[Mysterious Dao Voice, Resolve, [Dao-Burying Fruit Position], Finally Ascending the Throne]

[Only when you truly set foot on the [White Bone Steps] did you begin to feel their grandeur and strangeness.]

[What rose beneath your feet was not a cold sensation, but a strange sense of fusion, as though your own "rank" was being forcibly elevated and reshaped, merging with the staircase.]

[But you no longer cared about any of that.]

[If, as Chen Qingyan had said, ascending the throne meant reaching the end, yet could buy you a moment of clarity and truth, you were willing.]

[With every step, an indescribable, mighty force poured into your "body." Your cultivation realm, rank, and even your understanding of power climbed at a frenzied pace.]

[Yet, in exchange, you could clearly feel your own [essence]]

[—your flesh, your bones, your memories, your emotions... as though they were the price being paid,]

[being stripped away inch by inch, indelibly imprinted upon and rooted in every step you passed.]

[One step, and your left arm dissipated, merging into the first stair.]

[Two steps, and your right arm dissipated, merging into the second stair.]

[Three steps, and your legs began to crumble...]

[You moved faster and faster. By the end, you could no longer tell whether you were walking or whether this greedy staircase was dragging you onward, devouring you as you went.]

[At last, you reached the end of the staircase and stood before that unfinished [White Bone Throne].]

[You lowered your head to "look" at yourself. Your body had long since vanished entirely,]

[leaving only a faint remnant soul radiating the splendor of a supreme rank. It was like a dying candle in the wind, yet, strangely, the throne's power sustained it without cease, keeping it from oblivion.]

[You did not know how powerful you were now. Perhaps you had already surpassed the gray-robed Golden Core cultivator below.]

[But there was only calm in your heart—a nearly absolute calm, stripped of all flesh and all emotion.]

[You looked back. The long staircase of white bones bore clear imprints of your dismemberment:]

[arms, legs, torso... until, on the final stair, there was the phantom image of your own expressionless head.]

[You tried to touch the throne, only to find that your remnant soul's hand passed straight through it, unable to make contact.]

[Just then, a vast, ancient voice, tinged with unmistakable weakness, seemed to arrive from ages past and resounded directly in the depths of your soul core:]

["[To climb these [Delusive Death Steps] with a cause that guarantees death... how interesting. Junior, what do you wish to obtain through this throne?]"]

[Your remnant soul twisted violently under that voice, but you did everything you could to stabilize your form and answered in a voice that no longer belonged to a human:]

["The... truth!"]

["[Oh?!]" The voice seemed rather surprised. "[But what would knowing change? Would you not still have to die?]"]

[You did not answer at once.]

[Yes. Even if I knew, wouldn't I still have to die?]

[But that refusal to accept your fate, that fury at being toyed with in the palm of another's hand, finally shattered the facade of absolute calm!]

[The light of your remnant soul flickered violently, and your voice filled with twisted yet blazing emotion:]

["I refuse to accept this!"]

["I refuse to keep being a ghost who died in ignorance! Even if I die... I want to know why!!"]

[As you climbed this staircase and your rank was forcibly raised to its present realm, much of the fog had been blown away.]

[You clearly understood your own condition]

[—you had already "died" the moment you stepped onto the first stair!]

[The you that existed now was merely a fleeting phantom sustained by the rank of these [White Bone Steps].]

[It was precisely this "death" that had temporarily freed you from that unseen control and granted you this moment of clarity!]

[You had been retracing everything all along. When, exactly, had it all begun?]

[Your conclusion was—the moment you entered the [Treasure Pavilion]!]

[Why had you, of all people, insisted on buying [Know Fortune and Misfortune] as though possessed?]

[With so many customers, why had that Foundation Establishment steward been so "enthusiastic" toward you alone?]

[Your later search for Chen Qingyan had been even more like a puppet being controlled by invisible strings!]

[Chen Qingyan could barely protect himself. In the previous simulation alone, at least two [True Lords] had designs on him!]

[The True Lord who controlled the [Illusion-Reality Fruit Position] and the True Lord who finally dealt you the killing blow were clearly not the same person!]

[Your "certain-death fortune" was frightening, certainly, but could it possibly be more frightening than the personal scheming of one, or even several, [Nascent Soul True Lords]?!]

[This had never been a contest on the same plane!]

[From beginning to end, you had been nothing more than an insignificant pawn in the True Lords' game... a piece used to probe, used to be sacrificed!]

[What you wanted to ask about was the truth behind this game! Even if you could know it for only an instant before your soul scattered into oblivion!]

After a long silence, that vast voice sounded again, carrying a trace of indescribable mockery, and perhaps pity:

"[A wretch doomed to suffer?!]"

Then every trace of emotion withdrew from the voice, replaced by a resolve almost like that of a martyr:

"[Very well... no matter what, [Supreme] must not be allowed to fall completely. [Beyond Heaven] must be restored to the world!]"

"[In that case, why not grant your wish? Let this final afterglow of my [burial dao] lend one more measure of strength to [Beyond Heaven]!]"

[The instant those words fell, you felt the invisible barrier that had kept obstructing you disappear.]

[At last, your remnant soul touched the cold [White Bone Throne], built from countless bones.]

[At the moment of contact, an immense torrent of information surged into your soul core, which was on the verge of dissipating, like floodwaters bursting through a dam:]

[This place was called the [Burial Ground of the Dao]!]

[It was no simple secret realm or ruin, but the manifestation of a nascent [dao-burying fruit position]!]

[The endless white bones before you were merely the concrete manifestation of its Rules and power.]

[The [White Bone Steps] you had ascended were, in essence, a process of "burying the self"]

[—burying everything of your former self in exchange for a staircase leading to a higher rank.]

[A complete [dao-burying fruit position] required three stages of burial. But because this was only a nascent form, and had not been attained naturally, only the first—and cruelest—stage remained: "burying the self."]

[Although this was only an incomplete nascent form, insufficient to support someone in attaining the Dao at the [Nascent Soul] realm,]

[the rank and power of the Rules it contained were already enough to elevate your perspective in the final instant of your life, allowing you to see clearly the vast game that had enveloped you!]

[Under Chen Qingyan's indifferent gaze and the gray-robed Golden Core cultivator's complicated eyes,]

[that wisp of your remnant soul, bearing a supreme rank and your final obsession, at last slowly, resolutely seated itself upon the [White Bone Throne] that symbolized burial and the end—or rather, the [burial dao nascent fruit position]!]

[In an instant, your "vision" rose and expanded without limit!]

[You no longer looked through mortal eyes. Instead, you used the Rules of this [burial dao] as your eyes, gazing down upon the long river of your own fate and piercing the overlapping layers of fog and schemes!]

[You—were about to see the whole truth... of what had entangled you through several simulations and led you into a death trap!]