The darkness was wet, carrying a slick, rotting sliminess. The moment Lin Yi’s fingertips touched the stone wall, a muffled cracking sound came from above. Crumbling rocks pattered down, striking his shoulders, mixing with the slimy juices of fungi, leaving cold, damp trails on his skin. The faint light gathered at his fingertips illuminated only three steps ahead. “Stay close,” he said, turning his head, his voice pressed extremely low, producing slight echoes as it collided within the narrow stone passage. “Don’t touch the walls.” Shi Meng was two steps behind him, his massive frame nearly blocking the entire passageway. Mo Chen was at the rear, silent and soundless, only the extremely faint rustle of his robes brushing against the stone walls. The stone passage sloped downward, its chisel marks rough. On the stone walls, dim runes pulsed with a faint red light every few breaths, like dying blood vessels. With each pulse, an extremely low-frequency hum sounded in the air, like the heartbeat of some colossal machine emanating from deep underground. Lin Yi breathed very slowly. He counted his steps—seventeen, eighteen. Suddenly, his footing softened. It wasn’t a loose slab. The entire passage’s slope had changed. The fungal carpet beneath their feet seemed to come alive, beginning to slide downward. Shi Meng let out a low growl, his feet slipping, his body lurching forward. Lin Yi grabbed his arm, and the two stumbled before steadying themselves. Mo Chen’s hand pressed against the stone wall. Not a touch, but his fingertips hovered an inch above a rune. His withered fingers trembled slightly, as if sensing something. Three breaths later, he withdrew his hand and wrote two characters in the air with his fingertip: “Hurry.” The characters, condensed from faint light, vanished in an instant. Lin Yi didn’t ask why. He turned and quickened his pace. The stone passage began to tremble, rubble pattering down from above. The pulsing of those runes accelerated, the red light growing brighter, the hum rising from a low frequency into a piercing shriek. “Ahead!” Shi Meng roared. Twenty steps ahead, the stone passage abruptly narrowed into a crevice barely wide enough for one person to pass through sideways. The edges of the crevice were studded with jagged stone spikes, from which hung dried, dark brown substances. Lin Yi rushed to the crevice and squeezed through sideways. Stone spikes scraped across his shoulder, tearing his clothes. He caught a whiff of a sickly-sweet, putrid stench—were those dark brown things dried moss, or something else? Shi Meng followed, squeezing in after him. His frame was too large; the stone spikes dug deeply into his side. He grunted, muscles tensing, forcing the spikes to snap off with sheer strength. The cracking sound exploded in the confined space. Mo Chen entered last. He had just squeezed halfway in sideways. From deep within the stone passage behind them came a heavy, mechanical clenching sound. *Clack.* Lin Yi whipped his head around. On both sides of the passage, three stone statues embedded in the walls moved. They had been covered in moss, almost blending into the stone. Now, the moss peeled away, and a piercing red light ignited deep within the statues’ eye sockets. Stone joints rotated, emitting dry, grating friction sounds, like gears that hadn’t been oiled for centuries. The statues’ arms lifted. Their palms aimed at the crevice entrance. A grayish-white light gathered in their palms—not fire, not lightning, but something purer, colder. Where the light passed, the air hissed as if being scorched, leaving behind charred traces. “Annihilating Spirit Beams,” Mo Chen wrote in the air, the characters hurried. “Dodge—” He didn’t have time to finish. The first beam shot out. Lin Yi yanked Mo Chen deep into the crevice. The beam grazed past Mo Chen’s back, striking the opposite stone wall. There was no explosion, no loud bang. The stone wall melted like wax, leaving behind a smooth, mirror-like depression, its edges still smoking with blue fumes. “Fuck!” Shi Meng cursed. The second beam came. This time, it swept horizontally. The grayish-white beam swept across the crevice entrance, aiming to cut the three in half at the waist. Lin Yi threw himself to the ground; the beam swept over his head, the smell of scorching reaching his hair. Shi Meng couldn’t dodge—his frame was too large, his movements a split-second too slow. The beam grazed the outer side of his left arm. His protective aura was torn apart like paper. *Hiss—* The sound of flesh charring. Shi Meng clenched his teeth The old man's withered fingers trembled, but his strength remained steady. His other hand lifted, fingertips tracing patterns in the air. Not writing, but drawing a talisman—an incredibly complex symbol Lin Yi had never seen before. The moment the talisman took form, Mo Chen's face visibly turned