The Grand Convocation Hall had barely cleared before the party split, each moving toward their own destiny within the mountain's depths. Yu Chen stood at the crossroads of the inner sanctum, watching as a stone-faced instructor from the Combat Stream led Dugu Yan and Ye Lingling toward the lower vents.
The Trial of the Unmoving Core was not a test of skill, but a test of existence. It took place in a chamber directly above the mountain's spiritual pulse, where the gravity was ten times stronger than the surface and the air was saturated with raw, unrefined earth essence. For a poison master and a healer, it was the most hostile environment imaginable.
"Don't look so worried, brat," Dugu Bo grunted, placing a heavy hand on Yu Chen's shoulder. "My Yan'er has the jade-phosphor bone now. She's tougher than she looks. And that Ye girl... she has the heart of a survivor. They'll either break through their limits or the mountain will spit them out. Either way, they'll be ready."
Yu Chen nodded, though his chest felt tight. He watched them disappear into the shadows before turning toward the Great Archive—a massive, circular tower built into a natural chimney of rock that stretched all the way to the mountain's peak.
The Archive was silent, save for the hum of the protective arrays. Great Elder Yu Kun met him at the entrance, holding a crystalline key that glowed with a pale, ghostly light. "The records you seek are not on paper, Yu Chen. They are stored in the Soul-Echo Crystals. They contain the direct memories of the First Ancestor, Yu Shura."
As the Elder unlocked the deepest vault, the air grew cold—not the cold of winter, but the cold of the deep cosmos. Yu Chen stepped inside alone. The room was filled with floating shards of violet crystal, each one vibrating with a different frequency.
Yu Chen reached out, his Void-Heart Star spinning rapidly in his chest. As his fingers brushed a jagged, black shard at the very center of the room, the world around him dissolved.
He wasn't in the Archive anymore. He was standing in a wasteland of white light, watching a man with long, silver hair battle a creature that seemed to be made of nothingness. This was Yu Shura. But as Yu Chen watched the memory, he realized something that made his blood run cold.
The First Ancestor wasn't using the "Unmoving Mountain" technique. He wasn't bending the earth or the stars. He was erasing them. Every strike of his blade left a hole in reality that didn't close. Yu Chen leaned closer, his vision tunneling into the Ancestor's soul, and there he saw it: a hidden seal in the bloodline.
The Yu Clan hadn't been born from the stars or the mountains. They were the descendants of the Gatekeepers—beings tasked with keeping the Void out of this world. But Yu Shura hadn't just guarded the gate; he had merged with it. The "Unmoving" nature of the clan was actually a seal placed on their own blood to prevent the Void from consuming their sanity.
"It's not a gift," Yu Chen whispered, his eyes wide. "The Void-Heart Star isn't an evolution. It's the original form. We were never supposed to be mountain masters... we were the void itself."
Deep below, in the Trial of the Unmoving Core, a scream echoed through the stone. Dugu Yan was on her knees, her skin glowing a sickly green as the crushing gravity tried to collapse her lungs. Beside her, Ye Lingling was radiant, her Nine-Heart Begonia petals shredded by the pressure, yet she refused to let her spirit vanish.
"Is this... all you've got?" Dugu Yan hissed, her eyes turning into vertical slits. The poison in her blood began to crystallize, reacting to the mountain's pressure. Instead of being crushed, her spirit began to compress, becoming denser, harder, and more lethal.
Ye Lingling's spirit tree began to root into the very obsidian floor. She wasn't just healing herself anymore; she was drawing the mountain's own life force to sustain her. The two girls looked at each other, a silent pact forming in the darkness. They weren't just proving their worth to the clan—they were making sure they could stand beside the boy who was currently discovering he was the heir to a cosmic void.
Back in the Archive, Yu Chen's resonance reached a breaking point. The black shard exploded into a million points of light, sinking into his pores. A new set of coordinates appeared in his mind—not for a place on the map, but for a "node" within the God-Observation Tool itself.
He now knew the secret. The Spirit Hall's tool was using a diluted version of Yu Shura's original power to scan the world. They were using his own family's stolen history to hunt him.
Yu Chen stepped out of the vault, his aura transformed. He no longer looked like a child, or even a talented spirit master. He looked like a shadow that had taken human form.
Great Elder Yu Kun took one look at him and backed away, his hands trembling. "What... what did you see in there, Yu Chen?"
"I saw the truth, Elder," Yu Chen said, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together. "And I saw how to break the Spirit Hall's eyes forever."