The truth is as cold as a knife.
The night in the ruins was long and agonizing.
Mo Xiaoyu barely closed her eyes, constantly monitoring Xie Yunzhi's condition, continuously mixing her meager spiritual power with the cool aura of the Soul-Stabilizing Pearl and channeling it into his depleted and damaged meridians. The power of the pill dissipated, temporarily stabilizing his life force which was on the verge of collapse, but the deep-seated injuries and the excessive depletion of his vital energy could not be recovered in a short time.
At dawn, the miasma hanging over the swamp thinned slightly, casting a few dim rays of light. Xie Yunzhi's breathing finally became a little more steady and even, though still weak, at least no longer the terrifyingly intermittent breaths. He slowly opened his eyes, the unfocused look in them fading, though still bloodshot, but with a hint of clarity regained.
"How are you feeling?" Mo Xiaoyu immediately leaned closer, her voice hoarse from a sleepless night and filled with deep worry.
Xie Yunzhi tried to move, but it immediately aggravated his internal injuries, causing him to groan and furrow his brows. He shook his head, his voice still low and hoarse, but much clearer than the night before: "I won't die... but I can't move for now." His gaze fell on their still tightly clasped hands, then he looked up at her deeply, his eyes filled with complex emotions—a mixture of relief, regret, and something deeper, indescribable. "You... shouldn't have come. It's too dangerous here."
“I said, wherever you are, I will be.” Mo Xiaoyu’s tone was firm, without the slightest wavering. Looking at his pale face, her heart tightened. “What happened? How did you get so badly injured? And… what happened after Black Wind Ridge…”
Xie Yunzhi closed his eyes briefly, as if suppressing something. When he opened them again, his eyes were filled with deep sorrow and icy anger. "After breaking through Black Wind Ridge, I relied on the faint connection between the fragments and the Dream-Tracing Jade to escape southeast. But my injuries were too severe, and my speed was greatly reduced. I was quickly overtaken by several groups of people... Among them were elders from the Azure Cloud Sect, and also... people from the demonic path."
He paused, his breathing becoming rapid, clearly the memories of these experiences had agitated him and aggravated his injuries. "I fought and fled, barely managing to hold my own with the help of the Ancestral Dragon's inheritance and the Abyss-Slaying Sword. But there were too many pursuers, including many Nascent Soul cultivators... To shake them off, I had to forcefully activate my still-unrefined Dragon Essence several times, causing old injuries to flare up repeatedly, with new injuries piling on top of old ones... In the end, a demonic Nascent Soul cultivator severely injured my soul with a secret technique, leaving me no choice but to flee into this Swamp of Ten Thousand Bones, seeking temporary refuge in its treacherous environment... Unexpectedly, my injuries flared up again, leaving me unable to escape..."
He spoke of it casually, but Mo Xiaoyu could imagine how horrific the process must have been. Besieged by multiple forces, his severely wounded body facing countless powerful enemies alone, burning himself out time and time again… It felt as if an invisible hand was gripping her heart tightly, the pain making it hard to breathe.
"It was all for me... If it weren't for saving me..." Her voice choked with emotion.
“No.” Xie Yunzhi interrupted her, his eyes unusually serious. “It has nothing to do with you. This is… my destiny.” His words carried a hidden meaning, an unsettling heaviness.
Just then, Xie Yunzhi's brows suddenly furrowed, and a look of extreme pain flashed across his face. He clutched his chest abruptly, and the Su Meng Jade emitted an unstable and restless light from beneath his clothes.
"What's wrong?" Mo Xiaoyu asked anxiously.
“Fragments…there’s a strong sense of fragments nearby…but…something’s not right…” Xie Yunzhi’s voice was filled with suppressed pain, cold sweat beading on his forehead. “This feeling…is chaotic…filled with…resentment and…deception…”
A strong sense of fragmentation? Deep within this Swamp of Ten Thousand Bones?
Mo Xiaoyu's heart skipped a beat, remembering what Granny Mo Sang had said: the fragments of the Sealing Spirit Tablet were scattered all over the place and could exist anywhere. She looked in the direction Xie Yunzhi sensed, which was deeper into the ruins. Behind several toppled giant stone pillars, there seemed to be a cave entrance half-covered by vines and silt, faintly emanating an unsettling and chilling aura.
“You rest here, I’ll go take a look.” Mo Xiaoyu stood up. The Soul-Stabilizing Pearl isn’t as sensitive to fragments as the Dream-Tracing Jade, but it should be able to detect them when it gets close. Moreover, Xie Yunzhi’s condition can’t be delayed any longer; we must find a way to leave this place as soon as possible, and we can’t let any possible clues slip by.
"Be careful..." Xie Yunzhi wanted to stop her, but he was too weak to get up and could only look at her with worry.
