Location: The Temple of the Black Tortoise – The Sanctum of Silence
Depth: 7,000 Meters (Inside the Spatial Bubble)
Aris stepped through the archway and stopped.
He expected a throne room. He expected a cave.
Instead, he found himself standing on the edge of a vast, subterranean plain. The ceiling was so high it was lost in a mist of glowing blue aurora. The floor was made of black polished stone that stretched for miles, marked by deep, rhythmic grooves—the footprints of a god.
But it was the center of the chamber that stole the breath from his lungs.
A mountain rose from the darkness.
It was a jagged, obsidian peak, covered in ancient moss and glowing runes. Clouds drifted around its summit. But as Aris walked closer, the ground trembling with each step, he realized it wasn't a mountain.
It was a shell.
[Entity Identified]
[Name: Xuanwu (The Black Tortoise)]
[Rank: Divine Beast (Guardian of the North)]
[Level: ??? (Status: Error - Scale exceeds System Parameters)]
[State: Hibernation / Anchor Mode.]
The head of the Tortoise lay resting on its front paws. It was the size of a fortress, its eyes closed, its scales thicker than the hull of a warship. Coiled around the shell was the Great Serpent—the tail of the beast—which watched the entrance with eyes like freezing stars.
"That's a lot of HP," Aris whispered, his voice tiny in the cavernous space.
He walked forward. He didn't draw a weapon. Drawing a weapon here would be like pointing a toothpick at a thunderstorm.
The Awakening
When Aris was a hundred meters away, the Serpent hissed. The sound was like a steam vent erupting.
Then, the mountain moved.
RUMBLE.
Dust fell from the ceiling. The ground shook violently enough to knock a normal man flat. The massive head of the Tortoise lifted, shedding centuries of sediment.
Two eyes opened.
They weren't reptilian eyes. They were galaxies. Deep, swirling pools of ancient wisdom and crushing weariness.
"WHO..."
The voice didn't come from a mouth. It came from the tectonic plates shifting beneath them. It vibrated Aris's bones.
"WHO... DISTURBS... THE... ANCHOR?"
The pressure in the room spiked.
[System Warning: Gravity Anomaly.]
[Gravity: 100x Standard.]
Aris fell to one knee. The stone floor cracked under his shin. His organs felt like they were being squeezed in a hydraulic press.
"My name... is Aris Thorne," Aris gritted out, forcing his head up. He activated the Abyssal Sovereign Body to reinforce his skeleton. "I have come... to break your Seal."
The Tortoise blinked slowly. It took ten seconds just to blink.
"BREAK?" The Tortoise let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a landslide. "YOU... ARE... A... GNAT. IF... I... MOVE... THE... WORLD... ENDS."
"Explain," Aris demanded, standing up slowly. He poured his mana into his legs to fight the gravity. "The Middle Realm says you are guarding a key. I need it."
The Great Serpent uncoiled, lowering its massive head until it was inches from Aris. Its forked tongue tasted the air.
"HE SMELLS OF THE VOID," the Serpent hissed, its voice sharp and fast, contrasting the Tortoise's slow rumble. "HE SMELLS OF THE DYING GOD."
The Tortoise shifted. It lifted one massive leg—just an inch.
Underneath the foot, Aris saw it.
The floor wasn't solid. Beneath the Tortoise's massive weight lay a tear in the fabric of reality. It was a jagged, purple wound that pulsed with chaotic, corrupted energy.
The World Scar
Aris's Abyssal Eye spun wildly.
[Analysis: Dimensional Rift.]
[Target: The Outer Void.]
[Status: Contained by Physical Mass.]
"You aren't sleeping," Aris realized, stepping closer. "You're a cork."
"THE... HEAVENS... BROKE... THE... WORLD... LONG... AGO," the Tortoise rumbled. "THEY... WARRED... WITH... THE... ABYSS. THEY... LEFT... THIS... SCAR. IF... I... LIFT... MY... FOOT... THE... OCEAN... DRAINS... INTO... HELL."
The Tortoise looked at Aris with infinite sadness.
"I... AM... NOT... A... GUARDIAN. I... AM... A... PRISONER. I... HAVE... HELD... THIS... SHUT... FOR... TEN... THOUSAND... YEARS."
Aris looked at the rift. He felt the energy leaking from it. To a normal cultivator, that energy was poison. It caused madness and mutation.
But to Aris?
It felt like home.
"System," Aris thought rapidly. "Can I close it?"
[Analysis: The Rift is composed of 'Raw Chaotic Data'.]
[Your Class: Void Architect.]
[Capability: You cannot delete it, but you can 'Patch' it.]
[Requirement: Massive Qi expenditure + The Key to the Underworld as a catalyst.]
Aris looked up at the massive god-beast.
