"Stay alert!" Elder Lin called, her voice strained. She unleashed a burst of light from her hands, trying to disperse the dark mist, but it was quickly overwhelming. Long rushed to her side, helping her up fully.
The mist curled around Long's ankles and wrists like intangible shackles. He felt his limbs growing heavy, as if leaden sleep were creeping into his bones. Gan cursed and waved his spear blindly; Zhou Wei tried to call out, but his voice sounded muffled.
The world began to spin. Long blinked, and suddenly the courtyard was filled with shapes and colors that didn't belong—images forming in the fog. He thought he saw villagers from his childhood walking by, then they faded. A chorus of laughter echoed, and then turned to sobbing.
Elder Lin grabbed Long's forearm tightly. "It's trying to break our minds… hold on to your identity!" she urged, but even her voice wavered, as if she were fighting to remember herself.
Long focused on his breathing, on the sensation of Elder Lin's grip, the faint thrum of the resonance bell beyond hearing. But the mist grew thicker, and the world of the dream began to dissolve into a collage of scenes and sounds.
He saw Zhou Wei stagger toward the dais where his brother's spirit lay. But instead of Zhou Yun, suddenly a figure rose to greet Zhou Wei—a man with warm eyes and a gentle smile, arms open. "Father?" Zhou Wei whispered in a tiny voice. The young man's face crumpled as he stumbled into the embrace of a man who wasn't really there. In an instant, both were gone into the fog.
"Zhou Wei!" Long shouted, trying to move toward where he'd been, but a wall of grey cut him off.
To his left, he heard Gan snarl. "No... you're not real. Get away!" Gan was swinging at empty air, backing up. "You died! You're gone!" he yelled. His voice cracked with grief and rage. Then suddenly he stopped, dropping his spear. "...Ping?" he said in a broken whisper. "Is it really you?" He took a faltering step forward and vanished into the swirl as well.
Long felt a pang of alarm. Two of them separated, lured by apparitions of loved ones. He tightened his mental defenses, recalling the training he had done to resist enchantments. Clarity was playing on their deepest desires or regrets to draw them in.
Elder Lin still clung to his arm, but she was staring ahead, eyes wide, lips parted in shock. "Patriarch…?" she breathed. Long followed her gaze and saw the form of Patriarch Suli—but not the monstrous one. This was the man as she remembered: a kindly older gentleman with wise eyes, standing just within the mist, hand outstretched to her. "Lin," the apparition said softly. "I'm so proud of you. Come, it's time to rest. You've done enough."
"No… it's not really him," Lin whispered to herself, even as one foot slid forward involuntarily. Long could see the struggle on her face, the desire for this nightmare to be over, to fall into her mentor's arms and trust everything would be fine.
The false Patriarch smiled benignly, beckoning. "You've carried the burden so long." Another step.
Long acted, fearing he would lose her too. He grabbed Elder Lin by both shoulders and turned her to face him. Her eyes were unfocused, a tear spilling down one cheek. "Elder Lin! Stay with me!"
She blinked, as if seeing him anew. "Long… I…"
He gently shook her. "It's not him. Remember your own words. Don't snuff out your candle now."
Her lips trembled, then pressed together. She shut her eyes tight and when she opened them again, some clarity had returned. The phantom Patriarch behind her drifted back into the fog, seeing its lure fail. Lin exhaled a shaky breath. "Thank you. That was close."
Before Long could respond, the mists whirled around him next. He felt a change in the air—a subtle, invasive touch at the edges of his consciousness, searching, prying. It was as though Clarity were turning its full attention upon him now, trying to find what could break him as it had with the others.
Long steeled himself. I will not falter, he vowed internally. He attempted to move, to drag Elder Lin and find Zhou Wei and Gan, but suddenly the ground beneath him fell away. The temple courtyard vanished. Elder Lin's grip loosened and she drifted out of view as gravity itself seemed to invert.
Long was falling upward into darkness. "Elder Lin! Zhou Wei!" he shouted, but his words echoed into a void. The last vestiges of the temple scene faded, and he was alone.
He landed on solid ground—unexpectedly gentle—like stepping instead of falling. The mist cleared, revealing he now stood in a dense forest, tall pines stretching into a twilight sky. The scent of wet earth and pine needles filled his nose. Shafts of dusky light speared through the canopy. He recognized this forest path; he had walked it years ago, in another time, another life.
Long's heart thumped. This is an illusion, he told himself. Clarity is drawing from my memories, trying to trap me. Knowing it did not make it less disorienting. The detail was uncanny—the distant caw of crows, the rustle of a small animal in the underbrush, the way the evening air cooled his skin. It was as vivid as reality.
Ahead, the narrow trail twisted between mossy boulders. And there, partially hidden behind a tree, was a figure. Long's breath caught. It was a man with broad shoulders, dressed in traveler's garb much like Long's own, and a familiar sword at his side. The man turned, revealing a face nearly identical to Long's, save a scar across the brow and eyes that glinted with mischief.
"Took you long enough," the doppelgänger said, voice exactly like Long's but carrying a sarcastic lilt.
Long felt a chill. He was now face to face with… himself.
The other Long stepped fully into view, arms crossed. "So, we meet at last."
"I have nothing to say to a shadow," Long replied carefully, recalling how illusions had baited Zhou Wei and Gan. This double was likely the manifestation of his own doubts or an inner demon given form by the dream.
The double chuckled. "Shadow? Oh, I'm far more than that. I'm everything you keep buried, all the truths you refuse to face. And here in dreams, I can finally speak." He spread his arms. "Look around. A familiar forest road, is it not? Do you remember what happened here?"
Long felt a spike of pain in his temple—a memory trying to surface, one he did not wish to recall. He ground his teeth. "Enough. You're not real." He stepped forward, hand instinctively going to where his sword hilt should be… but it wasn't there. His weapon lay back in the courtyard where he fell. In this conjured world, he was unarmed.
His double smirked, noticing the motion. "Missing something? We are in your mind now, my mind. We don't need a sword to talk." A sword did appear in the double's hand though—a replica of Long's blade. He examined it casually. "Ironic, isn't it? How you fight so hard to protect others from nightmares, but run from your own."
Long looked around for any sign of a way out—a tear in the fabric, the sound of the bell, anything. There was nothing obvious. This confrontation was inevitable. He took a slow breath to steady himself. "If you are a part of me, then you know I'm not running now. Get to the point. What 'truths' do you think I hide?"
The other Long leaned against a tree, sword resting on his shoulder. "Where shall I begin? Perhaps with that sealed past of ours? The blank spaces in your memory that you tiptoe around?" His tone was taunting. "Don't you ever wonder what's behind those mental walls? What power, what identity you lost?"