Troy, Troy, Wake Up...

"..."

Bai Zhou shivered for no reason, as if a gust of cold wind had brushed past him.

Looking around, dozens of mangled Undead were piled up like a mountain, their pitch-black, hollow eye sockets glaring furiously at the sky, their expressions twisted and horrifying.

Above their heads were identical words:

[Let Me Rest!]

Their resentment had almost taken physical form. It looked like black smoke would start hissing out of these Skeletons' skullcaps at any moment...

Bai Zhou backed away from them, craning his neck from a great distance to observe carefully.

"...Was something wrong here?"

Before long, an even more terrifying question surfaced in Bai Zhou's mind.

As far as the eye could see, broken swords, shattered War Blades, snapped bows, and fragmented arrowheads were embedded all over the Wilderness like rows of tombstones.

—But where were the corresponding corpses?

At least, within Bai Zhou's field of vision, he could only see the few dozen ancient corpses in the Corpse Pit.

The numbers did not match at all!

Surely it was not just a few dozen people dueling in the Wilderness, casually summoning countless divine weapons and bombarding each other's armories like setting off firecrackers during the New Year?

And in the end, they had fought until an entire civilization was wiped out?

Bai Zhou began to wonder.

But terrifying or not, he could only force himself to keep exploring.

Since he was here, he might as well make the best of it.

Just as when he had been abducted from Evening City to Blue Star, Bai Zhou's ability to adapt had only grown tougher.

Bai Zhou remembered Ya mentioning that exploring the Reflection Ruins Realm required precise coordinates, and this Golden Pass should have been bound to the Teleport Anchor here.

Yet everything in sight was ruined. There was no trace of human activity, and the desolate battlefield was covered in long-buried ashes.

—Who the hell knew which corners and crannies of the Reflection Ruins Realm these ruins were in.

The Reflection Ruins Realm was probably boundless. The Special Management Department had spent so many years just locating Evening City's coordinates...

Bai Zhou even had reason to suspect that no one else had ever set foot here.

But if that were true—

Bai Zhou's expression tightened, and his heart thudded violently.

If that were true, then he possessed the exact coordinates of an ancient Great Tomb of civilization that nobody knew about!

What would the Special Management Department's reaction be if they found out?

Even setting aside the Giant City in the sky, just this wasteland alone might yield a Black Box if he casually dug something up and brought it back to the Special Management Department!

—An ownerless Black Box, ownerless mysterious items—what did that mean?

An opportunity beyond measure!

Now, Bai Zhou felt that he needed to reassess everything concerning the "Last Will."

Alpaca Lollipop, the Golden Pass... What was its limit?

With a crack,

Bai Zhou carefully shifted his feet across the rubble, nervously looking around in every direction.

Ownerless armor and broken blades lay everywhere on the battlefield. No matter how badly damaged they were, they were clearly all of the same style.

There was only one type of equipment on this battlefield...

So, an internal rebellion?

By glimpsing fragments of the battlefield ruins, he could uncover more information about the civilization of that era, which would make Bai Zhou's future actions easier.

A blood-and-fire tableau slowly unfolded before Bai Zhou's eyes.

Ancient scenes of clashing weapons and earthshaking slaughter seemed to appear before him.

A lost ancient civilization had built a glorious floating Giant City in history, only for the city to be inverted during a rebellion, destroying everything in an instant.

In the end, time passed, and all history and secrets were buried.

Everything that had died appeared on the reverse side of Blue Star, the place that recorded all endings and buried all ruins.

It had appeared in this Reflection Ruins Realm.

...Was that how it happened?

But Bai Zhou had no desire to spend the rest of his life in this "dead" world, even if it seemed to count as his "hometown."

By the crimson moonlight, he examined the Golden Pass in his hand, his fingertips tracing its uneven patterns.

A pass... Since it could bring him here, there was no reason it could not take him back.

Maybe it was simply missing some condition, some activating substance like "spirituality"...

But what was it?

