Chapter 7: The First Record
Some histories are forgotten because no one remembers them.
Others are forgotten because the world refuses to remember.
The Corridor Beneath the Mountain
The bell rang only once.
Yet its echo lingered long after the sound should have faded.
Deep beneath the Northern Wastelands, three figures stood upon an ancient staircase.
Lin Qingyue held a luminous talisman between her fingers. Mu Cang stared into the darkness, his weathered face pale. Ye Wuchen stood upon the thirty-eighth step, studying the strange words suspended before him.
[VISITOR RECOGNIZED.]
[PREVIOUS ENTRY RECORD FOUND.]
[WELCOME BACK.]
[YOUR FIRST VISIT HAS NOT YET OCCURRED.]
The final sentence remained visible for several breaths before the characters dissolved into the darkness.
Mu Cang swallowed.
"What happened?"
Lin Qingyue turned toward Ye Wuchen.
"Fellow Daoist Ye, did you see something?"
Ye Wuchen glanced at them.
Neither appeared to have seen the message.
He considered explaining, then decided against it.
"An inscription."
"Where?"
"It disappeared."
Lin Qingyue examined the surrounding walls, but she could find no trace of writing.
Mu Cang, however, seemed more concerned with the staircase.
"Young man, we should be careful."
"Naturally."
Ye Wuchen continued downward.
Mu Cang stared at his retreating back.
"Then why are you walking ahead?"
"Because standing here won't tell us anything."
The old scholar opened his mouth, then closed it.
He could not argue with that.
The staircase continued for another hundred steps before finally ending.
Beyond it stretched an enormous corridor.
Its walls were constructed from black stone, polished so smoothly that the faint light of Lin Qingyue's talisman reflected across their surfaces.
Hundreds of stone pillars supported a ceiling lost in darkness.
There were no torches, lamps, or visible formations.
Yet a dim silver glow seemed to emerge from the walls themselves.
Mu Cang stopped at the entrance.
"This wasn't here before."
Lin Qingyue turned toward him.
"Are you certain?"
"Absolutely."
He glanced behind them.
"During my previous expedition, the thirty-seventh step led directly into a small underground chamber."
"And now?"
Mu Cang gazed into the enormous corridor.
"Now there's this."
Ye Wuchen approached the nearest wall.
At first glance, its surface appeared covered in decorative patterns.
Upon closer examination, however, those patterns resolved into characters.
Names.
Thousands of them.
Some were written in the current language of the Great Yan territories. Others belonged to ancient scripts.
A few were written in languages that had disappeared long before the earliest surviving histories of the Lower Realm.
Ye Wuchen recognized several of the writing systems.
That alone was unusual.
The corridor contained names from civilizations separated by extraordinary distances of time.
Yet they had all been carved into the same stone.
He touched one inscription.
There was no spiritual energy within it.
No lingering soul fragment.
No detectable divine sense.
Simply a name.
"System."
[Yes, Host.]
"Analyze the inscriptions."
[Analyzing.]
[Multiple linguistic systems detected.]
[Earliest recognizable language: Historical classification unavailable.]
[Latest recognizable language: Contemporary Lower Realm script.]
[Estimated period of inscription: Inconsistent.]
Ye Wuchen raised an eyebrow.
"Inconsistent?"
[The inscriptions do not exhibit a uniform sequence of material aging.]
He examined the stone again.
Some names appeared ancient.
Others looked freshly carved.
Yet none showed evidence of ordinary tools.
Interesting.
Behind him, Mu Cang approached another section of the wall.
The old scholar examined the inscriptions with growing intensity.
Then his hand stopped.
His entire body stiffened.
"No..."
Lin Qingyue hurried toward him.
"Old sir?"
Mu Cang raised a trembling finger.
There, among hundreds of unfamiliar characters, was a name written in the language of the Great Yan territories.
Shen Yulan.
Mu Cang stared at it.
For several moments, he could not speak.
Lin Qingyue looked at the inscription.
"Do you recognize this person?"
Mu Cang nodded slowly.
"She was..."
His voice faltered.
He closed his eyes, then tried again.
"She was one of the scholars who accompanied me."
