parentshiftbook Chapter 27 Awakening of the Stele Imprint
Chapter 27 Awakening of the Stele Imprint
The road at night is difficult to walk. It's pitch black ahead.
Shen Chi felt the heart-shaped mark on his chest skip a beat.
He stopped. He looked at the road ahead—in the shadows where the moonlight couldn't reach, he couldn't see anything. But that sudden impulse in his heart wasn't without reason.
He was about to speak—
Suddenly, the ground slipped from my feet, and I plummeted downwards.
As he fell, he heard Shi Jian shout "Zhen—" before the rest of his words were swallowed by the wind. He heard A-Zhu scream and Mo Huaizhou groan. There was another sound—something was tense in the shadows, like a bowstring stretched to its limit and then released.
bass.
The sound of metal cutting through the wind.
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Shen Chi braced himself with his hundred-refined hammer upon landing, cushioning the impact with his knees, and stood firm. The pit was at least two people deep. By the moonlight filtering through the pit's opening, he saw tiny reflections on the pit walls—countless taut golden threads, crisscrossing haphazardly within the pit, like a three-dimensional spiderweb.
Mo Huaizhou landed to his left, a bleeding gash on his left shoulder. He gritted his teeth, remaining silent, his right hand already pressed against the hidden pocket in his sleeve. Shi Jian landed on the right side of the pit bottom, the array plate lighting up in his palm, a white light expanding into a semi-transparent shield—two short arrows shot from the pit wall were embedded in the shield, hovering less than a foot from Shi Jian's face. Sweat beaded on Shi Jian's forehead, and a small crack appeared on the surface of the shield.
Azhu fell behind Shen Chi. She slumped to the ground, her left hand bracing against the earth, a short arrow lodged in her right shoulder. Her face was pale, and the color had faded from her lips.
Shen Chi glanced around—they were all alive. But Shi Jian's protective shield wouldn't last long, and A Zhu's wounds were bleeding.
Suddenly, footsteps sounded at the pit entrance. They were very light, unhurried, like someone taking a stroll.
A man's voice came from above:
"Xiao Mo, it's been a long time."
Mo Huaizhou's body stiffened. Shen Chi had seen Mo Huaizhou's reaction when facing the Tribunal's pursuit—nervous, but never afraid. But at this moment, Mo Huaizhou's body felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured down his spine, his fingers remaining motionless on the hidden pocket in his sleeve.
Shen Chi looked up at the pit entrance. The moonlight illuminated the silhouette of a middle-aged man. He was dressed in ordinary gray cloth shorts, indistinguishable from any other passerby in the mountains. But on all ten of his fingers were tiny metal rings—the moonlight reflected off them with a cold light. A string of dark tokens hung from his waist, but the markings on the tokens had been worn away, making it impossible to discern their original appearance.
"Uncle Qu Liang...you're still alive." Mo Huaizhou's voice was very low, as if it were being squeezed out of his throat.
"If you can survive," Qu Liang said calmly, "why can't I?"
Shen Chi glanced at the man. He didn't sense the locking energy. The aura emanating from the man was exactly the same as when Mo Huaizhou activated the mechanism—the mental power of the Mo Sect.
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Qu Liang stood at the pit's edge, his hands slightly outstretched. The metal rings on his fingers moved in the moonlight—his fingers plucked them lightly like he was playing a piano, and the almost invisible gold threads trembled in response.
Shen Chi heard a sound. No, it must have been sensed by his mental imprint. All the surrounding metal objects were resonating at the same frequency.
Mo Huaizhou glanced at Shen Chi, "Weapon Suppression. A high-level application of the Mo Sect's mental power, using mental power resonance to interfere with the opponent's weapons and magical artifacts."
Shen Chi nodded. The Guardian Sword vibrated slightly in his storage ring. He drew the sword, pressed it against the hilt, and felt the blade tremble slightly in his palm—like a living thing being awakened.
Qu Liang's voice drifted down from the pit, tinged with curiosity: "That sword... is interesting. But you don't know how to use it. Even your father couldn't handle it back then."
Shen Chi's hand tightened slightly. He knows my father?
