173: Price: The Age of Dormancy

The High-Dimensional Secret Realm was bizarre and grotesque.

Here, there was no distinction between up, down, left, or right, and no light from the sun, moon, or stars.

Twisted colors flowed wantonly like spilled oil paint, incomprehensible geometric shapes condensed and dissipated by turns, and thin, strange energy surged like tides.

The ruined Mo Capital, withered mountains and rivers, and the billions of sequence units trapped in eternal slumber floated like weightless debris, drifting in this eerie dimensional rift.

Dead silence was the main melody here.

Only in the center of the Secret Realm, the floating, dim double-patterned magic bottle, and Mo Yun, who was heavily injured and slumbering beside it—barely protected by Mo Yu and Ink Snow with their own meager power—proved that a glimmer of vitality still remained here.

Mo Yu activated the nearly dried-up Four Seas Tide-Rising Token, but it no longer drew in vast water essence; instead, it drew in wisps of extremely thin Secret Realm energy that could barely sustain life, slowly channeling it into Mo Yun's body to nourish her nearly shattered Dao foundation.

Ink Snow, meanwhile, was fully focused on maintaining a tiny, stable Reincarnation Domain to protect their core and resist the erosion of the omnipresent, chaotic Laws within the Secret Realm.

Their faces were filled with exhaustion, sorrow, and a trace of the bewilderment of survivors.

The price was too high.

Elevating the entire Dynasty seemed like a miracle, but in reality, it was a pyrrhic victory—no, it couldn't even be called a victory; it was merely trading unimaginable sacrifices for a precarious refuge.

"Ninety percent of the sequence... in eternal slumber..." Mo Yu looked at the surrounding Sequence Legion floating like cold tombstones, her voice hoarse.

The Vajra Battalion, Thunder Abyss Octopus, worker ant colonies, Sword Grave mountains... they were once so powerful and orderly, but now they had all turned into absolutely motionless sculptures, their internal energy cores still burning to provide the most basic fuel to maintain the existence of this High-Dimensional Secret Realm, though it was unknown if they would ever awaken.

These were all the results of Father's countless efforts and were the cornerstone of the Dynasty.

Now, less than one in ten remained.

The land was half-ruined, the spiritual sources of the earth veins were nearly exhausted, and even if they could return to the Spirit Realm in the future, it would take an incalculable amount of time to recover.

Eldest sister Mo Yun was heavily injured and in a slumber, her Dao foundation severely damaged; even with their best efforts to sustain her, her recovery was nowhere in sight.

As for the two of them, although they retained their consciousness, they had lost most of the support from the earth veins and the power of the four seas. Being in this Secret Realm with its strange Laws, their power was like a tree without roots; every bit used was a bit lost, and recovery was extremely slow.

The entire Lei Yan Divine Dynasty had been beaten back to its original form, perhaps even weaker than when it was first founded.

All ambitions and all struggles seemed to have vanished like reflections in a mirror or flowers in the water with this leap of ascension.

"Can we... still go back?" Mo Yu looked at the indescribable, ever-changing Void Realm outside the Secret Realm, a flash of fragility crossing her eyes.

Was the Heavenly Dao of the Spirit Realm still searching for them at this moment?

Ink Snow shook her head silently, but her eyes remained calm: "Since Father chose this method, there must be a profound meaning behind it."

Survival is the top priority.

Slumber is not the end, but a period of accumulation."

She was right.

Although the consciousness of Bottled Immortal Mo Yuan was extremely weak due to driving the ascension, and had entered a low-power state similar to slumber along with the Chaos Thunder Pool, his core instincts for deduction and evolution had not ceased.

In an environment like the High-Dimensional Secret Realm where the Laws were so different, while extremely dangerous, it might also contain opportunities not found in the Spirit Realm.

Those chaotic Law fragments and unknown energy tides were, for the magic bottle and the artifact spirit, invaluable "research samples."

However, all of this would take time.

Long and lonely time.

"The Era of Slumber..." Mo Yu murmured to herself, accepting this cruel reality.

They were no longer the high-spirited goddesses of the Divine Dynasty who could challenge the Heavenly Dao, but two last sentinels guarding a sleeping kingdom, struggling to maintain the last embers of their civilization in the cracks of an unknown dimension.

Days passed one by one in absolute silence and slow recovery.

Mo Yu and Ink Snow took turns on watch; one would meditate to recover while the other maintained the barrier and guided the thin Secret Realm energy.

They dared not enter deep meditation, remaining constantly vigilant against unknown dangers that might appear in the Secret Realm.

Occasionally, some incomprehensible energy turbulence or strange dimensional creatures would approach this area of wreckage, but most were scared away by the remaining autonomous defense mechanisms of the Sword Grave sequence (even in slumber, their instincts remained) and the interference of Ink Snow's precise Reincarnation power.

They were like fledglings that had survived a storm, huddled in a precarious nest, waiting for dawn, yet not knowing when dawn would come.

Mo Yun's condition remained grim, and the cracks in her Dao foundation were healing extremely slowly.

The slumbering Sequence Legion remained as before, their energy slowly depleting, like a candle in the wind.

The magic bottle remained dim, with only an extremely faint light indicating that the existence within had not yet perished.

Hope was slim, and the road ahead was dark.

However, in this desperate Era of Slumber, change was happening in an extremely slow, yet firm, manner.

At the very bottom of the nearly dried-up Chaos Thunder Pool, in the deepest part, wisps of strange energy absorbed from the High-Dimensional Secret Realm were being arduously assimilated and analyzed by the remaining Chaos Origin.

This process was agonizingly slow, but it was truly taking place.

The white scar on the surface of the magic bottle, slashed by the immortal slaughtering sword, seemed to be healing a fraction faster under the infiltration of the Secret Realm energy than it had in the Spirit Realm.

Even some low-level sequence units in slumber had begun to undergo some extremely subtle, unknown mutations in their structures under the long-term, imperceptible influence of the Secret Realm energy.

Misfortune may be a blessing in disguise, and blessings may be a misfortune in disguise.

This forced slumber and exile, this heavy price, perhaps... was also nurturing new, unexpected possibilities.

During one of her shifts, Ink Snow suddenly opened her eyes and looked towards a certain direction deep in the Secret Realm; a faint trace of doubt flashed in those eyes that had seen through the cycle of life and death.

She seemed to feel that, in the far distance in that direction, something... had developed a faint, strange... resonance with this slumbering kingdom?

But the feeling flashed and vanished, never to be captured again.

She silently noted the direction and continued her vigil.

The Era of Slumber was long and lonely.

But as long as there is life, there is hope.

Waiting became the only theme.

Waiting for Father to awaken, waiting for the sequence to return, waiting... to return to the Spirit Realm, or to find a new home in this High-Dimensional Secret Realm.

The price had already been paid; the only way forward was to keep moving.