Bai Zhou felt that the answer to a riddle was often written within the riddle itself.

—It should be somewhere on this battlefield.

If he was going to explore, then on this vast battlefield, the first place to investigate should have been the ancient corpses in the nearby Corpse Pit.

But those Last Wills were too hideous and Ill Omen-filled, making his skin crawl and instinctively driving him away.

So Bai Zhou decided to explore elsewhere first.

He did not dare go too far, merely wandering around nearby.

Twisted ropes, rotten ancient trees, dried-up ancient wells, crumbling Broken Walls,

Broken knives and shattered blades, ruined shields and rusted spears, along with fragments of unknown origin.

And all sorts of miscellaneous jars and bottles...

Crimson moonlight quietly illuminated the shattered wasteland as a furtive figure cautiously wandered through one corner of this lost ancient battlefield.

Tiptoeing about, bending down and looking everywhere, he was both nervous and determined to scour the ground clean. His bright pitch-black eyes swept in every direction, refusing to overlook a single spot.

Broken bows, rusted swords, damaged spears, and ruined knives looked exquisite, but after countless years, they seemed to possess no special properties beyond being hard enough.

"What is this?"

"Crack—"

Bai Zhou picked up a severed black spear and discovered a trigger at its base.

However, nothing happened when he pulled it.

At the break in the spear were several tightly entwined animal tendons resembling springs, but they had all snapped.

Bai Zhou guessed that under normal circumstances, the upper half of the spear might have been launched using this mechanism.

He also found several mechanical War Blades fitted with pulley systems, though he had no idea how they were used. They were all rusted through and unusable.

He even came across two round shields capable of firing hidden arrows, but they were empty as well.

Pressing the mechanism would open the dense array of arrow holes in the round shields, instantly turning them into hornets' nests...

Bai Zhou's heart chilled.

—What a sinister civilization!

Despicable! Shameless!

Was this how they fought wars?

The flashy yet treacherous mechanism designs sent a chill down Bai Zhou's spine, making him even more careful as he explored.

Because it meant that among this shattered battlefield, there could very well be traps and mechanisms that had not completely decayed waiting for him!

Who knew what this civilization had been thinking? Its technological level was clearly extraordinary, yet it had focused all its technology on underhanded tricks...

After a while, Bai Zhou found several weapons that visibly seemed extraordinary. They glimmered faintly amid piles of pitch-black ashes, though he had no idea what material they were made of.

—Extraordinary Weapons?

Bai Zhou's eyes lit up.

But once Bai Zhou dug them out, rust quickly crawled over their entire surfaces. Their glow dimmed and vanished, and none of their special properties remained. They were merely heavy in his hands.

...They counted as antiques.

Time truly was the most terrifying thing. As time flowed onward, history would be buried, civilizations would be entombed, and knowledge would turn into drifting ashes.

Even Extraordinary Weapons and exquisitely crafted mechanical weapons would become rusted scrap metal.

Bai Zhou naturally was not willing to give up.

He carefully inspected even the jars and bottles.

After a burst of rummaging and clattering, Bai Zhou found only some half-congealed pitch-black sludge inside them. It looked disgusting, and he had no idea what it was for.

But after thinking it over, Bai Zhou still collected it.

What if it came in handy after he brought it into the modern world?

"Creak, creak..."

Stepping across shattered pottery fragments, Bai Zhou suddenly deeply understood what Ya had once said—

A powerful extraordinary individual was first an outstanding archaeologist and a skilled tomb raider.

Indeed.

Was he not excavating right now—or rather, robbing a tomb?

But was he not a little too shabby for a tomb raider? He could not call it treasure hunting; he had only gotten his hands covered in dust.

With a sigh, diligent Bai Zhou held half of a broken spear in one hand and half a battered shield that was still somewhat usable in the other, continuing to scrape the ground inch by inch.

Unlike the sinister "hornets' nest" mechanism shields, this half of a dark giant shield was made of unknown material. It was plain and unadorned, with only one distinctive feature—

It was big! And tough!

