"There are some people whom we fail to remember when they are with us…Only when lost to the void do we realize—they are the ones we can never forget."
A sound rang out, like a bronze bell cracking in the distance.
The fabric of the Abyss of Forgotten Sentiment split apart.
Lâm Mạc stood amidst shattered memories, ancient Dao scripts seeping into his body, yet his heart trembled—not from the power of the place, but from the faint figure clad in white that slowly emerged before him.
It was not the crimson-robed woman from earlier.
It was… her.
She wore white robes, drifting as though part of the wind. Her eyes carried an emotion too intricate to name—not quite gentle, not truly cold.
She bore no name. No title. No words of greeting.
Yet the moment she appeared, all other sounds within the Abyss faded into silence.
Lâm Mạc gazed at her.
His heart beat wildly—not from passion or longing,But because among all the countless faces that flashed across his fractured memories, only she had never belonged to any of them.
"Who… are you?"
She did not speak.
She merely raised her hand and gently touched his forehead.
In that instant, a storm of blood Qi surged from deep within Lâm Mạc's body, tearing the surrounding space apart, forming a raging vortex of light.
BOOM!
Reality twisted.
The world shifted.
He was pulled into a new place—dark as the abyss, yet at its heart stood a crumbling stone platform, encircled by countless nameless tombstones.
The Grand Sepulcher of Souls.
An ancient legend whispered in lost scriptures—this was the resting ground of cultivators who defied the heavens, seeking to transcend mortality and ascend as saints… but failed.
There were no mourning chants. No eulogies carved in stone.Only ashes buried in broken rock.
Lâm Mạc ascended the platform, step by step.
With each stride, a piece of his memory peeled away—as if the sepulcher demanded he shed his past in order to move forward.
Step one—his father's smiling face.
Step two—his identity cast away by the Lâm Clan.
Step three—the day he buried a sworn brother with his own hands.
By the ninth step, blood surged wildly through his veins.
A sealed memory, long locked within the depths of his soul, was forced open—
He saw himself cradling a woman in white, her blood soaking into his robes, her gaze never leaving his even in her final breath.
"Lâm Mạc… though the Dao I pursued did not belong to Heaven or Earth...If there is a next life… I will walk beside you again."
Lâm Mạc trembled.
He could not remember her name. He could not recall her face.But his heart remembered.
And this sepulcher—this trial—demanded he choose:
To abandon the pain and walk forward…Or perish along with it.
Her voice drifted once more through his mind, soft as the breeze:
"When you truly find yourself… I will appear once more.Do not seek me. Seek yourself."
He clenched his teeth.Blood poured from his feet as he shattered illusion after illusion, refusing to abandon even a single memory.
Because—
"I do not need to forget the past to move forward.It is precisely because I remember… that I am still myself."
The moment he stepped onto the final stone, an ashen light erupted from the peak of the platform.
A single ancient character blazed across the sky:
生 – Life.
—
But this was not mere survival.
It was "Sinh Quyết" – the next stage of the Primordial Life Dao transmission.
—
"Memory is not a shackle.It is the flame that guides the dead… back to life."