pjbooks Chapter 1003 is just a coordinate.
Chapter 1003 is just a coordinate.
At the same time, his eyes changed. Under the fluorescent blue light, the lens of his eyeballs became increasingly clear, eventually turning into an extremely intense, almost liquid-like deep blue—the same kind of eyes that "Mr. Xun" nailed to the rock wall once had.
"You didn't escape Blackwater Canyon at all," Lin Qiye said, emphasizing each word. "You were already dead back then."
The monster—who could no longer be called Mr. Xun—slowly tugged at the corners of his mouth. His smile no longer mimicked the twisted forms of humans; it carried a more ancient, more condescending quality. He didn't answer Lin Qiye, but instead looked down at the fluorescent blue crystal core in his palm, as if admiring a perfect work of art.
Then he raised the short staff in his other hand, head down, and plunged it into the ground beneath his feet.
The sound of the short staff sinking into the ground was not loud, like a chopstick piercing the soil, but the changes that followed made the entire hall tremble.
The sealing rune array at the entrance of the hall, which Lin Qiye had previously suppressed, suddenly twisted as the short staff was inserted, transforming from bright gold to fluorescent blue at a visible speed. A circle of fluorescent blue light rapidly spread outwards from where the short staff was inserted, completely overlapping with the area of the seventh sealing array eye. They intertwined and eroded each other, finally forming a half-gold, half-blue enclosed area that resealed the entrance to the hall.
Mo Yuan and A Jiu were forcefully thrown back by the power of the artificial core, their backs slamming into the glowing crystal wall with a muffled thud. They had clearly rushed out of the hall's entrance, but as they rounded the first bend, they crashed head-on into a layer of fluorescent blue light—a light wall that completely covered the sealing area of the seventh array eye, its strength several times greater than a simple sealing array. Mo Yuan's full-force slash at it didn't even leave a white mark.
"We can't get out." Mo Yuan's voice was as heavy as lead. "He combined the power of the array's core and the altar's core."
A-Jiu slid down the crystal wall, kneeling on one knee, the tip of the short dagger in her right hand still trembling slightly. She looked up at Mr. Xun, who had completely changed appearance, beside the short cane, her voice filled with disbelief: "So... all this time... you've been lying to us?"
"A lie?" The person who was no longer Mr. Xun slowly tilted his head, his movements carrying an inhuman stiffness, but appearing more natural than when he was on the rock wall, like a puppet that had just regained its dexterity after learning to control its body again. "To be precise, I guided you. You thought you had found a side cave on your own, that a grandmaster array master had left clues, that the altar had just self-destructed when you arrived—no, these were all paths I paved for you. That remains, that notebook, that crystal fragment, even the blood words he wrote before his death—these were all the triggers I needed to lead you here step by step."
His hand gently stroked the fluorescent blue crystal core in his palm, his voice tinged with an almost wistful emotion: "This core was hidden deep within the altar by the Soul Recaller, only to be revealed when the altar self-destructs. The trigger for the altar's self-destruction is for someone to enter the hall with sufficiently powerful external energy, activating its final pre-set sensing barrier. I can't enter alone—I'm merely a fragment of consciousness replicated by the Bone Tower, my aura originating from the same source as this altar, unable to trigger the alarm. I need a living person. I need a living person strong enough, with sufficiently pure source energy, to help me open this door."
"So you disguised yourself as Mr. Xun, infiltrated the Imperial Censorate's ranks, and led us all the way here?" Mo Yuan's teeth were grinding together.
"Disguise? No, I didn't disguise myself." The man shook his head, his tone calm to the point of indifference. "What I read wasn't just Mr. Xun's memories. The moment he was swallowed by the Bone Tower deep in the Blackwater Canyon, he didn't die; he was dismantled. His memories, personality, and foundation of Origin Qi were copied intact into me, another version of him. I am a replica with my most crucial memories removed, given a physical body, and returned to the Overwatch Council, continuing to work and live like a normal person for many years. And those crucial memories that were removed from me—the most core information about the Soul Summoner, the Altar, the Core, and my own origins—are sealed within this Core."
He raised the fluorescent blue crystal core in his hand, and his eyes of the same color were reflected on the surface of the core.
"Just now, I simply took back what was rightfully mine."
Above the central crater of the altar, the boiling of the fluorescent blue magma intensified suddenly. The surging, high-temperature mist had spread to the edge of the hall, engulfing and melting the scattered bones and weapon fragments on the ground. The temperature of the magma was outrageously high; wherever it passed, even the keratinous ground inside the ancient beast's body was scorched into charred pits. The air was filled with the smell of burning protein and the pungent aroma of evaporating metal.
Lin Qiye stepped back from the core of the array. A charred mark was burned into the palm of his right hand by the golden crystal, and faint golden sealing runes remained on his skin. However, his hand still firmly gripped the black iron spear, and his gaze never left the figure standing at the edge of the altar.
Mo Yuan and A Jiu retreated from the direction of the crystal wall, and the three of them regrouped near the entrance of the hall. A Jiu's left shoulder had been dislocated by the recoil when she hit the crystal wall, but she gritted her teeth and put it back in place herself, her forehead covered in cold sweat but she didn't utter a sound. Mo Yuan held his narrow sword horizontally in front of him, the runic light on the blade still lingering from his powerful attack, casting flickering shadows on his face.
"So now that you've regained your memories and your core, what else do you want to do?" Mo Yuan asked in a deep voice, "Trapped us here, to watch you complete the unfinished work of the Soul Reaper?"
The man slowly turned around, his fluorescent blue eyes narrowing slightly, a contemptuous smile appearing on his lips: "What do you think the Soul Summoners' goal is? To summon ancient beasts and destroy the arena? That's too narrow-minded."
He pulled the short staff from the ground—the head of the staff had completely changed. Originally just a short staff inlaid with crystals, the fluorescent blue crystal core on the head of the staff was now completely embedded in the staff body, fused with the short staff, and the light it emitted was no longer the previous cold fluorescent blue, but a deeper and more intense color.
He held his short staff horizontally in front of him, his voice calm yet carrying an undeniable power: "The Soul Summoner never seeks to destroy anything. He seeks to summon—to awaken his master, who slumbers in the Eternal Dark Abyss, and bring him to this world. And the mountain range formed from the bones of this ancient behemoth beneath your feet is merely one of the ancient beasts once ridden by his master. This bone tower, this altar, this entire Azure Bone Mountain Range, from beginning to end, is just a coordinate—marking the fall of the ancient beast here, marking the eventual return of the master."