In Darkness

*Click—* Amid a crisp friction, the delicate chatter of a vibrating reed sounded. Beside Ji Jue, an emaciated artisan raised his hand, opening a music box. A desolate, chilly melody rose from the box, filling the entire workshop. Everyone's movements remained calm and composed; in silence, they brought out cases one after another, distributing items and touching up disguises, without a single person looking up toward the outside. The colossal eye's opening and drawing near came to a sudden halt, its hollow pupil reflecting an empty void, unable to bridge time itself. The moment the tune sounded, time within the workshop accelerated by thousands of times, reducing everything outside to a tortoise's crawl. Without the slightest sign or abnormality, there was not even any discomfort being inside it; as the music box's melody echoed, everything operated at high speed as smoothly as second nature. Ji Jue took the lead and strode to the crucible, pulling open the door and tossing in heaps of scrap materials prepared well in advance. Then, he "clumsily" channeled a series of corruption alchemy techniques to begin crafting a disguise. Right behind him, the "nameless artisan," still cradling the dachshund, pried open the panting dog's jaws. After a rough squeeze, the dachshund vomited over a dozen tiny lumps of flesh. Thick drool dripped down onto the pieces, which rapidly swelled and sprouted; soon, over a dozen different bodies—young and old, male and female—grew from the flesh. Among the rest, some began implanting residual spirits, some reified the physical forms, while others injected the essences of various Great Sins. Lastly came cosmetic alterations and dressing them in clothes. Finally, after a meticulous arrangement, the deed was done. The instant the music box's melody abruptly ceased, accelerated time snapped back to normal, and an ear-splitting roar detonated from inside the workshop. The crucible burst, spraying countless shards. Amid raging flames, fragments of creations shuddered violently, spiraling completely out of control and setting off a wave of screams and shouts. Inside the dilapidated workshop, the "artisans" flanking the crucible collapsed limp to the floor. Spotting that gigantic eye filled with gruesome malice, they shuddered in terror, kowtowing repeatedly and opening their mouths to plead their case. Sadly, it was too late. It was as though an invisible force choked their throats, leaving them incapable of making a sound. Dim light within the colossal eye rippled outward like water, sweeping the entire workshop from floor to ceiling, hunting for the slightest flaw or suspicion before finally swallowing every panicked figure whole. Cruelly dismantling them like machines, it extracted their souls and dug deep for any clue, until every taboo-violating artisan was reduced to ash and dust. Just like that, having finished its sweep, the giant eye slowly receded. Leaving behind only devastation within the illusion. Yet that wasn't an illusion. Or rather, quite the opposite—they were. Ji Jue looked around him, finally raising his head toward the ceiling. A seemingly unremarkable, battered chandelier quietly illuminated everything, casting a boundary between light and shadow. Everything in the light was severed from everything in the shadow. They hid within the shadow of the workshop, like the darkness beneath a lamp, shielded in front by layer upon layer of phantoms. Everyone remained silent, without even a sigh of relief. Without the slightest pause in their movements, they methodically packed up and prepared. The Profound's internal scrutiny was an inescapable dragnet; being detected upon arrival had actually been anticipated, and contingency plans were prepared long before. The Association's insertion had not beamed them straight into the Profound. Under Plowsmith's meticulous handling, it had transitioned through two layers of Great Sins. Across layer upon layer of camouflage, all that could be observed from the outside were faint fluctuations involving the Eternal Gate. Even if that giant eye scoured the scene thoroughly, all it would find was a bunch of audacious, bungling artisans sneaking into the periphery of the Profound, violating taboos to secretly conduct forbidden alchemical creations. This kind of thing was simply too common. The Association's artisans loved to fool around, but at least they had the Absolute Sentence squad hanging over their heads. Once people ran off to the Profound, who could realistically expect artisans to follow strict rules and prohibitions? With scapegoats freshly whipped up on the spot by the Association to take the fall, they had seized the moment to relocate, hiding inside another safehouse disguised as a ruin. Just as the Profound infiltrated the