Rather than a shield, it was more like a door panel. Even half of it could completely conceal Bai Zhou behind it, giving him a rather satisfying sense of security.

Beneath the Inverted Giant City,

The Red Moon illuminated Bai Zhou's bent-over figure as he diligently picked through the ruins.

Sure enough, just as Bai Zhou expected.

There really were many traps here that had yet to be triggered.

Animal traps were commonplace. Inconspicuous shrubs could fire poisoned arrows in rapid succession, while roadside weeds sprayed corrosive liquid.

Even things resembling bird nests by the roadside would suddenly release sleeping gas when someone passed by.

After finally spotting a roadside statue and thinking it might be valuable, he found that the moment he got close, the statue's ghostly head opened its mouth and blasted fire at Bai Zhou.

Fortunately, Bai Zhou had been cautious enough to stay curled up behind the giant shield the entire time.

—What exactly did this civilization do? Why did everything about it reek of crooked schemes and evil ways!

Bai Zhou gritted his teeth as he looked at the giant shield, now covered in arrows and blotched black and green, cursing under his breath.

Fortunately, the moonlight did not disappoint those who traveled on. Bai Zhou, who had searched tirelessly and never given up, had not come away empty-handed.

In a sense, he could even be said to have returned fully loaded—

A glowing broken knife, a rusted sword that inexplicably dripped blood on its own, a damaged bow that whimpered inexplicably when the wind blew through it;

As well as scattered arrowheads that remained sharp despite the passage of time.

Half a spear fitted with a launching mechanism, a broken knife capable of firing hidden arrows, a Bronze Hand Crossbow made of rotten rope and rusted gears, and a narrow cylindrical tube embedded with a spring, its purpose unknown...

Bai Zhou carried them back one trip at a time, piling them together.

He did not even spare the jars and bottles containing unknown black sludge, bringing every last one back.

Standing before the pile of weapons and looking at the results of half a day's work, Bai Zhou began to wonder.

Was this it?

Wasn't he supposed to be tomb raiding and conducting archaeology in the Reflection Ruins Realm?

Why did it feel more like scavenging junk?

Would these things really be useful if he brought them into the modern world...

Complaints aside, Bai Zhou still sorted and arranged them, treating this place as his temporary Stronghold amid the ruins.

They might be decayed antiques, but perhaps they could still be used after some repairs.

What if one of these seemingly useless "pieces of junk" concealed a lost treasure that he had not yet identified?

Bai Zhou knew how to be content.

At worst, they were valuable antiques. He just did not know how many bags of Coffee Beans or packets of Four-Flavor Instant Noodles they could be exchanged for.

...And so, after several trips back and forth,

Aside from the Corpse Pit, Bai Zhou soon finished a preliminary exploration of the nearby area.

Further ahead was the winding path that led straight to the cliff.

There were even more ruins near the path, and visibly more to gain, but the road was harder to traverse. Fallen towering trees, piles of black ashes, and shattered Building Complexes were everywhere.

Above the cliff, several flames would occasionally fall from the Inverted Giant City pressing down upon the sky, silently rolling into the bottomless abyss.

—Standing before the path, Bai Zhou looked up at the inverted Sky City and the collapsed giant gear, unable to help remembering a little fairy tale he had heard in Evening City...

It was said that a cowherd had discovered a magnificent castle while herding cattle. Inside the castle was a Princess-like Sleeping Beauty who loved to snore.

The cowherd fell in love with Sleeping Beauty at first sight, kissed her awake, and was then reported to the Black Robe Enforcement Team by her for burglary and molestation.

—So the cowherd was dragged to Civic Square and burned to ashes.

"..."

Looking up at the sky, Bai Zhou let his thoughts wander freely.

Maybe there was also a Sleeping Beauty slumbering somewhere in the ruins of this inverted Giant City?

But his instincts told him that now was not the time to explore the path. He had a feeling there would be plenty of new traps.