Lin Qingyue looked toward the corridor.
"During your expedition forty-three years ago?"
"Yes."
"Then why is her name here?"
Mu Cang shook his head.
"I don't know."
He placed his palm against the stone.
"She was real."
His voice grew hoarse.
"Everyone told me I had imagined her. Even people who once worked beside her insisted they had never heard her name."
He laughed bitterly.
"I searched for her records for years."
His fingers trembled.
"Nothing."
Ye Wuchen watched him quietly.
Mu Cang continued staring at the inscription.
"Not a single document. Not a single witness."
The old scholar lowered his head.
"But here..."
He took a slow breath.
"Here is her name."
Lin Qingyue said nothing.
Until now, she had considered the possibility that Mu Cang's memories were unreliable.
The contradictory village records had been strange, but hardly conclusive.
This was different.
Someone had carved the name of his missing companion into an underground structure whose existence was itself inexplicable.
It did not prove everything Mu Cang believed.
But it was evidence.
And evidence deserved investigation.
Ye Wuchen examined the inscription.
"Tell me about her."
Mu Cang looked up.
"She was a scholar."
"What did she study?"
"Ancient languages."
"Was she a cultivator?"
"No."
"Then why did she accompany you into dangerous ruins?"
Mu Cang smiled faintly.
"Because she believed there were things worth understanding, even if they couldn't make us stronger."
Ye Wuchen looked at the name again.
A mortal scholar.
Someone who had entered forgotten ruins not for treasure, power, or immortality, but for knowledge.
He had known people like that once.
A very long time ago.
"An admirable reason," he said.
Mu Cang lowered his eyes.
"She would have liked hearing that."
The Gate of Forgotten Names
At the far end of the corridor stood a stone gate.
It was nearly twenty meters tall.
Its surface was completely smooth except for a single line of writing.
Lin Qingyue raised her talisman.
"What does it say?"
Mu Cang stepped closer.
The inscription was written in an ancient form of the common language.
He could recognize some characters, but not all.
Ye Wuchen read it.
NAME ONE WHOM THE WORLD HAS FORGOTTEN.
Lin Qingyue frowned.
"A test?"
"Possibly," Ye Wuchen replied.
She examined the gate with her spiritual sense.
"There are no visible formation nodes."
"That doesn't mean there aren't any."
"I know."
Lin Qingyue sounded slightly annoyed.
Ye Wuchen looked at her.
She straightened.
"I was simply explaining what I found."
"Then continue."
She opened her mouth.
For a moment, she seemed uncertain whether he was mocking her.
His expression gave nothing away.
Mu Cang approached the gate.
He read the inscription slowly, then looked back toward the corridor.
"One whom the world has forgotten..."
His gaze settled upon the name carved into the wall.
Shen Yulan.
He hesitated.
"What happens if I answer incorrectly?"
Ye Wuchen examined the stone gate.
"I don't know."
Mu Cang looked at him.
"That isn't reassuring."
"It wasn't intended to be."
Lin Qingyue sighed.
Mu Cang stood before the gate.
For a long moment, he remained silent.
Then he spoke.
"Shen Yulan."
His voice echoed through the corridor.
Nothing happened.
Mu Cang's expression fell.
Then a faint silver line appeared across the gate.
The ancient stone trembled.
A deep rumbling sound emerged from somewhere within the walls.
Slowly, the gate began to open.
Mu Cang staggered backward.
Lin Qingyue instinctively reached for her sword.
Ye Wuchen remained still.
Beyond the gate, a vast circular chamber came into view.
At its center floated an enormous celestial map.
Countless points of silver light hung suspended in darkness.
They resembled stars.
But unlike ordinary stars, they were connected by thin, shifting lines.
The entire structure rotated slowly.
Ye Wuchen looked at it.
For the first time since entering the ruins, his expression changed slightly.
He recognized part of the map.
Not all of it.
Only a few regions.
But those regions belonged to a celestial arrangement that had existed before his slumber.
Above the Nine Heavens
Far beyond the Lower Realm, above countless layers of clouds and spiritual seas, stood the Nine Heavens Sword Palace.
Its territory stretched across nine celestial mountain ranges.
