The Diary of a Renter

91. Ripples of Order

The light of the Tree of Hope gently spilled across the endless corridor. Jiang Yu sat at her desk, her fingertips lightly touching the Source Key, feeling its steady pulse resonating harmoniously with the building's energy field. Having experienced the baptism of the "Inner Demon Contract" and the warmth of her birthday surprise, this moment of peace felt all the more precious.

His gaze fell on a page of the diary, which briefly recorded an early recollection:

"...According to the fragments of the 'List of Dangerous Dungeons' belonging to the Grandfather of the Administrator, there is an abandoned dungeon deep in the Northwest Wing, codenamed [Silent Tomb]. Its original boss, 'Echo Lich,' has been confirmed to be annihilated, but the core of the dungeon is extremely unstable due to the distortion of its rules and has been listed as an 'untouchable' area, sealed by multiple barriers."

This was a place he had never personally set foot in. Back then, guided by the Source Key and his gradually accumulating prestige, he successfully dealt with more directly threatening entities like Blood Axe, thus stabilizing the edifice. His strategy regarding the [Silent Tomb] had always been to reinforce the seal and keep a respectful distance.

At this moment, out of a sense of responsibility as an administrator, he wanted to use the powerful source key he had now to remotely sense whether the seal in that area was still secure.

He closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into the Source Key, gently extending his perception toward the area in the northwest wing marked "Silent".

At first, everything was normal. The feedback from the sealing barrier was stable and weak, like a sleeping pulse.

However, when his senses reached the deepest part of the barrier—

Click!

A crisp sound, like shattering glass, exploded forth, not from reality but directly within his soul.

A sudden, tearing pain shot through the Source Key. It wasn't an attack; it was more like... the "anchor" maintaining some kind of balance had been forcibly snapped.

The scene before him instantly distorted and shattered! The desk, the corridor, the Tree of Hope… everything was swept into a vortex of chaotic light and shadow and sharp noise. He felt his consciousness being pulled from his body by an irresistible force and thrown into endless nothingness.

"What's going on?! What's connected to the other end of the seal?!" These were his last thoughts before losing consciousness.

92. The Broken Script

Bang!

The violent impact pulled Jiang Yu back to reality. He found himself kneeling in a cold, damp, narrow stone passage. The air was thick with dust and the smell of decaying stone, and in the distance, he could faintly hear the hollow echo of water droplets hitting rocks.

He coughed violently, looked up, and his heart almost stopped beating.

This was no part of the familiar endless corridor! The walls were covered with strange, twisted runes, emitting an ominous, dark purple glow. The oppressive atmosphere of the space far surpassed any instance he had ever faced before.

"Ugh..." A painful groan came from beside him.

Jiang Yu turned her head sharply and saw a figure lying a few steps away—it was Pan Shi!

But the rock before him was much younger than he remembered, its face still bearing the traces of youthful naiveté and fear. His massive shield, the Unbreakable Barrier, lay to the side, its surface covered with a strange, slowly writhing layer of shadow moss, its luster dimmed.

“Pan…Shi?” Jiang Yu’s voice was hoarse with shock. At this moment, Pan Shi probably didn’t recognize him.

"Who...who are you?" The young Rock struggled to grab his shield, his eyes filled with wariness and fear of the unfamiliar surroundings and strangers, but even more so with the despair of having just suffered a crushing defeat. "Just now...that thing..."

Things? What things?

Jiang Yu forced herself to endure the dizziness and weakness emanating from the source key, and followed the horrified gaze of the rock to look ahead.

At the end of the passage was a vast, tomb-like cavern. In the center of the cavern, there was no throne, only a broken altar that constantly oozed a viscous, dark substance. Above the altar, an indescribable shadow hovered.

It has no fixed form, seemingly composed of pure "silence" and "extinction" itself. Wherever it is, light is swallowed, sound is erased, and even the "presence" of space is eroded. Just being swept by its "gaze" made Jiang Yu feel as if her thoughts were freezing and her soul was being pulled out of her body.

A faint yet extremely alarming throbbed in his chest. A fragment of information, marked "Top Secret - Forbidden," from the administrator's grandfather's secret archives, surfaced uncontrollably:

【Whispers of Nothingness - Tartarus】

[Status]: ? ? ? (Seal broken, consciousness awakening)

【Characteristics】: Existence is erased, laws return to nothingness, concept hunger.

