The ancient avenues swallowed them in silence.
Streets paved with cracked obsidian stretched in every direction, half-buried beneath layers of red dust. Towering skeletal structures — once proud halls, markets, and homes — leaned at impossible angles, frozen mid-collapse as if a great disaster had struck in a single breath.
The group walked slowly, their footsteps muffled.
Even the wind felt muted.
Zu Tian studied the surroundings carefully. The air here was dense… almost suffocating. Not with malice, but with a weight of ages long gone.
Yen Mo crouched beside a toppled pillar, brushing away grime. "These carvings…" His voice trembled. "They aren't from any era recorded in the Archives."
Li Xueyao walked ahead, letting her flame mist flicker faintly to illuminate narrow corners. "Even ancient tombs crumble slower than this," she murmured. "But a city? An entire city hidden here… no records, no traces…"
Bai Kuan stepped atop a fractured well and surveyed the layout. "Senior Brother… I don't see any remains. Not even bones."
Zu Tian had been thinking the same thing.
According to the sect's oldest texts, the cultivators who once roamed these lands were so strong that their bones alone could become divine materials after death — unbreakable, everlasting. Even the corpses of spirit beasts would leave behind ossified remnants.
But here…
Nothing.
Not a corpse.Not a skeleton.Not even scattered fragments.
As if an unseen hand had erased every living trace.
Zu Tian's brows tightened. Something happened here. Something that didn't kill bodies… it removed them.
He didn't voice it — not yet.
They continued deeper until the broken streets funneled into a large plaza. At its center stood the most intact structure they had seen — a circular hall of black stone, its domed roof cracked but still holding.
A faint pressure radiated from within.
Yen Mo swallowed hard. "This must have been… important."
Zu Tian nodded. "A hall of governance… or judgment."
As they approached, an intricate stone door came into view — sealed tight. Strange symbols spiraled across its surface, forming complex lines and locked segments. Not inscriptions, but puzzle-worked seals.
A barrier of intelligence, not brute force.
Bai Kuan grimaced. "We're not breaking through that."
"It's not meant to be broken," Zu Tian replied. "It's meant to be opened."
He stepped closer and brushed his palm across the stone. The runes beneath his touch shifted like liquid metal before returning to their dormant state.
"A mechanism," Li Xueyao murmured. "One our maps might interact with."
Before they could test the theory—
A sharp voice echoed down the street.
"Hold! Who goes there?!"
Zu Tian's group turned as two more contingents emerged from branching alleys — robes scorched, armor shattered, faces pale but alert.
Skyfire Monastery on the left.Serpent River Clan on the right.
Both clearly battered.
Han Wei of Skyfire stepped forward, staff crackling with weakened flame. Behind him, only 2 disciples remained.
From Serpent River Clan, Ji Shuren walked with a limp, her sleeves torn and stained with dark venom marks. Two disciples supported her — the only survivors.
Yen Mo exhaled sharply. "…There are so few of them left."
The newcomers approached cautiously, but upon seeing Zu Tian's group unharmed, relief washed over them.
"Looks like we weren't the only ones drawn by the map," Ji Shuren muttered, pulling from her sleeve a familiar stone tablet — half identical to the one Zu Tian carried.
The Skyfire Han Wei produced another.
Yen Mo's eyes widened. "So the stone tablets… weren't unique."
"Or," Zu Tian said quietly, "they are fragments meant to come together."
The three groups stood before the sealed door, tension slowly replaced by reluctant cooperation.
"Let us attempt it," Han Wei said. "We've already lost too many to petty competition."
Zu Tian didn't disagree.
He stepped closer to the door and examined its structure. Each faction's fragment indeed aligned with one of the circular grooves — three in total.
"One map per slot," Zu Tian said. "Only when all pieces are united can the seal unravel."
With mutual nods, all three factions stepped forward.
Zu Tian placed his map into the left groove.Ji Shuren inserted the Serpent River fragment into the upper groove.Han Wei slid the Skyfire map into the right groove.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then—
The ground trembled.
The stone maps dissolved into flowing lines of light, racing across the door's carvings. Runes awakened, shining with ancient brilliance. The air vibrated with a long-lost power, and the dust on the plaza floor scattered like fleeing insects.
A deep, grinding rumble echoed as the door slowly parted.
Not outward.Not inward.
It folded, layer upon layer like petals of a black lotus, revealing the darkness beyond.
Cold, stale air rushed out.
The combined group instinctively reached for their weapons.
"Stay behind me," Zu Tian said. His broken sword pulsed faintly, reacting to something inside.
Li Xueyao clenched her hands, flame mist curling around her fingers. Bai Kuan cracked his neck. Yen Mo's stance tightened.
The hall beyond was vast.
Shadowed pillars soared into darkness. Ancient murals filled the walls — depictions of war, calamity, and celestial beasts locked in eternal battle. The floor was lined with symbols that glowed faintly at their approach.
But more than anything…
The silence here was different.
It wasn't the emptiness of a ruined city.It was the expectation of something that lay beyond understanding.
Zu Tian took a careful step forward — and the hair on his neck rose.
The broken sword at his hip was completely still.
Unreacting.
Uninterested.
That was wrong.
Every threat thus far had elicited even a faint pulse. But now — nothing.
As if whatever watched them from within the hall didn't register as a danger.
Or…
Was too powerful for a warning to matter.
Zu Tian scanned the shadows but saw only darkness.
Behind him, the combined groups whispered in awe and fear, unaware that amidst the ruins, on a distant rooftop where moonlight refused to touch…
A figure crouched.
Skinless.Eyes hollow.Skeletal limbs wrapped in tattered black cloth.
The Soul-Snatching Beast watched in absolute stillness.
Its gaze wasn't on the hall, nor the other disciples.
Only on Zu Tian.
And the sword at his side.