ashen. He opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of blood. The blood didn't fall to the ground. Instead, it hovered in the air, merging into the talisman. The symbol suddenly glowed with a dark crimson light, forming a barrier-like shield in front of the fissure entrance. Three beams of light shot toward them simultaneously. They struck the barrier. There was no sound. Where the gray-white beams met the dark red barrier, space began to distort, like ripples on water struck by a stone. The beams were deflected—one shot upward into the stone wall, one veered to the side, and the last was reflected back deep into the stone passage. The stone statue was struck in the chest by its own beam. Cracks spread from its chest. But it wasn't enough. The statue merely paused for a moment, the red light in its eye sockets intensifying, already beginning to gather energy for a second round. "Now!" Lin Yi roared. He charged forward. Not retreating, but advancing—toward the depths of the stone passage, toward the three stone statues. Shi Meng was stunned for a second, then understood and rushed out after him, his right fist gathering power. Mo Chen remained in place, maintaining the barrier. Blood still dripped from the corner of his mouth, one drop, then another, falling onto the fungal carpet on the ground with soft *pats*. Lin Yi reached the first stone statue. The statue raised its arm, its palm aimed at his face. The gray-white beam had gathered to a critical point and was about to fire in the next instant. Lin Yi didn't stop. He slid sideways, ducking under the statue's arm, his left hand pressing against the statue's chest. Not an attack. His fingertips pressed against the core node of the talisman. He closed his eyes. The talisman Mo Chen had just drawn flashed in his mind—it wasn't just a defensive barrier. It was a kind of guide, a kind of hint. The statue's talisman system was ancient, but its underlying logic... Shared similarities with the spiritual meridians of the human body. Find it. His fingertips exerted slight pressure, injecting a thread of extremely faint spiritual power—not his own, but a trace of that alien power deep within his left arm. A cold, chaotic, utterly "negating" aura. The light of the talisman on the statue's chest suddenly became chaotic. The gray-white beam exploded in its palm, not shooting outward, but collapsing inward. The statue began to disintegrate from the inside out, cracks spreading across its body like a spiderweb, then— It crumbled into a pile of stone dust. The second statue's beam fired. Shi Meng blocked in front of Lin Yi. He threw out his right fist, not aiming at the beam, but at the statue's arm joint. His fist wind carried a savage, brute physical force, crashing into the statue's arm. *Crack.* The stone joint shattered. The statue's arm twisted to one side, its beam shooting wide, hitting the opposite stone wall. Shi Meng didn't stop. His second punch hammered into the statue's chest, his third smashed into its head. Brute force dismantling. The statue shattered into pieces under the heavy blows. The third statue. Lin Yi and Shi Meng both lunged toward it. But this statue had learned—it didn't gather a beam. Instead, its entire body tore free from the stone wall, its three-meter-tall stone form blocking the passage, both fists smashing down. The fists carried immense force. Lin Yi rolled sideways to dodge. The fist struck where he had just stood, blasting a deep crater in the ground. Shi Meng took it head-on—his right fist met the statue's fist in a direct collision. A dull thud. Shi Meng was forced back three steps, his right fist skin torn and flesh split, finger bones likely fractured. Cracks also appeared on the statue's fist, but it didn't stop, its second fist already coming down. Mo Chen's barrier vanished. The old man collapsed to the ground, his aura feeble, but his hand was still moving—his fingertips drawing something on the ground. Not a talisman, but a simple arrow pointing to a specific spot on the statue's nape. Lin Yi saw it. On the statue's nape, there was a slightly darker stone patch, like a repaired mark. A weak point. The statue's fist smashed toward Shi Meng again. Shi Meng didn't try to block this time. He sidestepped to avoid it, but the statue's other hand swept horizontally, palm open Lin Yi landed, staggered a step, then steadied himself. A familiar scorching pain came from deep within his left arm—another portion of the alien force had been consumed, and the sense of emptiness was even more pronounced. He looked toward Shi Meng. The wound on Shi Meng’s left arm was still spreading. A gray-white crystalline shell had already covered half his forearm and was extending toward his elbow. His face was deathly pale, his forehead drenched in cold sweat, but he gritted his teeth without making a sound. “Can you walk?” Lin Yi asked. Shi Meng nodded, but the movement was noticeably stiff. Mo Chen pushed himself up from the stone wall, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth. He looked at Shi Meng’s arm, his expression grave, then wrote in the air: “*Annihilating Spirit erosion. Must be dealt with quickly.