The cave was silent once more, its oppressive stillness pressing against Li Zhen's chest as he stood at the threshold of the spiral gate. He could feel the weight of the decision looming over him, an unspoken question that clung to the air, one that refused to leave. The murals had faded from his mind, but their implications lingered, like shadows in his thoughts. He was a man caught in the swirl of past and future, an endless loop of choices and consequences. It was then that he heard the voice.
A soft, whispering sound filled the cave, not from the sword, but from somewhere deeper within the earth. It was as though the very rocks themselves were speaking to him. Slowly, a figure emerged from the shadows at the edge of the cave—a woman, or perhaps something more, something less. Her features were ethereal, translucent, as though she was more a projection of light than flesh and blood. She moved with the grace of a ghost, her form barely visible in the dim light, her eyes glowing faintly like distant stars.
Li Zhen instinctively reached for the sword, his grip tightening on its hilt. The sword hummed in his hand, responding to the presence of the apparition.
"You are the one who walks the spiral," the figure said, her voice like the rustling of leaves in the wind. "You seek to understand the many lives of Zhen, but to truly awaken, you must first choose. The time of convergence is upon you. To know yourself, you must decide which Zhen will die."
The words struck him like a physical blow. His heart skipped a beat, his breath catching in his throat. He took a step back, his mind racing. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper. "What choice are you talking about? I've seen so many versions of myself, so many paths I've walked. What does it mean to choose which one will die?"
The figure tilted her head slightly, as though studying him, before she spoke again. "The versions of yourself that you see—each one is a reflection of a path you could have taken. They are you, and yet they are not you. They are the echoes of choices made in different realities, but now, their time is coming to an end. The convergence of all these lives is at hand. To awaken fully, you must sever the connection to one of them. You must choose which version of yourself will cease to exist."
Li Zhen's mind reeled. The thought of killing one of the versions of himself—one of the lives he had lived—was incomprehensible. Each of those versions held a part of who he was. To destroy one of them felt like destroying a piece of his own soul. Yet, there was no denying the truth in the figure's words. The spiral gate had opened, and the paths were converging. He had walked the winding road of his past, seen the twists and turns that had shaped him, but now, he was forced to confront the ultimate question: Could he ever truly understand himself if he did not choose? If he did not destroy the version of himself that did not belong?
"Why must I choose?" he demanded, his voice rising. "Why can't I accept all versions of myself? Why is it necessary to destroy one of them?"
The figure's gaze softened, her form flickering like a flame caught in the wind. "Because," she said gently, "to accept all versions of yourself would mean to embrace a fractured existence. You cannot be everything at once, Zhen. You must become one. To truly awaken, to step fully into your power, you must choose. To live with the consequences of your actions, to fully understand who you are and who you are meant to be, you must make a sacrifice. That is the price of return."
Li Zhen was silent for a long time. The weight of her words settled over him like an avalanche, each syllable adding to the burden that already lay heavy on his heart. He had always believed that his past, with all its mistakes and missteps, was something to be embraced. He had thought that understanding all the versions of himself—the ones who had fought, the ones who had loved, the ones who had failed—was the key to his rebirth. But now, he saw the truth: all those versions were fragments, echoes of what could have been, what might have been. He could never move forward as long as he clung to them.
"You must choose," the figure repeated, her voice unyielding. "Which Zhen will die, and which will live? That is the price of your return."
The air in the cave grew thick with the weight of the choice before him. Li Zhen's hand trembled as he lowered the sword, the hilt cold against his palm. Each version of himself flashed before his eyes: Zhen the Merciful, Zhen the Cursed, Zhen the Listener, Zhen the Wise. Each one had walked a different path, made a different choice. Some had sought peace, some had craved power, and others had simply sought survival. They were all him, and yet they were not.
But which one was the real Li Zhen? Which one was the true version of himself? Could he even know?
In the distance, beyond the cave, the wind howled, and the ground trembled as if the world itself was waiting for his answer. The sword hummed, its voice now faint, as if it too understood the enormity of what was at stake.
"This is not a choice," Li Zhen said softly, almost to himself. "This is a betrayal."
"Yes," the figure replied, her voice as quiet as the wind. "To choose one is to betray all the others. But it is a betrayal necessary for your rebirth. To embrace who you truly are, you must leave behind who you were. That is the price of your return."
Li Zhen closed his eyes, the weight of the decision pressing down on him like a storm cloud. For a long moment, there was only silence—broken only by the faint hum of the sword at his side, the only constant in a world that seemed to be unraveling around him.
And then, finally, he spoke.
"I choose…" he began, his voice trembling, but steady. "I choose to let go of the one who never embraced the sword."
The figure nodded, her expression unreadable. "Then your path is set. The others will fade, their existence a mere shadow of what was."
With those words, the cave seemed to shift. The murals on the walls blurred and twisted, as if the very fabric of reality was being torn apart. Li Zhen felt a sharp pain in his chest, as though something inside him was being ripped away. It was not a physical pain, but a deep, spiritual agony, the kind of wound that could only be inflicted by the severing of a part of oneself. He cried out, his vision blurring, but he did not falter. He had made his choice.
When the pain subsided, he opened his eyes. The figure was gone, and the cave was still. The spiral gate lay silent before him, its power no longer pulsing with the same intensity. The air was thick with the aftertaste of his decision, the echoes of a choice that would shape the rest of his journey.
Li Zhen stood alone, the sword heavy in his hand, as he stepped away from the gate and into the darkness beyond.