His fingers brushed over the rough surface of the mural, and the history of the Silver Serpent Clan seemed to flash before Feng Qi's eyes.
A heavy sense of time pressed in around him.
The Silver Serpent Clan's priests had preserved the traces of their people through these murals.
Through them, Feng Qi saw a race rise from nothing, endure countless trials over the ages, face collapse many times, yet still push forward stubbornly toward greater glory.
But after all the ups and downs, the Silver Serpent Clan still met their end.
No dynasty lasts forever. No one can escape the corrosion of time.
At this moment, Feng Qi deeply understood those words.
Just like the Mist Lord once said—any seemingly weak race might have ancestors with a glorious history beyond imagination… but with the passing of time, even the descendants of once-powerful clans may have long forgotten that past.
The history of the Domain World is like a revolving chronicle.
In endless competition, some races rise in power, while others fall into extinction or division.
Some collapse and scatter, only for their wandering descendants to one day rebuild a new dynasty.
There's no eternally strong race, and no forever weak one.
Just like the Psionic Race.
No one expected such a humble slave race to rise in the human world, and 1,500 years into the future, to establish a supreme dynasty, becoming one of the Eight Great Royal Clans.
The now-lost Silver Serpent Clan was also not exempt from this cycle.
The collapse of the Silver Serpent Empire gave birth to countless offshoot factions.
Among them was the Silver Moon Clan, one that Feng Qi knew, who had joined a new path of conquest in another form.
The song of time still plays on, and no matter how eras change, ruthless competition remains the core theme of the Domain World.
The murals had shaken Feng Qi deeply.
The simple ink strokes had carved out an epic tale of the rise and fall of the Silver Serpent Clan.
It was like reading an ancient tome, with the heavy weight of history pressing down, and from a god's-eye view, he had witnessed the rise and fall of the Silver Serpent Empire.
At the end of the mural, it was the sigh of the protectors of the empire.
After reading the mural, Feng Qi stood in silence for a long time, then looked down toward the spiral staircase.
He was curious about what lay at the bottom of those steps.
The mural had shown him just how glorious the Silver Serpent Empire once was.
Their territory was vast, their systems of growth thriving, and they had all the makings of a true great race.
After the empire collapsed, maybe some of that wealth remained here.
After a moment of reflection, he continued down the stairs.
Behind him, the others who had also looked at the murals had mixed expressions.
Xiao You obviously didn't understand what the murals were about, treating them more like a picture story. She kept her usual clueless and adorable look.
Po Jia wasn't much better.
Although Po Jia had grown rapidly since leaving the mines, he still lacked experience.
He didn't feel much for the rise and fall of a race—he just saw it as a story.
Lei Ting, on the other hand, was different.
As someone who had once been king of his own race, the story of the Silver Serpent Clan struck a chord with him. His expression kept changing as he looked at the murals.
When he saw the Silver Serpent Empire's collapse, he probably thought of his own Lei Clan's situation and couldn't help but sigh.
They walked past the murals, continuing down the spiraling stairs, which still stretched far below.
The walls beside the stairs were inlaid with softly glowing gems.
Perhaps due to the great passage of time, the gems used for lighting had dimmed, their glow faint, barely enough to make out the steps.
The further down they went, the darker it got. Many of the light gems were broken, no longer able to shine.
"Xiao You, light!" Feng Qi called out.
"Yes, sir!" Xiao You snapped a salute, then pointed at the air ahead.
The bracelet on her wrist lit up, pulling at space, tearing open a black rift.
She reached her hand into the black void, her cheek pressed against it, fumbling around until she pulled out a small wooden stick.
"Zzzzt!"
A harsh beam of light shot out from the tip of the stick.
Xiao You raised it above her head, using it as a flashlight to light the path ahead.
This light tool was something Xiao You had specially made back when they entered a pitch-black domain field. Since then, it had occasionally served as the team's light source.
Now, it came in handy.
After a brief pause, Feng Qi led Xiao You and the others deeper into the Silver Serpent ruins.
The stairs below were badly corroded, with some sections collapsed, forcing them to jump over gaps to keep going.
Half an hour later, Feng Qi reached the bottom of the ruins.
What lay before him was a vast underground plaza. The walls of the plaza were made of some unknown material, transparent like glass. When light hit them, you could see the ocean world beyond.
