207: Ink Snow Inscription

The chill of the rainy night on the cliff had not yet completely faded from his bones; the faint, gentle warmth of the little green bottle in his palm was his only solace at this moment.

The mo yuan fragment (Han Li) returned silently to his humble dwelling in Shen Shou Valley, curling up on the cold straw mat with his eyes tightly shut, though his entire focus was no longer on this small space before him.

His consciousness remained firmly tethered by that thin thread spanning endless space-time, immersed in the ruins of the apocalypse a million years in the future, shaken by the sorrowful figure and silent call of that petrified Tomb Keeper.

The mark formed by the burning remnant of the all-knowing eye continued to silently drain his meager strength, maintaining this fragile connection; the [Recovery Process] was despairingly slow, yet it brought forth more fragmented streams of information from the main timeline.

He "saw" that beneath the feet of the stone statue, it was not ordinary ruins.

The ground there possessed an abnormal, glazed texture—purified by some ultimate power and left completely dead silent—which felt utterly out of place with the surrounding environment.

It was as if something had erupted there with its final brilliance, freezing and purifying all filth and enemies, yet also exhausting its last shred of vitality.

His conscious perception, like an invisible tentacle, cautiously brushed over that glazed ground.

A familiar chill and aura of Reincarnation, deep within his Soul, slowly awakened like a brand that had been dormant for eons.

It was Ink Snow! It was the power of the Reincarnation Butterfly Seal! She had fought here! And here... had she unleashed her final power?!

An indescribable tremor seized him.

He frantically spurred that faint connection, attempting to search for more traces of Ink Snow within that deathly silence sealed by the passage of time.

Finally, at the foot of the giant petrified Tomb Keeper statue, in the center of a relatively intact patch of glazed ground, he "sensed" an anomaly.

It was not a residue of energy, nor a mutation of matter, but a... brand of information.

An almost eternal mark, carved using extreme cold and the Law of Reincarnation as a chisel, forcibly imprinted with the final message into the very structure of space-time.

If not for his connection to Ink Snow's Origin, and if not for the remnant of the all-knowing eye forcibly establishing a connection, no one would have been able to perceive it.

The moment the mark was triggered, a cold, intermittent message—yet one containing endless anxiety and despair—like a lonely Soul that had slept for a million years, crossed space-time and crashed directly into the core of his consciousness:

"Father..." "...Heavenly Dao... is not natural..." "...It is... devouring... the timeline..." "...Feeding on... civilization..." "...Repairing... itself..." "...Beware... 'them'..." "...Run..."

The message stopped abruptly there.

It was as if the speaker's strength had been exhausted, or forcibly interrupted by some even more terrifying power.

All that remained was the extreme cold contained within the message, cold enough to freeze the Soul, along with a despair and anxiety as if witnessing the ultimate terror of the Universe.

[Ink Snow Stele Inscription]!

It was not a real stone stele, but a swan song and warning she had imprinted into space-time with her final strength!

The consciousness of the mo yuan fragment was instantly frozen as if by eons of black ice!

The Heavenly Dao... is devouring the timeline? Feeding on civilization? Repairing itself? "They"?

Every word exploded in his consciousness like a thunderclap of Chaos!

All his previous confusion, all his encounters, seemed at this moment to have found a terrifying explanation that made him tremble!

Why would changing the timeline invite such terrifying, such precise "space-time error correction"? Why did that attack carry a cold, inhuman "programmatic feel"? Why would Ink Snow say the Heavenly Dao is "not natural"?

If... if the so-called Heavenly Dao was not a collection of Laws naturally born from the world, but a... wounded, or rather, incomplete, higher-level entity?

To repair itself, it used worlds and civilizations as nurseries and food?

It maintained the timeline not for balance, but to ensure the "harvest" proceeded smoothly?

Any behavior that attempted to deviate from the "farming" route it had set would be regarded as a "virus" or "error" and ruthlessly erased?

