312: Chapter 310 The Edge of the Yellow River and Luo River

The journey back through the silver-white passage was somewhat faster than going there.

Shen Nian maintained an unhurried pace, with the Sixteen-Color Power forming an extremely thin layer of protection over his body, isolating him from the continuous suction coming from the dark-green Chaos.

He paused occasionally to touch the grey mist at the edges of the passage to confirm whether his direction had veered. The feedback from every touch was crisp and clean, like two palms briefly connecting when receiving a handed object, separating without hesitation once confirmed.

He had already stowed that recording talisman into an inner lapel pocket, placed right against the fine crystal Lu Qing had given him.

When he stepped back into the outer structure of the Heart of Tiangong, The Artisan's light was already waiting at the passage exit.

The brilliance of that light was slightly dimmer than usual, as if the act of opening the door had also consumed a portion of its power.

Shen Nian bowed slightly. "This Disciple has returned."

The Artisan's light flickered briefly. "What did you find?"

"An indentation.

On the surface of the dark area's edge. It is not large, with smooth edges, resembling a mark left behind after a passage closed.

This Disciple probed inside for a short distance and came into contact with a remnant of consciousness, consisting of only two words."

"Which two words?"

Shen Nian fell silent for a moment, his gaze falling upon the intricate lines on the ground. "'Still here.'"

The Artisan's light went silent.

That silence lasted for a long time—so long that when Shen Nian looked up, he saw the sphere of light slowly revolving, as though something was churning within it yet failed to rise to the surface.

"Do you have any record of the position of that indentation?"

Shen Nian asked.

The Artisan's light stopped revolving. "No.

In the Tiangong Clan's observational records of the dark area, no indentation was ever mentioned.

Our method of exploration is different from yours—we have never attempted to 'contact' that boundary with power.

We merely observed it from the perimeter, recorded its shape and location, and then left."

Shen Nian did not press further, taking out two recording talismans from his robe. "This Disciple wishes to compare them with the records of the three previous ruins.

Perhaps there is some kind of correspondence between the coordinates of the indentation and those three ruins."

The Artisan's light floated slowly toward the core space. "This Seat shall take you there."

The two passed through several passages, returning before the massive, transparent crystal core.

Shen Nian lined up the five recording talismans on the platform beside the crystal core.

He began examining them one by one, using Sixteen-Color Power to mark the locations of the ring, the lair, the stairs, the node, and the indentation on the overall outline of the Land of Origin.

When the final mark fell into place, he froze.

Those five marked locations were indeed roughly distributed along the same arc.

It was not a precise circle, but the curved outline was too clear to be explained by coincidence—like the same brush drawing five short strokes on paper, where the gaps between strokes still maintained the trajectory of a single path.

The Artisan's light drifted closer. "This Seat sees it.

That direction... If extended further along this arc, it points toward the northeast direction of Heluo."

"Heluo?" Shen Nian looked up.

"Heluo is a large cluster of ruins closest to the Heart of Tiangong.

The Tiangong Clan once built dozens of structures there, but those structures were extremely scattered, as if built without unified planning.

We always thought it was merely a scattered testing ground and never connected it to anything earlier."

Shen Nian's gaze landed on the direction where the arc extended: "What lies to the northeast of Heluo?"

The Artisan fell silent once more.

It hovered beside the crystal core for a long time, threads of light flowing slowly around it, as if searching through its stored memory of that region, or perhaps because that region itself had left no retrievable records.

"There is nothing there.

Or rather, we have never recorded anything existing there," The Artisan finally spoke.

Shen Nian gathered the recording talismans from the platform, retrieved the fine crystal Lu Qing had given him, and held it gently in his palm.

The crystal felt as warm and smooth as usual, as if, after repeatedly confirming the connections between his records, it had already filtered through several layers of passable and impassable paths for him.

Shen Nian tucked the crystal back into his robe and set his gaze toward Heluo. "This Disciple wishes to go to Heluo and see.

If those ruins are truly distributed around the dark area, Heluo should have similar structures as well, except they might be even more scattered and went unrecognized."

The Artisan did not stop him, merely brightening slightly. "This Seat shall mark a passage for you leading directly to the edge of Heluo.

Heluo covers a vast expanse; you must judge for yourself how deep you need to venture."

Shen Nian bowed deeply toward The Artisan.

The passage unfolded before him, its color different from the previous silver-white route—it was closer to pale gold, like the color of light reflected off some ancient interface.

Shen Nian stepped into the passage and walked toward Heluo.

This journey was shorter than the one to the edge of the dark area.

After walking for about two hours, scattered outlines began to emerge at the passage exit—broken stone pillars, half-buried arched structures, and a massive disc that looked as though it had been sliced open.

The forms of those structures varied: some looked like parts of buildings, some like the remains of mechanical devices, and others were entirely unrecognizable in function.

Yet they all exhibited the same color—an extremely pale greyish-brown, like the final traces left behind after original colors had been slowly bleached by time.

Shen Nian slowed his pace, observing those fragments one by one.

He discovered that although these fragments were scattered, their fractured surfaces exhibited certain patterns—most were not marks of natural weathering, but rather resembled joints of a structure, as if they had once been connected to each other before being severed by external force.

He walked up to a broken stone pillar and reached out to touch its surface.

Rough, dry, like a stone that had been long forgotten.

He probed his power into the pillar's interior; he did not sense any energy remnants, but the texture orientation inside the pillar bore a degree of similarity to the dried-up patterns on the branches in the lair—only fainter and sparser, like a diluted version.

Shen Nian withdrew his hand and continued forward.

The scope of Heluo was larger than he had anticipated.

He walked for about four hours, encountering more scattered structures along the way—some stood in place, some tilted, and some had completely collapsed, leaving behind only piles of debris.

At every structure, he paused to observe for a moment, measuring forms, sensing textures, and recording approximate locations.

As the sky grew faintly bright, he arrived before a relatively intact structure.

It was a low archway, roughly twenty feet tall, constructed from a greyish-brown stone.

The inner curve of the doorway possessed extremely neat arcs, as if cut with highly precise tools rather than cobbled together piece by piece.

On the inner wall of the archway, there were faint, light scratches, as if carved with an extremely sharp object, the lines broken and difficult to discern.

He pressed a recording talisman against it, and threads of light slowly spread out, capturing segment by segment along the path of the scratches.

Those scratches did not look like script; they were closer to an interweaving of lines, resembling a map drawn with sparse brushstrokes that left only the general trajectory without any annotations.

When the recording talisman was retrieved, the tips of the light threads brought back an extremely faint piece of information—not language, but more like an extraordinarily compressed rhythm, as though the lingering echo of some machinery operating had been preserved inside the stone, turning into this faint outline after endless years.

Shen Nian withdrew the recording talisman, his gaze resting on that archway.

It was inconspicuous within Heluo, looking like a place casually left behind among the numerous collapsed and scattered structures.

Yet among the information he had recorded, it was the only structure whose interior still retained a residual rhythm—like a forgotten clock, its shell rusted for years, yet inside still held a string capable of ringing.

He stood before the archway for a while, then marked this archway onto his arc as well.

When he finished recording, six marked locations had roughly sketched out an even clearer arc.

He looked up along the direction of that arc—greyish-brown rubble and broken pillars extended deep into the northeast of Heluo before being obscured by a thin layer of Chaos mist, no longer visible.