*” “How?” Mo Chen was silent for a moment, then wrote two characters: “*Amputate.*” Shi Meng’s face grew even paler. Lin Yi said nothing. He walked to Shi Meng’s side, crouched down, and examined the wound closely. At the edge of the crystalline shell, the skin had completely necrotized, and the underlying muscle tissue was slowly carbonizing. This was no ordinary burn—it was an erosion at the level of *rules*, negating the very state of “being alive.” “Is there any other way?” he asked, his voice calm. Mo Chen looked at him and slowly shook his head. Shi Meng suddenly laughed. The laugh was dry, laced with pain. “It’s fine… just an arm.” He paused. “Better than dying here.” Lin Yi stood up. “Let’s keep moving forward,” he said. “If we find the ‘Fate-Reversal Stone,’ there might be a way.” *Might.* He didn’t even believe it himself. But he had to say it. The three continued onward. The stone path ahead opened up again, becoming a relatively level corridor. On the stone walls on either side of the corridor, faint murals began to appear—not carvings, but painted with some sort of dark red pigment, now mottled and indistinct with age. Lin Yi looked as he walked. The first mural: A group of people knelt on the ground, worshipping a certain existence in the sky. That existence had no concrete form, just a mass of light, from which countless tendril-like lines extended, connecting to the top of each person’s head. The second mural: One of the people stood up. He tore the line connected to his head, turned his back on the mass of light. In the image, his body began to disintegrate, scattering like a sand sculpture. The third mural: The scattered sand coalesced again, turning into a stone. The stone was bound with chains and locked inside a secret chamber. The fourth mural… There was none. The mural ended here. The stone wall beyond had been violently scraped away by some force, leaving only chaotic scratch marks. Lin Yi stopped. Mo Chen also stopped, looking at the murals with a complicated expression. He raised his hand as if to write something, but ultimately lowered it. The corridor turned ahead. Rounding the corner, their view suddenly opened up. They stood at the end of a narrow passage. The passage was only three meters wide, its stone walls covered in strange fluorescent moss that emitted a cold, faint green light. The light illuminated what lay ahead— A stone door. The door was about four meters high and two meters wide, entirely black, made of a material neither stone nor jade, its surface smooth as a mirror. There were no carvings or decorations on the door. Only at its center was embedded a complex lock composed of countless intricate runes. The lock was shaped like an eye. A tightly closed eye. Around the stone door, the air was subtly distorted. Not from heat waves, but a more fundamental distortion—space itself had become unstable here, light refracting slightly as it passed through. An intangible pressure emanated from the stone door. Not an aura of might, not killing intent. It was something colder: *rules*. As if this door itself was a verdict, an unquestionable “prohibition.” Shi Meng walked to within three steps of the stone door and suddenly groaned, dropping to one knee. The crystalline shell on his left arm began spreading faster, as if attracted by something on the door. He clenched his jaw, propping himself up with his right hand to keep from collapsing completely. Lin Yi supported him. Mo Chen walked to the stone door, extended his hand, and held it suspended an inch above the lock. His fingers trembled—not from fear, but from resisting some invisible force. After three breaths, he withdrew his hand and turned to look at Lin Yi. He wrote in the air, each character written slowly and heavily: “* "In ancient times, the Heavenly Dao detected the 'Fate-Reversers'. It wasn't punishment, it was... cleansing. The 'Fate-Reversal Stone' is the residue that coalesced after their deaths, containing the power of 'reverse rules'. This door is a cage established by the Heavenly Dao. It locks away the stone, and also locks away all... those who have come into contact with it." He paused, then continued writing: "Behind the door is a storage room. Also an execution ground." Lin Yi's breath hitched for a moment. He looked at that pitch-black door, at the tightly shut eye at its center. The air in the passage grew even colder, cold enough to pierce the bones. The light from the fluorescent moss swayed faintly, like countless blinking eyes. Shi Meng struggled to his feet, pointing his right hand toward the stone