The azure light flowed like the shimmering trajectory of starlight, piercing through a vast, abyss-like sea, and reverberating with faint spatial cracks high in the sky.
Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan slowly descended from the sky, the radiant light of the ring still enveloping them. The surrounding air currents seemed to be folded by invisible laws, and the world was as silent as paper, not even the wind dared to make a sound.
But just as they slowly looked down—
Qin Yu suddenly froze!
On the pitch-black earth, an endless forest of steles appeared!
Hundreds of millions of stone tablets spread out endlessly from the ground, densely packed, exuding an aura of death and ancient decay amidst their black and gray hues. Each tablet is engraved with a blurred and distorted name, and some even use "the bone of the Fate Soul" as their body, revealing the lingering effects of the logic of death!
Yao Zhiyan's pupils contracted slightly. "This place... is full of tombstones?"
"It is... the graveyard."
Qin Yu's voice was deep. A stellar-level warning appeared in his sea of consciousness, and the Azure Ring light vibrated subtly. A faint halo slowly rose from beneath his feet, as if issuing a warning—
This place is a residual logical array beneath the "Fate Epoch Fault," named the Returning Tomb Wasteland.
The Realm of Ten Thousand Tombs, The Guide to the Star Abyss, Uninhabitable
Deep beneath their feet, countless dormant "spirits within the monuments" seemed to be gazing at the heavens. The once lifeless monuments began to tremble slightly, and ancient broken pens, fragments of bones, soul lamps, sacrificial blades, and other objects whose extinction dates were difficult to trace slowly rose from the mud.
The tombstones are connected by faint, golden-gray "life patterns," forming an undecipherable "collective burial structure."
Qin Yu murmured:
"Some of the structures on these tombstones are remarkably similar to those described in the 'Soul Trajectory Return Record' of the Source of Epochless's 'Disqualified One Erasure Adjudication Sequence'."
Yao Zhiyan's face was already pale. There were no living beings in this world, yet it was so oppressive that even she, a high-level cultivator Consciousnessless, could hardly breathe.
"Senior Brother Mo... should we... go in now?"
Qin Yu looked at the endless sea of steles, narrowed his eyes slightly, and then said:
"Let's go. Now that we're in the Starlight Illusory Realm, there's no way out for us."
"And this place... might be some kind of entrance, or some kind of trial."
He raised his left hand, and with a gentle stroke of the Realm Severing Origin Brush in the void, a [Adjudication Sequence Defensive Formation] woven from the light of the Law of Fate unfolded beneath their feet, temporarily isolating them from any potential intrusion of soul consciousness.
The two walked side by side into this endless land of burial.
Behind them—as their feet touched the first stone step—
Deep within the Returning Tomb Wasteland, at the very center of a monument, a faint crimson soul light slowly illuminated, and the name inscribed upon it appeared as a fleeting shadow:
[Qin Yu]
Then, the wind picked up.
Amidst the cluster of steles, countless whispers surged forth like a tide:
"The writer has arrived... The path to the grave is now open."
"Though the Soul Name remains, it must eventually return to its resting place."
"Those who return must not refuse the book of command."
In an instant, the deep-seated logic of the entire Starlight Illusory Realm was activated.
The true [Nine Gates of the Star Abyss] is about to be revealed.
Black and gray waves rose, the forest of steles stood solemnly, and the wind between heaven and earth carried an echo from an unfinished destiny, stirring up layers of soul mist beneath the distant, collapsed crescent moon.
Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan descended slowly, stepping on the starlight array. Their footsteps landed on a broken ancient stele. The azure shield still protected the three-foot area around them, blocking the erosion of the Soul Pressure from the Tomb Returner.
But just as they regained their footing...
"Senior Brother Mo..." Yao Zhiyan's eyes narrowed, and she pointed ahead, "That's... her?"
A hundred feet ahead, a familiar figure stood silently among the ten thousand monuments.
That was the mysterious woman they had met in the early stages of the Starlight Illusory Realm, before they first stepped into the Annihilation-Burned Village.
