As Fang Chen traveled onward, he felt the pressure of the surrounding space grow heavier.
The deeper he went, the more an indescribable weight pressed down on his shoulders like an invisible mountain. His steps grew labored, and the wreckage floating in the void began to thin.
The remaining wreckage was no longer intact. It had been shattered with terrible violence, as though caught in a devastating explosion.
The fragments were tiny. Some were no larger than a fingernail; others were as fine as grains of sand, drifting slowly through the void.
Fang Chen stopped.
He stood amid the fragments, the Spacetime Compass in his hand gleaming softly under the Time Bell's light. Its needle still pointed steadfastly in the same direction.
Through the dust-like fragments hanging in the air, Fang Chen made out an enormous shape deep in the void, like the silhouette of a continent.
He stepped forward and passed through the last of the debris. The continent's outline emerged from the dim void and came fully into view.
It was a vast, abandoned city.
Most of its walls had collapsed, but the sections left standing still rose ten thousand zhang high. Scars covered them, as though cut by blades and axes, alongside blackened marks left by spells.
Ruined halls and towers lay scattered throughout. Some had fallen completely into heaps of rubble; others still retained part of their shape.
Those halls had been built on an ancient, magnificent scale. Stone Pillars stood thick as mountains, and upturned eaves swept out like giant birds spreading their wings. Intricate reliefs covered the stone walls. Time had worn them until their details blurred, yet the care and strength poured into their carving could still be felt.
Fang Chen stood in the void before the city and looked up at the