"In this world, there is no separation more terrifying than meeting someone you once held hands with... in a world where they have forgotten who you are."
Abyssal Prison – Second Layer: Spirit Embryo Ancient Tomb
Beneath the moss-covered rocks of the deep abyss, a colossal stone platform emerged.
This place was unlike the ancient caves before it – it was more like an ancient sacrificial altar, once used to bury alive Heaven's Chosen who had been betrayed by the Heavenly Dao.
A biting cold wind and a scent of sorrow permeated the air.
Lin Mo saw shattered stone statues, shaped like kneeling cultivators – their faces still bearing expressions of indignation, sorrow, and unwillingness.
"This is... the Grand Burial Spirit Altar?" he muttered.
From the fragmented ancient texts in his consciousness, that name appeared vaguely.
Legend has it, this place was once where those who defied the Dao, unwilling to submit, were sealed, cursed by myriad races, and had their names erased from the cycle of reincarnation by the Heavenly Dao.
And at the center of the altar... a figure stood.
He froze.
His heart, which seemed to have turned to stone... suddenly trembled.
She stood there – her white attire like snow, her long hair cascading like a silver mist.
That back... even if burned into his blood, he would still recognize it.
Leng Yueyan.
His former fiancée.
The one who had personally dissolved their engagement after his spirit meridians were crippled.
The one who once held his hand beneath the peach forest that year... now stood amidst an altar of demonic corpses, her eyes colder than the icy depths of the abyss.
Lin Mo did not speak.
He stepped forward, each step treading upon the cursed remnants of the stone statues; no one stopped him, no one welcomed him.
Leng Yueyan looked at him, her gaze wavering for a moment before turning cold.
"You... are still alive?"
"Neither alive, nor dead," he replied. "I've only come... to reclaim what belongs to me."
"What?"
"The answer."
In the instant their gazes met, a spiritual tremor erupted.
From within his Sea of Consciousness, the ashen voice resonated:
"She was once forced to leave you. The deep layer of the Spirit Embryo Altar... hides more than you think."
A fragmented memory appeared in his mind:
A young woman kneeling before the Lin family's ancestral altar, sobbing, using her blood to exchange for the life of a cripple.
But she was forced by the elders to drink the Soul Cleansing Mind Erasing Elixir – which wiped away the memory of the one she once loved...
At that moment, a speck of silver ash flew out from the altar – for the second time since Lin Mo embarked on this path.
It swirled around him, then around her. Then suddenly... it pierced into the ground.
The entire Grand Burial Spirit Altar began to tremble!
Stone statues cracked and shattered. Ash surged like ocean waves. A surge of aura, not belonging to cultivation, but to "living memory," awakened.
"You thought you were betrayed. But you never asked:
Why would someone who dared to die for you, turn and leave amidst the flames?"
"To step into Primordial Chaos... you must dare to look at what hurts your heart the most."
And deep within the earth, a tear-shaped gate, cracked and fractured – slowly opened.