77: Chapter 78 Old Case (Half a Page)

As the three characters "Main Stele Area" lit up behind the gate, the split-second of deathly silence before the bridge instantly shattered.

"Enter!" "Seize the front path!" "Don't let them step onto the Stele Road first!"

Several strong teams moved simultaneously. The Heavy Hammer Team in front of the right gate was the most anxious; as soon as the gate gap opened just over half a shoulder's width, they began ramming inside, swinging their short hammers. The Beiyue Academy team on the left slope didn't crowd the center, instead pressing urgently along the dimly lit old fire-long path on the left edge of the battle map, clearly intending to seize the sidelines and the landing position in front of the Stele. The Double-Cable Fast Team on the bridge belly retracted their cables and slid forward, also wanting to slip through the gate amidst the chaos.

But the first to enter the gate was Lu Jin.

He didn't look at the brightest main path in the center of the Main Stele; his gaze instantly locked onto the dimly lit, grey-black corner wall at the bottom left behind the gate. That place wasn't on the main path, nor was it a key location on the battle map, but beside a half-collapsed stone niche under the wall, there was a thin, old white ash line pressed down—the technique was identical to the "Third Survey" old carving beside the gate guts on the bridge belly.

"Bottom left."

As the words fell, Lu Jin took the lead and cut across diagonally. Ning Yanqiu did not ask for the reason, flipped her cold mirror fragment disk, and first suppressed the wind pressure on the outer edge of the central eye. The young man in the grey-brown short cape from Beiyue Academy faltered, and by then, Lu Jin had already brought two Bone-Armor Furnace Guards and a trail of Red-Eyed Rat Tide into the gate from the left side of the gap.

"Night Wing, guard the upper opening; don't let anyone press down from above." Ning Yanqiu's voice was steady. One Night Wing hung from the bridge eye, and another swept across the upper beam behind the gate, its vision instantly locking onto the stone niche and the half-collapsed corridor entrance on the left. Anyone who wanted to cut across from above would first be exposed under the mirror line.

Behind the gate was actually a severed old battlefield. There was no open space on the outer edge of the Main Stele Area, only circles of forward marker walls, fire trough platforms, and abandoned piles half-sunk in ash. What looked like walls were actually old marker platforms flattened by ash after being burned down. Scattered on the ground were broken cables, remnants of flagpoles, and shiny black thin stone shards, as if someone had been burning things while retreating back in the day, too rushed to even clean up.

Lu Jin's heart sank—this wasn't a simple defeat; someone had fought a battle here and deliberately erased the traces.

They soon arrived before the half-collapsed stone niche. The niche was slightly taller than a person, with half of its exterior burned away. Inside was a still-standing old fire board, its writing covered by charred black. Just as a Bone-Armor Furnace Guard reached out to lift it, Lu Jin held him back: "Don't pry it hard; there's something pressed underneath."

It was a fire stone leaf, thinner than paper, the material used by the Old Military Court for supplementary markers. It didn't fear ash tides, only rough hands. Lu Jin crouched down and lightly wiped the side of the charred board with his fingertips; beneath the black ash, a line of old sealing wax immediately appeared.

"Someone burned this on purpose." Ning Yanqiu followed, her mirror light only illuminating the wax edge, her voice kept extremely low. "It was deliberately ignited."

As soon as she finished speaking, a dull thud came from the main path—the Heavy Hammer Team had already rushed in, and the people from Beiyue Academy were close behind. There wasn't much time left.

"Give me half an incense stick of time." Lu Jin said.

Ning Yanqiu glanced at the stone niche, then at the chaotic main path, and nodded decisively: "You flip it, I'll hold them off for you." She took half a step back, raised her cold mirror fragment disk to shoulder height, and stood at the narrowest collapsed opening outside the stone niche. "Night Wing, guard the left corridor entrance; report immediately if anyone presses down."

Lu Jin didn't look up again. He compressed the black fire in his palm to an extremely fine point, slowly tracing along the edge of the sealing wax, not burning the fire stone leaf, but only the stuck ash shell. The fire stone leaf was stuck fast by the ash wax; if he used even a little too much force, it would curl into ash along with the characters.

