The stairs curved sharply downward, each step carved with precision, untouched by time. Moss glistened along the edges, yet there was no scent of rot—only a sterile chill, as though the place had been sealed from the natural world for centuries.
Adrian moved slowly, one hand tracing the stone wall beside him. The Qi here was thin, brittle, like old parchment, but beneath it lingered something older. Not death. Not decay.
Silence.Pure, deliberate silence.
He reached the bottom and paused.
The staircase opened into a vast underground chamber. A dome-shaped hall, its ceiling lost in shadow. Pillars lined the space, each one carved in spiraling patterns reminiscent of celestial paths, moons and stars etched into the stone with painstaking detail. It felt less like a prison and more like a temple.
At the center of the room stood an altar—a low, wide platform surrounded by broken jade tablets and rusted ceremonial instruments. What drew Adrian's attention, however, was not the relics.