door. "What are we waiting for then?" His voice was hoarse. "Open it." Mo Chen shook his head. He wrote: "Cannot be opened. Unless..." "Unless what?" "Unless there is the aura of a 'Fate-Reverser's' bloodline, combined with... a cultivation method that knows how to deceive the Heavenly Dao's monitoring." Mo Chen looked at Lin Yi, his eyes holding a complexity Lin Yi had never seen before — something like guilt, like resolve, and also like a kind of long-awaited relief. "I can try," he wrote. "But the risk is high. It might trigger stronger attention from the Heavenly Dao, might... die." Lin Yi didn't speak. He walked to the stone door, raised his left hand, and pressed it against the lock. The moment his palm made contact, a cold, seemingly timeless chill drilled through his fingertips, straight into his marrow. Something behind the door was calling to him. Not a sound, but a more primitive resonance — the strange power deep within his left arm was stirring, responding. That sense of "negation," that resistance to all established rules, was exactly the same as the thing behind the door. He withdrew his hand and turned to look at Mo Chen. "Try," he said. Two words, very calm. Mo Chen looked at him, then slowly nodded. The old man walked to Lin Yi's side, raised his right hand, and pressed it onto Lin Yi's left shoulder. His withered fingers exerted slight force, and a gentle yet tenacious spiritual energy flowed into Lin Yi's body. Not an attack, but guidance. "Relax," Mo Chen wrote in the air. "Let me... connect to your bloodline aura." Lin Yi closed his eyes. He felt Mo Chen's spiritual energy moving within his body, following some peculiar path, finally gathering deep within his left arm. There, the strange power began to churn, cold and chaotic. Mo Chen's spiritual energy was like a needle, carefully piercing into that chaos, drawing out a wisp of the purest aura — The aura of a "Fate-Reverser." Mo Chen's face grew paler. Blood began to seep from the corner of his mouth again, but his hand remained steady. That wisp of aura was guided out, flowing back along his spiritual energy, finally condensing at the tip of his other hand's finger. A dark red light glowed at his fingertip. Not the red of fresh blood, but a deeper, darker red, like congealed sin. Mo Chen raised that hand and pressed it toward the lock. The eye on the stone door suddenly opened. Not truly opening — the runes on the lock began to flow, a crack splitting open in the center. Deep within the crack was a pure, heart-palpitating darkness. Within that darkness, something was watching them. A chill shot up Lin Yi's spine. Mo Chen's hand trembled, but he didn't stop. The dark red light at his fingertip poured into the crack, beginning to erode the runes of the lock. The runes resisted — each rune lit up with a piercing golden light, containing a vast, majestic, unquestionable power within that golden radiance. The power of the Heavenly Dao. The two forces clashed upon the lock. The dark red light eroded; the golden light purified. There was no sound, but the air in the passage began to shake violently. The light from the fluorescent moss swayed wildly, and the stone walls hummed and vibrated. Mo Chen coughed up a mouthful of blood. The blood sprayed onto the stone door, instantly evaporated by the golden light. His aura was rapidly withering, the hand pressing on Lin Yi's shoulder was growing weak. "Not enough..." he wrote, the characters already blurring. Lin Yi opened his eyes. He saw the blood at the corner of Mo Chen's mouth, saw the light in the old man's eyes nearly extinguished. He also saw Shi Meng — Shi Meng leaning against the stone wall, the crystallization on his left arm having The runes on the door lock began to crumble. One, two, three… The golden light extinguished, the runes shattered. Within that opened eye, darkness began to swirl, twisting into a vortex. From the depths of the vortex came a crisp sound—the snapping of a chain. *Crack.* The stone door trembled. The fissure that had split the center of the door began to expand outward. It wasn't opening; the door itself was dissolving—the pitch-black material flowed down like melting wax, revealing an even darker space behind it. Mo Chen's hand slipped from Lin Yi's shoulder. The old man collapsed to the ground, his breath so faint it was almost imperceptible. His final act was to lift a finger, pointing behind the door. Lin Yi did not look at him. He stared at the dissolving door, stared at the darkness behind it. The alien force deep within his left arm was being consumed madly, the sense of emptiness growing stronger and stronger, so intense it began to devour his reason. But he could not stop. The door dissolved completely. A stone chamber appeared before them. Not large, about ten paces square. In the center of the chamber stood a stone pedestal. On the pedestal rested