Star‑dust from the Shattered Star Plains seeped into Chen Yuan's gear‑woven cloak. He tasted blood and the mingled chill of astral energy and chaos‑qi on his lips as he surveyed Selene's pale form. Her star‑freckles crawled across her neck; fragments of her broken Star‑Shard Mask still embedded in her shoulder. Yet she stubbornly pointed northeast.
"The Ring of Knowledge… lies within the Rifted Star‑trail."
[Mental Corruption: 58%]
The system's red alert burned his vision. He stared at his left hand—his middle and ring fingers now fully mechanical, oozing golden star‑dust ichor instead of blood.
"System, you love your twists. Others get tentacles when mutated; I get a mechanical arm graft?"
He chuckled bitterly. "Next upgrade must be a steam‑core heart."
Selene wavered; he realized her ankle was torn by a blood‑spike, the wound crystallizing before his eyes. Tearing cloth from his cloak, he bound her ankle with a mechanist‑rune bandage from Iron Fortress—but ordinary healing could not undo her astral corruption. With no choice, he channeled a sliver of his Astral Core into her veins.
"Hold on—Matilda will save you." He recalled Old Mo's parting words: the Grey‑Robes Council's scribe knew seventeen monster tongues—and might decipher his father's fragmentary parchment. "Besides, if you perish, who will guide me by starlight?"
Above the Rifted Star‑trail plain hovered the Ring of Knowledge—twelve floating stone towers linked by bone‑built sky‑bridges, each spire wreathed in pale blue spirit‑flame. Approaching the bridge's entrance, Chen Yuan and Selene found three Grey‑Robes scholars blocking the way. Their robes were embroidered with closed‑eye motifs; each bore a stone tablet inscribed with runes.
"Outsiders—halt," the lead scholar intoned, his eyes clouded by white film even as he pinpointed Chen Yuan's mechanical arm. "The Ring does not welcome astrally‑tainted flesh."
"We seek Scribe Matilda," Chen Yuan raised his father's blood‑written parchment. Its storm‑runes glimmered in the spirit‑flames. "Regarding Azure Bone's mechanist legacy…and the Abyssal Temple's Blood Pool."
The scholars' white‑veiled eyes swiveled and droned as their stone tablets buzzed. In his mind, Bone‑Vein Resonance revealed the twelve towers each guarded by countless magic‑path jade slips—some identical to fragments he'd found in Azure Bone's cavern. The system lay silent—as if awaiting his next move.
"Follow us." The scholar turned, and Chen Yuan noticed a storm‑rune seal branded on the back of his neck—matching the runes on the jade token. "The Scribe has awaited you."
Inside the central tower's archive, a skeletal forest of inverted bone pillars sprouted floating jade slips tethered by rune‑chains. In their midst sat Matilda in a bone‑root wheelchair, her eyes hidden beneath silver visors as her fingers danced through the air, plucking jade slips by their astral‑trails.
"Chen Yuan, magic‑path cultivator from Earth." Her voice rustled like aged parchment. "Your father stood here years past, asking how to restore the broken jade token."
Chen Yuan flexed his mechanical arm in shock, the parchment crackling beneath his fingers.
"You knew him? Who was he? Why the token?"
"First, heal the girl," Matilda gestured. A bone‑branch sprouted silver‑blue leaves that bathed Selene in astral light. "Astral corruption demands astral remedy—and you brought the core."
Selene slipped into peaceful slumber. As her fractures dissolved, Chen Yuan retrieved the parchment. Under the jade‑slip's glow, dried blood receded to reveal a hidden line:
"The true power of the pendant is—reversing the chaos‑primal's flow."
"A key." Matilda's silver visors glimmered. She swept the parchment with her air‑fingers. "The Thirteen Observatories; Iron Fortress's power core; the Abyssal Temple's Blood Pool—all are locks for this key. And you alone can turn every one of them."
Chen Yuan gazed at the floating jade slips—each tiny storm‑rune at their bases corresponded to his pendant's lines: the caverns, Iron Fortress, the Shattered Star Plains…
"So the token is not a weapon but a key—and the system—?"
Matilda's hand froze midair.
"The 'system?'" she whispered. "That mechanized voice and its chimes—not divine guidance, but the pendant's translation program—shaping ancient magic‑path wisdom into your modern frame of mind."
His world shook. He recalled those electric prompts—they were no alien logic, but the pendant echoing his Earth memories. He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the token's warm pulse resonating with his heartbeat—and, faintly, the Patriarch's remnant soul stirring.
"So I haven't been playing a game, but wielding an ancient artifact?" He peeled back his gear‑brace to reveal healing bone‑scales. "Energy‑point bars and cultivation realms… all the pendant's guideposts within the Cthulhu World's arcane laws?"
Matilda nodded, and the jade slips rearranged into a full cosmic chart of the Cthulhu World.
"Your father, Chen Yuanshan, arrived here a decade ago. He attempted to use the token to heal the tainted magic‑path primal, but was sacrificed into the Blood Pool by the Abyssal Temple. With his final breath he sent the token's half back to Earth—enabling your journey."
His throat clogged. He remembered that moment in the museum—it had been his father's call across time. He took out the complete pendant; on its reverse now glowed thirteen storm‑runes mapping every key site.
"Now the token needs you to activate the last three 'locks'," Matilda said, pointing to Mist‑Hidden City, the Abyssal Temple, and a dark region unknown. "Above all, the Abyssal Maw's core—where the primal consciousness of this world sleeps, and where your father's remnant soul resides."