After learning enough lessons, Bai Zhou's way of thinking had gradually begun to align with this sinister civilization.

If a boulder came rolling down a path like this, it would be hard even to run away...

He should finish searching the nearby area first!

So he decided to stop at the path for now and return the way he came.

As he carried the broken spear back, Bai Zhou still maintained the intense focus of scraping the ground clean.

—No, this was called the craftsman's spirit of paying attention to detail!

He had learned it in the Black Robe Training Group.

"Clang! Clang!"

Passing a low Broken Wall, Bai Zhou swung the half-broken spear he had just picked up and smashed the clay jar hidden in the corner with a series of sharp cracks.

Broken pottery shards scattered across the ground. At the base of the ruined jar, something curled up inside was revealed.

"What is that?"

Bai Zhou's hairs stood on end. Clutching the broken spear tightly, he backed away two steps and hid behind his shield, cautiously peering out from its edge.

—It turned out to be a half-rotten Wooden Horse covered in colorful paint.

It had clearly defined elbow joints and a proud, oversized head. Its cheeks had been carefully painted with adorable pink blush, like two ripe apples.

A conspicuous wind-up mechanism sat on its back, while its belly was round and large, like a giant pistachio shell coated in colorful paint. Behind it hung a proud, majestic little red velvet cape.

Its round eyes had been dotted with the brightest black paint, filled with kindness and curiosity, as though they were saying—

"Nice to meet you!"

Perhaps, a very, very long time ago,

this Wooden Horse had been a gift lovingly prepared by parents for their child.

It would have had an adorable name, like "Baoli" or "Kaka," and accompanied a child as they grew up.

But before it could be taken out of its sealed clay jar, war suddenly broke out.

Only after countless years, when Bai Zhou came here, did it see daylight again.

But that was only Bai Zhou's guess.

...In the long river of history, some people left behind brilliant, vibrant strokes that still shone brightly.

But far more little people vanished without a sound.

Only countless years later, when later generations set foot here, could they witness the traces proving those people had once existed in this world.

Though these later generations were merely futile souls standing before history's doorway, peering through the crack at a lively glimpse of those passing beyond, trying to reconstruct history's vivid colors.

—But perhaps that was precisely the charm of excavating and exploring ancient ruins.

Yet under time's corrosion, the Wooden Horse no longer possessed its former splendor.

The wood had long since rotted, faded, and cracked; the wind-up mechanism was mottled with rust, and the red velvet cape had become filthy, tattered strips of cloth.

Under the Scarlet Moon's light, compared to the ruined surroundings, its cuteness and childish innocence instead seemed utterly out of place.

There was even a faint wisp of Black Qi lingering around it.

...Black Qi?

Bai Zhou froze.

Where had this Black Qi come from?

Like a fine thread, the Black Qi faintly entwined itself around the Wooden Horse's face.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Bai Zhou suddenly felt that the Wooden Horse's facial features had somehow become vividly lifelike...

As if it were alive.

"...No offense intended."

The Wooden Horse's unblinking stare made Bai Zhou's skin crawl, and he turned to leave.

But at that moment, a click sounded from within its mechanism, and the spring at its tail began to turn on its own.

The Wooden Horse's belly opened, revealing a music-box-like gear mechanism that slowly began to rotate.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

The Wooden Horse moved.

It swayed back and forth, lifted its head, and stared straight at Bai Zhou with its glossy black eyes.

Its mouth slowly split open into a bizarre smile.

Black Qi slowly seeped out from the hollows of its eyes and mouth.

An innocent children's rhyme was sung by the Wooden Horse as it swayed its body, its winding mechanism slowly turning.

Bai Zhou could not understand the language, but a faint stir within his spirituality made him inexplicably understand the rhyme's meaning.

The distorted voice was somewhat piercing, but the lyrics were childlike—

"Troy, Troy, wake up!"

"Troy, Troy, wake up!"

"..."