The Return Undeserved

The corridors behind the Tribunal were nothing like the polished halls the Concord showed the world.

They were narrow, windowless passages carved into the bedrock itself, lined with doors of reinforced iron.

The two silent guards in crimson robes marched Jin Mu through one after another until at last they halted before an archway inscribed with wards so old their glyphs had nearly worn smooth.

One of the guards pressed a gloved palm to the seal.

A low, resonant thrum filled the air, like the grinding of some hidden machine.

Then the door opened.

And Jin Mu stepped into the Hidden Archive.

If the Tribunal chamber was a show of power, this place was something deeper.

A monument to the Concord's true obsession: knowledge.

Scrolls lined the walls in ceiling-high racks, their spines marked with symbols he didn't recognize.

Preserved husks of shattered Sequences floated in glass cylinders.

Beneath a row of silver-etched cabinets, he glimpsed what looked like preserved organs—hearts, lungs, brains—still pulsing with the echo of their stolen vitality.

The Warden waited in the center of the chamber, framed by a broad table crowded with relics.

He gestured for the guards to leave, and they obeyed in absolute silence, the iron door booming shut behind them.

"Do you understand where you are?" he asked conversationally.

Jin Mu didn't answer.

His gaze moved instead to the largest of the glass cylinders.

Within floated a darkened core of flesh that looked almost like a shriveled heart.

Yet as he watched, it contracted once—slow, deliberate.

The Warden followed his gaze.

"The First Sequence," he said softly. "A remnant of the primordial cultivation paths—long before the Concord, long before any of our divisions. The research here is older than this empire."

Jin Mu turned to face him.

"Is this what you intend? To dissect me and put my remains on display?"

The Warden's smile did not reach his eyes.

"Not if you cooperate. You are far more valuable alive than dead."

He gestured to the table.

"Sit."

Jin Mu moved carefully to the chair.

His every instinct screamed to fight.

But he forced himself to remain still.

To listen.

The Warden lifted a thick volume bound in cracked white leather.

"Tell me about your Thread," he said. "From the beginning."

And so Jin Mu began to speak.

But not the whole truth.

He gave the Warden fragments—carefully chosen half-truths that would satisfy an academic curiosity but reveal no real path to replicating the Primordial Thread.

As he talked, he studied every inch of the Archive.

Every exit.

Every ward.

He was still searching for a means to escape when the Warden interrupted him.

"Do you think me a fool?"

Jin Mu's pulse did not quicken.

He simply met the old man's gaze.

"Not at all," he said.

"Then stop rationing your knowledge," the Warden said. His tone was mild, but his eyes gleamed. "I have studied over a thousand Sequence splinters. I know when a man lies by omission."

Jin Mu's jaw tightened.

"You think you have leverage," he said.

"I do," the Warden murmured.

He reached for a small crystal sphere at the corner of the table.

As his fingers brushed it, the sphere flared to life.

Within it was an image—blurred, but unmistakable.

Su Lin, shackled in a narrow cell.

Her hair hung over her face.

One thin wrist was bound to the wall by a glowing manacle.

"You will tell me everything," the Warden said quietly, "or she dies."

A chill spread through Jin's veins.

He closed his eyes briefly, feeling the ache behind them.

"You're proving my point," he whispered.

"Which is?"

"That this system can't be reformed," he said. "Only torn down."

The Warden tilted his head.

"Then it is fortunate," he said, "that you are no longer in a position to do either."

He set the sphere down.

"Continue."

Jin Mu opened his mouth to speak—

—and felt the Primordial Thread shift.

It wasn't a conscious decision.

It was something deeper, older.

The Thread pulsed once, and in that instant he felt the iron doors, the sealed wards, the entire Archive itself as part of a web of Order.

Order could be bent.

Order could be distorted.

He let his awareness slip further into that resonance.

The Warden did not seem to notice.

He was consulting a sheaf of notes, fingers tapping absently on the table.

Jin Mu inhaled slowly.

And Distorted the lock on Su Lin's cell.

It was subtle—so subtle that even he couldn't see exactly how it worked.

But he felt the distant click as if it were in his own bones.

Get out, he thought fiercely. Get out now.

The Warden looked up.

"What did you just do?"

Jin Mu didn't answer.

Instead, he let his gaze flicker to the largest cabinet behind the old man.

"Order—Disorder."

He spoke the invocation aloud.

Not caring who heard.

The locks and seals erupted in a chain of sudden failure.

Panes of reinforced glass cracked like eggshells.

The preserved organs within let out a chorus of high, keening wails.

The Warden staggered back, a hand lifting to shield his face.

And Jin Mu was already moving.

He seized a shard of glass, slashed it across the nearest ward, and felt it sputter out of existence.

Then he lunged for the door.

The Warden's hand lashed out, catching him by the throat.

"You think you can run?" the old man hissed.

Jin Mu gagged, twisting against the iron grip.

His vision darkened at the edges.

But the Thread was still there.

Still waiting.

He forced his will into it.

Called it to the surface.

A single word tore from his lips:

"Invert."

The world lurched.

The Warden's fingers convulsed and released him.

The entire chamber shimmered, as though reality itself had been spun inside-out.

And Jin Mu fell forward, through the door—

—only to land on his knees in a dim corridor he had never seen.

He gasped for breath.

Behind him, the Archive was no longer visible—only a smooth wall of black stone.

The Primordial Thread pulsed once more, then quieted.

He struggled to his feet.

Every muscle burned.

But he forced himself to keep moving.

He didn't know how much time he had bought Su Lin, or whether Shen Yan was even still alive.

But as he limped into the darkness, Jin Mu felt something fierce ignite in his chest.

This is not over.

I swear it.