The battlefield was chaos incarnate—flames, mist, and clashing waves forming a mosaic of destruction across land, air, and sea. But none of it reached Lin Ho's ears in that moment.
Because something… was watching him.
He could feel it.
A pressure—ancient and sovereign—pressed against the surface of his soul, not with malice, but with knowledge. As though some forgotten entity was reading the very script of his being.
And it was amused.
> "Chaos," came a whisper only he could hear. "So you've chosen this child."
Lin Ho's eyes narrowed. His blade halted mid-swing, catching a beastkin's claw before it could land. He twisted, kicked the creature into the sky, and retreated several steps, eyes locked on the ocean's distant depths.
> "Who's there?"
There was no reply—only the rhythmic pulse of the deep… and the golden eye that vanished as suddenly as it had opened.
---
Qingye Sect – Inner Lines
Elder Qiu caught the moment the boy hesitated. A wrinkle formed on his brow.
> "He felt it too," he murmured. "Something has awakened under the trench."
Another elder stepped forward, face pale.
> "A sealed Sovereign?"
> "No," Qiu replied grimly. "Worse. A Remnant."
That single word sent chills through the gathered cultivators. Remnants were not beings—they were ancient legacies, leftover fragments of once-living titans who had transcended both time and realm. And this one, judging by the pulse of its awakening, was related to the Abyss War… or perhaps even the era before it.
---
On the Frontline
The first wave of abyssal invaders had been pushed back. The sea boiled with the corpses of beastkin and dissolved constructs, and the ground smoked beneath spirit flame and Qi strikes.
Lin Ho stood, breathing heavily. Not from fatigue—but control. His Chaos Qi threatened to surge past what his current realm could safely handle.
Behind him, Bai Qing staggered, blood on her sleeve.
> "Are you—?"
> "Just a graze," she said through grit teeth. "You?"
> "Not hurt," he replied. "Just… disturbed."
She glanced at him, noting his distant stare.
> "Something wrong?"
> "Something old is down there."
---
Beneath the Trench – The Oracle's Chamber
The Oracle knelt in a dome of coral and bone, eyes glowing with abyssal light. Before her hovered a great pearl—within it, flickered the image of Lin Ho, locked in battle.
> "It watches him," she whispered. "Even now."
She pressed her hands together, chanting in a tongue no longer known to man.
> "Let the trial begin."
The ocean floor shifted.
A formation larger than a city lit up beneath the waves—etched with runes so ancient, even Heaven had forgotten them. And within it, a gate stirred.
Not a gate to another realm.
But to something far worse: a prison.
---
Above – Lin Ho's Senses Ignite
His Chaos Bloodline trembled. He dropped to one knee, clutching his chest. It wasn't pain—it was resonance.
The ocean... was calling him.
No—something beneath the ocean.
> "Lin Ho!" Duan Mu shouted. "What's happening?"
But Lin Ho didn't answer.
Because suddenly, his vision inverted.
He saw coral spires rising into darkness, skulls embedded in stone, and chains the size of mountains holding a gate shut.
A whisper slithered through the silence:
> "Come. Unseal me."
---
End of Chapter 62