The first layer of ash fell, revealing half a page; the second layer of wax shrank, revealing half a line; by the third layer, the entire fire stone leaf finally slid gently from under the charred board—only half a page remained, the right half missing, the bottom corner burned through, but the line of old characters on the top left remained clearly striking: [No. 7 Rift Zone, Third Survey Supplementary Marking Team, Front Bridge Fire Continuation Excerpt]

Lu Jin's knuckles tightened suddenly. This wasn't a rumor, nor a coordinate; it was a first-hand record left behind from this battlefield years ago, the traces of his father's supplementary marking team.

"Can you recognize it?" Ning Yanqiu asked in a low voice without turning around.

Lu Jin's throat tightened, and he responded with a "Mn." Half the characters on the fire stone leaf were burned away and bore shallow knife-scraped marks, but the remaining part was enough to pry open an old breath that had been suppressed for a long time: [...Fire bridge's three eyes have been continued, center eye can be passed.] [...Front path not cleared, old nails on the bridge belly are inverted, suspect someone sealed the road beforehand.] [...After the Second Survey's second supplementary marking, do not return to the Post Station, proceed to the lower western layer of the Main Stele.]

Lu Jin's gaze deepened—this was a real-time excerpt from the front line, not a post-battle retrospective. This meant his father's supplementary marking team hadn't just crossed the Rift Gate Fire Bridge, they had truly entered the Main Stele Area.

A sharp shout suddenly came from outside: "Someone in the left corridor!"

A grappling hook stabbed in diagonally from the half-collapsed corridor entrance, heading straight for the stone niche. Ning Yanqiu raised her hand and suppressed it; with a metallic twang of the cold white mirror line, the grappling hook was deflected in mid-air, stabbing into the stone wall and sending sparks flying. The Night Wing on the upper beam behind the gate dove simultaneously, its sharp claws grabbing and tearing the spare hook off the person's wrist.

"It's the Double-Cable Fast Team, they want to snatch the page." Ning Yanqiu's voice remained steady. Her fingertips pressed another inch outside the left corridor; the wind vent used for leveraging over the wall instantly went cold, leaving the two people behind the corridor with no footing, forcing them to retreat. However, fine beads of sweat had already seeped onto her forehead.

Lu Jin saw it all, but didn't ask her to stop—the two lines of characters at the bottom of the fire stone leaf were what truly made one's back go cold: [...Respectfully received... Original marker records do not return to the front station.] The characters following that had been forcefully scraped off by someone with a knife; they weren't burned away, but deliberately concealed.

Once the two characters "Respectfully received" appeared, the doubts that could previously be classified as "battle damage filing" all became eerie. The supplementary marking team not returning to the Post Station, the old sealing ash and old nail slots on the bridge belly, the "Third Survey" carvings being suppressed—it wasn't an oversight or forgetting, but someone returning afterwards to take what should be kept and suppress what shouldn't.

"Beiyue Academy is testing positions in front of the Stele, they aren't fighting for this side." Ning Yanqiu reported in a low voice. She still didn't look at that half page of the fire stone leaf. Her tone was flat, yet she was quietly buying him time, keeping the weight of the half-page old case quietly pressed between the two of them.

At the very bottom of the fire stone leaf was the most severely burned corner, which turned to ash at the slightest touch. Lu Jin compressed the black fire in his palm to a lukewarm temperature and slowly arched open the black char at the corner of the page. Seeming to sense the fragility of the page corner, Ning Yanqiu suddenly shifted half a step to the side, her fragment disk's coldness compressed to an extremely fine point, gently covering the edge of the page corner—not to freeze the characters, but to hold down the loose ash.

"You flip it, I'll hold it steady."

Lu Jin didn't say thanks, his fingertips just became steadier. The black char gradually opened; underneath, it wasn't the main text, but a fragmented annotation column—the left side was burned away, the middle was scraped off, leaving only the rightmost half-grid, with two un-destroyed old characters remaining. Their brushwork was cold and rigid; they were inspection marks added later.

Lu Jin stared at those two characters, his pupils slowly constricting.

Ning Yanqiu finally turned her head, first looking at his expression, then following his gaze to the remnant grid at the end of the page. With just one glance, she froze.

Those two characters were exactly—Supervisory Seal.