Association, the Absolute Sentence squad had over the years covertly planted plenty of mole networks inside the Profound, quietly making preparations in the dark, lying low until today. Even if Jiang Tongguang were to tell him in the next instant that he had buried a bomb right under Elder Zhen's rear, Ji Jue would probably believe at least a sliver of it. Having changed locations, outfits, and even faces, all the artisans gathered here looked toward Jiang Tongguang—or rather, the figure beside him. The slightly aged, middle-aged woman wore no disguise at all. She merely sat upon an antique chair, pale fine sand scattered beneath her feet, almost burying her bare soles. A pendant-like pendulum dropped from between her hands, circling back and forth in the fine sand. Countless grains seemed to vibrate faintly, shifting subtly to outline a vague figure. "How are the results?" Jiang Tongguang asked. "What else could they be?" The divining artisan gave a bleak smile. "All normal—certain death, no chance of survival. Aside from that, no unexpected twists or perils can be seen. There's currently no retroactive tracing or investigation directed at us; Naming and Dissolution remain locked down." She took a deep breath, her voice turning hoarse: "Move quickly, everyone. Time is short." Clutching the pendulum tightly, she lowered her eyes in silence. A viscous darkness seeped out from between the grains of sand, coiling around her feet and creeping upward. Wherever it passed, her toes began to crack and crumble, turning into fine sand and gravel that rustled down, returning to the tray. Like a lit candle, she was slowly withering away. "No time to lose. Move out immediately!" Jiang Tongguang nodded, gave her one final look, and led the team forward. This was Ji Jue's first time seeing a panorama of the Profound. Passing through ruined walls that seemed like phantoms, they navigated between narrow alleys. A pungent, scorched smell hung in the air, while pale ashes drifted down in flurries from the sky like snow. Emerald fire rippled across the firmament in waves, looking like shifting auroras and neon, resplendent and dazzling. Yet it could not illuminate the dim, murky world below. Most of the surrounding structures were derelict and ruined, yet within the gloom, other shifts seemed to lurk, impossible to fully fathom. Everywhere the eye could see stood bizarre buildings sprouting like weeds, workshops haphazardly cobbled together into peripheral shacks. Tier upon tier of structures nested like concentric rings, converging toward the center; the further inward one went, the deeper the terrain sank, descending layer by layer. Right at the center of the Profound stood a mountain-tall crucible. Emerald flames surged, constantly siphoning chaos from beneath the vortex, propping up its domain against the storm and sustaining the Profound's stability. The interior still maintained some semblance of order, but the periphery was purely a cluster of unauthorized, haphazardly erected structures without any rhyme or reason. It made one wonder: having fled all the way to the Profound already, what illicit things could people possibly still want to hide in a place like this? Like ants, they scurried between streets and ruins. With the passage of time, the concentric rings of buildings seemed to rotate silently; within the narrow alleys, the path ahead gradually warped and blurred, as though they were stepping into the deepest reaches of a labyrinth. Only the token worn against the chest vibrated again and again, piercing through layer upon layer of seals, pointing straight inward. It was genuinely impossible to comprehend the architecture of the Profound through common sense. Across the entire Vale of the Profound, countless structures were practically alive, and spatial relationships turned utterly bizarre—relying on pure memory to chart a route was out of the question. Rounding a corner in the ruins, they unexpectedly emerged into a bustling underground plaza. Vast piles of materials were stacked atop stalls for browsing, with apprentice buyers haggling fiercely over the value of every single item. Yet those sitting behind the stalls were all puppets fashioned from living people, their faces identical, their smiles warm and genial, while the bizarre bodies hidden beneath their robes had long since fully mutated. Turning right twice and stepping onto a flight of stairs, everything lapsed back into dead silence. The passage became so narrow that turning around was difficult; like blood vessels, forks branched densely in all directions, yet failed to connect with one another. Where they went was not even something they could decide on their own; it was governed by the resonance and attraction between the tokens they carried and their destination. Yet