Threat Level: Forbidden/World-Destroying Level

[Note]: Originally a "shackle" sealed at the bottom of the [Silent Tomb] to balance an ancient, unbalanced rule. Its awakening signifies the collapse of a "pillar" that sustains the existence of this place.

Jiang Yu's blood instantly turned cold.

【Silent Tomb】

He not only returned to the past, but also appeared directly in this forbidden land that he had never dared to step into before, which only existed on the warning list! And the forbidden existence that should have been sealed has been broken free.

The boulder before him was clearly the sole survivor of the team that had suffered a crushing defeat while attempting a mission (perhaps reconnaissance or reinforcing the seal). He, the "unfamiliar administrator," had been dragged into this seemingly hopeless situation due to a mistaken perception.

History... completely veered off course! And it started from a desperate situation where he had no experience and was completely unprepared.

“I must… leave this place…” The young rock tried to stand up with difficulty, but the injuries on his body and the mental pressure brought by the shadow made him stagger and fall to the ground again.

Tartarus's shadow seemed to notice these two tiny "beings." There was no sound, but a wave of nothingness, powerful enough to shatter the soul, surged towards them like a tide. Wherever it passed, even the rocks seemed to lose their color and texture, approaching "non-existence."

Jiang Yu subconsciously activated the Source Key with all his might! However, only a faint halo responded to him—the dual suppression of time travel and forbidden existence reduced the power of the Source Key to almost nothing.

It's over! This thought surged uncontrollably within him. Had he traveled through time and space only to die alongside the young Pan Shi in this hellish place he so desperately wanted to avoid?!

93. A Glimmer of Light in Despair

The void emanating from Tartarus, like a silent tsunami, devoured everything in its path. It wasn't an impact of energy, but something far more terrifying—a denial of "existence" itself. Wherever the wave passed, the rough stone walls of the passage seemed to be erased by an invisible eraser, their color and texture vanishing instantly, turning into an absolutely smooth, absolutely lifeless gray-white, before quietly crumbling away like a weathered sand sculpture, merging into the deeper darkness behind.

Despair filled the young Rock's eyes as he futilely tried to lift the massive shield "Unbreakable Barrier," corroded by shadow moss, but his arm trembled violently from his severe injury and the fear that came from the depths of his soul.

He had never felt such pure malice directed at existence itself. It was a thousand times more terrifying than facing any tangible, ferocious enemy!

At this critical moment, Jiang Yu moved. Although the power of the Source Key was almost completely gone, and although he knew nothing about the forbidden existence before him, the instinct and composure honed through countless brushes with death overwhelmed his fear of the unknown. His brain raced in a fraction of a second, discarding all useless emotions, leaving only the purest analysis and will to survive.

He did not choose to resist head-on—that would undoubtedly be futile. In an instant, his consciousness resonated with the remaining power of the Source Key. Instead of attacking or defending, he condensed all his perception into the finest tendrils, like sensing the changes in airflow in a storm, to capture the extremely subtle "patterns" that might exist in the void fluctuations.

“The fluctuations are not spreading uniformly…” he keenly noticed. “It’s more like a conscious ‘sweeping,’ prioritizing the erasure of the areas with the strongest ‘presence’… and its edges… are bypassing something?”

His gaze was like lightning, sweeping across the path the fluctuation was about to pass. There was an inconspicuous indentation in the left rock wall, where several twisted runes were carved. As the fluctuation approached, they seemed to flash for an extremely brief moment, maintaining their "presence" for one ten-thousandth of a second longer than the other runes.

That's it!

"Fall to the left! Get close to the recessed area in the left wall!" Jiang Yu roared with all his might, his voice hoarse from extreme focus, yet carrying an undeniable, decisive force that seemed to see through fate. At the same time, his own body had already rolled towards the seemingly exposed recess in the rock wall.

The roar pierced through the fear-stricken consciousness of the rock. The instinct for survival, coupled with the unusual certainty in Jiang Yu's tone, made the rock almost instinctively abandon the hopeless act of raising its shield, and suddenly lunge to the left, its massive body curling up as much as possible into the narrow depression.

Just as their bodies pressed against the cold rock wall—

"laugh--!"

A sickeningly faint sound, as if space itself were being corroded, brushed past their backs. It was an indescribable sensation, as if the cold blade of death had grazed their very souls. Where they had stood, the ground and the air seemed to have been erased from existence, leaving behind a strange, absolute vacuum and silence, a "path of nothingness" about a meter wide. The edges of the path were smooth as a mirror, as if a piece of the world had been neatly sliced ​​off.

