Lu Yuan suddenly remembered something that had been weighing on his mind.
"By the way, Oden, let me ask you something."
"Huh? Go ahead."
"That Hall of Knowledge I entered." Lu Yuan carefully chose his words. "The Halls of Knowledge elsewhere were all enormous, each bigger than the last. Why is our Forbidden Studies hall so small? And why are you hiding underground? Even if Forbidden Studies has declined, the Hall of Knowledge shouldn't be this small, should it?"
Oden fell silent for two breaths.
"It wasn't that we wanted to hide underground." When he spoke again, much of the usual flippancy had drained from his tone. "It was because our Hall of Knowledge was purged by something."
Lu Yuan stopped walking.
"The Hall of Knowledge was purged?" He frowned. "Wasn't that thing from another world? It shouldn't have been able to enter the real world, right? You can only go in with consciousness or something."
"Mm, that's right." Oden's voice was somewhat heavy. "But they still found our Forbidden Studies Hall of Knowledge."
"We couldn't stop them. A lot of people died in that battle."
"A lot of people?"
"Yes, a lot." Oden continued, "And more than one Taboo took part in that battle. The one leading them had probably already surpassed the existence of a Taboo."
Lu Yuan furrowed his brow.
If it wasn't a Taboo, then what was it?
An Immortal?
He suddenly recalled what Oden had mentioned before and asked, "Then how did you survive?"
"By hanging on the statues, obviously." Oden curled his lip. "Those who could hang on statues had all broken through the Fourth Order. Did you see that Bronze Gate below?"
"I did."
"Behind that gate are the true seniors of Forbidden Studies." Oden's tone became complicated. "Those who broke through to