a stone. The stone was not large, about the size of a fist. Its entire body was gray, its surface rough, like an ordinary riverbed pebble. But inside the stone—through its semi-translucent surface—one could see countless fine, gray points of light slowly rotating, like a miniature, dead galaxy. "The Stone of Reversed Fate." Lin Yi walked over. With each step, the sensation beneath his feet grew colder. Not a drop in temperature, but a more fundamental kind of "cold"—as if walking at the end of time, upon the ruins of all meaning. He reached the pedestal and extended his hand. The moment his fingertip touched the stone. An indescribable chill pierced his skin, pierced his flesh, pierced his bones, striking straight to the depths of his soul. It was not the cold of temperature, but a conceptual frigidity—a complete negation of everything "alive," "existing," "fate." The gray galaxy inside the stone began to spin faster. In that spinning, Lin Yi saw countless images. A man tearing the threads above his head, his body disintegrating into sand. The sand coalescing into stone, the stone bound by chains. The other end of the chains connected to the necks of countless people—some faces unfamiliar, some familiar. Among them, he saw Mo Chen's youthful face, Shi Meng's face, Su Wanqing's face. Finally, he saw his own face. The image froze. The galaxy inside the stone ceased its rotation, all the points of light converging, condensing into a clear mirror image reflecting his own visage. In the mirror image, he opened his mouth. No sound. But Lin Yi understood the shape of those lips: "Price." From the other end of the passage came the sound of footsteps. Not the footsteps of one person—they were orderly, heavy, accompanied by the clatter of metal. At least ten, perhaps more. The footsteps grew from far to near, rapidly approaching. The pursuers had arrived. Lin Yi clenched the "Stone of Reversed Fate" in his hand. The stone was icy to the bone, the gray galaxy inside beginning its slow rotation once more. The alien force deep in his left arm was nearly exhausted; the emptiness felt like a giant maw, ready to swallow him whole. He looked back. Mo Chen lay collapsed on the ground, his breath faint. Shi Meng leaned against the stone wall, his left arm completely crystallized, his entire face twisted in agony. The footsteps from the other end of the passage were now clearly audible. Lin Yi raised his left hand, looking at the gray stone in his palm. The darkness in the stone chamber seemed to come alive, beginning to converge toward him. --- Shi Meng leaned against the cold stone wall, each breath accompanied by a wet, heavy rasp. Lin Yi tore off a relatively clean strip from his own inner garment and wrapped it around the charred wound on Shi Meng's right shoulder. The moment the medicinal powder was sprinkled on, it was washed away by the dark red tissue fluid, mingling with the acrid smell of scorched flesh and skin, stinging the nostrils. "It's fine…" Shi Meng forced out two words through gritted teeth, his face as pale as a corpse's. "Just a flesh wound… Don't let your hands shake." Lin Yi's hands weren't shaking. His fingertips were terrifyingly steady, wrapping the cloth strip tightly in circles, tying a knot, pulling it taut. Blood quickly seeped through the cloth below, but the flow slowed somewhat. He knew this was only a stopgap. Shi Meng's protective aura was shattered; the residual power of that "Soul-Extinguishing Beam Lin Yi could feel it. It wasn't spiritual pressure; it was something more fundamental—like a whole set of precise, ruthless, unquestionable rules, materialized into these glowing lines, locking this door and what lay behind it. "What kind of restriction is this?" Lin Yi asked, his voice unnaturally clear in the narrow passage. Mo Chen withdrew his hand. He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he turned and looked at Lin Yi. In the old man's eyes, always sharp as a blade, something extremely complex was now churning—fear, a heavy understanding, and a trace of… a weariness bordering on pity. He raised his hand, a wisp of true qi so faint it was almost invisible gathering at his fingertips. He slowly traced a few characters in the air. The characters, formed of condensed true qi, glowed with a pale blue-white light, hanging suspended for a moment before slowly dissipating. **"Heaven's Punishment Lock."** Lin Yi stared at the spot where the four characters had vanished. His heart felt gripped by an icy hand. Mo Chen continued to trace characters. His movements were slow, each stroke seeming to drain his strength. **"An ancient relic. Not for protection, but for imprisonment and… destruction."** **"This lock shares its origin with the monitoring of the 'Heavenly Dao's Rules'. What lies behind this door must undoubtedly be the 'Fate-Reversing Stone'."