Each mountain was surrounded by rivers of sword intent.
Ancient swords floated between the peaks like stars.
At the center of the palace stood a monument older than most of the sect's recorded history.
The Ancestral Sword Monument.
For countless generations, disciples of the Nine Heavens Sword Palace had cultivated before it.
Its inscriptions contained the foundational principles of the Supreme Nine Heavens Sword Canon.
A technique revered throughout the Upper Realm.
Yet recently, something impossible had happened.
One of its characters had changed.
No one had touched the monument.
No formation had been activated.
No enemy had entered the palace.
And still, a character within the ancient sword scripture had been corrected.
Inside the Ancestral Hall, Ji Wuhen stood before the monument.
His white robes remained motionless despite the fierce sword intent filling the chamber.
Behind him waited seven elderly cultivators.
Each possessed an aura capable of suppressing ordinary immortals.
Yet none dared disturb the man standing before the monument.
Ji Wuhen had been studying the changed character for three days.
Finally, he spoke.
"Who first discovered the alteration?"
An elderly man stepped forward.
"Ancestor, it was noticed by a disciple responsible for maintaining the scripture hall."
"When?"
"Shortly after the heavenly phenomena appeared."
Ji Wuhen narrowed his eyes.
The heavenly phenomena.
The mysterious Supreme Throne.
The black-robed figure whose face could not be seen.
Even now, the memory troubled him.
Not because he had sensed hostility from that figure, but because he had sensed nothing he could understand.
He turned back toward the monument.
The altered character was small.
Insignificant to an ordinary observer.
Yet the entire structure of the sword technique had changed because of it.
For countless years, the Nine Heavens Sword Palace had believed the original passage represented a perfect expression of sword principles.
Now Ji Wuhen understood that it had contained a flaw.
A subtle flaw.
One so deeply embedded within the technique that generations of experts had mistaken it for an essential principle.
And whoever had corrected the character had done so effortlessly.
"Has anyone attempted to reverse the alteration?" he asked.
The elderly cultivator hesitated.
"Yes, Ancestor."
"And?"
"Three elders attempted to restore the original inscription."
Ji Wuhen turned.
"What happened?"
"The monument rejected their sword intent."
Silence filled the hall.
"When they examined the original passage again, they realized their own sword foundations had already begun adapting to the corrected version."
Ji Wuhen looked back at the monument.
A scripture that had been considered perfect for millions of years.
Corrected by an unknown hand.
And the correction was so natural that even the cultivators who resisted it began to understand its superiority.
He remembered the Immortal Tomb.
The Hall of Forgotten Scriptures.
The countless ancient techniques stored within.
And the mysterious wooden door bearing the words:
THE OWNER IS ASLEEP.
Ji Wuhen closed his eyes.
He had spent much of his life pursuing the sword.
He had crossed countless realms, defeated formidable opponents, and witnessed the rise and fall of immortal dynasties.
Yet the Immortal Tomb had taught him something he had nearly forgotten.
The heavens were vast.
And his understanding was not.
"Leave me," he said.
The elders bowed.
One by one, they departed.
When the hall became silent, Ji Wuhen approached the monument.
He placed his palm against its surface.
A faint strand of sword intent entered the stone.
Not to attack.
Not to change anything.
Only to observe.
The monument responded.
Ancient inscriptions illuminated.
Thousands of sword principles appeared within Ji Wuhen's consciousness.
He followed their structure downward.
Past the main scripture.
Past the supporting formations.
Past the ancestral seal.
Then he noticed something.
A narrow space beneath the lowest inscription.
There should have been nothing there.
Yet an unfamiliar mark was concealed within the foundation of the monument.
A circle.
Divided by a vertical line.
Ji Wuhen froze.
He recognized the symbol.
He had seen it before.
Within the Immortal Tomb.
On the ancient scriptures that even the greatest immortals could not fully understand.
He withdrew his hand.
The symbol remained.
"How..."
His voice echoed through the empty hall.
The Ancestral Sword Monument had stood within the Nine Heavens Sword Palace for generations.
Countless experts had studied it.
How had no one discovered this mark?
Ji Wuhen extended his hand again.