Alarm bells clanged outside the tower. A Grey‑Robe scholar stumbled in:
"Scribe! The Bone‑Whistle Legions of the Wastes approach—bearing the Blood Pool's mist!"
Chen Yuan looked out: the Rifted Star‑trail ground had cracked open, and countless skeletons crawled forth, each tooting bone whistles. Their howl‑waves shattered the rune‑shields of the floating towers. His Bone‑Vein Resonance flared—half of these bone whistles bore storm‑runes, remnants of magic‑path cultivators.
"They've stolen our Custodian Jade Slips!" Matilda's visors sparkled. "Those whistles, made from cultivators' finger‑bones, enslave their brethren's remains!"
Chen Yuan looked at his own mechanical arm—its fused cogs from Old Jin's final sacrifice. He invoked Astral‑Trail Soul‑Refinement, and the storm‑rune skeletons stalled. Their spirit‑fires flicked toward him as the system finally chimed:
[Detected resonance with magic‑path primal—unlocked: Bone‑Whistle Mastery (counter same‑kind skeletal control)]
"You really are the pendant's true interface." Chen Yuan thought, grinning. "This time, I'll do it myself."
He stepped to the tower's edge, unleashing Bone‑Vein Resonance across the plain. The storm‑rune skeletons wavered, then turned en masse toward the Bone‑Whistle Legions. Their bone whistles dropped as they screeched in defiance. Emerging from the mist loomed the chief Hermit of the Wastes—his form stitched from hundreds of finger‑bones, a Blood Pool core grafted into his chest.
"You dare betray the Abyssal Maw?" His voice grated like grinding bone. "We used your kin's bones to make those whistles!"
"My kin are never your puppets." Chen Yuan brandished the token. Its storm‑runes ignited a vast phantasmal Bone‑Banner. "Azure Bone's remnant—lend your power!"
Every magic‑path skeleton in the Rifted Star‑trail rose. Their spirit‑fires, channeled by the token, became a storm of storm‑rune arrows raining down on the Hermit's Blood Pool core. Trusting instinct, Chen Yuan launched Myriad‑Bone Soul‑Refinement, directing the bone army with seamless precision—his spirit truly resonating with this world's primal source.
The Hermit's form collapsed under the arrowstorm; as the Blood Core fell, Bone‑Vein Resonance revealed within it his father's last flicker of soul. Chen Yuan caught the core and, the pendant flared, absorbing the remnant into his mind. The Patriarch's final whisper echoed in his ears:
"Yuán—seek Matilda of the Grey‑Robes in Mist‑Hidden City—her shadow‑energy… will unseal the deepest gate of the Blood Pool…"
With the battle done, Matilda wheeled close, tying off his mechanical wounds with self‑reforming runes. "Your father's remnant lives—that means the Abyssal Maw's core has not fully consumed him." She pointed to Mist‑Hidden City on the star map. "Albert, the Shadow Circle's High Priest, is using your blood to research fusion rites—melding Cthulhu‑energy with magic‑path primal to craft a perfect vessel for the Old Ruler."
Chen Yuan gazed at Selene, now peaceful in sleep as her mask reassembled itself, the Astral Core's glow inscribing a storm‑rune imprint on her brow.
"So next I take astral core, mechanist–magic‑path arts, and corpse‑refinement to Mist‑Hidden City—destroy Albert's labs, and rescue Lilith?" he asked.
"Not just that." Matilda produced a rune‑carved jade slip: The Codex of Reverse‑Entropy, capable of converting Cthulhu's chaos‑qi into pure astral primal. "Remember: you are not here to cultivate, but to restore—restore this world's tainted primal and repair your father's broken legacy."
Departing the Ring of Knowledge, Chen Yuan stowed the parchment in the pendant's space. Where bone‑scales and servo‑cogs fused on his arm once hurt, he now sensed skeletons within ten kilometers. Awakened, Selene's mask reformed; her eyes glowed with storm‑runes as she held it aloft, tracing a path to Mist‑Hidden City.
"Lilith's silver gaze reveals truth in the shadows." Her voice rang with astral clarity. "And your mechanist tendrils can seize that truth—even if hidden in the deepest Blood Pool."
Chen Yuan watched the Ring fade to a pinprick in the sky and laughed. There never was a "system finger of fate," only the pendant bending ancient rites into his modern mind—and the world's primal instinct to reject such magic. He touched his heart token, now an active partner rather than a passive guide.
"Old Patriarch," he whispered into the void, feeling the faint tremor of Azure Bone's chuckle, "next time—give me a heads‑up on the moves, okay? But I suppose outsmarting your own codex is just part of surviving this legacy."
Dark clouds gathered over Mist‑Hidden City. Chen Yuan knew that when he brought his astral core and mechanist corpse‑puppet into its shadow‑shrouded walls, he would face Albert's Blood Pool experiments—and the truth Lilith's silver eye might reveal: about the Shadow Circle, about the Abyssal Temple, about his father's final storm‑rune covenant in this world.
And in a broken caravan somewhere, Old Mo sat cleaning a half‑token fished from the Blood Pool. Etched on its reverse was a name—his father's name, Chen Yuanshan. With a wry smile he murmured:
"Old Chen, your son is far craftier than you—he's even cracked the 'system' itself. Perhaps this time… he truly can reverse the world's entropy."
A wind swept across the Rifted Star‑trail plain, billowing Chen Yuan's cog‑cloak. He watched his shadow shift—one half the lost student from Earth, the other the resolute magic‑path cultivator. And deep within the token, all thirteen storm‑runes now glowed, as the Cthulhu World's star‑tracks trembled under the footsteps of a soul that owed allegiance to no power, yet would reshape every prophecy yet told.