A low, eerie breeze whispered, and the Star Abyss Forecourt was deathly silent. At the spot where the coffin chariot had been dragged to its final resting place, amidst the pervasive gloom, a woman with a face as beautiful as the moon and hair as black as ink stood quietly beside a half-collapsed broken table, gazing at Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan before her, and slowly opened her lips.
Her voice carried a hint of remoteness and sorrow, as if it drifted from a tale from ten thousand years ago:
My name is Liu Qing.
She lowered her head, gazing at the cracked, rubble-strewn earth beneath her feet, her voice tinged with unconcealed bitterness. "I was once the only cultivator in this village... Back then, the Star Abyss Forecourt was not yet stained with blood, and this village was still called 'Wish-Returning Star Hamlet,' peaceful as water, Anran as a dream."
She raised her eyes, tears welling up but not falling, only her soul trembled slightly. "Until that day... that [Dawn Soul Book Prison - Fate-Annihilating Heaven-Sealer] came from the torn abyss, carrying pages of unwritten destiny and soul light that devoured cause and effect, directly writing the entire village into a closed loop of cause and effect that it could no longer exist."
"My relatives and clansmen, all those who had not cultivated the Dao, were all burned to death by the annihilation fire. Their deaths were not even 'permitted,' but were directly written as 'never existed.'"
Her voice trembled slightly as she continued, "And I... should have Annihilation along with them, but that soul of the Divine Prison actually—revived me from death, sealing me into a coffin with the 'pen of the Fate Reverser '."
Liu Qing raised her arm, revealing faint traces of chains piercing her bone on her pale wrist beneath her sleeve. "From that day on, I suffered daily Fate Soul- stripping, soul-tearing, and spirit-bone-reconstruction... repeated hundreds and thousands of times, all to become its 'loyal soul slave'."
Her eyes met Qin Yu's, a soft, almost pleading light in them. "Now, I am broken and no longer whole. But you... can you truly take me away from this world locked away by the prison of books?"
Upon hearing this, Qin Yu's expression turned solemn, a flash of killing intent and contemplation crossing his eyes.
Yao Zhiyan gently grasped his arm, her eyes reddening, and whispered, "Senior Brother Mo... she's so pitiful."
Qin Yu said in a deep voice, "The Dawn Soul Book Prison... It has written too many 'unwinnable' destinies. We must completely delete it. Even if it is not in this scene, we must eventually face that page—the sealing of annihilation."
He looked at Liu Qing, his eyes resolute and sharp. "If you are willing to come along, then together we will shatter the fate written upon it."
Liu Qing trembled slightly, nodded slowly, and bowed deeply.
At that moment, the sandstorm swelled up again, and in the distance, a faint black page emerged from the folds of space, as if the next scene was about to unfold.
Liu Qing sat cross-legged in the center of the ancient ashes, the gray light of the Annihilation Abyss flowing behind her like gauze, as if the soul fire that had not dissipated for ten thousand years still burned within her soul. She looked at Qin Yu and the other person, her expression slightly solemn, and slowly opened her lips:
"If you want to leave this Star Abyss Forecourt... then you must know one prerequisite."
Qin Yu's eyes sharpened. "Speak."
Liu Qing slowly extended three fingers, unleashing a beam of ghostly light that manifested a distorted and broken spatial map before the three. At this moment, the entire Star Abyss Forecourt was displayed as a "projection of soul domain logic," with each crack resembling an unfinished piece of writing and each pivot point emitting a faint, extinguished flame.
"The Dawn Soul Book Prison - Fate-Annihilating Heaven-Sealer sets up three branches of soul locks across this entire world, known as the [Three Domains of Returning Consciousness]."
"Although it did not descend to its true form, it left behind three 'Fate Track Control Points'. Each of these three branches is guarded by one of the three beings at the Annihilation Source Realm Supreme."
Liu Qing pointed to three glowing nodes on the map, each like a broken point of a star, radiating a golden glow on the black map page:
"The first location: 'The Sunken Consciousness Corridor' -- governed by a spirit construct who calls himself the 'Fate-Faced Trickster,' who can reconstruct the root of the entrant's sea of consciousness, making you no longer who you are."
