Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

The fragments enveloped him at the speed of light as he traversed layers of spatial barriers.

He saw the appearance of those barriers clearly—there were nine layers in total, each layer being an independent celestial dome, with fragmented stars and a vast number of threads of fate intertwined and converging on each dome.

At the very top of the nine-layered dome, there is a human-shaped gap.

That's the spot where the Demon God Lu broke through a hundred years ago.

His descent slowed abruptly at the eighth level of the dome barrier.

The eighth dome was an extremely thin water mirror, its surface as soft as a fetal membrane. When he passed through it, he felt tremendous resistance—not physical resistance, but resistance from the laws of nature.

This layer of the sky does not allow anyone who has fully integrated the skeleton of a god or demon to enter freely; it "rejects" him.

But the divine and demonic skeleton emitted a low rumble within his body.

The eight pieces of remains simultaneously glowed with a dark golden light, enveloping his body in a dark golden cocoon. As the cocoon passed through the eighth layer of water mirror, a thin crack appeared in the middle of the entire mirror, which then healed completely.

After he passed through, his falling speed increased again, and the ninth dome unfolded beneath his feet.

There are no barriers on the ninth floor.

The ninth level is a sky. A real sky, real clouds, nine suns arranged in a ring hanging in the center of the sky, below the clouds are rolling hills and rolling plains, on which are the outlines of cities and cultivated farmland.

Someone on the ridge looked up at the sky and saw the fallen dark gold cocoon.

In his final moments of lucidity, he had only one thought:

The rules have all changed.

The spiritual energy of the Tianxuan Continent has disappeared, replaced by a heavier, more viscous energy that fills the space between heaven and earth.

The Creation Realm was like a grain of sand thrown into a vast ocean in that energy field, insignificant.

The divine and demonic skeleton within his body was suppressed by the laws of this world, all power sank into the depths of his bone marrow, and the key seal became completely still, like a dead object.

The dark gold cocoon crashed into a bamboo forest.

Bamboo leaves fluttered and mud splashed. He landed beside a stream, his body embedded in the muddy bank. The rays of the nine suns shone through the gaps in the bamboo leaves onto his face—hot, three times hotter than the sun on the Tianxuan Continent.

Then came the sound of footsteps.

Very light footsteps, crunching on broken bamboo leaves. Someone crouched down, put a hand under his nose to check his breathing, then removed the hand from his face, blocking the blinding light of the nine suns.

A young girl's face came into his view. Backlit, her features were not clear, but he could make out that she was wearing a light blue hair ribbon with a small silver bell at the end, which jingled in the wind.

"Still alive."

The girl said, "You fell from the sky. Who are you?"

Dongfang Weiwo opened his mouth, but his throat was as dry and cracked as sandpaper, and he could not make a sound.

The girl tilted her head, as if she had been thinking.

"Take them back first." She turned and called out towards the depths of the bamboo forest, "Father—we've found someone again. This time it fell from the sky."

A deep male voice echoed from the distant bamboo grove, tinged with a helpless laugh: "Last month you picked up a bandit, the month before that a deserter, and the month before that—"

"This is different!"

The girl interrupted him, glancing down at Dongfang Weiyi again. "There's something in his bones. Something heavy. Like...like a city."

Before my consciousness completely sank into darkness, Dongfang Wei used the last bit of strength to turn over and turn his face to the side.

Through the gaps in the bamboo leaves and the blazing white light of the nine-pointed sun, he saw a boundary marker half-buried in the mud on the opposite bank of the stream. Three characters were engraved on the marker, their strokes powerful and vigorous, ancient and simple as if carved by a knife and axe—

Tianwu Realm.

He closed his eyes.

Above the Heavenly Mystery, there truly is another Heaven.

……

When he woke up, the mud on his body had been wiped off, and he had been changed into a set of rough linen clothes. The wound—actually, there wasn't much of a wound, but the strength he had exhausted while traversing the nine layers of the sky needed time to recover.

He lay on a hard wooden bed in the bamboo house, with a whole bamboo forest outside the window and the soft light of the setting sun. The air was filled with the smell of boiled herbs.

The door was pushed open.

The girl with blue hair carried in a bowl of dark, murky medicine, the silver bells tinkling in her hair. She looked about seventeen or eighteen years old, with delicate features, a slightly dark complexion bearing the marks of years of sun exposure, and a small, old scar on the bridge of her nose—not from a fight, but more like one she'd gotten from falling while climbing a tree as a child.

She walked to the bedside, placed the medicine bowl on the low table, then straightened up, put her hands on her hips, and looked down at him.

"You've been unconscious for three days. My name is Lin Xiaoman, and this is the Lin family of Qingzhu Town. Our family is the smallest martial arts family within a hundred miles, with a total of seven members, plus you, making eight."

"When you fell from the sky, you damaged the bamboo my father had cultivated for ten years. That bamboo could sell for thirty low-grade spirit stones. You have to pay it back."

She paused, tilted her head and leaned closer, looking intently into his eyes.

"And—what is that 'city' inside your bones? Can you take it out and show it to me?"

Looking into her bright, black eyes, which were filled with pure curiosity, Dongfang Weiwo suddenly remembered what the Old Man of Heavenly Secrets had said about the "upper realm".

So this is the upper realm.

In Qingzhu Town, Tianwu Continent, there is a Lin family and a girl named Lin Xiaoman.