the further forward they pressed, the stranger the heading became, and the more grueling the inner torment grew. Unease. Tension gradually gripped everyone from head to toe. "Something's wrong..." The artisan leading the way suddenly paused, turning around without warning. But when they looked back, they found that at some unknown point, only high walls stood behind them. Amid ripples of emerald flame, a detached eye slowly manifested, gazing down from above. The high walls rose abruptly, sealing off and closing in. *Crack—* With a sharp snap and a soft sigh, dizziness washed over Ji Jue's vision. Before he could even react, the sound of shattering echoed through the enclosed space. "Wh—" Ji Jue shuddered violently, freezing in place like someone jolting awake from a nightmare, drenched in cold sweat. Yet he found himself still standing in the narrow alleyway, with the fork in the road right ahead. It seemed as though nothing had happened at all, as if everything had been an illusion. Only in Jiang Tongguang's hands, a page quietly detached from a cracked ancient tome, disintegrating into ashes. "The inner layer's clearance token is completely different from the middle layer's. Change routes," Jiang Tongguang said after a brief silence. "Try the gap." The guiding artisan nodded silently and reversed course. As though wading through a mud mire, he led them step by step sinking into the shadows, entering another world where black and white were inverted. In this world within shadows between the crevices of matter, everything seemed weightless, and with all colors inverted, it resembled a grotesque negative photograph. Yet even in such an isolated crevice, the shadows continued to churn in waves. Countless eyeballs hidden in the void silently manifested, vague lines meandering out from the pupils to weave densely into a web. Like snakes, they spread irregularly, endlessly coiling around every passerby in silent scrutiny. Even the slightest disturbance would invite a torrential siege and backlash. From every brick and tile to every blade of grass and tree, and even within the flickering illusory light, their presence was ubiquitous. The moment they appeared, countless eyes locked onto them, yet the groping of numerous lines passed right through their bodies, as if passing through layers of illusions. They pushed forward, but after an indeterminate distance, Jiang Tongguang suddenly stopped dead. "Turn back." Too late. A tsunami-like tide surged from the grotesque light and shadow, sweeping past and swallowing everything whole. Like a dutiful cleaner, it periodically wiped out everything in this crevice. Without even time to resist, they dissolved in an instant like blurred oil paint into the bizarre play of light and shadow, leaving neither hide nor hair. Then, when Ji Jue opened his eyes, they had already returned to ten seconds before the arrival of the tide. The guiding artisan stiffened slightly, turned his head, and gave them one final look. It was like a silent sigh. *Bang—* As if plunging into a pool of water in a flash, Ji Jue tumbled backward uncontrollably, falling through mottled light and shadow, returning once more to the material world. Amid the churning light and shadow, the last thing Ji Jue saw was that emaciated figure being engulfed by the raging tide. In the final fraction of a second, he seemed to shrug slightly and raise a hand. A silent farewell. Ji Jue's expression twitched. The gap closed before him, revealing no more of what lay on the other side. In dead silence, the darkness made no sound; no one spoke another word. "We're not far now. Keep moving forward, just a bit more." Jiang Tongguang lit a candle shaped like a human finger, taking over the duty of leading the way at the head of the group. A wisp of faint light invisible to anyone but them shone from the finger-fashioned candle, shielding them within, demarcating the worlds inside and outside light and shadow, shifting between existence and nonexistence. Like specters wandering through the dark, they advanced in silence. It was like slogging through mountains of refuse; beneath their feet lay debris accumulated over who knew how long, stretching out in the dark space like a boundless, unseen ocean. From time to time, massive amounts of broken creations rained down from above, kicking up negligible ripples in the sea of trash, their clicking and scraping echoing in the darkness like chewing. The thunder of a collapse erupted. Amid the towering refuse, an aberration coalesced from countless shards crept slowly by, extending a long tongue to gnaw on the rubbish at its mouth, picking fastidiously for small prey that had failed to flee in time. Atop its massive head, pair after pair of eyes swept the surroundings vigilantly, their gaze