"Here," Lin Mo said as he flicked the purified fragnts toward Lin Mu, acting surprisingly competent. "These should be safe enough."
Lin Mu caught them.
They sank into his mind like drops of ink falling into water.
Monts later, the images began to play.
He saw five figures gathered in a dim stone chamber. Three Shanhu clan transcendent ancestors, one rkin transcendent, and one Fishkin
transcendent. Their faces looked younger and filled with solemn determination.
The first fragnt showed them speaking.
"Our enemies will strike within days," the oldest ancestor said. "We cannot repel them any longer."
Another fragnt surfaced.
"The only solution left is this," one of them murmured. "It will seal the thing they desire. The sea will remain impassable."
A different mory ford.
The rkin transcendent sighed. "Perhaps this is the only way to bring them together. If they must rely on each other for survival, then unity will follow."
Lin Mu frowned. 'Bring who together? Which factions?"
Another mory showed the Fishkin transcendent shaking his head. "They will never forgive us for this. They will live in fear of this place."
One of the Shanhu ancestors responded calmly. "It matters not. Peace in the future is more important than hatred in the present."
Lin Mu felt his mind tighten.
'Peace for the future. A united effort. A sealed threat.'
Another mory appeared, this ti more chaotic. Raging waters. Collapsing stone. The five transcendents chanting while blood dripped from their arms. A swirling vortex of energies filled the chamber and crushed the light around them.
The last mory was the most distorted.
Endless cursed energy swallowed everything. Their figures flickered, overwheld, then vanished into darkness.
The fragnts ended.
Lin Mu's eyes opened in the cavern.
The silence felt heavier than before.
He looked at the suspended corpses again, but with entirely new understanding.
"What war were they fighting," he whispered. "Who were the enemies that drove them to sacrifice themselves like this. And what unity were they trying to force?"
The mysteries only grew deeper.
Lin Mu stood in the silent cavern long after the final mory fragnt faded. The images lingered in his mind like scattered pieces of a puzzle without edges. The more he sorted through what he had seen, the more confused he beca. A war.A treasure.A desperate ritual.A curse so vast it transford an entire sea.
He rubbed his temples lightly.
"None of this makes sense," he whispered.
The mories he had absorbed were fragnted and incomplete. They provided hints, suggestions, and scattered clues, but nothing that ford a clear picture. At best, he could infer that sothing catastrophic was unfolding at the ti.
Sothing so dangerous that it forced multiple transcendent experts from three separate races to cooperate.
From what Lin Mu had pieced together, the most likely explanation was that they were fighting over so kind of treasure. Perhaps the treasure held imnse potential or terrifying destructive power.
The ancestors seed desperate to keep it out of an enemy's hands. They spoke of preventing a greater tragedy, binding sothing away, and forcing unity between races.
Yet no treasure existed here now.
Not even a trace of one.
If such an object had been used to power the ritual, there should have been lingering fluctuations at the center of the cavern. But Lin Mu could not sense anything beyond the cursed chains, the array networks, and the five suspended corpses.
His thoughts churned endlessly until Xukong spoke within him.
"Perhaps the treasure was used in the ritual itself," the ancient spider said. "If they needed a power source strong enough to create and maintain a curse that spans a sea, they would have used every resource at their disposal. Including whatever it was they were trying to protect."
Lin Mu frowned. "So it was consud."
"Consud or bound into the array in a way that cannot be separated," Xukong continued. "The fact that the curse has persisted for so long without weakening implies the presence of an extrely potent core."
Lin Mu sighed. "Then the treasure is probably part of the array now. Which ans it cannot be taken out."
"Exactly. The ancestors may have sacrificed it willingly."
Lin Mu shook his head with a troubled look. "And what about the unity they ntioned? The part where they wanted their descendants to co together?" Xukong's tone grew thoughtful. "You have already seen hints of it. The Shanhu Clan interacts closely with the rkin and the Fishkin. They even intermarry. It is possible that the threat they faced required unity among the three races. Perhaps internal conflict weakened them, and they hoped to create a future where such divisions would not happen again."
Lin Mu gazed at the corpses once more and let out a long, deep breath.
"Whatever it was, it is beyond what I can solve."
The curse was intertwined with the bloodlines of the ancestors.
It ran through the sea itself. Breaking it recklessly could unleash it across the
Eight Sea and beyond. And even if he were able to identify flaws in the arrays, this was the Shanhu Clan's ancestral land. He had no authority to touch
anything without their consent.
Even what he had done right now was exceeding his authority.
Finally deciding there was nothing more he could do, Lin Mu raised his hand
and recorded the entire cavern scene. This included the positions of the corpses, the cursed chains, the lagoon, and the complex array arrangents carved into the cavern floor and ceiling. He carefully stored the recorded
images in his jade slip.
"Perhaps the Shanhu Clan knows sothing I do not," he murmured. "Their records might fill in the blanks."
He turned toward the nearest stone wall and began rising through the earth using Phase. The journey upward felt longer this ti, his mind weighed down by the countless questions that lacked answers.
When he reached the surface, his companions imdiately turned toward him.
Daoist Chu adjusted his sleeves. "You took quite a while. Did you find sothing?"
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