256: Forgotten Whispers

After the rather unpleasant "technical exchange" with the Hand of Order, Li Dong did not linger in that newly reborn galaxy.

He was like an on-call handyman; once the job was done and his tools were packed away, it was time to move on to the next house.

The vast blueprint of the Universe unfurled before his eyes.

Thanks to the resonance of the ancient stone slab within him, countless "anomaly" coordinates, some bright and some dim, appeared one by one in his Divine Thought like flickering warning lights.

"Next... where to?"

He swiped through these points of light casually, as if browsing for a late-night snack on a food delivery app.

This one, polluted by remnants of the past, was too greasy; that one, suffering from mutations due to excess newborn energy, was too heat-inducing.

Finally, his fingertip stopped on a point that was extremely dim, nearly vanishing from his perception.

This place was strange.

It had no violent energy, no twisted Law, and even the decaying Death Qi was minimal.

It was simply... "Nothingness."

It was a corner completely forgotten by the circulation System of the Universe's Origin, like a spot on a piece of white paper that had been erased so forcefully that even the fibers of the paper itself had worn away.

"Interesting." Li Dong became intrigued. With a single step, his figure traversed the endless Void Realm.

Just as he arrived at the edge of this region, that familiar gaze arrived right on schedule.

"Yo, the old audience member is back?"

Li Dong muttered without turning his head, "Changed to a new theater this time; I hope the plot satisfies you."

The meaning behind this gaze seemed slightly different from before.

It had a little less pure scrutiny and a little more... expectation?

It was as if it were saying: You managed to crack that tough nut last time; how do you plan to handle this soft prickle this time?

Li Dong ignored it and focused his attention on this "Land of Oblivion."

[Void Eye] activated.

The scene before him made him raise an eyebrow slightly.

The space-time structure here presented a strange, viscous sensation; the flow of time was as slow as solidified amber, and the spatial Law was as fragile as a dried spider web.

Energy barely flowed here; everything had fallen into eternal silence.

His gaze pierced through layers of deathly silence, and he saw the core of this region.

It had once been an extremely prosperous ancient civilization, but now only weathered ruins and countless dim Soul fragments floating in the Void Realm remained.

They had not dissipated, nor had they been guided by Reincarnation; they were simply quietly "sleeping."

"It wasn't an external invasion, nor was it energy depletion..." Li Dong quickly reached a conclusion, "They 'shut themselves down'."

This space was like a massive dream, and these Souls, along with the Laws of the entire world, had fallen into a deep self-closure.

The reason was the loss of a core "memory."

They had forgotten how to function, forgotten how to exist, and forgotten... themselves.

What a rare wonder of the world.

Li Dong tentatively extended a wisp of his Divine Thought, like a soft feather, wanting to touch one of the Soul fragments nearest to him in an attempt to wake it.

Just as his Divine Thought was about to make contact, a sudden change occurred.

Several translucent figures, almost blending into the Void Realm, quietly appeared and blocked his Divine Thought.

These creatures had no physical form, no energy fluctuations, and were composed entirely of a pure "Law of Oblivion."

A silent thought was transmitted over.

[Silence... needs to be maintained.]

"Dream Guardians?" Li Dong gave them a name.

These Dream Guardians did not give him any more time to react and launched an attack directly.

There were no earth-shattering energy explosions, nor were there sharp blades of Law that tore through space. Their method of attack was "erasure."

An invisible force enveloped Li Dong.

He suddenly felt a bit empty in his mind; a word he had just thought of suddenly disappeared from his memory.

Immediately after, for a brief moment, he even forgot why he had come here.

"Hmm?" Li Dong's Divine Thought tightened, and the power of the ancient stone slab circulated within him, instantly dispelling this strange sensation.

"Good grief, attacking presence and memory directly? This is much more insidious than physical attacks." He couldn't help but marvel.

[Tune of Harmony].

He decided to try civility before force.

A harmonious and vibrant ripple of Law spread out, attempting to inject "sound" and "vitality" into this land of deathly silence.

However, this power, capable of pacifying violent galaxies, sank like a stone into the sea here.

Those Dream Guardians bathed in the Tune of Harmony without the slightest reaction.

They were the Incarnation of "silence" and were naturally immune to the concept of "sound."

"Fine, reasoning won't work." Li Dong withdrew his power.

Forcibly dispersing them? Useless.

They were part of this Law of Oblivion and would immediately reform even if dispersed. He had to find the source.

Since he couldn't "wake" them from the outside, he could only "activate" the forgotten "memory" within their Origin from the inside.

He cast his gaze toward the depths of those vast ruins; the real trouble should be hidden there.

But this Land of Oblivion was too large, and the Laws were so strange; searching aimlessly was no different from looking for a needle in a haystack.

Just as he was pondering a strategy, the "audience" gaze above him suddenly underwent a subtle change.

It no longer covered the entire area evenly but, like an invisible spotlight, increased slightly in brightness, briefly shining toward an inconspicuous corner in the depths of the ruins, before quickly returning to its original state.

"Huh? Providing outside guidance now?" Li Dong was stunned for a moment, then laughed, "Fine, I guess I owe you a ticket."

He hesitated no longer, flashed his figure, and flew toward the depths of the ruins, following the direction indicated by the "beam" just now.

The deeper he went, the more intense the power of "oblivion" became.

Li Dong had to constantly divert a portion of his mind to continuously consolidate his own memories and purpose, lest he walk and walk, only to forget who he was and what he was doing.

This feeling was like walking against a gale-force wind; every step was exceptionally difficult.

Finally, after passing through layers of obstacles, he arrived at the corner that had been "hinted" at.

A broken, massive stone stele stood here.

The text on the stele was not any known language but an information imprint that acted directly upon the Divine Soul.

Li Dong's fingers gently brushed over the cold surface of the stele, and a piece of sealed history flooded into his mind like a tide.

This civilization had once been glorious to the extreme, and they had mastered the ultimate technology for manipulating memory.

To resist the wear of time and the decay of the Universe, they launched a great plan—to extract all the most beautiful memories of their civilization and construct an eternal "Memory Paradise," allowing the consciousness of all their clansmen to live forever within it.

However, they failed.

After extracting all the "beauty," nothing remained but a blank space.

Having lost the guidance of memory, their Laws began to stagnate, and the civilization fell into self-closure.

They had not died; they had just... forgotten how to live.

"To eternally preserve memories, only to result in collective amnesia. This is truly... the dark comedy champion of the year." Seeing this, Li Dong did not know how to evaluate it.

His gaze moved to the end of the stele.

The records there became blurry and chaotic, filled with fear and despair.

[...The final product of the plan went out of control... It devoured everything... It became "memory" itself, and it also became "oblivion" itself... We call it... "the memoryless one"...]

The moment Li Dong read the name "the memoryless one," the entire ruin shook violently.

The surrounding "Law of Oblivion" suddenly thickened more than tenfold; those Dream Guardians that were originally only passively defending now exuded intense aggression, their translucent bodies beginning to twist and deform, like beasts awakened by an invisible hand.

Li Dong immediately understood.

This so-called "the memoryless one" was not some passive collection of Laws at all.

It was a living existence with self-awareness.

And he, this uninvited guest, had just woken it from its slumber.