Wang Lin held the jade scroll, his divine sense meticulously sweeping across its surface.

“Three years have passed… my second brother is dead, my third brother too… They have become Lost Ones, wandering aimlessly in this place… Four days ago, I saw them, but they no longer recognized me, passing by as strangers… I cannot let this continue, I must find a way.”

“This is my sixth year here. I have found a jade scroll etched with a forbidden spell known as the Imprisonment of Years. I must learn it…”

“Uncle-Master has left, venturing into the depths of this place, drawn by a voice calling to him… This is my eleventh year here… The Imprisonment of Years… I have begun to unravel its secrets.”

“How long has passed… perhaps thirty years? The Marked Ones attack again. Among them, I saw Uncle-Master… They took my sixth brother, my fifth brother…”

“At long last, I have grasped the essence of the Imprisonment of Years. In a secluded valley, I and the remaining disciples crafted a true Array of Imprisonment, steeped in the power of time. My ninth brother sacrificed his life force to strengthen the array’s temporal defenses. Before he passed, he made me promise to return his bones to the Shattered Sky Sect… I agreed, but can I truly fulfill this vow?”

“The Imprisonment Array defends the valley. This place has become my home… Yet, I find no warmth here, only the agonizing transformation of familiar faces into strangers.”

“I cannot continue like this. I must find a way, I must save them!” Wang Lin sighed heavily, glancing at the bones before him. The jade scroll ended there. He turned his gaze to the second scroll, reaching out and imbuing it with his divine sense.

“A century has passed. There is no day or night here, making it impossible to keep an accurate count of time. I can only estimate based on the strength of the Imprisonment Array. It should be a century, but it feels like millennia… My thirteenth brother has destroyed his physical form, his Dao extinguished… He could no longer endure this prison-like existence.”

“One by one, those around me become either Lost Ones or Marked Ones. Only my sixteenth brother and Fourth Uncle-Master remain. I know we are sinners, perhaps this is our punishment, but I refuse to accept it! I refuse to yield!”

“Today is a day I shall never forget. This is the 130th year of my sojourn here. The Reversers have appeared for the first time. Fourth Uncle-Master has become a Reverser…”

“They are all gone. Only my sixteenth brother and I remain… But I have conceived a plan, a way to bring them back! I must try, even if it costs me my life! I bid farewell to my sixteenth brother and left the valley.”

“From among the Lost Ones, I retrieved my second and third brothers, and all my disciples who had succumbed to their fate… I ventured into the deep mountains, finding my fifth and sixth brothers, now Marked Ones, amidst the mists and brought them back. Then, I journeyed to the deepest, most forbidden reaches of this land, the path now familiar to me…”

“I found Second Uncle-Master and brought him back too.” The scroll ended there. Wang Lin sat in stunned silence, pondering all that had been revealed. He reached for the third jade scroll!

“I have existed here for over three hundred years. I have been everywhere there is to go. I have discovered a type of bead that can seal the powers of Reversers! I do not know what these beads are, but to save Fourth Uncle-Master, I have searched far and wide, collecting as many as I could…”

“This is my fourth time entering the deepest reaches of this place. I know that Fourth Uncle-Master is there… Facing the powerful Reversers, I used the beads to seal all their powers… I searched for years and finally found Fourth Uncle-Master… But… I never expected that HE would also be there. I have failed… I have been impaled by a seven-colored nail… This nail is strange; it melts into the body upon contact.”

“I finally escaped and, in a haze, returned to the valley. My consciousness is fading, and a mad impulse consumes me, a desire to destroy everything I see. But here, the only living thing besides myself is my sixteenth brother.”

“I drove my sixteenth brother from the valley, entrusting him with my identity token and the Beast Bone Pill formula, telling him to return after ten years… He has gone… I sit in this valley, gazing at the seven-colored sky, waiting for the madness to claim me. Second brother, third brother, and all our disciples, should any of you awaken and read this scroll, you shall know of all that has befallen us these last three centuries…”

“Also, those strange stone beads… I have collected many. I have glimpsed a clue on them, that these stones are not naturally made but are refined by someone. There size and mass all perfectly identical as if someone, long ago, had the ability to endlessly create these beads.”