In the deep ocean outside, giant glowing sea beasts swam by, and he could see the ruins of ancient civilization now covered in seaweed.
The sight before Feng Qi reminded him of the "final battle" shown in the murals.
This place had once been the royal capital of the Silver Serpent Empire.
But in that last war, aside from the central part of the capital, the entire empire had been submerged by endless seawater.
The ancient ruins outside the walls proved just how devastating that final battle had been.
Taking the glowing stick from Xiao You, Feng Qi's eyes followed the beam of light, sweeping across the plaza.
He saw many metal wrecks scattered around.
Unlike the metal remnants on the surface, the ones here, even after countless years, still reflected a cold metallic sheen under the light, showing just how extraordinary the materials used to make them had been.
His gaze finally locked onto a massive war machine at the center of the plaza.
This war machine had appeared many times in the murals.
According to the murals, this war machine marked the turning point when the Silver Serpent Empire shifted from a cultivation-based system to a technological one. It was also their most hoped-for ultimate weapon.
At that time, the Silver Serpent Empire's expansion had stalled, and the drawbacks of relying on war to sustain war had become clear.
Massive resources were poured into the frontlines, but no returns came back, pushing the empire into a deadlock.
Faced with powerful races whose bloodlines completely outclassed their own, the Silver Serpent Empire's cultivation and growth could no longer compete—they had no choice but to find another path.
That's when the war engineering faction was born, quickly growing under the empire's resource support.
This was a road many races had taken.
When facing enemies with far superior bloodlines, the weak could only find other ways to surpass them.
During that time, aside from building many war machines, the Silver Serpent's war engineers proposed a crazy idea.
They decided to build an ultimate weapon.
The concept behind this ultimate weapon was somewhat similar to Little Black, possessing a strong self-repairing ability.
To create it, the Silver Serpent Clan used a huge amount of Tianyuan Spirit Ore.
This was a special spirit ore with metallic memory, capable of absorbing external forces with a mysterious effect.
The absorbed power would be converted into energy to drive the core of the ultimate weapon.
But by the time the Silver Serpent Empire collapsed, the ultimate weapon was still incomplete, only a half-finished prototype.
The design was just too complex.
It needed to have structural reformation, energy absorption and conversion, combat mode switching, and more.
Besides that, it also required 2,988 compressed formations to be engraved within, combining all functions into one massive engineering feat.
Cornered and desperate, the Silver Serpent Clan had hoped to use this ultimate weapon to turn things around, but their technology hadn't advanced fast enough, and the end came before the weapon was born.
During the final battle, this half-finished ultimate weapon made a brief appearance.
In the murals, it showed terrifying power, unleashing destructive waves on the enemy every time it took heavy damage.
The Silver Serpent Clan's ability to repel the invading powerful race owed much to this weapon.
It was also the only war machine that wasn't destroyed in that final battle.
The last time it appeared in the murals was near the end.
The priesthood gathered around it, gazing at the starry sky and bright moon, offering their last prayers for the scattered descendants of the Silver Serpent Clan.
Their reverence for this ultimate weapon spoke volumes about its value.
Standing before it, Feng Qi wiped away the dust, and the black metal surface of the machine reflected a faint glow in the light.
Feeling the cold metal under his fingers, his heart pounded.
If this ultimate weapon could be controlled by humans, it would be like having a super powerhouse on their side.
The murals had already shown just how powerful it was.
Even as a half-finished product, its might was overwhelming. It had shone brilliantly even against elite enemy armies.
As his excitement grew, a fatal problem appeared.
How was he supposed to control this ultimate weapon?
The murals only described the creation process and battle scenes. There was nothing about how to operate it.
Finding such an incredible treasure, how could he just leave it behind?
Determined, Feng Qi began to examine the weapon, hoping to find a way to activate it.
The ultimate weapon stood five meters tall, incomplete, shaped like the upper half of a human.
It had a head, two arms, and a torso—but nothing below the waist.
Circling it once, Feng Qi spotted a shallow depression on its back.
He tried injecting his blood and flesh energy into the spot, but there was no reaction.
After circling it a few more times and still finding nothing, Feng Qi couldn't help but raise his demon blade and slash at the weapon.
When the demon blade struck the surface of the ultimate weapon, there was no sound, like slashing into a sponge full of water.
The white mark left by the slash quickly faded.
