The deeper they ventured into the marsh, the less the world resembled anything recorded in history.
The land itself seemed to recoil from reason.
Black rivers flowed not downward but upward, their surfaces rippling as if pulled by an unseen tide in the heavens. The liquid was thick, almost sluggish, and within it drifted fragments of bone and broken armor, spinning slowly like remnants of a battle that had never truly ended. Pale fog clung low to the ground, yet it did not obscure vision so much as distort it. Shapes shifted when one looked away. Distances shortened and stretched without warning.
Floating ribcages drifted past them, enormous and hollow, their curved forms resembling boats carrying nothing but silence. Some still bore scorched runes etched into the bone, marks of long-forgotten cultivation techniques. Others were cracked clean through, as if shattered by forces that ignored flesh and spirit alike.
In the distance, colossal silhouettes loomed through the haze. At first glance they looked like hills. Then like ruins. Only when one stared too long did the truth settle in. They were kneeling giants of bone, half-sunk into the marsh, their skulls bowed as if in eternal supplication. Their immense ribcages rose and fell slowly, not with breath, but with the pulsing of the marsh itself, as though the land remembered how to imitate life.
Lan Yuer's steps slowed despite herself. Her voice, when she finally spoke, trembled in a way she could not hide.
"The legends say this marsh is built atop the corpses of ancient celestials."
She had grown up on stories told in hushed voices. Tales of divine beings who once walked the land, who shaped mountains and oceans with casual gestures, who ruled realms long before sects and clans learned to name themselves. Yet standing here, surrounded by bone and silence, those stories felt pitifully small.
Wang Qiu shook his head slowly, his expression pale beneath the glow of several talismans hovering at his side.
"Not celestials," he said. "Something older. Before heaven took shape as we know it. Before mankind learned to cultivate qi properly."
He paused, gaze lingering on a massive spine protruding from the swamp like a broken bridge.
"The first war between primal beasts and mankind took place here."
The words carried weight. Not because of their volume, but because of their implication.
Shi Feng spat into the marsh, the saliva vanishing before it touched the ground.
"No wonder everything feels like it wants to eat us."
He was half joking, but his grip on his weapon had not loosened since they entered.
Yang Jian did not laugh. His eyes moved constantly, scanning fog, bone, water, and shadow alike. He had fought beasts, men, and cultivators twisted by forbidden arts, yet none of those encounters made his instincts scream the way this place did.
"Beasts, corpses, ancient souls, and the laws of the marsh itself," he said quietly. "All of them are hostile."
His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword.
"There's no turning back now."
No one argued.
They all felt it. The moment they crossed into this region, the marsh had closed behind them. Paths they had walked minutes ago no longer existed. Footprints dissolved. Qi markers scattered. Even memory felt unreliable.
Then the Blood Demon stopped walking.
The sudden halt sent a chill through the group.
Lan Yuer nearly collided with his back. Shi Feng cursed under his breath. Wang Qiu's talismans flared defensively. Yang Jian raised his sword an inch from its sheath.
The Blood Demon stood perfectly still.
Ahead, the fog thinned.
What lay before them was not a clearing, nor a ruin, but a valley of white.
Bones. Countless bones.
They formed cliffs that rose hundreds of meters into the gloom, layered and compressed into walls of ivory. Bridges arched overhead, woven from ribs thicker than city gates. Stalagmites of sharpened bone erupted from the ground like a forest of spears, their tips stained with ancient residue that had long since turned black.
At the heart of the valley lay a colossal skull.
It was half-buried in the marsh, its jaw slightly open, its eye sockets wide and hollow, large enough to swallow a palace. Cracks ran across its surface like scars from weapons no longer imaginable.
The pressure emanating from it was suffocating.
Wang Qiu's knees nearly buckled.
"That…" he whispered, voice breaking. "That is a Primordial Titan's skull."
Lan Yuer inhaled sharply.
"They were said to be extinct even before the first sects formed. Even before the Divine Emperor unified the heavens."
Shi Feng stared, his usual bravado stripped away.
"Just how old is this place?"
The Blood Demon finally spoke.
"Older than kingdoms. Older than cultivation manuals. Older than the era of Divine Emperors."
His tone was flat, almost reverent.
In ancient times, before the cultivation realms were defined, before Spirit Shattering, before Monarchs and Emperors were given names, there existed peaks of power so absolute they defied classification. The younger generations did not even know such realms had existed. History ended conveniently at the rise of structured cultivation. Everything before that was labeled myth or chaos.
But this place remembered.
A strange wind poured from the skull's open mouth. It was cold and warm at once, carrying whispers that slipped past the ears and into the soul. The group's qi trembled in response, circulation faltering as if resisting something invasive.
Yang Jian felt it immediately.
"Resentment," he said.
Wang Qiu closed his eyes, sensing deeper.
"Not resentment," he corrected softly. "Regret."
Lan Yuer swallowed.
"What does that mean?"
The Blood Demon answered.
"This marsh was once a trial ground."
They turned to him.
"A battlefield, yes," he continued. "But also a forge. Before cultivation was refined, before inheritance halls and sect rankings, the strong carved their paths through death. Ancient entities left behind laws, relics, fragments of will, and guardians. Those who survived emerged reborn."
"And those who failed?" Wang Qiu asked.
The Blood Demon smiled.
"They became part of the marsh."
Silence followed.
Each of them imagined it. Warriors charging into battle fueled by ambition. Kings seeking immortality. Beasts fighting for dominion. All swallowed by the same land, their bones stacked until even the heavens forgot their names.
Long ago, there had been a realm ruled by a Divine Emperor whose authority stretched beyond continents. His empire spanned lands now sunken beneath oceans and skies sealed behind ancient barriers. His armies were said to be invincible. His sect was the pinnacle of cultivation.
That realm no longer existed.
Its fall had shaken the mainlands. Seas had risen. Shields had formed. Entire continents were cut off, not by distance alone, but by laws rewritten in the aftermath of war. What remained became history. What was lost became legend.
And legends faded.
The younger generation cultivated diligently, unaware that once, the peak of power had stood far higher than anything they could imagine.
Then a sound echoed through the valley.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Lan Yuer gasped as a crimson droplet struck her sleeve.
Blood. Fresh. Warm.
She looked up.
Blood was dripping from the sky.
"The marsh's atmosphere is distorting reality," she cried.
Wang Qiu's talismans vibrated violently, some cracking under the strain.
"The laws here are unstable. Space, time, cause, effect. If we linger too long…"
He did not finish.
"…we'll be erased," Yang Jian concluded.
He turned sharply.
"Then we must keep moving."
But the Blood Demon did not move.
He stared at the colossal skull, eyes fixed on its hollow socket.
"He's coming."
The air froze.
"Who?" Lan Yuer whispered.
The Blood Demon's gaze sharpened.
"Someone powerful. Someone whose fate is intertwined with death."
Before they could press him, the skull trembled.
A pulse of golden light erupted from deep within, illuminating the valley. Ancient runes flared across the bone, igniting one by one as if awakened from millennia of slumber.
Shi Feng's eyes burned.
"I'm going in!"
Before anyone could stop him, he sprinted forward and leaped into the Primordial Titan's maw.
"Shi Feng!" Yang Jian shouted.
Too late.
The jaw slammed shut with a thunderous crack. A barrier of bone sealed the entrance, runes locking into place.
Lan Yuer's face drained of color.
"He's trapped."
"No," Wang Qiu said, voice trembling with awe.
"He's chosen."
The skull pulsed again.