But before his fingers reached the stone, the symbol faded.
He stopped.
The circle disappeared.
The vertical line followed.
Within a breath, the monument returned to its ordinary appearance.
Ji Wuhen stared at the empty space.
Then slowly lowered his hand.
"Someone concealed it."
His expression became solemn.
"And someone does not wish for it to be found."
The Celestial Map
Deep beneath the Northern Wastelands, Ye Wuchen stood before the floating map.
Lin Qingyue looked upward in astonishment.
"Is this a map of the heavens?"
Mu Cang shook his head.
"I've never seen anything like it."
Thousands of silver points rotated above them.
Some formed familiar constellations.
Others appeared to represent celestial regions rather than individual stars.
Thin lines connected them in an intricate arrangement.
Ye Wuchen studied the structure.
He recognized a region once known as the Seven Desolate Heavens.
Another resembled the former territory of the Ancient Human Court.
But their positions were wrong.
The distances between them were wrong.
Even the relationships between the celestial regions had changed.
He looked more closely.
The map did not appear to be a simple representation of the current heavens.
Nor was it an ordinary historical map.
Several regions seemed to belong to different periods.
As though someone had placed fragments of multiple celestial ages into a single arrangement.
"System."
[Yes, Host.]
"Compare this map with the celestial structure before my slumber."
[Comparing available records.]
[Partial correspondence detected.]
[Multiple regions identified.]
[Significant structural discrepancies present.]
Ye Wuchen nodded.
"Can you determine when it was created?"
[Insufficient information.]
"Can you identify the missing regions?"
[Some historical records are unavailable.]
Ye Wuchen continued studying the map.
Then he noticed something.
Near its center lay a vast empty space.
Not an ordinary gap between stars.
An entire region had been removed.
The surrounding lines terminated abruptly at its boundaries.
Some had been scratched away.
Others ended as though their destinations had never existed.
Lin Qingyue followed his gaze.
"That area..."
Mu Cang looked upward.
"What about it?"
"It's empty," she replied.
Mu Cang frowned.
"Perhaps nothing was meant to be there."
Ye Wuchen shook his head.
"Something was."
He pointed toward several broken connections.
"These lines originally continued into that region."
Lin Qingyue examined them.
After a moment, she nodded.
"You're right."
Mu Cang stared at the empty space.
"What was removed?"
Ye Wuchen did not answer.
He had no reliable way to determine that.
Instead, he approached the edge of the chamber.
There, resting upon a low stone pedestal, lay a small book.
Its cover was worn.
Its pages had yellowed.
Mu Cang saw it.
His expression changed.
"That..."
He hurried forward.
Lin Qingyue followed.
The old scholar picked up the book with trembling hands.
He opened the first page.
Then stopped breathing for a moment.
"My handwriting."
Ye Wuchen looked at him.
"Yours?"
Mu Cang nodded.
"This is my expedition journal."
He turned several pages.
Dates.
Descriptions.
Rough sketches of ancient inscriptions.
Notes about underground chambers.
Everything appeared familiar.
Then he reached a particular entry.
His expression froze.
Lin Qingyue leaned closer.
"What does it say?"
Mu Cang read aloud.
"Seventh day of the expedition."
His voice trembled.
"We entered the ruins with seven people."
He turned the page.
"Eleventh day."
His breathing grew uneven.
"Only six of us remember entering."
Silence settled over the chamber.
Mu Cang stared at the words.
"I don't remember writing this."
Ye Wuchen examined the page.
The handwriting appeared consistent with the earlier entries.
But the ink had aged differently.
He did not comment yet.
Mu Cang turned to the final page.
There was only one sentence.
IF MU CANG RETURNS, DO NOT LET HIM OPEN THE SEVENTH DOOR.
The old scholar's hands began to shake.
Lin Qingyue looked around.
"Seventh door?"
Along the chamber's curved wall stood several large stone doors.
She counted them.
"One. Two. Three..."
Her voice slowed.
"Six."
Mu Cang looked up.
His face became even paler.
"There were only five before."
Lin Qingyue turned toward him.
"What?"
"During my first expedition, there were five doors."
