Tianmu: Eyes of Illusion

"The mind is a mirror. What happens when the mirror cracks?"

Lucas sat at the edge of a rooftop, legs dangling four stories above the flickering streets of Haleford. Neon lights blinked like half-formed thoughts, taxis weaved through traffic like ghostly fish, and the city hummed under a veil of night.

The mirror was in his coat pocket. He hadn't looked at it since last night.

He didn't have to.

He could feel it watching him.

Earlier that day, Lucas had tested something dangerous.

In a packed subway car on the Central Line, he let his vision blur—just a little. He didn't summon anything. Not exactly. But he focused on a man sitting across from him: a nervous office worker tapping at his phone.

Lucas imagined a shadow standing behind the man. Tall. Silent. Watching.

The man stiffened.

His hand trembled. The phone slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. Then he stood up too fast, knocking into people, muttering something under his breath as he pushed his way to the door. He leapt out at the next station, wide-eyed and sweating.

Lucas hadn't moved a muscle.

Now, on the rooftop, he couldn't stop shaking.

"It was just an idea," he whispered. "I didn't cast anything. I didn't—"

But the pain came anyway.

It started behind his eyes—sharp, pulsing. A hot needle digging through his skull. Symbols flashed in his vision, floating like afterimages burned into his brain: 八, 卍, a twisting spiral. They weren't from the subway. They were from the dream.

Then the whisper.

Not in English. Mandarin. Soft, but echoing, like it came from inside his chest.

Too fast to understand. Too close to ignore.

He stumbled back from the edge and crouched, palms pressed to the rooftop gravel.

The pain passed, but the dread remained.

That's when he saw her.

Across the narrow alley, on the rooftop of the opposite building, a figure stood watching him.

Not glowing. Not distorted. But wrong.

She wore a dark coat. Her face was half-shadowed, unreadable. Her stillness made his skin crawl—no wind, no movement, not even a blink.

Lucas blinked.

She raised one hand. Not waving. Pointing.

Directly at him.

He fell back, heart pounding, scrabbling across the roof tiles like a panicked cat. By the time he stood and looked again, she was gone.

Only the wind remained.

Back in his apartment, Lucas locked the door.

Twice.

Then he pulled out the mirror and placed it on the floor like it was a loaded weapon. The strange symbols on its bronze back shimmered faintly under the ceiling light. The thing felt heavier now. Like it had grown aware.

He lit a candle.

The flame flickered oddly, twisting to the side as if pushed by a breath he couldn't feel.

He took a piece of chalk and, on the wooden floor, sketched a crude 八卦 circle around the mirror. It wasn't exact. He barely understood the ancient lines. But his hand moved like it remembered something he didn't.

He closed his eyes.

"Just a small illusion," he whispered. "Something harmless."

He pictured a second flame. A trick of light. A test.

When he opened his eyes, it was there.

A second candle stood beside the first—same wax, same glow, same flicker. Except when he reached out to touch it, his hand passed through air.

The illusion held. Real to the eye, but hollow to the touch.

It wasn't just trickery. It was mind-deep.

But then came the knock.

3:17 a.m.

Soft.

Then again. Louder.

Lucas froze.

He didn't move. Didn't breathe.

The knocking stopped.

And then the real candle—the only candle—flickered out.

A cold breath whispered through the room.

"You've broken the balance," a voice said through the door, too clear, too steady.

"The Eye sees what should remain hidden."

"This is your only warning."

He stood in the dark for a long time, staring at the mirror.

The city outside was quiet. Too quiet.

He knew, somehow, that line had been crossed.

He had stepped into a realm where illusion shaped reality, and where reality fought back.

And in this new game, the mind was no longer safe ground.

It was the battlefield.

📖 Next Chapter: Whispers in Mandarin

Lucas dreams again, but this time he doesn't wake up. Deep inside a version of his ancestral home, he meets a voice from the past—an ancestor who once held the Eye of Truth. To survive what comes next, Lucas must learn the "Tianmu Technique" before his mind fractures under the weight of visions not meant for mortals.