She remained the same, dressed in a robe of shimmering gray feathers, her long hair hanging down silently, her footsteps making no sound, with no shadows behind her and no influence from the pressure of the monument, as if the entire realm of death monuments existed around her.
She slowly opened her eyes and looked at Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan. Her eyes were no longer empty, but reflected the shimmering starlight of ten thousand monuments Return to One her heart.
She parted her lips slightly, her voice as soft and ethereal as a whisper from a tombstone, or like the preface to Fate Book written beneath the weight of countless souls:
"Grown ups--"
"Let me... wait for you once more."
The starlight trembled slightly.
Beneath her feet, the black Soul Stele suddenly shone brightly, its inscription revealing:
[Nine Gates of the Star Abyss - The Guide to Return - Daughter of the Guan Yao - Entrusted Fate - Yu Tang]
In an instant, countless words of the spirit of the monument flooded their minds:
"Those Guan Yao bodies will return; the nine gates will soon open."
"The writer has arrived; the Fate Book must be written."
"Open the door for those who return; reveal yourself for those who invite."
The woman slowly raised her hand, pointing towards the depths of the stele forest behind her.
Whispers echoed throughout the Nine Realms Monument:
"If you wish to step into the Nine Gates of the Star Abyss..."
"Please follow me, let's first enter—the First Gate: The Question of the Returning Soul."
She took a step back, and within the group of monuments, a path home illuminated by a ghostly blue soul flame slowly opened.
The woman slowly retreated, stepping into the azure soulfire gate that had split open in the forest of steles. The surrounding air seemed to be enveloped by an annihilation-level pressure, even the azure shield trembled slightly, emitting low-frequency warning sound waves:
"Logical rune indication: The current path has not been defined by the writer; there is a gap in the path perception."
A glint flashed in Qin Yu's eyes, but a faint chill appeared on his lips. He raised his right hand, and the "Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword" materialized in an instant—the sword's edge trembled slightly, seemingly unaffected by any of the rules of this place!
A cold glint appeared in his eyes, and his voice was as sharp as ice:
"Miss Yao, step back."
Yao Zhiyan was startled. "Senior brother?"
Something's not right.
Qin Yu said in a deep voice, "This place has no substantial fluctuations of Fate Soul, yet it can accurately locate our trajectory, lead us to the person we just encountered, and even weave her into the 'Star Abyss Guide'... This is not guidance."
He slowly took a step forward, and the azure halo trembled. The woman remained standing in the same spot, her expression unmoved.
"This is hunting."
The next instant--
The Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword unleashed a single strike!
That wasn't a force that came from nowhere, but a Source Severance of logic that tore apart the structure of existence. The sword pointed at it, and even the narrative line itself was distorted, as if the entire concept of "guidance" had been forcibly severed!
The woman suddenly looked up, her expression still calm and serene, but a distorted array of golden patterns appeared in her eyes!
She made no sound; her entire body was swallowed by that sword.
It shattered with a deafening roar!
No, to be precise—it's a [collapse of phantom logic]!
As she vanished, a fragment of structural text appeared in the air:
"If life Bugui, the soul can be offered to continue. The Question of the Returning Soul is not guided by a path, but by a sacrifice..."
"Using the soul of the writer as a sacrifice, and the life consciousness of the companion as a vessel, the Star Abyss Primordial Realm Gate is forged."
--The phantom vanished completely, the blue flames in the forest of steles were extinguished, and the so-called "Question of the Returning Soul" gate collapsed like a tidal wave, revealing its true face: a pit of steles used to construct a sacrificial array!
Yao Zhiyan was shocked. "This is... they want to use us to open the Star Abyss?"
Qin Yu sheathed his sword, his eyes cold. "If I had stepped in just now, the Azure Shield would have been automatically stripped away, and the two of us would have directly become the life energy cores of the Star Abyss Main-Rank Gate."
He gazed into the depths of this forest of steles:
"The Starlight Illusory Realm was indeed not mentioned in the narrative."