Just like the murals said, the ultimate weapon had special abilities to absorb kinetic energy and self-repair.
With his current strength, there was no way he could cause any real damage to it.
Though feeling helpless, Feng Qi didn't give up.
Just as he was about to keep searching for a way to activate it, Xiao You, floating nearby, suddenly spoke up:
"Boss, let me give it a shot."
Turning to look at Xiao You's serious face, Feng Qi was briefly surprised, then nodded.
"Go ahead, try it."
Xiao You floated up to the ultimate weapon, and with a wave of her hand, threads of energy extended from all ten of her fingers, splitting and spreading in the air until they wrapped around the weapon.
Seeing this, Feng Qi felt a flicker of hope.
Xiao You had a special innate ability—energy weaving. Maybe she could unlock the ultimate weapon and gain control over it.
Her hands moved gracefully, and the energy threads followed, wrapping layer upon layer around the weapon.
After a while, beads of sweat appeared on Xiao You's forehead, her eyes still tightly shut.
Standing by her side, Feng Qi felt a sense of pride at her effort.
"This is the first time I've seen Xiao You so serious—it's kind of weird," Taihang, who had been quiet, muttered under his breath.
"You dumb dog, there's a lot you haven't seen. Could you imagine that before I joined this team, I was a clan leader with a million elite soldiers under my command?"
Hearing this, Taihang gave a helpless look but still nodded respectfully.
As they waited, Xiao You's face suddenly lit up.
With a flick of her hand, the energy threads gathered at the back of the ultimate weapon, piercing into the shallow groove.
At once, the long-silent weapon's eyes glowed red, and its metallic body shuddered, sending dust flying.
Just when Feng Qi thought Xiao You had succeeded, a light screen projected from the weapon's back.
The light gathered in the air, pulling in the surrounding spiritual energy, and gradually formed into a chessboard.
Seeing the chessboard, Feng Qi felt a strange sense of familiarity.
After a moment of thought, he suddenly remembered where he had seen it before.
Wasn't this the same "Spirit Chess" that Yin Ling used to teach Lin Ran?
Then, a dark green chess piece appeared on the board. As it landed, green spread across the board, forming a dense forest.
"Boss, I can't go on," Xiao You called out, discouraged.
"Getting past the initial lock is already amazing," Feng Qi praised her without hesitation.
Then he turned his eyes to the Spirit Chess board.
He didn't need to think to know—if he wanted to activate the ultimate weapon further, he had to win this chess match.
This must have been a restriction set by the Silver Serpent priests.
They hoped this ultimate weapon would eventually be claimed by a successor of the Silver Serpent Empire.
And Spirit Chess was one of their legacies.
He remembered Lin Ran once said that Spirit Chess was developed by a pioneer of the Silver Moon Clan.
But now, it was clear that wasn't the whole truth. That pioneer must have referenced historical records to recreate the use of Spirit Chess.
Feng Qi had heard Lin Ran explain the rules of Spirit Chess in detail.
It was a form of elemental warfare, using natural elements arranged in battle formations.
It involved elemental fusion, opposition, strategy, combinations, and more—the situation on the board changed constantly. Throughout the history of the Silver Moon Clan, no two games had ever played out exactly the same.
Taking a deep breath, Feng Qi decided to give it a try.
Gripping his demon blade, he used it to absorb fire element and condensed a fire chess piece to counter the wood element, placing it on the board.
Instantly, flames roared, devouring a large area of the green.
Before he could react, the Spirit Chess board also formed a fire piece, dropping it in the center.
Feng Qi kept trying to break through.
In this game, he was like a general commanding troops—deploying units, exploiting elemental strengths and weaknesses—every move needed careful thought.
One wrong step, and he could lose everything.
It also involved luring the enemy, traps, and mind games.
The challenge was frustrating, because no matter what he tried, he kept being defeated by the preset moves of the ultimate weapon.
Time passed.
After eighteen rounds of Spirit Chess, Lei Ting, who had been watching the whole time, suddenly slapped his thigh and shouted:
"I get it now! Leading troops into battle is what I do best—get out of the way and let this king give it a try!"
When Feng Qi turned to the excited Lei Ting, Lei Ting immediately shrank back and muttered:
"I meant this dumb dog here's in my way. Tell it to move, I wasn't talking about you."
Then he kicked Taihang.
Taihang: ???