That was close! Just a hair's breadth away!

Still shaken, his heart pounding in his chest, Pan Shi gasped for breath, staring at Jiang Yu in disbelief. This unfamiliar administrator, who looked even younger than himself, had displayed an almost precognitive level of judgment just moments before—it was utterly astonishing. It wasn't just courage, but some kind of…unfathomable insight!

Jiang Yu had no time to process this shock; he didn't even glance at the rock. His entire focus remained intense, the Source Key's faint perception acting like the most sophisticated radar, meticulously analyzing every detail of what had just happened: "The fluctuation has a 'path'! It seems to be following some kind of remaining... rule? Is it the residual effect of the seal restraining it? Like a beast chained up, its attack range is limited?"

This discovery was like igniting a tiny spark in absolute darkness.

"It... its attacks are predictable?" Rock also vaguely sensed the abnormality, his voice trembling with the relief of surviving a disaster and a glimmer of hope for a desperate escape.

“Not sure, but we can try!” Jiang Yu lowered her voice, speaking rapidly, her sharp eyes scanning the surroundings like a scanner, capturing every subtle difference in the distribution of runes and residual energy. “We can’t stay here, we have to move! Follow my instructions, every step must be correct!”

He noticed that the twisted runes carved on the walls emitted a very brief, dimmer purple light when the void fluctuations passed by, as if passively resisting the erosion. In areas where the runes were relatively dense, the "duration" of that resistance seemed to be slightly longer.

"Go! Move along the areas where the runes are relatively dense! But absolutely do not touch the centers where the light is strongest, as those may be energy stagnation points, and you will only attract them!"

Jiang Yu gave a low shout and took the lead, rushing along the base of the wall like a nimble cat towards a narrow crack deep inside the cave that seemed like a dead end, with particularly dense runes. His steps were precise and light, making full use of every shadow and uneven surface.

This was a gamble. It was a gamble that these remaining sealing runes could still offer a sliver of protection; a gamble that Tartarus's attention had not yet fully focused on these two insignificant "beings"; and an even greater gamble that his judgment of the energy flow and the remnants of the rules was correct.

Pan Shi gritted his teeth and followed. His huge body looked particularly clumsy in the narrow passage, but he tried his best to suppress his aura, carrying the giant shield tightly on his back to minimize his size. He stepped firmly on the spot where Jiang Yu had stepped, his eyes filled with tension and a gradually igniting trust.

Tartarus's shadow seemed to shift slightly, and that hollow "gaze" swept across once more. A second wave of nothingness struck again, this time more concentrated. It was no longer a wide-ranging sweep, but rather like a conscious dark tentacle, precisely snaking its way along their path. It was faster, more deadly.

"Stop! Curl up, conceal your aura!" Jiang Yu suddenly stopped, curling up tightly in the corner where the runes were most concentrated, even holding her breath, to minimize her presence.

The rock immediately did as instructed, its massive body trying to shrink into a ball.

The dark tentacles once again brushed past with a chilling sense of death, instantly turning a pile of scattered, pale bones of some unknown creature into nothingness, leaving not even a speck of dust behind.

Two successful evasions gradually replaced the fear in Pan Shi's eyes with a sense of trust and reliance. This stranger who suddenly appeared, though seemingly weak, became the only guide in this desperate darkness with his judgment, composure, and keen observation.

He is no longer just a "rookie administrator" who needs protection, but a "guide" worth following.

94. Ruins and ruins

The two made their way to the narrow crevice without incident. The crevice was deeper and more winding than they had imagined, leading to a smaller stone chamber that resembled the ruins of an ancient altar.

The air here was thicker with dust and the scent of time, but the sense of being swallowed up seemed to have lessened somewhat, as if this place had once been an important point, with the remaining sealing power forming a very thin, invisible barrier. The runes on the walls were ancient and complex, many of them broken and peeling off, but they still emitted a faint yet tenacious resistance energy.

"Is it...safe for now?" Rock leaned against the cold stone wall, then slid weakly to the ground, breathing heavily. He examined his injuries; the erosion of the Shadow Moss had turned a large patch of skin on his left arm an unsettling grayish-white, numb, as if it weren't his own flesh and blood. The strenuous activity had aggravated his internal injuries, and a trace of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.

Jiang Yu remained vigilant, leaning against the stone wall. Yuan Yao's perception was like the most sophisticated radar, scanning this temporary refuge again and again.

