survived the trial survived it alone.
He stepped past them, moving deeper toward the corridor the ruin revealed just before the illusions took hold. A cold wind still exhaled from the darkness beyond it, carrying a scent faintly metallic… almost medicinal.
Ashen's eyes narrowed.
"…Not a natural wind."
He stepped inside.
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The Descent Into the Lowest Chamber
The corridor was narrow, the ceiling pressing low, the stone walls covered in faded inscriptions—none forming words, only patterns that seemed to mimic pulses and flows of spiritual energy.
Ashen traced a hand along the wall.
Warm.
The ruin was still active. Watching. Studying.
As he walked deeper, the corridor curved sharply downward. Light dimmed to almost nothing. The air became colder, and his breath misted faintly in the darkness.
Another ten steps—
—and a faint glow appeared ahead.
Ashen quickened his pace, boots crunching softly on cracked tile.
The passage opened into a large chamber… far more intact than any above it.
The ceiling here was high, arching like the inside of a temple dome. The walls were smoother, the patterns more refined. Thick stone roots and broken pillars surrounded the room, but none had collapsed.
In the center… something glowed.
Ashen froze.
It wasn't a thing.
It was a person.
Suspended in a half-dome of shimmering spiritual light was a young man—late twenties, maybe early thirties. His hair was tied back loosely, clothes worn and torn from exposure to the valley's dangers.
But he was alive.
Barely.
His eyes moved when Ashen stepped into view.
"…You're not part of them," the man whispered weakly.
His voice vibrated through the barrier like an echo underwater.
Ashen walked forward slowly, stopping just at the edge of the barrier. The air buzzed with spiritual tension—this wasn't a trap. It was a containment.
A stasis matrix meant to keep something from deteriorating.
Ashen narrowed his eyes.
"…You're the Divine Doctor's assistant."
The man's lips twitched into the smallest, exhausted smile.
"You know of us. Good… then saving me wasn't an accident."
Ashen studied him more carefully. The assistant's body wasn't injured—but his spiritual energy was almost nonexistent.
He wasn't dying.
He was drained.
The assistant breathed shakily.
"I've been trapped in here… far longer than I can track. Days? Weeks? The valley distorts time."
His hands twitched against the barrier, barely able to move.
Ashen circled the barrier, inspecting it.
A layered formation, spiraling outward like flowing water. Not aggressive. Not harmful. Designed to preserve someone too weak to survive on their own.
A medical technique.
A very advanced one.
Ashen stopped in front again.
"Why were you trapped here?"
The assistant let out a small, humorless laugh.
"Because I made a mistake."
His eyes opened fully, revealing clarity beneath the exhaustion.
"I followed the doctor here. Into the valley's inner chambers. We were searching for an anomaly—"
His voice trailed off as a tremor shook the chamber.
Ashen tensed.
But the assistant only chuckled weakly.
"…No, that wasn't the ruin. That was you. Your energy disrupts the lower chambers."
Ashen didn't react.
But the assistant studied him carefully—too carefully for a dying man.
"You're not normal."
Ashen stayed silent.
The assistant continued anyway.
"When you walked in… the barrier around me changed. It loosened by a fraction. That means something is resonating with your presence."
He shifted painfully inside the stasis field.
"And that is not a good sign."
Ashen frowned.
"Explain."
The assistant stared at him as if studying a rare phenomenon.
"The valley reacts to powerful fragments of energy… and to unstable ones."
He paused deliberately.
"You carry something unstable."
Ashen didn't respond immediately.
But the assistant could feel it—like a crack in the surface of a stone.
He continued.
"This place, these ruins… they weren't just built. They were shaped by something breaking reality. Something ancient. Something that still exists here in traces."
Ashen's back tightened almost imperceptibly.
Especially after what he saw in the mural.
The assistant's voice softened.
"You've seen it, haven't you?"
Ashen remained still.
"You saw something that looks like you."
Ashen's eyes darkened—just a flicker.
It was enough.
The assistant's expression became grim.
"I thought as much."
He pressed one weak hand against the inside of the barrier.
"This valley devours the unstable. It twists them. Forces reflections and illusions on them. It tries to make them lose themselves."
His breathing quickened.
"And you… you're already close to cracking."
Ashen's jaw tightened, though he hid the reaction quickly.
The assistant noticed anyway.
"This ruin—this trial—it didn't choose you out of cruelty. It responded to the fracture inside you."
He looked at Ashen directly.
"Your spirit is strong… but something is following you."
Ashen's pulse slowed.
There it was.
Not an accusation.
Not confusion.
A statement.
The assistant's eyes filled with a mix of fear and regret.
"I saw it while the stasis formation kept me half-awake. Drifting behind you like a shadow born from your steps."
Ashen's breath stilled.
No movement.
No emotion.
But something in his chest tightened—
the faint crack from earlier pulsing sharply.
The assistant swallowed, voice trembling.
"I don't know what it is.
I don't know where it came from.
But it is not part of this world."
He leaned forward as far as the barrier allowed, whispering the final warning as if every word cost him strength.
"But listen carefully."
His eyes sharpened with sudden intensity despite his weakness.
"That thing following you—don't let it leave this valley."
Ashen's pupils narrowed.
A cold wind swept through the chamber as the ruin trembled again—
not from danger,
but from recognition.
The valley had heard the warning too.
And it was already reacting.