** Lin Yi's throat felt dry. "So… this thing can truly 'reverse fate'?" Mo Chen's finger paused in the air. After several breaths, he resumed tracing. **"Yes."** **"But in all records, those who attempted to wield its power were ultimately consumed by the rules' backlash. Souls and spirits utterly destroyed, or… reduced to puppets of the Heavenly Dao, forever driven to erase other 'variables'."** Only Shi Meng's heavy, labored gasps remained in the passage. The cold, ghostly green light from the fluorescent moss reflected on their three faces, stretching every shadow long and distorted. Lin Yi clenched his fist. His fingernails dug into the old wounds on his palm, sending a clear, sharp pain. This pain abruptly cleared his chaotic thoughts. "In ancient times… did anyone succeed?" he asked, speaking slowly, weighing each word. Mo Chen shook his head. He raised his hand again. This time, the characters he traced trembled visibly. **"No record of success. Only… piled corpses, and maddened puppets."** **"My sect… before the Heaven's Secrets Pavilion was destroyed, the final forbidden secret deduced in its last divination was related to this stone. 'Reversing fate' is not a contest of power; it is making an enemy of the entire established order. The backlash of the rules is not thunderous heavenly punishment, but… negation and erasure from the very foundation of existence."** He paused. The true qi at his fingertip flickered, as if it might dissipate at any moment. **"Your father, back then… one of the prices of the contract he signed was to ensure the 'Fate-Reversing Stone' remained sealed forever, or… to ensure those who came into contact with it were eliminated."** Lin Yi felt as if a basin of ice water had been poured over him from head to toe. It wasn't a metaphor. The dormant "Mark of Theft" on his left arm suddenly transmitted a faint, needle-like throbbing, as if stimulated by the "rules" and "contract" mentioned in Mo Chen's words. His father's face flashed in his memory. Not anger, not disappointment, but that profound, unspeakable weariness, and… the flicker of relief in his eyes the moment Lin Yi's spiritual root was crippled. So that was it. All the clues clicked into place with a snap. The family's interests, the so-called Heavenly Dao contract, his father's silence, Xiao Han's relentless pursuit, Patriarch Xuan Yin's fanatical hunt… everything pointed to the same thing. What they feared was never him, Lin Yi the person, but the "variable" he might become, the "key" he might come into contact with—this heavily sealed key. "So," Lin Yi's voice was dry but exceptionally steady, "obtaining it is equivalent to declaring war on the entire 'Heavenly Dao'. I wouldn't even need to wait for Patriarch Xuan Yin to kill me; I would become the very thing they fear most… a monster? Or a puppet?" Mo Chen looked at him and slowly nodded. The pity in his eyes grew heavier. Shi Meng struggled to move slightly, rasping, "Then… then why the hell take it?! Lin Zi, we… we find another way…" "There is no other way," Lin Yi cut him off. He stood up, walked to the stone door, and looked up at those slowly swirling, dark golden run Mo Chen fell silent. In the passage, there was only the almost inaudible low-frequency hum of the swirling runes, and the muffled, indistinct sounds from the distance, like the grinding and squeezing of rock—either the pursuers drawing closer, or this ancient fissure structure collapsing further. After a long while, the old man raised his hand and traced out one final line of characters. The strokes were dim, yet weighty as a thousand pounds. 「Yes.」 「It is also a shortcut to a dead end.」 Lin Yi smiled. There was no warmth in that smile, only a desolate resolve. “Then that’s enough,” he said, his gaze locking once more onto the stone door. “Ever since I crawled out of the cold pool behind the mountain, I never thought I’d be walking any broad, sunny road. A dead end, a shortcut—either is better than kneeling and waiting to die.” He looked at Mo Chen. “How do we open this lock?” The complex emotions in Mo Chen’s eyes churned violently, finally settling into a sharpness that bordered on resignation. He took a deep breath—the motion tugged at old injuries inside him, forcing a suppressed, muffled cough from his throat—then raised his hand to write again. 「I have a method, a fragment of a forbidden technique from the Tianji Pavilion. It can briefly simulate the fluctuations of ‘Heavenly Dao’ rules and, combined with the aura of your ‘Fate-Defier’ bloodline… may be able to ‘deceive’ this lock, making it misjudge that an ‘Executor of Rules’ has arrived for inspection, opening a crack.」 「However, the risk is extremely high. The technique requires extreme precision and a mental connection. If anything goes wrong, the backlash from the restriction will strike instantly, and we two will bear the brunt. Even if successful, it will inevitably trigger the final alarm, attracting even stronger attention from the ‘Heavenly Dao.’ Moreover… I will need to use my remaining cultivation to forcibly clash with the restriction’s core, likely suffering severe damage.」 Lin Yi understood. This was betting Mo Chen’s life on a sliver of hope. “What are the chances?” he asked. Mo Chen held up three fingers. Then, slowly bent one down. Two in ten. Or less. Shi Meng suddenly coughed violently, spitting out a mouthful of blood tinged with black froth. “No… no! Elder Mo, you can’t…” “Shi Meng,” Lin Yi cut him off, his voice not loud but carrying an undeniable force. “Listen. If all three of us die here, then that’s truly the end. Elder Mo’s method is the only ‘active choice’ we have right now. If it works, we have a sliver of a chance. If it fails, we just die a little sooner.” He walked over to Shi Meng, crouched down, and looked into his eyes. “Do you trust me?” Shi Meng opened his mouth, looking at the near-cruel calm in Lin Yi’s eyes and the fire burning deep within that seemed to sear his very soul. He remembered the explosion in the cellar, the burning pain on his own back when Lin Yi had shoved him aside, and the increasingly heavy, ruthless intensity emanating from this former “good-for-nothing young master” along their journey—an intensity that unsettled even a rough man like him. “…I trust you,” Shi Meng squeezed the word out through gritted teeth and closed his eyes. “Damn it… let’s do it!” Lin Yi patted his uninjured left shoulder, the touch light. Then he stood up and looked at Mo Chen. “What do you need me to do?” Mo Chen no longer wrote. He directly extended his withered right hand, the tip of his index finger slowly exuding a drop of pale cyan true qi refined to its extreme, like a cold needle. He pointed at the center of Lin Yi’s brow, then at a pattern in the exact center of the stone door—more complex than the other runes, shaped like an eye. The meaning was clear: mental connection, using Lin Yi’s bloodline aura as the guide, to strike at the restriction’s core. Lin Yi did not hesitate in the slightest. He walked to Mo Chen’s side, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the old man, facing the stone door that emanated an ominous aura. He closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing, and forced all distracting thoughts—Shi Meng’s injuries, the threat of the pursuers, his father’s contract, the terrifying cost Mo Chen had spoken of—deep into the bottom of his heart. Leaving only the purest intent: Open the door. Get the stone. Survive. And then, walk his own path. He opened his eyes and nodded to Mo Mo Chen slumped against the wall, head bowed low. Dark red blood continued to drip from between the fingers he held pressed to his mouth, spreading into a small, sticky, dark puddle on the dusty floor. His breathing was so faint it was almost inaudible, each inhale carrying the wet, gurgling sound of fluid in his lungs. Shi Meng’s condition was worse. He leaned obliquely against the opposite wall, the charred wound from his right shoulder to his chest having split open again from his earlier struggles. The edges of the carbonized skin curled back, revealing the raw, swollen, crimson flesh beneath, which continuously oozed a pale yellow tissue fluid. The hemostatic powder had long been soaked through and washed away, mixing with the stench of burnt flesh and blood into a nauseatingly sweet cloying odor that permeated the narrow corridor. His face was ashen, like a dead man’s, his lips dry, cracked, and tinged purple. Only his bloodshot eyes remained stubbornly open, their gaze fixed on Lin Yi. “Old Shi.” Lin Yi’s voice was unnervingly calm amidst the shrill alarm. “Can you still move?” A low, guttural rumble came from Shi Meng’s throat, as if he wanted to speak, but he only spat out a mouthful of saliva mixed with bloody foam. He shook his head with difficulty—a small movement, but clear enough. His left hand tried to push against the ground, the muscles in his arm tensing to the point of trembling, yet he couldn’t lift his body even an inch. The wound on his right shoulder was too severe. That "Soul-Annihilating Beam" hadn't just grazed flesh—it had burned through his protective aura, annihilated part of his meridians, and even eroded the bone. That Shi Meng was still conscious at all was solely due to his beast-like physique and that stubborn, unyielding brute force holding on. But fighting? Impossible. A more violent fit of coughing came from Mo Chen’s direction. His whole body was hunched over like a boiled shrimp, his shoulders heaving violently with each cough, expelling large, dark red, nearly coagulated clots of blood. The clots hit the ground with dull *thuds*. After the coughing subsided, he slumped back, leaning against the wall, the rise and fall of his chest so faint it was almost imperceptible. With his blood-soaked left hand, trembling uncontrollably, he traced two characters on the ground: **Go. Now.