THE CRIPPLED SON-IN-LAW UNLOCKED IMMORTAL CULTIVATION

CHAPTER 23: THE DOOR THAT KNEW MY NAME

The darkness around the sealed door spread until it covered the narrow gaps between the stones. I kept my distance, though every instinct urged me to move closer and discover who was speaking with my voice.

“Ryan, don't listen to it,” Crystal said. She had one arm around the injured guard, whose weight was becoming difficult for her to support. “We need to get him out.”

“I won't leave the others down here.”

“You won't help them if this place comes down on us.”

Her words were reasonable, but the communication device had gone silent, and the missing guards were somewhere beyond that chamber. I could not walk away without knowing whether they were alive.

The figure wearing my face stood near the passage wall. Its dark eyes remained fixed on the door, and the mark on its wrist flickered like a dying flame.

“You know what is behind it,” I said.

“I know what it does.”

“Then tell me.”

“It calls people using what they want to hear. Sometimes it uses a familiar voice. Sometimes it remembers things they have never told anyone.” The figure looked at me. “It wants you to believe that opening the door is your choice.”

A voice slipped through the stone again, gentle and familiar.

“Ryan, you were only a child. You don't have to keep suffering.”

My chest tightened. I remembered the years I had spent being called useless, the family gatherings where I was treated like a burden, and the quiet humiliation of being the crippled son-in-law. The voice carried the warmth I had once wanted from people who never offered it.

But it was not real.

“How does it know anything about my childhood?” I asked.

The figure shook its head. “The formation touched your energy. It has been collecting impressions since you arrived.”

The circular markings around the door began to glow. Their light travelled across the stone in three separate lines before meeting at the centre. My wrist mark answered with a sharp pulse.

I stepped back. The vibration weakened.

When I moved forward again, the door trembled.

I tried it once more, watching the mark carefully. The formation was responding to my presence, not to the energy I released. Whatever connection existed between us had already been established.

“Do not approach it,” the primordial entity warned.

I turned my attention inward. “Now you want to speak?”

“The mark is an anchor. The formation has attached itself to the imprint left by our bond.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Because I did not know it had reached this stage.”

“You knew enough to warn me.”

“I knew the danger. I did not know the door would recognise you so quickly.”

I clenched my jaw. It had been giving me warnings while keeping the most important information to itself, and I was tired of discovering the truth only after something tried to kill me.

“If we get out of here, you will explain everything you know.”

“If we get out,” it replied, “you may not have the strength to demand anything.”

Before I could answer, the figure wearing my face moved closer to the door. Its body flickered, and thin cracks of light appeared beneath its skin.

“The mark is pulling it apart,” I said.

“It was never meant to last,” the entity answered. “The formation made it from your imprint. It cannot remain stable while the original is resisting the connection.”

The figure pressed its palm against the wall, struggling to stay upright. “It is getting stronger.”

The injured guard groaned. Crystal lowered him carefully against a raised section of stone and checked the bandage around his side.

“Ryan, his wound is opening again.”

“Keep pressure on it. Don't let him stand.”

She looked toward the door. “And what are you going to do?”

“Find a way to break the connection.”

I approached the nearest formation line, keeping my wrist away from the stone. The markings brightened as I came within reach, and a low hum travelled through my bones. I could feel two currents moving beneath the surface. One was the familiar ancient energy that had surrounded the chamber from the beginning. The other was colder, heavier, and focused entirely on me.

The entity pressed against my thoughts. “Do not let the currents join.”

“I can see them.”

“Seeing them is not the same as controlling them.”

I ignored its warning and studied the pattern. The three lines did not simply meet at the centre; each one fed into a smaller groove beneath the door. If I interrupted the flow at the point where they crossed, I might weaken the anchor without opening the seal.

The voice behind the door changed.

“Your wife is afraid, Ryan. She knows you will leave her when you discover what she hid.”

Crystal stiffened. I glanced at her, but she kept her attention on the injured guard.

“Don't listen,” I told her.

“I know what it is doing,” she answered, though her fingers had tightened around the bandage.

The voice continued, now using a tone that sounded almost like my own thoughts.

“You trusted her once. Look where it brought you.”

I pushed the words aside and placed my palm against the stone beside the first groove. A controlled stream of energy entered the formation. The markings flared, and the cold current rushed toward my wrist.

Pain shot up my arm.

The entity shouted, “Withdraw!”

I tried to pull away, but something caught the energy flowing through my hand. The mark burned as the current tightened around it, dragging at the bond inside me. My knees buckled, and the passage tilted before my eyes.

Crystal moved toward me.

“Stay back!” I forced out.

The stone door shifted. A dark hand pushed through the narrow opening, its fingers stretching toward my wrist. The pressure in the passage became unbearable, and the formation began drawing energy from me faster than I could redirect it.

Then the double moved.

It struck the glowing line on the opposite side of the door with both hands. Its body broke into flashes of unstable light, but the impact disrupted the formation for a brief moment.

The cold current loosened.

I seized that opening, forced my energy backward through the groove, and broke the connection. The dark hand withdrew as the door slammed shut with a force that shook dust from the ceiling.

I fell onto one knee, breathing hard. My wrist still burned, and a thin black line now ran from the mark toward my forearm. It did not fade as it had before.

“Is it gone?” Crystal asked.

“No,” the entity answered inside my mind. “The connection has only been interrupted.”

I looked at the double. Its body was fading, beginning at the hands that had struck the formation. It stared at me with an expression I could not understand.

“The door won't stay closed,” it said.

“What is behind it?”

The figure struggled to speak. “That isn't the only thing down here.”

Its face blurred. For one brief moment, it looked less like me and more like a shadow trying to hold a human shape.

“Why did it make you?” I asked.

“I don't know.” Its eyes shifted toward the sealed chamber. “But it has what it needs now.”

The figure collapsed into a stream of dark energy that sank into the cracks between the stones. The passage became quiet, but the pressure beneath the floor did not disappear.

I pushed myself upright and went to Crystal. The injured guard was conscious, though his face had turned pale.

“We're leaving,” I said. “Help him up slowly.”

Crystal slipped the guard's arm over her shoulder. I took his other side, and together we began moving toward the passage entrance. We had barely taken a few steps when a communication device crackled beneath a broken piece of equipment.

I picked it up.

Static filled the speaker before a weak voice came through.

“Ryan? Can you hear me?”

I recognised the team captain's voice. “Where are you? Are the others with you?”

“We found them,” he replied, breathing unevenly. “But we're not alone.”

“Tell me where you are.”

There was a pause, followed by the sound of metal scraping against stone. The captain lowered his voice.

“Ryan, listen carefully. We found another door down here. It has your name written on it.”

The signal broke into static.

I looked back at the sealed door. The stone remained still, but my wrist pulsed again. Something below had heard the captain's message and answered. I tightened my grip on the device, knowing our way out had become another path toward the danger.

I stared at the device, unable to ignore the dark line spreading along my wrist. The primordial entity stirred, its presence pressing against my thoughts with a warning that made my stomach tighten.

“There is another entrance,” it said. “And this time, it is already open.”