The walls were plain to the point of austerity. No carvings. No murals. No inscriptions. Just stone, ancient and smooth, as though it had been worn down by countless years rather than deliberately polished.
Thick pillars rose along the periter, evenly spaced, their surfaces unadorned, supporting a massive hexagonal roof of solid stone slabs. The geotry was simple, almost crude, yet there was an undeniable sense of balance to it, as if every angle had been calculated to perfection.
Several additional pillars stood closer to the center, forming an invisible boundary around the heart of the hall.
The blood flas drifted lazily, suspended at varying heights, their light casting long, wavering shadows that stretched and recoiled across the stone floor. Despite their movent, there was no heat. No smoke. No scent.
Only pressure.
The hall was vast, nearly two hundred ters across, yet it felt far larger. The air pressed down on Han Yu's chest, not physically, but spiritually, as if the accumulated weight of countless lives, countless choices, and countless legacies hung suspended in this space.
And at the center of it all stood the Inheritance Stelae.
Han Yu's breath caught, just for a mont.
It was colossal.
A monolith of dark stone, rising nearly a hundred ters high, four ters wide, its surface alive with motion. Countless crimson runes flowed across it like liquid script, appearing, dissolving, reforming in endless patterns. They did not stay still long enough to be morized, and even if they had, Han Yu knew it would not have helped.
This was not Dao Script.
Nor was it any language spoken in the present era.
It was Blood Script.
An ancient tongue born in an age when blood cultivation had not yet been divided into orthodox and demonic, when blood was not rely an elent or a resource, but a universal dium through which life, mory, and will could all be expressed. Han Yu had only ever heard whispers of it, rumors passed down through texts and cautious lectures.
In the Slaughtered Moon Divine Blood Sect, those who could read Blood Script were said to be fewer than five.
And even they did not claim to fully understand it.
Han Yu did not try to decipher it. He did not even allow himself to stare too long. He rembered the stories. Of disciples who had gazed upon the Stelae for too long and lost themselves, their minds unraveling as foreign thoughts flooded in. Of cultivators who had scread, bled from their eyes, or collapsed into catatonia before even touching it.
Yet as he stood there, he felt no imdiate danger.
The oppression was real, undeniable, but it was passive. Observant. Like the gaze of sothing ancient that had seen far worse than him and found no reason to react yet.
Han Yu steadied his breathing.
He recalled Hou Luli's words carefully.
Sotis, the Stelae acted on its own. A cultivator would step inside, and before they could even approach, their consciousness would be seized, dragged into whatever trial or inheritance awaited them.
Other tis, nothing would happen at all.
In those cases, one had to approach the Stelae and use their spirit sense to make contact. After that, whether one succeeded or failed was no longer in their hands.
There was no ritual.
No incantation.
No secret technique.
The Stelae judged on its own terms.
Han Yu did not hesitate further.
He walked forward, his footsteps echoing softly against the stone floor, the sound swallowed almost instantly by the oppressive stillness of the hall. He stopped several ters from the Stelae, then lowered himself into a cross-legged position.
The stone beneath him was cold.
Not freezing, but deeply, unyieldingly cold, the kind of cold that seeped into bone rather than skin.
Han Yu closed his eyes.
He let his thoughts settle, drawing his awareness inward. He did not force calm. He did not suppress his emotions. He simply acknowledged them and let them pass.
Fear.
Anticipation.
Resolve.
All of them coexisted quietly within him.
Then, slowly, carefully, he extended his spirit sense.
It unfurled like an invisible thread, reaching out toward the towering presence before him. The mont it brushed against the surface of the Stelae, Han Yu felt it.
Heat.
Searing, overwhelming heat, as if his spirit sense had plunged into a blazing furnace. It was not fire, not elental fla, but sothing far more primal, sothing that burned without temperature, scorching his consciousness directly.
He had no ti to react.
The sensation vanished instantly.
The next mont, Han Yu's mind was swallowed whole.
Cold darkness surged up, dragging him down, down, down, faster than thought. His consciousness slipped, fractured, then vanished entirely, like a candle snuffed out by an unseen hand.
Outside his awareness, the hall changed.
The blood flas flared brighter.
HUMMMM
The runes on the Stelae surged, their movent accelerating until they blurred into streaks of crimson light. Tens of thousands of Blood Script characters poured out from the surface of the monolith, lifting into the air like a living storm.
They circled Han Yu's unconscious body.
They paused.
They shifted.
They observed.
Minutes passed.
Then, from nowhere and everywhere at once, a voice echoed through the hall.
It was flat. Toneless. Almost chanical.
"Assessing Candidate…"
The runes pulsed in response, streams of symbols flowing into and out of the Stelae, probing, analyzing, dissecting every layer of Han Yu's being. His body. His soul. His affinities. His mories. His will.
One minute passed.
"Candidate found suitable."
The blood flas flickered, their light steadying as the runes slowed slightly, reorganizing themselves into more coherent patterns.
Another few minutes passed.
"Multiple suitable legacies found."
The air trembled faintly, as if the hall itself were reacting to that declaration. The runes clustered, separating into distinct groups, each emitting a subtly different aura.
Then, abruptly, everything froze.
A shrill, blaring sound ripped through the hall.
"ERROR! ERROR!"
The calm shattered.
The Inheritance Stelae trembled violently, cracks of crimson light spiderwebbing across its surface as the runes erupted into chaos, colliding, fragnting, and reforming in erratic, unstable patterns.
The entire hall shook.
And whatever ancient chanism governed the Stelae had just encountered sothing it did not expect.
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