“If there is ever another chance... I ask that you show us mercy once again.”

In a fleeting moment of dazed emptiness, those words from the furnace surfaced once more from memory.

“I guess... I’m actually being well taken care of.” Ji Jue sighed. “Someone told me to show mercy to more people, but I don’t understand what that even means, or what value my compassion has. Seer, I’m just a nobody. Compared to sages, I’m as insignificant as dust. We aren’t even the same kind of beings, so why place your hopes on me?”

“I only intended to try on a whim, but after seeing you, I’ve become even more certain.” The Seer laughed, her voice hoarse. “You really are the kind of person who would grant mercy to beings like us, aren’t you? Thank you, Ji Jue. You truly seem to treat tools like us, tools that have gone out of control, as human beings.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Ji Jue asked.

“Perhaps. I’m not sure whether this will cause some misunderstanding or error in perception, but please rest assured, before my life comes to an end, I will do everything in my power to help you find the matrix Pacifier so we can be truly freed from this cycle of reincarnation.”

No Origin Covenant, nor guarantee from the Heart Core was required. This was everything a tool could offer as repayment.

***

At the center of the rift realm, the former site of the Clock Tower had collapsed. Bricks and rubble had piled into a mountain, and a massive sinkhole opened up in the square. Day after day, explosions echoed without end.

The fierce and ferocious Homecoming Knights were now hauling large baskets on their backs, climbing out of the pit one by one, covered in dust and dirt like exhausted construction workers.

“Mr. Lou, we’ve already dug over fifty meters down, and still found nothing! We’re about to hit our limit.” Silan, temporarily turned site manager, poked his head in from outside the tent and asked cautiously, “Is it possible that your device might be wrong?”

Lou Feng glared at him. “Absolutely not!”

After days of hard labor, the once pampered young master who had never done a day of manual work in his life was now covered in dirt and grime, though his hair remained meticulously in place.

“Absolutely impossible!” He stood guard in front of an observation device even larger than himself, pointing at the complex data on the screen. “Do you see this? According to the statistics, one-fifth of the entire rift realm’s spirit flow is concentrated here. This is definitely a major node. If it’s not above ground, then it must be below. I won’t be stingy with the reward. Mr. Silan, we need to speed up our efforts.”

Silan hesitated. “Uh...”

He didn’t actually mind that the employer was willing to pay more. After all, everyone knew the difference in danger between fighting and digging dirt. If anything, he was more than happy to do some manual work. Work was work, no matter how you got it.

However, as an experienced rift explorer, he felt obligated to offer his advice.

“Hmm... the node you’re talking about, could that kid from earlier already have taken it?”

Lou Feng’s expression darkened even further. He instinctively wanted to curse, but his throat suddenly ached again. He had already cursed too much, to the point his voice was nearly hoarse.

In truth, he had suspected that Ji Jue had pulled some tricks, but he had already checked inside the clock tower. It was just an abandoned old workshop, with not a single valuable thing left. What else could there possibly be to take? Was he supposed to carry the remnants of the furnace out of the rift?

Besides, the spirit flow data couldn’t be faked. This was definitely a key location.

That bastard Ji Jue probably thought he had gotten the better end of Lou Feng, but even if he had really taken something from the workshop, it would amount to nothing more than buying the pearl box and returning the pearl[1].

Meanwhile, Lou Feng had already found a key clue.

“Keep digging!” he said through clenched teeth. “I want to see just how deep it goes—”

Before he could finish speaking, a deafening roar erupted from the pit below, and the earth shook. Cracks spread across the square, deep and jagged, as if struck by an earthquake.

“We made it! We’ve broken through!”

Cheers erupted from inside the pit, and soon Lou Feng rushed to the site. Beneath the earth, more than seventy meters down, lay a vast, endless stretch of pitch-black void. It was an unexpectedly enormous hollow.

After dropping a glowing rod down, faint outlines could be made out within the darkness. Massive structures lay dormant, like the interior of some kind of precision instrument. With just a brief observation, it became clear that the underground space was in no way inferior to the surface.

Without being misled by flashy appearances or surface-level illusions, Lou Feng had forcibly broken through the workshop’s barriers in the simplest, most direct way, opening a path into the operational layer. The mechanisms and facilities supporting the entire rift’s operation, the workshop modules left behind by the sage Mercury, were all right there.

Sliding down the rope, Lou Feng looked around at the vast structures bathed in dim light and could no longer contain his laughter. “Haha... hahahaha, I knew it! As expected, we just had to go deeper! Prepare to move forward, Mr. Silan. This time, we’re the ones ahead!”

All the frustration from the past few days vanished. Lou Feng looked radiant, his excitement barely containable. This time, he refused to believe that Ji Jue could still get ahead of him.

Boom!

A deafening explosion echoed from the distance. It was faint and indistinct, as if yet another building had collapsed and turned to ash.

Collapse and destruction were quietly spreading across the surface of this world. Like a machine on the verge of being scrapped, it was slowly heading toward ruin.

