The pulse came again.
A soft, rhythmic thrum emanating from within the crystal sarcophagus, faint but impossible to ignore. The sound didn't just reach Lian Wei's ears—it reverberated through the bones in his arms, down into the soles of his feet. The chamber itself seemed to breathe with it.
He took a slow step forward.
The crystal surface shimmered, not with reflected light, but from within. Colors shifted beneath the surface—muted reds, deep blue veins, and a single thread of violet that wound like a sleeping serpent across the lid.
"Elder Zhao," Lian Wei said quietly. "Do you feel that?"
The elder didn't answer at first. His eyes were fixed on the sarcophagus, his body taut with tension, spiritual pressure coiled like a spring ready to strike. Then he nodded once, grimly.
"That thing is alive. I don't know what it is, but it's no spirit remnant. It's waiting."
Lian Wei knelt beside the stone base. Carvings ran along the pedestal—words etched in the forgotten syntax of pre-Fracturing civilizations. But the letters glowed faintly, and the Archive within him responded instantly.
[Translation Interface Engaged.][Language: Xianmu Prime Script – Tier 1 High Ritualic.][Translating…]
He read aloud, voice steady despite the fear creeping into his chest.
"Bound not by death, but by memory.Dreamless, I wait, so that memory may endure.Should the Archive awaken me, let the pact be renewed:One memory, one truth, one life."
A silence followed—heavy, suffocating.
Elder Zhao whispered, "Archive? It's speaking to you, isn't it?"
Lian Wei's lips tightened. He hadn't told Zhao everything—not about the system, not about the Spiral Meridian fragments, and certainly not about the visions that seemed to come from another life entirely. But here, now, there was no hiding it.
"I've seen this seal before," he said. "Not in this world. Not even in this life. But in the sands beneath another sky, in a time long forgotten. This being—whoever they are—knew me. Or knew the one I was."
He stood, palms sweating despite the cold.
[Crystal Resonance Detected.][Dreamless Node 01: Pact Violation Threshold—3% and rising.][Recommendation: Disengage. Risk of memory transference event.]
Memory transference.
He looked at the sarcophagus, at the soft pulse growing stronger. If this being was bound by knowledge, if it lived not in the flesh but in memory, then what was Lian Wei to it? A reincarnated key? A vessel? A mistake?
Elder Zhao stepped beside him. "This is beyond us. We need to report this to the Central Sects—maybe even the Vault Sect. There's an intelligence here that predates the Accord."
Lian Wei didn't move.
"Elder Zhao. If this… Dreamless One is what I think it is—if it holds the memory of what came before the Fracturing—then releasing it could change everything."
"Or destroy everything," Zhao replied sharply. "You saw the same visions I did. Fire in the sky. Cities crumbling like paper."
"But what if it's not just power?" Lian Wei countered. "What if it's knowledge they sealed? The real cause of the Fracturing. The truth of what was lost. I can't turn away from that."
Zhao's expression darkened. "And if you're wrong?"
Lian Wei looked at the sarcophagus.
[Crystal resonance rising. 6%.]
"I'd rather die seeking truth," he said softly, "than live blind in a world built on lies."
Then he placed his palm on the lid.
A sharp intake of breath. A flash of blinding violet light.
Zhao shouted, reaching for him—but the world around Lian Wei vanished in an instant.
The Archive Core.But altered.
The space he entered was no longer blank and white—it shimmered with rippling starlight and spectral shadows. He stood not on a platform of jade tablets, but in a spiraling library of endless memory. Shelves floated weightlessly through space, each filled with glowing shards—memories in their purest form.
At the center stood a figure.
Tall, cloaked in gray-gold robes that seemed to flicker between ancient and new, his face hidden beneath a porcelain mask with a spiral symbol engraved at its center.
"You have come," the figure said. His voice sounded layered—like multiple people speaking in perfect unison.
Lian Wei took a step closer. "Who are you?"
The figure raised a hand. "You already know. You found the fragments. You heard the call. The Archive did not choose you by accident."
"The Dreamless One," Lian Wei murmured.
The figure nodded. "I am the echo of civilization. The guardian of what they feared you would find. My body sleeps, but my memory lives. And through you, it wakes."
"What was sealed?" Lian Wei demanded. "What truth was so dangerous it had to be buried in crystal and warning tablets?"
The Dreamless One tilted his head.
"Not a truth, Archaeologist. A choice. In the last days of the unified world, we faced ruin. And so, the Twelve who ruled chose silence over salvation. They fractured the world to maintain power."
"And the Cultivation Accord?" Lian Wei pressed. "The Spiral Meridian Method?"
"Sacrificed," the Dreamless One replied. "Banned, not because it was dangerous—but because it was equal. It would have made knowledge accessible to all. A cultivator's spirit their own, not chained to bloodlines or sacred beasts or divine favor. It was power earned by memory. By learning."
"And you… sealed yourself away?"
"To wait," the Dreamless One said. "For someone who could remember. Someone like you."
Lian Wei felt a weight settle in his chest. The Archive. The visions. The fragments. It was never just a system. It was a legacy.
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing," the Dreamless One replied. "But I offer you something. A fragment of memory. Not strength. Understanding. Take it, and see for yourself what was lost."
He raised a hand—and from the library's core, a shard of light floated forward.
[Memory Core: Epoch of Fracturing – Key Event #001.][Assimilate? Y/N]
Lian Wei closed his eyes.
"Yes."
Back in the tomb, Elder Zhao stood frozen as the sarcophagus dimmed.
Then Lian Wei exhaled—his body slumping slightly before he caught himself on one knee.
He looked up slowly.
His eyes glowed with pale blue light. Not the cold light of spirit fire, but the warm brilliance of remembered stars.
"Lian Wei?" Zhao asked.
Lian Wei stood. His voice was quiet. "I saw it. The Great Fracturing. I saw what they chose to forget."
Zhao's jaw tightened. "And?"
Lian Wei turned toward the spiral staircase, eyes still glowing faintly.
"They were right to be afraid."