He slowly sat up, took the bowl of medicine, and took a sip—it was bitter, with an unfamiliar herbal aroma, but after swallowing it, a warm sensation rose from his stomach and slowly spread through his meridians.

The "medicine" in this world contained a concentrated energy that could penetrate deep into the bones, causing the dormant divine and demonic skeleton to tremble slightly.

"Yes," he said, his voice hoarse but steady, "but it might take a long time before I can show it to you."

Lin Xiaoman's eyes lit up, her lips curled up, and her silver bell jingled.

"Then take your time raising them. Our house may be small, but we can afford to raise someone who just fell from the sky."

Three of the nine suns outside the window sank below the horizon, and the sky darkened. The shadows of the bamboo grove swayed on the wall. Lin Xiaoman walked out carrying an empty medicine bowl, glancing back at him one last time.

"By the way, what's your name?"

"I am the only one in the East."

"What a strange name," she said, then closed the door.

Dongfang Weiwo sat alone on the bed, looking down at his hands.

The complete skeleton deep within his bones lay silent like a closed city, the key imprint still and motionless. He could sense the direction of the Tianxuan Continent—far beneath his feet, separated by nine layers of celestial barriers, like being separated by nine layers of dreams.

But closer still, deep within the "upper realm" of this world, something is gently calling to a certain bone within the skeleton of a god or demon. The call is extremely faint, like the lingering echo after passing through nine layers of water mirrors, but it is undeniably present.

He raised his left hand and placed his palm on his chest.

The area where the eighth arm merged was faintly warm. It was an arm in the void—the "eye" that Lu Moshen had guarded for a hundred years—it brought back not only the bone itself, but also something else.

Lu Moshen's final sigh still echoed deep within his consciousness.

"Okay." The word was spoken very softly and wearily, like the sigh of someone who had guarded the gate for a hundred years and could finally close it and go to sleep.

Dongfang Weiwo closed his eyes.

Outside the window, night had completely fallen on the Tianwu Continent.

Six suns sank below the horizon, while three hung high like cold moons, turning the bamboo forest silvery-white. He heard the sounds of the Lin family's seven members speaking softly outside the bamboo house, the crackling of burning firewood, the babbling of the stream flowing over the stones, and the occasional crisp sound of the silver bells in Lin Xiaoman's hair swaying in the wind.

Everything was unfamiliar.

But he knew why he had fallen here.

The complete skeleton of a god and demon locked the gate to the Tianxuan Continent, and the moment the lock closed, the "lock" itself was "bounced" out by this world—bounced to a higher level. The lock is the key, the key is the lock, the bones are the door, and the door is the path.

The old man of the heavens said, "The direction you go out is the direction you come back."

He came out.

The direction is already under our feet.

In the Tianwu Continent, the morning sun rises from the left.

Dongfang Weiwo stood outside the bamboo house, looking up at the easternmost of the nine suns, which jumped above the horizon first, turning the entire bamboo forest into a molten bronze color.

The remaining eight followed in turn, spaced about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn. When the last one finally leaped out, the stagnant energy in the air transformed from languid to active, like a great river awakening from hibernation and beginning to flow slowly.

He tried to circulate his Qi in his dantian.

The key seal remained as still as iron, suspended motionless in the center of the Qi Sea. The spiritual energy within the meridians—the light and ethereal aura of the Tianxuan Continent—had been "filtered" clean by this world, replaced by a strange energy as heavy as lead and mercury seeping in through the pores.

This energy moves extremely slowly through the meridians, each inch of progress feeling like pushing against a wall. What's more troublesome is that the complete divine and demonic skeleton exhibits a certain "resistance" to this energy—all eight bone fragments tighten simultaneously, the dark gold patterns between the bones acting like defensive fortresses, keeping the external energy outside the surface of the skeleton.

"Rejection."

Lin Xiaoman emerged from the kitchen carrying a bowl of thick porridge, her silver bells tinkling in the morning breeze. "Don't force it. The spiritual energy of the Heavenly Martial Realm is different from the kind you carry; forcing it will crack your bones."

She jumped up the stone steps at the entrance of the bamboo house, handed over the bowl of porridge, and sat down next to Dongfang Weiwo, her feet dangling in the air.

"My father said that everyone who comes from the lower realms experiences this for the first month. Their meridians need to be re-infused with Heavenly Martial Qi, like brewing tea; the first few infusions are undrinkable." She tilted her head to look at him. "Where are you from? Tianxuan? Tianming? Or some lower, lesser realm?"

"Tianxuan."

Dongfang Weiwo took the bowl of porridge and took a sip. The rice was coarse, but it had a fresh, herbal fragrance. After swallowing, the warmth in his stomach was stronger than the medicinal soup from the previous night, slowly permeating his meridians. He felt that the concentrated energy was seeping into the surface of his bones a little bit with the help of the porridge's heat, like water slowly melting on an ice surface.

"Tianxuan!" Lin Xiaoman's eyes lit up, and her silver bell rang again. "Grandpa said that Tianxuan is the oldest of the nine layers of the heavens, tens of thousands of years older than the Heavenly Martial Realm. The person he met back then also said he came from Tianxuan—"

She paused, then suddenly jumped down from the stone steps and ran into the main house, stepping on the bamboo leaves.

A moment later, she ran back carrying a sandalwood box, panting as she squatted down in front of Dongfang Weiwo and opened the box.