“My consciousness is fading, but I sense a power draining my soul… For some reason, I now experience a clarity in my consciousness, and a mad idea pops into my mind and starts to grow: perhaps this should be done… If I succeed, I will not go mad. I shall be Reborn!”

“My consciousness seems to have left this place, extending into a strange starry sky… I see… a man, a middle-aged man in a Daoist robe with a round mark on his brow – – R – – – – – – He says his name is Palm Sovereign.”

Wang Lin’s face paled. He gasped and took a step back, staring at the jade scroll and the bones with disbelief. “Palm Sovereign…” The name was not unfamiliar. In Immortal Emperor Qing Lin’s cave dwelling, he had learned of a powerful being among the Outer Realm, named Yu Sovereign!

At that time, Palm Sovereign had seemed distant, a figure from the same era as Qing Lin, long gone.

But now, in the Cloud Sea Starfield, within the Seven-Colored Realm, in this valley, he had encountered information about Palm Sovereign once more!

Closing his eyes, Wang Lin recalled the battle with the illusory Wang Yue alongside Clear Stream, which had collapsed the illusion and revealed two mysterious cultivators, one old and one young!

These were the Outer Realm beings! Had it not been for the Heaven Defying Bead, he would have been captured by them!

“The old man called me the Sealed Realm Sovereign when he saw the Heaven Defying Bead…” Wang Lin opened his eyes, taking a deep breath. The information from these three scrolls stirred within him like a tempest, leaving him shaken.

“The Seven-Colored Realm is related to Heavenly Fortune and to Palm Sovereign… Especially the seven-colored nail, which does indeed drive one mad, wanting to kill all living things… Clear Stream Senior once said that he was meditating in seclusion before the collapse of the Immortal Realm but suddenly went mad for no reason… He was also mad!

Also, the Vermillion Bird Old Emperor said that Clear Stream Senior went mad again after going to the Alliance of Cultivators… What secrets lie here, and how are they connected to Palm Sovereign? Heavenly Fortune, Clear Stream, Sima Mo, Palm Sovereign…” Wang Lin fell silent.

After a long while, he sighed and looked with complex emotions at Sima Mo’s bones. The lack of any signs of destruction around the bones indicated that Sima Mo had not gone mad! If he had not gone mad, then the idea related to the Palm Sovereign in his mind must have succeeded!

“So this is the spatial rift that the Shattered Sky Sect discovered… and the place where the Beast Bone Pill formula first appeared! But why were the beast bones and jade scroll scattered outside… Could it have been the Sixteenth Brother mentioned in the scroll who left this place, leading to the reappearance of the jade scroll and formula in the Cloud Sea Starfield…?”

“And who is the ‘He’ mentioned in his scroll…? According to him, the Shattered Sky Sect did not know about this spatial rift until he listened to ‘His’ advice and found this place… And after hundreds of years, Sima Mo saw the mysterious ‘He’ again!” Wang Lin rubbed his temples, becoming more confused the more he learned.

He looked up at the nine cave dwellings sealed with rocks on the valley walls. In a flash, Wang Lin stood before the first cave. He gazed at the stones, his eyes flashing, before placing his right hand on them and gently expelling the power of his soul. There was a thunderous rumble as the stones slowly moved aside, revealing the entrance.

As the stones opened, a wave of ancient, decaying air washed over him. The cave was small, only about thirty feet in size. Ten orbs, each the size of an infant’s fist, floated in the air, glowing with a faint gray light.

Each orb bore a dim rune that flickered occasionally, but the light was so faint that it was difficult to notice without close scrutiny.

The moment he saw the orbs, Wang Lin’s mind was shaken. He immediately recognized them as the beads that Cang Songzi had used to summon the Reversers!

“So the contents of the jade scroll were true!” Wang Lin’s eyes flashed. He reached out with his right hand, grabbing a bead and carefully examining it with his divine sense. What he saw caused his face to change drastically. His mind was shaken as if struck by a thunderbolt!

When Cang Songzi took out the beads and launched the attack, the speed was extremely fast, and he could not afford to be distracted during the battle, so Wang Lin had only glanced at it, without having the opportunity to examine it so carefully as he could now. “Heaven Defying…”