“This place… might be a secondary node of an ancient seal. The power of the runes hasn’t completely dissipated, but it’s rapidly diminishing.” He could sense the shadow of Tartarus stirring outside, and an invisible pressure constantly assaulting this fragile sanctuary.

His gaze fell upon the center of the stone chamber. There lay a broken, black stone tablet, half-buried in the ground. The tablet was neither gold nor stone, and was cold to the touch. It was covered with indistinct ancient characters and patterns that did not belong to any known language family, seemingly recording vital information.

"Can you understand it?" Rock asked, his tone filled with expectation and a barely perceptible reliance. He was now completely convinced that this mysterious administrator possessed knowledge and abilities that he could not comprehend.

Jiang Yu crouched down, his fingertips carefully tracing the deep engravings on the cold stone tablet. He truly didn't recognize a single character, but when he concentrated his mind, channeling a faint wisp of Source Key power into his fingertips and gently touching the engravings, something unexpected happened—

A strange, ancient, and melancholic resonance emanated from the source key. It wasn't about understanding the meaning of the words, but about directly feeling the "ideas" and "fragments of memory" that transcended time and space contained within them.

Fragmented images and information flooded his mind like a tidal wave:

Scene 1: A chaotic void, not darkness, but the fierce clash of countless "rules" that are constantly arising, clashing, and intertwining! It is a grand war at the conceptual level, far exceeding physical warfare!

Scene 2: A figure radiating a gentle yet incredibly magnificent light (whose outline vaguely resembles that of the main god) holds a "Source Key" of a more ancient and complex form. It painstakingly peels away and compresses a terrifying consciousness (the essence of Tartarus) representing "ultimate nothingness" and "the erasure of existence," and finally seals it here.

At the core of the seal is a magnificent and complex system that relies on energy circulation and conceptual checks and balances, while the [Silent Tomb] is merely an external node of this system.

Scene 3: The system's operation relies on several key "energy cores" and a special medium called "Dust of Order," which together maintain a fragile balance, transforming Tartarus's "nothingness" into "background rules" for a stable space.

Key information fragments: "Core...exhaustion...dust...insufficiency...circulation...interruption..." The final scene is the light veins representing the flow of energy gradually dimming and breaking.

"The seal... collapsed from within." Jiang Yu raised her head, her eyes filled with solemnity and a hint of understanding. "It wasn't destroyed by external forces, but rather the 'energy' that maintained the seal... was exhausted. Like a lamp, the oil has run out and the lamp is extinguished." That's why Tartarus awakened! Not because someone attacked, but because the "power source" maintaining the seal was depleted.

So, where is the former "energy core"? And what is the "dust of order"? Do any of them still remain?

Just then, as if in response to his question, the Source Key on his chest emitted an extremely faint but exceptionally clear and urgent directional fluctuation—as if attracted by a magnet, it pointed precisely to an inconspicuous stone groove beneath the altar ruins, covered by rubble and thick dust.

Jiang Yu's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately cleared away the rubble and dust with her bare hands. At the bottom of the groove, there lay a small clump of powder that shimmered with extremely fine starlight, like dust in space and time, and half a dark rhomboid crystal that had completely lost its luster, covered with spiderweb-like cracks, and looked as if it would shatter at the slightest touch.

Dust of Order!

A damaged energy core!

A glimmer of hope seemed to have appeared. But how could they use this remaining, nearly destroyed remnant to fight against a forbidden being that had awakened? It remained an almost impossible task. This amount of "Dust of Order" probably wouldn't even last a few minutes to maintain the barrier of this stone chamber, and that half of the core seemed more like an archaeological relic than an energy source.

95. A desperate choice

Just as Jiang Yu held the broken core and the dust in her hands, her mind racing, considering every possibility—

Rumble!

The entire stone chamber suddenly shook violently. Gravel and dust fell from above, and from the entrance of the crack, a sickeningly faint sound came from the rock being quietly broken down by some force.

Tartarus's shadow seemed to have finally lost patience, or perhaps it had keenly sensed the remaining sealing aura at this node and the faint light of order in Jiang Yu's hand, and began to directly erode this last sanctuary.

On the walls of the stone chamber, the ancient runes flickered rapidly, their light fading like candles in the wind, clearly not going to last much longer.

"It...it's coming in!" Rock struggled to his feet, ignoring his injuries, and once again raised the now-heavy shield. Although he knew it might be futile, his protective instincts made him instinctively stand in front of Jiang Yu, his eyes filled with determination. "I'll hold it off! You think of something!"