Ye Wuchen examined the wall.
Six doors were visible.
Each possessed a different inscription.
Each was sealed.
But the arrangement was subtly asymmetrical.
There was a gap between the third and fourth doors.
A gap that seemed too large.
He approached the empty section of wall.
Lin Qingyue watched him.
"What are you looking at?"
Ye Wuchen placed one hand against the stone.
"You're both wrong."
Mu Cang looked confused.
"What?"
"There are seven doors."
The old scholar stared at the wall.
"Where?"
Ye Wuchen pointed.
"Here."
The Dragon Court's Search
In the Upper Realm, far from the Nine Heavens Sword Palace, an ancient dragon opened his golden eyes.
Within the Ancient Dragon Court, Long Tianque sat upon a throne carved from the bones of primordial celestial beasts.
His human form appeared young.
But his eyes contained the weight of countless years.
Before him knelt several dragon elders.
"The search has begun, Your Highness."
Long Tianque looked down.
"Results?"
An elder lowered his head.
"We have examined the spatial disturbances recorded during the Immortal Tomb's disappearance."
"And?"
"There were none."
Long Tianque's expression remained unchanged.
"Explain."
The elder hesitated.
"According to our formations, the tomb did not pass through any known spatial boundary."
"Then how did it disappear?"
"We do not know."
Silence filled the hall.
Long Tianque leaned back.
The Immortal Tomb had remained in the Upper Realm for an extraordinary period.
Countless experts had attempted to uncover its secrets.
Some had entered.
Many had failed.
Others had returned with incomplete memories or inexplicable discoveries.
But never had the tomb simply vanished.
Not until the appearance of the mysterious figure upon the Supreme Throne.
"Search the Lower Realms," Long Tianque said.
The elders exchanged glances.
One stepped forward.
"Your Highness, there are countless Lower Realms. Searching them individually could take an enormous amount of time."
"Then begin with those connected to unusual celestial disturbances."
"Yes."
Another elder hesitated.
"Your Highness, do you believe the Immortal Tomb has descended?"
Long Tianque looked toward the distant heavens.
"I believe something happened that our understanding of space cannot explain."
He paused.
"And I dislike explanations that end with ignorance."
The elders bowed.
The investigation expanded.
Orders traveled through ancient transmission formations.
Dragon envoys departed for distant celestial territories.
And for the first time in countless years, the Ancient Dragon Court began seriously examining the forgotten worlds beneath the Upper Realm.
Ashes That Would Not Burn
Elsewhere, within the Phoenix Race's ancestral territory, Feng Qingluan stood before a sea of pale golden flames.
The flames had burned since the founding of her clan.
They were said to preserve impressions of the past.
Not complete histories.
Not perfect memories.
But fragments.
Events witnessed by ancient phoenixes.
Names spoken before ancestral altars.
Images preserved within dying flames.
Feng Qingluan had entered the ancestral sanctuary to investigate the mysterious heavenly phenomena.
Instead, she had discovered something unexpected.
An ancient record contained a gap.
Not a missing page.
Not a damaged inscription.
An absence within the preserved flame itself.
Before her floated a golden feather.
Within it, an image repeatedly formed and dissolved.
A vast celestial assembly.
Countless figures kneeling.
A throne obscured by darkness.
Feng Qingluan frowned.
"Again."
The ancestral flame responded.
The image returned.
The celestial assembly.
The kneeling figures.
The obscured throne.
Then the scene vanished.
She had repeated the process dozens of times.
Always the same result.
An elderly phoenix priestess stood nearby.
"Your Highness, perhaps the memory was damaged."
Feng Qingluan shook her head.
"Damaged memories leave traces."
She pointed toward the feather.
"This is different."
The priestess looked carefully.
Feng Qingluan continued.
"The scene does not break apart. It simply stops."
"Then perhaps the ancestral phoenix never witnessed what came next."
"Perhaps."
But Feng Qingluan remained unconvinced.
She examined the feather again.
Near its base, beneath several layers of ancient flame markings, she noticed a small inscription.
Its characters were almost unreadable.
She leaned closer.
Only a few words remained.
...BEFORE THE HEAVENS...