"I can fix it," Aris said.
The Tortoise froze. The Serpent hissed in disbelief.
"LIES," the Serpent spat. "DIVINITY COULD NOT FIX IT. THE IMMORTALS COULD NOT FIX IT. HOW CAN A MORTAL CHILD FIX IT?"
"Because the Immortals operate on 'Order'," Aris explained, walking toward the rift. "You can't fix a virus with more Order. You need a better Virus."
He turned to the Tortoise.
"I have a deal for you, Old Man. I will sew that wound shut. In exchange, you give me the Key to your Seal, and you pledge your allegiance to the Qin Empire."
The Tortoise stared at him. For a long minute, there was only the sound of the deep ocean humming outside.
"IF... YOU... FAIL... WE... ALL... DIE."
"I don't fail," Aris said. "I'm the Player."
The Operation
The Tortoise hesitated, then groaned. It began to lift its massive body.
The sound was deafening. The sheer weight of the beast caused the air to scream as it was displaced. As the massive foot lifted, the purple light from the rift exploded outward, flooding the chamber.
"Warning! Void Corruption detected!"
Aris ignored the alert. He walked to the edge of the tear. It was like looking into a kaleidoscope of madness.
"Key to the Underworld," Aris summoned the rusted iron key. "Act as the needle."
He threw the key into the rift.
"Wings of the Moderator," Aris flared his wings. "Act as the thread."
He channeled the Order energy from the wings and the Chaos energy from his body into a single beam.
"Skill: Void-Weave."
Aris grabbed the edges of reality with his Qi. He pulled.
It was like trying to stitch two continent plates together. His mana bar drained instantly.
[Mana: 0%]
[Drawing from Health...]
Aris grit his teeth. Blood poured from his nose. "More! System, drain the Titan-Iron Cores in my inventory!"
[Consuming Resources...]
A massive surge of energy flooded him. The purple rift began to shrink. The chaotic noise silenced. The jagged edges of the world knit themselves back together, sealed by a scar of grey, neutral Abyssal energy.
SNAP.
The rift closed.
The purple light vanished. The chamber was dark again, lit only by the blue aurora.
Aris collapsed, gasping for air. His hands were shaking. He felt like he had just bench-pressed a planet.
The Pact
The Black Tortoise lowered its foot. It tapped the ground. Solid stone.
The Tortoise let out a breath—a gust of wind that smelled of relief and ancient dust.
"IT... IS... DONE."
The Serpent lowered its head, looking at Aris with newfound respect. "The scent of the Void is gone. You... you actually did it."
The Tortoise bowed its massive head.
"I... AM... XUANWU. I... OWE... YOU... MY... FREEDOM."
A glowing blue rune floated out of the Tortoise's forehead. It drifted down to Aris, shrinking until it fit in his palm. It was shaped like a hexagonal shield scale.
[Item Acquired: The Seal of the North (1/4)]
[Effect: Grants authority over Water and Defense.]
[Summon: Can summon the Black Tortoise to defend a location once per year.]
"I accept the payment," Aris said, pocketing the rune. He stood up, wiping the blood from his face.
"Now," Aris looked at the beast. "The Middle Realm is coming. They want to enslave you again."
"LET... THEM... COME," the Tortoise's eyes burned with a cold, blue fury. "I... HAVE... SLEPT... FOR... TOO... LONG. I... AM... HUNGRY."
Aris smiled.
"Good. But first, stay here. Recover your strength. When I signal you... I want you to surface."
"I... WILL... WAIT."
The Ascent
Aris walked back to the archway. The pressure in the room felt lighter now, or perhaps he had just grown stronger.
He returned to the Void-Shell. Nox was jumping against the glass, barking silently.
Aris climbed in. "Did you miss me?"
He piloted the ship upwards, leaving the Temple behind.
As they ascended through the darkness of the trench, past the wreckage of the failed fleets, Aris looked at his map.
One key secured. Three left.
But more importantly, he had secured a Tank. When the Myriad Beasts Mountain arrived with their starships and dragons, they would find that the "weak" Lower Realm had a god-beast that was very, very awake.
[System Notification: Quest 'The Northern Expedition' Complete.]
[Reward: Level Up!]
[Current Level: 58 -> 60 (Nascent Soul - Peak).]
Aris broke the surface of the mercury ocean. The ice cliffs of the North greeted him.
"System," Aris commanded. "Open command to Lin Chen."
Static... "Master?" Lin Chen's voice came through.
"I have the North," Aris said. "What is the status of the West?"
"Complicated, Master," Lin Chen's voice sounded tense. "The Iron-Thunder Graveyard... it isn't empty. The White Tiger is awake. And it is... hunting us."
Aris's eyes narrowed.
"Hold your position, Lin Chen. I'm coming."