"And the Star Abyss —is not meant to be 'explored' at all."
"It has come to devour the 'writer'."
Yao Zhiyan gently bit her lip and whispered, "Thank goodness for you..."
Qin Yu smiled slightly, but his gaze remained unwavering. "Let's go. We won't take this pre-arranged 'path of return'."
"--We've torn out our own."
With a flick of his sleeve, the Azure Ring light flowed forth, and with the brush of the Book of Fate Law, he cleaved a new path across the group of steles, enveloping the two of them and reversing the structure of the stele core to penetrate deeper into the Starlight Illusory Realm.
The forest of steles slowly closed behind them, and the vanished sacrificial array was completely sealed off.
The wind, once again, fell silent.
But the Gate of Star Abyss has begun to reveal a new direction.
As Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan stepped out of the last boundary of the Stele Forest, the black and gray stele aura that had been swirling around them receded like a tide, and the colors of the world quietly changed.
Ahead lay a desolate, silent ruin of a broken boundary.
Cracks were embedded in the scorched earth, every inch of land seemed to have been repeatedly eroded by "annihilation and wind erosion" for hundreds of millions of years. The scorched brown, iron gray and mixed gold intertwined to form a heavy tone of deathly desolation. The sky was dim yellow like solidified twilight clouds, with no more flowing starlight. Only distorted light surged above the ruins with faint frequency folds.
This place has no name.
It's more like some kind of [urban ruins permanently deleted by fate], as if it originally belonged to a complete civilization—but was removed by the logic of the entire world, leaving only the "form of ruins".
The towering, broken temple skeleton, like the spine of a giant beast, lay across the sky. The collapsed magic array passageway had become a drooping, broken bridge. Among the rubble were countless broken soul lamps and the remains of collapsed life array anchors. One could even vaguely see a broken "broken wheel" floating in mid-air. It should have supported the stability and order of the entire space—but now it was long gone, with only a corner slowly rotating.
Yao Zhiyan gently covered the tip of her nose and whispered, "This place... is completely different from before."
Qin Yu narrowed his eyes and replied softly, "There are no fluctuations in fate trajectory, nor any remnants of soul consciousness."
"But it feels like a place where I've died a thousand times over."
He slowly raised his head and looked into the distance.
At the edge of the horizon, silent as a forbidden zone, stands a colossal broken monument, its height reaching into the sky. The inscriptions on the monument have been obliterated, leaving only the golden light patterns seeping from the cracks—each light pattern like a nailed-to-the-tomb Fate Soul's trajectory, frozen on the monument, motionless.
"This monument... is some kind of 'blockade point'."
"Perhaps this entire ruined city existed solely to suppress it."
Qin Yu turned his left palm, Book of Fate Law manifested between his fingers. He stared at the structure of the sky, and his expression suddenly hardened.
"... wrong."
"The existence of this ruined city does not belong to the origin of the Starlight Illusory Realm."
"It... might have been 'forcibly folded' and embedded here by some unknown era."
Yao Zhiyan trembled slightly. "Are you saying that this place shouldn't have been part of our trip in the first place?"
"To be precise—" a glint of blue light flashed in Qin Yu's eyes, "It shouldn't exist on a path of destiny that anyone can step onto."
"It is the dormant layer of 'dead consciousness' and 'the forgotten'."
"--We have stepped into a kind of 'unnarrated' space."
"We must be extremely careful."
He slowly raised his hand, and the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword appeared, its Azure Ring light swirling softly behind him, as if it too sensed the resistance of the space.
And at that very moment--
The entire ruined capital suddenly trembled slightly.
An unclassifiable soul frequency, like a funeral chime from the wasteland of an era, echoed from the distant depths of the earth:
"Those who have returned have entered."
"The Sin of Memory Will Be Resurrected."
"The Lord of the Ruined Capital—Dream Chronicles: The Waking Enforcer —is looking up at you."
The golden light patterns on the giant monument in the distance began to glow, one by one.
A new existence is approaching.