The rest had disappeared.
Feng Qingluan stared at the fragment.
"Before the heavens?"
The priestess frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Feng Qingluan did not answer.
She had no idea.
And that troubled her more than she cared to admit.
The Seventh Door
Beneath the Northern Wastelands, Ye Wuchen examined the apparently empty wall.
He did not immediately touch it.
Instead, he studied the surrounding stone.
The six visible doors were arranged in a deliberate pattern.
Their positions corresponded to six points along the chamber's circumference.
The empty space formed the seventh.
A simple arrangement.
Yet Lin Qingyue's spiritual sense passed through it without detecting anything.
Mu Cang approached cautiously.
"Is there truly another door?"
Ye Wuchen nodded.
"Yes."
"Can you open it?"
"Possibly."
Mu Cang looked down at the journal.
His expression darkened.
"The warning..."
Ye Wuchen glanced at him.
"Does it frighten you?"
"Of course it does."
"Then you needn't enter."
Mu Cang looked toward the empty wall.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he closed the journal.
"No."
Lin Qingyue turned.
"Old sir?"
Mu Cang tightened his grip on the book.
"I spent forty-three years wondering what happened here."
His voice was quiet.
"I hid from questions I couldn't answer. I pretended to be a beggar because I was afraid someone would notice me searching."
He looked toward the wall.
"If the truth is behind that door, I want to see it."
Ye Wuchen regarded him for a moment.
Then nodded.
"Very well."
He extended one finger.
Rather than force his way through the wall, he traced a narrow line along its surface.
The stone trembled.
A faint outline appeared.
Lin Qingyue stepped backward.
A rectangular shape slowly emerged from the wall.
Then the surface darkened.
An ancient door became visible.
Unlike the others, it possessed no handle.
No keyhole.
No obvious mechanism.
Only an inscription.
Ye Wuchen looked at the characters.
They were written in the language of his own era.
The same language used in the hidden message beneath the Immortal Tomb.
Lin Qingyue examined the writing.
"I can't read it."
Mu Cang shook his head.
"Neither can I."
Ye Wuchen remained silent.
The inscription read:
YE WUCHEN IS NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER.
His name.
Not San.
Not an ancient title.
Not a name used by someone else.
Ye Wuchen.
The name he had carried through the cultivation world before his slumber.
He examined the door more closely.
The inscription appeared old.
But its age could not be reliably determined.
"System."
[Yes, Host.]
"Have you encountered this structure before?"
[No matching record available.]
"Does the name refer to me?"
[The inscription matches the Host's registered name.]
Ye Wuchen nodded.
That much was obvious.
But the question was not whether the name matched.
The question was who had written it.
And why.
Mu Cang watched his expression.
"Young man, what does it say?"
Ye Wuchen considered the question.
Then answered.
"A warning."
"About what?"
"Entering."
Mu Cang looked toward the door.
"Then perhaps we shouldn't."
"Perhaps."
Ye Wuchen stepped closer.
But he did not open it.
Instead, he examined the lower edge of the inscription.
There was something else.
A second line.
Much smaller.
Partially concealed beneath the stone's surface.
He brushed away a thin layer of dust.
The hidden words became visible.
THE FIRST RECORD WAS NEVER DESTROYED.
Ye Wuchen stared at the sentence.
The first record?
Of what?
The ruins?
The forgotten names?
The ancient celestial map?
Or something older?
He looked toward the floating map at the center of the chamber.
The erased celestial region remained empty.
The journal lay in Mu Cang's hands.
The seventh door stood before them.
For the first time, the scattered clues seemed to suggest a common history.
But they did not yet form an explanation.
Ye Wuchen withdrew his hand.
Lin Qingyue looked surprised.
"You're not opening it?"
"Not yet."
"Why?"
Ye Wuchen glanced toward the journal.
"Because someone went to considerable trouble to leave a warning."
Mu Cang looked relieved.
Then Ye Wuchen added:
"I'd like to know whether they had a good reason."
The Same Words Beneath Different Heavens
Within the Nine Heavens Sword Palace, Ji Wuhen remained before the ancestral monument.
The mysterious symbol had vanished.