Qu Liang didn't give him time to think. He tightened his fingers, and all the metal wires at the bottom of the pit moved.
Six tendrils wrapped around Shen Chi's ankles and wrists from different angles, four shot towards the weak points of Shi Jian's array shield, and two stretched straight across Mo Huaizhou's throat.
Mo Huaizhou moved. He flicked a short iron piece from his sleeve, wedged it into the incoming golden thread, and with a flick of his wrist, deflected the thread's trajectory by an inch. The thread grazed his ear and embedded itself in the pit wall. At the same time, he kicked up a pebble, deflecting the short arrow aimed at Shen Chi.
A golden thread wrapped around Shen Chi's right calf, tightening abruptly and digging into his trouser leg. Shen Chi felt a piercing pain running down his calf. He activated his inner seal, and bronze-colored vow flames surged from beneath his skin—the metal thread was briefly burned by the vow flames and snapped.
But even more gold threads surged up.
After being repeatedly struck by short arrows, the white light on Shi Jian's array plate shield noticeably weakened, and the cracks slowly widened. His fingers were trembling, but his other hand continued to pull new array plates out of the wooden box.
Shen Chi was trapped in the golden wire mesh and unable to escape. Mo Huaizhou's left arm was bleeding more and more, and his speed in unraveling the golden wire mesh was getting slower and slower.
A-Zhu sat on the ground, the short arrow still lodged in her right shoulder. She didn't touch it. She looked down at the inscription on her palm—the intersecting lines shimmered faintly in the moonlight, like an irregular heartbeat.
She closed her eyes. For days, she had been touching the spirit stone grass, sensing the direction of its veins, temperature changes, and the flow of its energy. That perception of energy flow accumulated in her fingertips, her palms, and in the inscriptions. Now, she pressed her hand on the soil at the bottom of the pit—the soil was mixed with trace amounts of black iron ore powder, and the energy flow of every golden thread and every short arrow was transmitted to her fingertips through the ore powder.
She "touched" it. In the southeast corner of the pit wall, there was a rock that looked no different from its surroundings. All the energy from the gold threads and mechanisms passed beneath that rock, like countless rivers flowing into the same underground lake.
That is the hub.
A-Zhu opened her eyes.
"Brother Shen Chi."
Shen Chi turned his head and saw that A-Zhu's eyes were illuminated by a soft halo.
"Give me the fire. I can catch it."
Shen Chi didn't know what to do. But he didn't hesitate. He handed over the tip of the Guardian Sword, which touched the inscription on A Zhu's palm.
In that instant, Shen Chi felt a door deep within his heart seal being pushed open. The white light from the stele in A Zhu's palm flowed along the sword into his arm, into his chest, and into his heart seal—the stele patterns were guiding the flow of the oath fire within him.
He clearly sensed the direction of A-Zhu's intention—the inconspicuous rock in the southeast corner.
The flame of vows within him had flowed like a river, flowing freely. Now, A-Zhu's perception had guided it to a narrower, deeper, and faster channel. His heart imprint suddenly burned—
The flowing water pattern on the Guardian Sword was ignited. Bronze oath flames surged from the sword, following the trajectory of the flowing water patterns—but this time, white monumental light also surged in, intertwining with the bronze oath flames like two ropes twisted together. The sword emitted a clear, resonant sound, clean and transparent.
Qu Liang's weapon pressure was dispelled by the sound of the sword.
"What—"
Shen Chi gave him no time to react. He poured all the flames of his oath and all the light of the monument into this sword strike—a burst of intertwined bronze and white flames surged from the blade and hurtled toward the direction A-Zhu was pointing.
The sword light shattered the rock. The mechanism collapsed—all the golden threads loosened simultaneously, the arrows stopped firing, and the iron spikes retracted into the ground. All the mechanisms at the bottom of the pit fell silent.
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Qu Liang took a step back. The broken ends of the gold threads were still hanging from the loops on his fingers, but the other ends of the threads had already gone out of control. He looked down at the broken threads in his hands, then looked up at the two-colored flames on Shen Chi's sword that had not yet been completely extinguished.