Mo Xiaoyu nodded, gripped the green steel sword, carefully parted the tangled poisonous vines, and stepped into the deep cave entrance.
The entrance was initially extremely narrow, barely wide enough for one person to pass through. After walking several dozen steps, the space suddenly opened up before them. This was a vast underground grotto, and in the center stood a dilapidated altar. The altar was constructed of some kind of black stone, covered with strange, weathered patterns. And at the very center of the altar, a fragment about the size of a palm, neither gold nor jade, riddled with cracks, was prominently displayed—one of the fragments of the Sealing Spirit Stele!
However, unlike the pure, ancient, and protective aura emanating from the fragment of Starfall Lake, this fragment was shrouded in an ominous, almost black, dark luster, constantly radiating chaos, resentment, and a... nauseating sense of deception.
What made Mo Xiaoyu's pupils shrink even more was that, beneath the altar, lay a long-decayed corpse. Beside the corpse was a jade box preserved by a special secret method, which had not been completely damaged over the years.
She suppressed the discomfort caused by the negative aura emanating from the fragment, stepped forward, and carefully used the tip of her sword to pry open the jade box. Inside was a dark-colored scroll made of some kind of animal hide.
She unfolded the journal; the handwriting was messy and frantic, as if it had been written in a state of extreme excitement or despair. Yet, its contents, like the coldest, sharpest blade, instantly pierced her soul, freezing her blood almost to the bone!
"...It failed! It all failed! What a load of bull! What a load of rubbish! What a load of bull! It couldn't stop the 'Return to the Void' at all! This is the law of heaven and earth! It's the cycle of reincarnation!"
"...Hahaha! Yunxi! Molan! You fools! You threw your lives away for an inevitable ending!"
"...Since we can't stop it, then...we might as well go with it! At the most violent moment of the 'Return to Nothingness' power, use the Dream Jade as a guide, and sacrifice the jade holder and the guardian of the formation, to steal that sliver of the 'Origin of the Realm' that was born! Only in this way can we transcend reincarnation and achieve eternity!"
"...Unfortunately...all for naught...that old mudfish (the Ancestral Dragon) discovered it...and it backfired...I am not reconciled...The descendants of the Su family...must...fulfill...my will..."
Signed – Su Yan!
The note slipped from Mo Xiaoyu's trembling hand and fell onto the cold stone floor. She staggered back a step, her back slamming hard against the cold stone wall, but she felt no pain whatsoever.
The truth... so this is the truth!
The calamity of the Heavenly River was not an invasion by demonic forces, but rather the "Return to Nothingness" law of the universe's self-renewal! The so-called "repair" of the seal was a mistake from the very beginning, a futile act against the will of heaven! And the instigator of all this, Su Yan, his true purpose was not salvation, but to steal the world's primordial power in the gap between destruction and rebirth! Three hundred years of grudges, the sacrifices of countless people, the pursuit of Xie Yunzhi by the Qingyun Sect and even the entire righteous path... all were built upon such an absurd and cruel lie!
A bone-chilling cold instantly spread from her feet to the top of her head, making her feel as if she had fallen into an ice cave. She recalled the tragic yet misleading instructions given by the Ancestral Dragon when Xie Yunzhi received the inheritance; she remembered that their goal all along was to complete a "mission" that was destined to fail and might even contribute to Su Yan's conspiracy...
She walked out of the cave, looking utterly dejected, her face deathly pale and her eyes vacant, as if all her strength had been drained away.
"Little Fish? What's wrong?" Xie Yunzhi's heart tightened when he saw her like this, and he tried to sit up.
Mo Xiaoyu slowly walked to his side, slumped to the ground, buried her head deeply in her knees, her shoulders trembling violently, but she didn't utter a sound. It was a despair so profound that even tears couldn't flow.
She handed the ominous fragment and the animal hide scroll to Xie Yunzhi.
Xie Yunzhi took the note with a puzzled look, and when he saw the contents of the note, his body suddenly froze! His pupils suddenly contracted to their maximum size! His hand holding the animal skin trembled violently from excessive force, and his knuckles made a "crackling" sound.
The color drained from his face instantly, leaving him even paler than Mo Xiaoyu. His eyes, which had just regained some clarity, were first filled with disbelief and shock, then replaced by overwhelming rage and a deep-seated sorrow of being utterly fooled by fate.
"Heh...heh..." He let out a low, hoarse laugh, filled with endless mockery and desolation. As he laughed, two streams of hot liquid, mixed with blood, seeped from the corners of his eyes and slid down.
It turns out that what he was desperately trying to protect was a lie.
It turns out that what he considered a mission was a trap.
It turns out that the tragedy from three hundred years ago was completely meaningless.
The truth, indeed, is like a knife, each cut drawing blood and chilling to the bone.
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