But he had not left.
Instead, he examined the stone beneath the corrected scripture.
The symbol's disappearance had exposed a faint irregularity.
A seam.
Almost invisible.
Ji Wuhen followed it with his divine sense.
Deep within the monument, beneath layers of ancient sword formations, he discovered a narrow inscription.
Its characters were unlike the script used by the Nine Heavens Sword Palace.
Yet the meaning had been preserved through an accompanying translation array.
Ji Wuhen read the words.
His expression changed.
THE FIRST RECORD WAS NEVER DESTROYED.
He remained motionless.
The sentence meant nothing to him.
But its concealment was extraordinary.
Someone had placed it beneath the foundation of one of the Upper Realm's greatest sword inheritances.
And the message had remained hidden through countless generations.
Ji Wuhen slowly raised his head.
The Immortal Tomb.
The corrected sword scripture.
The strange symbol.
The mysterious Supreme Throne.
He could not yet prove that these events were connected.
But he was no longer willing to dismiss the possibility.
"Summon the Grand Archivist," he said.
His voice carried beyond the ancestral hall.
An attendant appeared almost immediately.
"Ancestor?"
"Bring me every surviving record concerning the Immortal Tomb."
The attendant bowed.
"At once."
Ji Wuhen paused.
"And the oldest records of our sect's founding."
The attendant looked surprised.
"All of them?"
"All of them."
"Even the sealed archives?"
Ji Wuhen looked toward the monument.
"Especially those."
An Unanswered Question
Back beneath the mountain, Ye Wuchen stood before the seventh door.
Mu Cang and Lin Qingyue had begun examining the other six entrances.
Neither noticed that the silver light above the celestial map had changed.
One point had become brighter.
Then another.
Far from the erased region, a thin line slowly extended between two stars.
Ye Wuchen noticed.
He looked upward.
The line continued growing.
Then stopped.
It pointed toward the empty region.
But did not enter it.
A moment later, the light faded.
The map returned to its previous state.
Ye Wuchen watched silently.
"System."
[Yes, Host.]
"Record the change."
[Recorded.]
"Can you identify what triggered it?"
[Insufficient information.]
Ye Wuchen nodded.
He looked back toward the seventh door.
The warning remained unchanged.
YE WUCHEN IS NOT PERMITTED TO ENTER.
He found the wording curious.
It did not say he could not enter.
It said he was not permitted.
A prohibition.
Not necessarily a barrier.
And prohibitions implied someone had once possessed the authority to establish them.
He looked at the ancient stone.
"Who gave you permission to decide that?"
Naturally, the door did not answer.
Ye Wuchen waited another moment.
Then turned away.
"Let's examine the other chambers first."
Lin Qingyue looked surprised.
"You're leaving it?"
"For now."
Mu Cang exhaled.
Ye Wuchen walked toward the first of the six visible doors.
He had awakened in a world that no longer resembled the one he remembered.
He had found ancient records where they should not exist.
A scholar remembered people the world had forgotten.
A celestial map contained regions that no longer appeared in the heavens.
And now, someone had left a warning bearing his name.
He still knew almost nothing.
But that was acceptable.
Answers obtained too quickly were often incomplete.
And Ye Wuchen had never lacked patience.
After all...
He had already slept for eight billion years.
A little more investigation would hardly inconvenience him.
Far above, in the Upper Realm, Ji Wuhen began opening the sealed archives of the Nine Heavens Sword Palace.
Within the Ancient Dragon Court, envoys departed to investigate the countless Lower Realms.
Inside the Phoenix Race's ancestral sanctuary, Feng Qingluan continued examining a broken memory from an age no historian could identify.
None of them knew about the others' discoveries.
None knew that, beneath an insignificant mountain in an insignificant Lower Realm, a black-robed young man was reading inscriptions older than their greatest inheritances.
And none knew that two ancient monuments, separated by the boundaries of entire realms, had preserved the same sentence.
THE FIRST RECORD WAS NEVER DESTROYED.
Whatever that first record contained, someone had wanted it remembered.
Someone else had wanted it hidden.
And after an unimaginable passage of time, the search for it had begun again.
End of Chapter 7