"That's... a stone inscription? Impossible—"
Shen Chi didn't let him finish. He leaped out of the pit and slashed down with his second sword. Qu Liang crossed his hands to block—the power of the Mo Sect condensed into a barrier in front of his palms. But the oath flame on Shen Chi's sword, guided by the light of the monument, was no longer something he could block.
The sword pierced through the barrier of mental energy. Copper and white sparks exploded at the point of contact, like shattering a thin layer of ice.
Qu Liang glanced down at his chest—his clothes had been burned through a hole. He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but his body had already leaned forward.
He fell onto the gravel ground beside the pit.
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Silence fell. Only the sound of the night wind and Shen Chi's heavy breathing remained.
Mo Huaizhou climbed out of the pit. He stood before Qu Liang's body, looking down at his face. Shen Chi noticed Mo Huaizhou's expression—not sadness, not relief, not liberation. It was something more complex. Like a memory that had been repeatedly revisited, finally no longer needing to be looked at.
Mo Huaizhou took the string of black tokens with the markings worn off from Qu Liang's waist, held them in his hand for a while.
"He once taught me," Mo Huaizhou said softly, as if speaking to himself. "Back when the Mo Clan was still intact. Later, he betrayed us."
He put the token into his pocket.
"Let's go."
Shi Jian jumped out of the pit. The crack on his array plate had spread all the way through the surface, but it hadn't broken. He glanced at the crack, said nothing, and put the array plate back into the wooden box.
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A-Zhu was pulled up to the edge of the pit by Shen Chi. The short arrow was still in her right shoulder, the blood had congealed, sticking her clothes to her skin. Shen Chi squatted down and helped her pull out the arrowhead.
Shen Chi looked at her. Her eyes had lost their sparkle, returning to their usual appearance—quiet, somewhat precocious black pupils. But her left hand was outstretched, and the inscription on her palm had changed. Before, it was just a few intersecting lines, like fragments pieced together. Now, those lines had deepened, the edges were clearer, and new connections had appeared between them—the entire pattern looked complete. Like a painting that was only half-finished, now with the missing part filled in.
Shi Jian's gaze fell on the inscription on A Zhu's palm, and he froze. He stared at it for a long time.
"The inscription... was just a few fragments before... but now it's complete."
"What is that?" Shen Chi asked.
Shi Jian did not answer immediately. He stared at the complete lines on A Zhu's palm as if he were looking at something that should not exist in this world.
"That's the core pattern of the Human Heart Monument. All the patterns on the monument in Qingxi Town are derived from this mother seal. The ancient books of Tianji Pavilion mention that only those chosen by the monument can possess such a complete seal."
He paused.
"Three thousand years. The last person whose inscription appeared was named Qi."
Shen Chi fell silent. Qi? He had never heard of that name before.
A-Zhu looked down at the lines on her palm and gently rubbed them with her thumb. The lines shimmered slightly in the moonlight, then dimmed and blended into her skin, like a natural birthmark.
"It doesn't hurt," A-Zhu said. She looked up at Shen Chi, and the corners of her mouth curved slightly—not a smile, but a very gentle and reassuring expression.
"And it told me," she said, "that we've arrived."
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Shen Chi turned around. The night was almost over. A faint, pale light was appearing on the eastern horizon, and the darkness was being gradually pushed away from the sky.
Ahead lay a vast plain. At the edge of the plain, a colossal city floated in mid-air. Shen Chi had seen the low walls of Qingxi Town and the low houses of Hanya Town. But he had never seen anything like this—the entire city floating in the air, its base at least several dozen feet above the ground. Dozens of jet-black iron chains extended from the city, driven into the ground, like a giant beast chained up.
The morning light shone through from behind the city, gilding its outline with a dark gold rim.
Tian Shu City.
Shen Chi gripped the Guardian Sword, gazing at the colossal city suspended in the sky. The flowing patterns on the sword's blade had deepened slightly. At the tip, two colors could be faintly seen alternating—bronze and white—like two tiny fish swimming deep within the sword's spine.
A-Zhu walked to his side and touched the back of his hand.
Shen Chi took Ah Zhu's hand and they started walking.