And Ink Snow, in the long years after the Divine Dynasty fell and he left, seemed to have discovered this terrifying truth!

She might have even come into contact with... "them"? Those higher-dimensional entities that maintained this "farm"?

That was why she left this desperate warning: "The Heavenly Dao is devouring the timeline"!

That was why she told him to "run"!

The chill did not come from the ice-type Laws left behind by Ink Snow, but originated from this deduction itself, from the fear in the deepest part of his Soul!

What on earth had he been fighting against all this time?

The will of the world? Or... the digestive System of some terrifying predator that fed on worlds?

"Haa... haa..."

Han Li's (Mo Yuan) body began to tremble violently on the straw mat, his teeth chattering uncontrollably, and cold sweat poured out like a waterfall, instantly soaking his clothes.

It was not physical pain, but the most instinctive reaction to having his cognition completely overturned and facing an infinite abyss.

The little green bottle in his palm seemed to sense his intense emotional fluctuations; the gentle green light it emitted became slightly brighter, and a faint but pure vitality slowly flowed into his body, barely maintaining his nearly collapsing spirit.

Just then—Boom!!!

In his mind, that apocalyptic scene shook violently!

He saw that the petrified Tomb Keeper statue, which had been kneeling in silence for a million years, suddenly erupted—without warning—with a faint but incomparably pure and sharp dark silver Sword Intent from the petrified giant sword that pointed obliquely at the sky!

That Sword Intent soared into the sky; it was not an attack, but seemed to be responding to something, burning its own final existence, emitting a defiant sword cry that spanned eons!

Ring— The sword cry came through that sensory thread, faint yet clear, carrying a resolute will that seemed ready to sever everything!

[Tomb Keeper... responding... to summons...] [Detected... extremely high priority command... protect...] [Final protocol... initiating...]

The remnant of the all-knowing eye transmitted intermittent information.

Immediately after, the dim, deathly silent sky that the giant stone sword pointed toward was suddenly torn open like a curtain, revealing a huge gash!

A pair of huge, cold, indifferent eyes, composed of countless rotating gears and flowing data light, caught a fleeting glimpse from behind that crack!

That gaze swept over the ruins, swept over the stone statue, and seemed to pause slightly, carrying a programmatic "scrutiny."

Then, a beam of gray-white light, composed purely of the Law of "Annihilation," like God's whip of judgment, shot out from those eyes and slammed directly into the Tomb Keeper stone statue that had just emitted the sword cry!

The surface of the stone statue shone brightly, and the dark silver Sword Intent burned frantically, attempting to resist!

But it only held for an instant—Crack... Boom!!!

The stone statue, along with the giant sword, completely disintegrated under that absolute destructive power, turning into billions of specks of dust that drifted away in the deathly silent ruins.

The last guardian, having responded to the summons, finally met its ultimate destruction.

Those eyes silently "watched" the place where the stone statue had been annihilated, and after a moment, slowly closed.

The crack in the sky closed up, as if nothing had ever happened.

Only in the consciousness of the mo yuan fragment, the sensory thread, because of the complete annihilation of the Tomb Keeper, vibrated violently and became increasingly unstable, as if it would snap at any moment.

[Recovery Process interrupted... connection stability dropping sharply...]

Amidst the cold prompts, the mo yuan fragment (Han Li) lay paralyzed on the straw mat, gasping for air, his pupils reflecting endless coldness and horror.

Ink Snow's warning. The end of the Tomb Keeper. The cold scrutiny and erasure of the Heavenly Dao (?).

Everything, absolutely everything, pointed to one desperate truth.

He silently gripped the little green bottle in his hand, his knuckles turning white from the force.

Run? Where could he run to?

Perhaps...

In his eyes, the extreme fear slowly faded, replaced by a cold madness born from being pushed to the brink of despair.

He had no choice... but to fight.

For existence, for answers, for the Tomb Keeper that had silently been annihilated a million years later, and for... her, who had left the warning.