Alert! The Dragon Lord has emerged from seclusion!

"But I will soon be able to personally etch the mark of a 'sacrifice' onto the trajectory of her life."

"I am a sinner."

On the next page, the handwriting had become so illegible that it was difficult to decipher:

"Escape! We must escape with them! What about the will of Heaven, what about the grand scheme of things? Why should we sacrifice the lives of innocent children?!"

"I changed the Seven Star Chart, leaving a glimmer of hope on everyone's destiny... It's very faint, but it's better than nothing."

"The alliance leader discovered it. He was furious and imprisoned me here, never to be released again."

He said he would wait until I "figured it out".

"Hahaha... Figured out what? Figured out how to sacrifice seven children with a clear conscience?"

"At this moment, I engrave all the regret and resentment in my heart into these words. Perhaps a thousand years from now, someone will see them and be able to stop it..."

My notes end here.

The last page contained only four characters, their force penetrating the paper:

"Someone, please save them."

The room was deathly silent.

The table lamp suddenly turned on by itself.

In the dim yellow light, a phantom figure slowly materialized on the chair.

He was a middle-aged man wearing a gray Zhongshan suit, round-framed glasses, with a refined appearance, but his eyes were empty and his expression was numb.

He looked at Lin Chen and the other two, his lips moved, his voice dry and hoarse like sandpaper scraping:

"Who...are you?"

"Lin Chen." Lin Chen stared at him. "Who are you?"

"Me?" The man thought blankly for a moment, "I am... the guardian of the sixth level of the Heavenly Evolution Tower, my Daoist name is 'Bookworm'."

He paused, then shook his head: "No, that's not right... I am a sinner. I altered the Seven Star Chart; I tried to save seven children... I failed."

Su Qingxue suddenly spoke up: "You are the author of the notes. More than twenty years ago, the Heavenly Dao Alliance was responsible for observing the Seven Stars and Nine Suns."

The bookworm's illusory body swayed: "More than twenty years...has that been so long already?"

He abruptly looked up, his empty eyes suddenly focusing as he stared intently at Lin Chen: "You... possess chaotic energy!"

"You possess the Nine Yang Physique! What about the seven children? How are they?!"

Lin Chen was silent for a moment: "They are all still alive. Su Qingxue, Ye Qingcheng, Shen Qingqiu, Qin Yurou, Chu Ling'er, Mu Qingyao, Luo Yunyi—all seven of them are here."

He turned to the side so that the bookworm could see Su Qingxue and Ye Qingcheng.

The bookworm's gaze lingered on the two women, especially on the icy blue mark between Su Qingxue's eyebrows and the faint frost marks on the back of Ye Qingcheng's neck.

"Mysterious Yin Body... Frosty Yin Body..." he murmured, a look that seemed to be both crying and laughing on his illusory face, "You... have all grown up."

"You're still alive!" Ye Qingcheng stepped forward, her sword tip pointing at the bookworm. "Then tell me, what exactly does the Heavenly Dao Alliance want?"

"Who the hell is that so-called alliance leader?!"

The bookworm's body began to disintegrate again. He clutched his head and groaned in pain, "Alliance Leader... he... he can't say it... his name is sealed..."

"But you can't go up! Above the seventh floor...it's a trap!"

He suddenly looked up, a glint of clarity flashing in his eyes: "I'm guarding this sixth floor not to stop you, but to wait for you!"

"May someone actually seize that glimmer of hope I left behind back then!"

The bookworm's illusory body began to burn, turning into specks of firefly light.

With his last breath, he pointed to the corner of the room: "There... is the complete Seven Star Chart that I secretly copied back then... and... clues to the Alliance Leader's true purpose..."

"Hurry... I can't hold on much longer... The Alliance Leader will find out..."

Before the words were even finished, the entire room shook violently!

The writing on the wall began to distort, and the words "regret," "hatred," "obsession," and "resentment" transformed into black chains that wrapped around the three of them from all directions!

"He wants to devour me... to forge this killing array with my resentment..." The bookworm's afterimage struggled within the chains, "Quickly... get the thing... run!"

A cold glint flashed in Lin Chen's eyes, and chaotic energy erupted suddenly!

A hazy, gray current surged toward the corner like a tide, enveloping a hidden compartment before the black chains closed in.

The hidden compartment opened, revealing a cloth-wrapped item inside.

Almost simultaneously, Su Qingxue's ice sword and Ye Qingcheng's Frost Soul Sword struck out at the same time!

The frost-covered sword energy intertwined into a net, temporarily halting the chains' offensive.

"Walk!"

Lin Chen grabbed the package, and the three of them were enveloped in chaotic energy, which slammed them into the ceiling of the room!

That was the only place without any writing.

The moment it hit the ceiling, the Chaos Seed in Lin Chen's arms suddenly felt warm.

The ceiling rippled out like water.

The three of them fell into darkness.

Behind him, came the bookworm's final, almost liberating sigh:

"Thank you...and...I'm sorry..."

The sixth level, eternal silence.

The darkness lasted less than three breaths.

When they felt solid beneath their feet, the three found themselves standing on... a battlefield.

No, it should be said that it was on the piles of corpses on the battlefield.

As far as the eye could see, countless corpses were piled up on the boundless plains.

There were humans, there were demons and beasts, some wearing ancient armor, and some wearing animal skins.

A tattered flag was stuck diagonally in the mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood, its totems already blurred.

The sky was dark red, devoid of sun, moon, and stars, with only thick, blood-red clouds slowly churning.

The air was thick with an overwhelming stench of blood and death; even a single breath was enough to make one nauseous.

"This is..." Ye Qingcheng's hand gripping the sword turned slightly white, "An illusion?"

"No." Su Qingxue crouched down, her fingers lightly touching the cold cheek of a corpse. "It's a real corpse. The time of death... is at least a hundred years."

Lin Chen unfolded the oilcloth package left behind by the bookworm.

There are three things inside:

A yellowed silk scroll depicts the complete Big Dipper constellation, with dense annotations next to each star—the complete destiny trajectory of the seven stars.

A broken jade plaque, only one-third of which remains, has the character "衍" engraved on it.

There was also a note, written in messy handwriting, clearly hastily:

"The leader of the alliance is not of this world, but the last descendant of the ancient 'Tianyan Sect'. His real name is Jiang Wuyai."

"The Chaos Seed is not a creation of nature, but rather a core fragment of the 'Heavenly Dao Shackles.' Whoever obtains it can become the guardian of the Heavenly Dao, or... take its place."

"The return of the seven stars and the guiding of the nine yangs is actually a sacrificial ceremony. Sacrificing the essence of the seven people can temporarily open the shackles of the Heavenly Dao and release the 'Old Heavenly Dao Will' that is suppressed within."

"Jiang Wuyai desires to merge with the old Heavenly Dao and become the ruler of the new world."

"Stop him, or the world will return to chaos, and all living beings will perish."

At the end of the note was a line of words written in blood:

"The guardian of the seventh level is the shadow of Jiang Wuyai, possessing seventy percent of the original's strength and having reached the peak of the Nascent Soul stage. He cannot be defeated by force; we must outwit him."

The silk scroll, jade tablet, and paper slip were passed around among the three people.

Then, silence followed.

Only the wind whispers across the Blood Plains, like a mournful lament.

"Peak of the Nascent Soul stage..."