"The second location: 'Soul-Whisper Severed Ring' -- guarded by a soul devourer who rewrites the entire area into a 'semantic realm where only the dead exist.' Once any living person steps into it, they lose communication, language, cognition, and emotions."
"The third place: 'The Pageless Annihilation City' -- that is the deepest part, known as the 'original page of the Book Prison,' and is guarded by a Supreme spirit constructer of the Annihilation Origin [Annihilation Master - Fate Weaver], who is skilled at manipulating the structure of fate and reversing logic. Any attack, logical intrusion, or interference of will will be 'woven into the original fate track' and backfire."
She looked up at Qin Yu, her expression solemn:
"To leave this place, we must utterly destroy the foundations of these three branches of logic. Deep within them lies the 'Soul Lock Limitation Mechanism,' the only path to escape the Star Abyss Forecourt."
Qin Yu said in a low voice, "In other words... if we want to leave, we have to break through them."
Liu Qing nodded, his gaze turning serious. "Otherwise, even if you defeat all your enemies, you will be forever trapped in this 'sealed page logic,' becoming just another loose-leaf soul sealed by fate."
At this moment, Yao Zhiyan asked softly, "Then... how do you know so much detail?"
Liu Qing smiled bitterly, raising his arm, which was transparent to the touch. One could clearly see it covered with densely packed incantation characters—all written in the Book of the Dawn Soul.
"I... was the 'cover writer' it initially wanted to cultivate. I was forcibly inscribed by it, I read a page of its soul consciousness. I also saw... your names, which had already been 'predicted' on one of its pages."
Qin Yu's brow twitched slightly, his tone icy. "It can't write about me."
"You're right," Liu Qing's eyes flickered, then she took a deep breath, "That page was later... burned."
A moment of deathly silence fell over the surroundings.
The wind from the Annihilation Soul Page swept by once more. At this moment, Qin Yu slowly rose, the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword on his back shimmering with a ghostly light. He gazed at the sky above the Star Abyss Forecourt:
"Let's go, let's write its blockade page by page until it's worthless."
Liu Qing's voice flowed slowly across the silent, gray Star Abyss, like a whisper after millions of years of sorrow. She gazed at the three golden nodes on the diagram, her fingertips lightly tapping them, and softly continued:
"However, for you... to unlock the [Page-Returning Logic Mechanism] deep within those three branches, simply breaking through them is far from enough."
Her gaze darkened slightly, and her tone became increasingly low and serious:
"It's a closed, layered structure. Only when all three logical branches activate their core decoding modules simultaneously can the only rift between the Star Abyss Forecourt and the Source of Epochless be truly torn open—a teleportation gate connecting to the 'Return to the Origin of the Epoch Realm'."
In other words... if only one point is breached, and the rest remain untouched, then everything is ineffective.
Qin Yu's expression hardened. "Simultaneous operation in three locations... that practically shuts down all possibilities."
Liu Qing nodded, then immediately raised his hand and gestured, and three ashen totems that seemed to seal the lifeblood of the world appeared in the void. Three crystals that were extremely transparent and colorless, yet reflected all things, slowly emerged. Each one had extremely complex silver and gold causal threads flowing inside, interwoven with symbols, energy, Dao chains, words and order factors. Every fluctuation caused the surrounding space to experience a moment of overlapping light and shifting between reality and illusion.
She whispered the names of these three supreme objects:
"They are -- Eternal Causality Crystals."
She explained them one by one:
One of the Eternal Causality Crystals: The Revolving Causality Realm Seal – Primarily controls the law of cause and effect, the cycle of reincarnation, and the fragments of time;
The Second Eternal Causality Crystals: The Order Source Eternal Law – Main Control Logic Chain, Mental Domain, and Consciousness Analysis;
Eternal Causality Crystals III: The Core of True Thought – Controlling the essence of energy, mathematical sequence, and flow of mental power;
Liu Qing looked up at Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan, both of whom had slightly furrowed brows.
"These three Eternal Causality Crystals are the anchor points of the final logical framework of the entire 'Star Abyss Forecourt.' Without them, even if you break through three branches, you will not be able to activate the teleportation rift leading to the Source of Epochless."