sweeping over them again and again without perceiving a thing. It sniffed the abnormal air, yet remained completely blind to the artisans brushing past it. Just as it tentatively moved to extend its tongue, it suddenly froze rigid in place. Sniffing a faint aroma of aged vintage, its hungry eyes gradually went blank. Consciousness dissipated, instincts evaporated, and turning into an empty husk, it collapsed into countless pieces of rubbish and debris. Passing through endless refuse, crossing quagmires, and clambering over ruins after ruins... Until they stepped through the final threshold, and a magnificent structure resembling an inverted pyramid abruptly leaped out at the edge of their vision, making all intruders appear as insignificant as specks of dust. At the apex of the inverted pyramid, countless shards converged like a colossal pillar, extending endlessly upward until swallowed completely by darkness, leaving nowhere else to be seen. The foundation of the Pillar of Perdition! The surrounding void was pitch-black and desolate; no other creation was qualified to exist outside the Grandmaster's workshop! All that could be felt was an instinctive suffocation, an oppression, and a searing agony as if burning in flames from merely gazing upon it. At this moment, a glint of light finally sparked before everyone's eyes. Having stayed hidden until now, having gritted their teeth and persevered this far, they finally stood before the grand gates... At that instant, echoing in everyone's ears was a raspy sigh from far away. Like a farewell. Back in the hidden workshop, the artisan remaining in the sand lifted her head for one last look toward the heavens. The speed of her petrification into sand abruptly surged, rising past her waist to envelop her entire upper torso, creeping inch by inch toward her shoulders and covering half her body. Wherever it reached, exposed white bone crumbled into fine sand that rustled down, as if being devoured inch by inch by an invisible monster. Sacrificing everything of herself to the Masterwork, she left behind the final shroud of camouflage for all they were about to do. Amid the incinerated fine sand, the remnants of her head stubbornly remained raised. Opening cracked eyes, she gazed intently, yet could see none of the daylight she knew. What a shame. She had forgotten to say goodbye. With the Masterwork burning down, a thin mist rose from everyone's bodies, a dreamlike veil drifting in the void. Then, as the artisan at the rear of the team halted, a kaleidoscope of resplendent mirror light spread out from his body, completely engulfing the entire domain, refracting countless dazzling rays and thoroughly blanketing everything before them. From Jiang Tongguang's hand, a slender chain was flung forth. A thread-thin line stretched into nothingness and vanished, locking down heaven and earth, sealing off everything! Following the [Dragon Palace Casket] capable of storing vast stretches of time, the [Ganges Sand] that drowned all variations of fate, the [Collection of Fixed Fate] that subverted cause and effect to restore everything to before destruction, the [Shadow Painting] that traveled outside the material realm... and even the [Luminous Moon Mirror] that reduced everything within a domain to flowers in a mirror and the moon in water, came the [Kunwu Lock], which locked down all material domains and severed every connection between inside and out! A total of nineteen original numbered Masterworks preserved by the Association, maintained and completed by countless generations of artisans—creations representing the blood and sweat of major workshops and diverse factions—had all been staked in this single colossal gamble! At this moment, the Association's artisans finally ceased concealing their traces and purpose. Killing intent went berserk—they began kicking down the door! The massive inverted pyramid jolted violently. Countless colossal stones revolved, exhibiting brand-new permutations, only to grind to a sudden halt as if frozen solid by an invisible force. In the hands of the artisan at the forefront of the team, a massive chunk of amber reflected a complete reflection of the workshop, preserving everything within like a miniature model. Right behind him, a doorway manifested without warning. Violet lightning and black flames erupted furiously, hurtling straight through! With an instantaneous flash, they had already reached the front of the colossal tower. "Open up! The Association's here to deliver some warmth!" Throwing all caution to the wind, Ji Jue boldly reached out and knocked upon the long-sealed doors of the workshop. Between five fingers burning searing red, a long-brewing shockwave detonated in relentless succession. Like the thunderous roar of destiny itself. —[Jingzhen]!