Looking at the trembling yet unwavering "wall" before her, Jiang Yu's heart was deeply moved. She could no longer hesitate.

His gaze returned to the Dust of Order and the shattered core in his hands, then to the faintly pulsating Source Key in his chest. An extremely risky, even insane, thought flashed through his mind like lightning.

This sealing system is based on "conceptual checks and balances" and "energy circulation"!

Its very design purpose was not to "destroy" Tartarus, but to "bind" and "transform" its ethereal nature! Perhaps... they don't need to defeat it, they only need to... briefly "reboot" this flawed system? Even if it's just activating it for a fraction of a second, creating a chaotic energy disturbance, a chance to escape.

But restarting requires energy, it requires guidance. The shattered core and this meager amount of order dust are far from enough energy; they can't even spark a flame. Unless…

Jiang Yu's gaze was fixed on the Source Key on her chest.

Unless, he recklessly injects the remaining primal power of himself and the Source Key into this incomplete seal structure as the last fuel and guide, attempting to ignite the spark-like dust of order and stimulate the last vestige of resonance in the core.

This is tantamount to suicide!

The source key may be completely destroyed or even collapse due to overdraft. It may also have its life force drained, or be sealed and backfired, with its consciousness being pulled into endless nothingness.

However, if they didn't do it, both of them would surely die. If they did, there might be a one in a billion chance.

There was no time to weigh the pros and cons. The rock-like figure blocking their way was the final countdown.

Jiang Yu took a deep breath, his eyes hardening and resolute like the shield in Pan Shi's hand. He looked at Pan Shi and said in the fastest, clearest voice, "Pan Shi! Please believe me. When I yell 'Charge!', run as fast as you can towards the cave exit we came from! Don't look back! Don't worry about me!"

"What are you going to do?!" Pan Shi turned around in horror, and seeing the look of certain death on Jiang Yu's face, a strong sense of unease welled up in his heart.

"I'll risk everything!" Jiang Yu didn't explain. He suddenly knelt on one knee before the altar ruins, pressing the broken core hard against the original recess where it had been placed, and evenly sprinkling the precious dust of order onto its surface. Then, he gripped the Source Key tightly to his chest, closed his eyes, and poured all his consciousness, will, and even his desire for life into it without reservation.

"In my name, guided by order... Resonance!!"

He no longer tried to control or restrain the power, but instead completely released his defenses, guiding the most fundamental core power of the Source Key like a flood bursting its banks, surging wildly into the shattered core! This was a kind of self-destructive surge.

Buzz—!!!

A deafening buzz, seemingly from the ancient past, resounded. A blinding white light erupted from the center of the altar, and the broken half of the core, as if in a final burst of light, burst forth with unimaginable brilliance, its surface cracks appearing to burn.

The Dust of Order was fully activated, transforming into billions of slender yet incredibly resilient chains of order. No longer a defensive act, but an offensive one, they instantly traversed space, entangling and piercing the shadow of Tartarus that was eroding the stone chamber.

"roar……!!!"

A silent roar, seemingly capable of tearing apart souls, filled with the fury of being provoked by ants and a hint of...unbelievable astonishment, exploded deep within their souls!

Tartarus's ethereal and seemingly unstoppable erosion was abruptly halted and frozen for a moment by this sudden power containing the purest essence of "order." Its formless shape was briefly bound and fixed by countless tiny chains of order.

Now! In this fleeting moment, bought with life and future.

"Rock, charge!!!" Jiang Yu shouted hoarsely, blood seeping from his mouth, nose, and even the corners of his eyes. He collapsed as if all his energy had been drained, his face turning deathly pale, and his life force rapidly waning.

Pan Shi witnessed this shocking scene, and his eyes instantly reddened. He didn't hesitate for a moment; he knew what Jiang Yu had traded for this opportunity.

He scooped up the nearly unconscious Jiang Yu and held him tightly in his arms like the most precious treasure. He unleashed unprecedented speed, channeling all his strength into his legs, and like a mad rhinoceros, charged desperately toward the slowly shrinking void gap that had appeared due to Tartarus's binding.

Behind them, Tartarus unleashed an even more terrifying surge of fury, powerful enough to shatter the entire spatial structure, emanating from his broken free of his restraints. The entire cave began to collapse completely, with boulders raining down.

Life and death are separated by a mere instant.