***

On the same underground level, deep within the sewer system, inside a barely noticeable refuge...

Everything was now in utter chaos. After the roars, screams, and furious shouts faded into a deathly silence, only intermittent sobbing remained.

“Stop, outsider, please!” a worm-like, grotesque figure lay prostrate on the ground, desperately kowtowing. “There’s nothing left here, we have nothing left!”

No one responded. Only hollow shells, like walking corpses, continued methodically sweeping through the makeshift camp, severing heads from bodies and delivering them to their master.

In the air, a faint, crimson figure held half of a broken skull. He nonchalantly pinched his nose and rummaged through the memories within the remains, gradually understanding everything.

“So that’s how it is. A deeper underground layer, huh? I see...” Bored, he tossed the skull aside and looked down at the powerless puppets before him with a faint smile. “As expected of a sage. Even a bunch of tools can be shaped into something resembling life. Though they’re not suitable as food or material, they’re just...”

He casually pointed a finger at one of the “tools.”

A scream erupted. The figure that had been begging in desperation began to convulse violently, trembling uncontrollably as it swelled and mutated. Under invisible control and deliberate acceleration, its consciousness split and collapsed, rapidly descending into madness, until even the coil exploded.

All that remained were fragments and splattered fluid.

Amid the corpses, a crimson figure slowly crawled to his feet and wandered. One hollow eye after another opened, ravenous as he searched for something to devour.

Along with a series of sharp, bursting sounds, one crimson, semi-transparent shadow after another emerged from the remains. They became the herds of the Shepherd.

“Let’s go.”

Formless grinned, waving a hand. He tugged at invisible reins, guiding a vast herd into even deeper darkness.

***

“Where exactly is this place supposed to be?”

At the other end of the rift realm, a figure had been wandering through the ruins for three or four days. She let out a frustrated sigh.

The elderly white-haired woman was carrying a massive backpack. Like a hiking tourist, she stared helplessly at the tangled network of paths before her.

“Wasn’t there supposed to be a road ahead?”

She looked down at the map in her hands, comparing it back and forth with the fork in front of her, but no matter how she looked at it, nothing matched. It was clearly not the same place at all.

After carefully thinking it over, cautiously analyzing the map, and seriously considering what to do for half an hour, she had to admit she was lost. It seemed like ever since she entered the rift realm, she had not been on the right track even once!

“What a shitty map!” She slammed it onto the ground. “It doesn’t even mark north, south, east, or west, it just tells you to come run around and look for the places yourself. What the hell am I supposed to find?! You old bastard, did you send me here just to sweep your grave or burn paper offerings?!”

Amid the dust, the tattered map suddenly seemed to rise on its own. It flew up, folded itself into a long strip, and without the slightest courtesy smacked her right on the forehead.

Just as she was about to lose her temper and tear the thing apart, the map unfolded again. Right in front of her, it flipped itself upside down, drew a circle, marked an arrow, and pointed straight ahead.

“It’s your own fault that you can’t even read a map. Don’t badmouth me!”

Only then did she finally understand that this broken map was apparently not flat, but a vertical structure.

The white-haired woman froze, her face twitching once, twice. She snatched the map back. “You wasted so much of my time! Why didn’t you say so earlier!”

“Sorry, I didn’t expect you to be this useless.”

She was fuming. “Shut up! What era is this for you to still be using a hand-drawn map?! Not even a navigation system or voice guidance. Don’t tell me you don’t even know how to use a smartphone?!”

The map went silent, as if struck where it hurt.

“Hmph. Let’s go.”

The elderly woman, having regained a small victory, put her hands on her hips and strode forward triumphantly.

“That’s the wrong way. Head east.”

“Shut up, I’m scouting! Do you even know what scouting means?!” Her expression stiffened. She looked around, hesitating for a long while. “O-okay, let me test you. Which way is east?”

The map fell silent again. Only a bleak autumn wind swept through, making the worn map rustle helplessly.

At last, it offered a final suggestion. “Since we’re here to attend Mercury’s funeral anyway, why don’t you just burn me instead?”

***

On the other side of town, a distant rumble rang out, accompanied by an earthquake. The ruins trembled and collapsed, jolting awake a team of Chosen Ones who were resting.

Cracks spread across the ground along with the tremors. Deep, shifting light emerged from within them.

“Mr. Si! Mr. Si!”

The first to notice turned back and shouted to his companion, “What is this?!”

“So that’s how it is.”

One of the Ember Chosen Ones, after a brief inspection, saw shifting ghostly light reflected in his eyes and could no longer contain his wild joy.

What he was looking for was underground!

1. “Buying the casket and returning the pearl” is a Chinese idiom that first appeared in Han Feizi · Outer Storage, Left, Part One, written by Han Fei during the Warring States period.

It refers to buying a wooden box that holds a pearl, but returning the pearl itself. By extension, it describes making poor judgments in choosing between things, valuing what is secondary over what is truly important. ☜