Chapter 18: Deeper Layers Night fell without a sound.
And at the edge of the dream, Nie Shi once again stood within the forest.
But this time, he didn't wait for the dream to unfold.
This time, he stepped forward .
He wanted to know—who the fallen spear-wielder was, where Void had come from, and what that fragmented voice had wanted him to remember.
The forest seemed to respond to his will. Trees drew back. Fog parted, forming a narrow path that shimmered faintly with broken light.
He walked into it. At the end of the mist was a mirror.
No— shards of a mirror.
Countless fragments of memory hovered in midair, each reflecting a different broken image: a crumbling classroom, a battlefield in ruins, a woman's profile, and the unmistakable form of a black spear.
Her voice surrounded him, whispering in pieces: He will… Don't… come near… The Ender… mustn't… Forget… Like a damaged record skipping, the voice looped and fractured.
Nie Shi reached out, touching one shard with his fingertip.
—Snap.
The fragment burst into mist and pierced his palm. His entire arm burned as if a foreign memory had surged into his veins.
"Ah—!"
He dropped to his knees, forehead pressed to the damp soil, as a thunderous heartbeat roared in his ears. You're not his wielder… yet. The voice, finally, formed a complete sentence. But he chose you. And the dream collapsed. Nie Shi woke with a sharp gasp, drenched in sweat.
Void rested quietly against the windowsill, unmoving.
But he knew now: Void had belonged to someone else. She had died, or perhaps been erased.
That memory didn't belong to him.
But Void… wanted her to be remembered. Meanwhile, deep within the B-Wing of the academy, Zhong Lan stood alone in the faculty archive room, a glowing panel suspended before her.
She keyed in a specific identifier: LJ-09X —Luo Jia.
The system began to load.
Loading…
Loading…
…
Then: [Access denied: Clearance insufficient. Break-Class level required.] Her brows furrowed.
She tried again, bypassing the usual query routes to retrieve basic student data.
This time, it worked.
But the profile was shockingly sparse—name, birthdate, previous division… and nothing else.
No Armament type.
No psychological assessments.
No synchronization history.
Every other field was marked as blurred or blank .
Zhong Lan stared at the screen.
"Southern Division?" she muttered. "That branch was shut down over a year ago…"
She raised her eyes toward the dim ceiling.
Then, without a word, she flagged the file for private surveillance. Level One Watchlist. Training Hall B – Afternoon Class Students gathered for their practical assessment in Control Synchronization Techniques—fine-grain command execution of Armaments under pressure.
The system's pairing screen flickered to life at the front of the room.
Names rolled by. Nie Shi × Luo Jia Lin Kui × Lu Jingxing Su Xu × Meng Yao Several heads turned toward Nie Shi instinctively.
He stiffened slightly.
Before he could speak, Luo Jia was already standing.
"Let's go," she said simply. "Training doesn't wait." They stood side by side in Hall B, several meters apart, surrounded by suspended test markers and simulated pressure fields.
The exercise: partner coordination through controlled Armament sequences, reacting to command prompts in rapid succession.
At first, everything was normal.
Nie Shi summoned Void, stabilizing it with practiced hands. He began executing the standard movement chain—reposition, spear tip adjustment, energy compression.
But the moment Luo Jia stepped within five meters of him— Void pulsed. A faint ripple shimmered along the gun's shaft. Its energy flared and the tip veered half a degree off trajectory.
Nie Shi reacted instantly, gripping the spear tighter, forcing it back into alignment.
He glanced sideways.
Luo Jia didn't speak.
But she was watching. Carefully. Every movement of his hands, every twitch in the weapon.
Nie Shi, in turn, began to observe her.
Her Armament manifested as a sinuous chain-blade—graceful, efficient, eerily precise.
She didn't need to complete her commands. She gave half the intent, and the weapon completed the rest. As if— It could read her thoughts. Void wasn't wary of her.
No.
Void was— Remembering her. Ten minutes before the class ended, the system flagged an anomaly. [Armament Sync Distortion Detected – Session Halted] The projection flickered, signaling immediate training suspension.
"You're… sensitive to my presence," Luo Jia said quietly from behind him.
Nie Shi turned, expression unreadable.
"Have you seen this spear before?"
"No," she answered smoothly. "But it seems to remember me."
They stood there, silence thick between them.
"You don't trust me," she said after a moment.
"It's not mistrust," Nie Shi replied. "It's instinct."
"You don't act like a student."
Luo Jia tilted her head slightly. "And you?"
"You don't look like a Memory Armament wielder either."
That made him pause.
She didn't elaborate—just turned and walked away.
He stood there, eyes falling to the spear still resting in his hand.
And in that instant, he realized—
She wasn't here to disrupt anything. She was here to retrieve something. And that something…
He had already touched. Dusk settled over the campus.
At the edge of the training grounds, Luo Jia stood by the water dispenser, filling a cup slowly.
Meng Yao leaned against a nearby column, idly twirling a pen in his fingers. He paused as he saw her.
Their eyes met.
"You came," he said.
"You stayed," she replied.
It sounded like nothing—empty conversation. But both knew what was really being said.
Meng Yao gave a crooked smile. "System gave you E3, huh? They're rolling out the red carpet."
"You're embedded deeper than I expected." Her voice was calm, almost absent.
His smile faded. "So which is it? Are you here to collect… or to bury?"
Luo Jia didn't answer. She glanced at him, lowered her gaze.
"You tell me."
They fell silent.
And then, without another word, turned and walked away—each toward their own path.
They knew of each other.
But it was not yet time to interfere.
Third floor, end of the hallway.
Lin Kui quietly followed Nie Shi up the stairs.
"You've been… different lately."
She said it softly, like she was afraid her voice might crack.
"You're quiet even when you speak. That kind of quiet."
Nie Shi stopped near a window, staring out at the orange glow of the setting sun.
"I'm not trying to pry," Lin Kui said. "But… if there's something on your mind, I'd like to hear it."
He was silent for a long moment.
Then he turned slightly toward her.
"Do you remember the lyric you gave me?"
She blinked. "Of course."
"You wrote, 'If I could forget, then you wouldn't have to hurt.'"
He repeated the line, slowly, as if tasting each word.
"I want to remember someone."
"Not you," he added honestly, meeting her eyes. "But I know… if I don't remember her, no one will."
Lin Kui stood frozen.
"Who is she?" she asked, almost a whisper.
"I don't know."
He smiled faintly. Not happily.
"Would you believe me if I said… I'm trying to remember the story of someone I've never met?"
Lin Kui didn't answer.
Instead, she stepped a little closer and said gently,
"Then while you're remembering her… don't forget yourself."
Nie Shi blinked.
It was the most serious thing she had ever said.
He gave her a small nod.
No words. But full of meaning.
The wind drifted in through the half-open window.
The school bell rang in the distance.