** The characters were crooked, the final stroke dragged out long, as if he had exhausted his last ounce of strength. Lin Yi looked at the two characters, then raised his head to look toward the other end of the corridor. The sound of footsteps was very close now. Not the chaotic sound of running, but the disciplined, rhythmically steady advance of trained individuals. At least three, possibly four. Their spiritual energy fluctuations were clear and sharp, like a winter morning wind sweeping across a barren field, carrying shards of ice. One fluctuation was particularly formidable, carrying a certain condescending, judgmental pressure—a hallmark of the cultivation techniques from Xuan Yin’s lineage. The pursuers had reached the fork in the path. The footsteps paused for a moment. Then, they turned toward this side. Lin Yi’s fingertips lightly brushed the rough surface of the Fate-Reversing Stone. The gray river of stars deep within his palm rotated slowly. With each cycle, the invisible chains binding his soul transmitted a clearer sense of dragging. This wasn’t a metaphor—he could *feel* the weight, a heavy, sinking weight, as if trying to drag his consciousness into some abyss. The price was already being paid. And he hadn’t even used the stone’s power once. “Old Mo.” Lin Yi didn’t turn his head, his voice kept very low. “This stone… how do I use it?” Mo Chen gave no reaction. Lin Yi tilted his head slightly, glancing over from the corner of his eye. The old man leaned against the wall, eyes half-open, pupils unfocused, his gaze lacking any fixed point. His breathing was so weak it had nearly stopped; only the faintest, almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive. But his consciousness was clearly blurred, or perhaps he had sunk into some deep, internal struggle against the backlash. No answer would come. From Shi Meng’s direction came a suppressed, gritted-out hiss of breath. He tried to shift his left leg, attempting to prop his body up a little, but the wound on his right shoulder tore open again from the movement. More tissue fluid welled up, mixing with blood and trickling down the charred skin. His face contorted into a grimace of agony, the veins bulging on his forehead like writh The Destiny-Reversing Stone lay quietly in his palm, emitting a dull, grayish light, its internal starry river slowly swirling. He tried to sink a wisp of consciousness into his left arm—not to activate that strange power, but a more subtle, almost intuitive touch, like dipping a finger to test the temperature of deep water. The stone reacted. Not a strong fluctuation, but a kind of... resonance. The silent "Mark of Theft" on his left arm grew slightly warm, not a searing pain, but a deep, throbbing sensation as if awakened by something. The strange power within the mark began to flow on its own, slowly but with a clear direction—toward his palm, toward the Destiny-Reversing Stone. Lin Yi did not stop it. He allowed a sliver of that power to flow out, like a tiny, cold snake, slithering into the rough surface of the stone. The gray starry river suddenly brightened for an instant. Its rotation speed increased by one percent, perhaps even less. But this minuscule acceleration caused the chains on his soul to tighten violently! It felt as if countless ice spikes were simultaneously piercing the depths of his consciousness—not pain, but a more abstract, shuddering sensation as if his very "existence" was being negated. His vision blacked out for a moment, his feet staggered, and he almost lost his balance. The shrill alarm in his ears suddenly grew distant, replaced by a low, droning hum that seemed to come from the depths of the void. The price. Every use tightened the chains by another notch. Every resonance dragged his soul deeper. And he hadn't even done anything yet, just "woken" the stone a little. Lin Yi clenched his teeth, forcing himself to steady his stance. The darkness before his eyes receded, and the tunnel scene sharpened again. The footsteps were now thirty zhang away, perhaps closer. He could see the flickering light cast by the opponent's spiritual energy at the tunnel bend, illuminating the shifting shadows. There was no time. He looked down at the Destiny-Reversing Stone. The gray starry river was still accelerating its rotation. Though the increase was slight, the trend of its "awakening" was now irreversible. The stone itself seemed to crave—to crave more of that strange power, to crave being used, to crave "negating" something. And what could it negate? The rules of the Heavenly Dao? Predestined fate? Or... the very "existence" of these pursuers before him? Lin Yi didn't know. Mo Chen hadn't told him how to use it. Perhaps even Mo Chen himself didn't know. Ancient recor