Qin Yu's eyes flickered slightly. "Where is the crystal...?"
Liu Qing closed her eyes, her expression seemingly torn apart by endless sorrow and memories, and slowly spoke:
"The three Eternal Causality Crystals... have long been sealed within the main body of the Dawn Soul Book Prison - Fate-Annihilating Heaven-Sealer. To be precise, it uses the three crystals as the central causal core for constructing the Fate Soul, fusing them into its 'Book Prison Fate Soul' to support the operation and narrative of the entire Star Abyss Forecourt."
"Unless you completely sever the Fate Soul Chains of the Dawn Soul Book Prison, it will never be able to be retrieved."
Yao Zhiyan asked in a low voice, "So... we have to face it?"
Liu Qing nodded slightly, but her tone suddenly turned cold:
"But if you rashly confront it now, you will only become dead words in its pages—forced into the chapter of fate that 'victory cannot be possessed,' becoming inanimate objects, sinking into its 'Sealed Prison Causality Sea.'"
She took a deep breath, a glimmer of light in her eyes. "The only chance is to gradually destroy its three logical branches, causing its Fate Soul Chain to falter. At that point, it will be forced to release three Eternal Causality Crystals to the Threshold edge to maintain the spatial loop—that will be your opportunity to act."
Liu Qing lowered her gaze slightly, but her voice was no longer merely narrating; it was now imbued with a deeper, chilling coldness:
"Do you know why it slaughtered all the villagers of my Star Radiance Village? Why it slaughtered all the villagers of Star Abyss Forecourt?"
She raised her eyes, staring intently at the distant, leaden sky, as if the mournful screams of a thousand years ago still echoed there—
"It's not for destruction... but for absorption."
With a flick of her slender finger, a breathtaking afterimage of the past suddenly appeared in the void—
The Dawn Soul Book Prison - Fate-Annihilating Heaven-Sealer, resembling a physical manifestation of the Soul Book, stood horizontally above the Star Abyss dome, with thousands of floating pages slowly rotating behind it, each page shimmering with the imprint of a different logical world.
Below it, the souls, Fate Soul, consciousnesses, and even the smallest logics of countless villagers were dragged out by strands of shimmering gold writing threads and merged into its Soul Book.
That wasn't devouring, that was--
"Write."
"It is writing, stroke by stroke, the fates of all living beings in the entire Star Radiance Village... and even the Star Abyss Forecourt into its own [Fate Soul Dossier]."
Liu Qing's eyes were bloodshot, and her voice, suppressed yet filled with a barely contained rage, spoke:
"It doesn't kill people, but rather it completely alters, summarizes, and formats the 'existential logic,' 'world stance,' and 'fate setting' of all souls, incorporating them into its never-ending Soul Book —using this as nourishment to enhance cultivation and refine the three Eternal Causality Crystals."
Qin Yu's expression darkened. "What... is it going to do?"
Liu Qing's words, spoken with such precision, were like the tolling of a night bell:
"It aims to reach the Void Emanation Realm Supreme, then completely refine the three Eternal Causality Crystals, reconstructing the entire Star Abyss Logic, transforming it into a [Sealed Prison Book Realm]—a textual prison from which there is absolutely no escape."
"At that time, all cultivators who enter this place will be automatically labeled as 'losers,' 'sacrificers,' and 'annihilated.' You will even be deprived of the right to contemplate victory."
"It wants to refine those three crystals in order to completely grasp the 'power to set fate,' the 'power to control the flow of cause and effect,' and the 'control over the boundary between reality and fiction,' thus becoming... the indisputable God of the Book Prison."
Yao Zhiyan gritted her teeth and said, "This isn't becoming a god... this is stealing fate and defying the heavens to become king!"
Qin Yu spoke in a low voice, and the light of the [Book of Fate Law - The Realm Severing Origin Brush] quietly appeared in his palm:
"Therefore, what we need to do is not just leave, but completely tear this 'book prison' apart."
Liu Qing's expression shifted, then he slowly nodded. "If there truly is someone who can end it... I hope that person is you."