“Come out!”
Within the mysterious realm of sky-blue crystal, the delicate voice of a young girl resounded, full of exasperation and bitterness.
“This Young Lady orders you, come out already!”
The voice surged from a sea of helplessness to anger, a pair of lovely feet slamming onto the crystalline floor as if to vent her frustration.
“Come out!”
The palace of sky-blue crystal rippled with waves of soothing golden light, thin trails of brilliance coiling around the young girl’s arms to placate her unsightly mood.
The person in question scowled in frustration, her lower lip poking into a sour pout.
“Why does nothing respond to me anymore!?” she wailed in resentment, her fingers curling into tight fists.
“Come out, ah!”
Towards the complete silence tilting its head towards her incompetence, An Fei’s heart hurtled itself into the gaping maws of exhaustion.
The young girl slowly sank onto her knees as an unknown wave of fatigue pored into her bones, her mind buzzing with disappointment.
Why, why, why did everything have to go wrong in the Sanctum?
The handle-less sword didn’t respond, the acupuncture points were silent, and her meridians were idling by as though she were no longer their master!
…at least let her know of such a change in advance!?
“Everything is because of this damned scar!”
An Fei scowled as her fist pounded onto the crystalline ground as if to vent her frustration, her smooth skin triggering a resounding pulse of golden light to sweep across the platform.
The young girl jerked towards the collar of her dress with her index finger, the thin line of a sinister, pale red smirking towards her ghastly countenance.
The scar that extended over half of her entire body, An Fei could only identify it as the source of all of her troubles.
The instant it had appeared on her smooth flesh, everything had gone downhill!
Her lotus petals – namely, the handle-less sword and the venomous dagger – to the derivation of the <Golden Lotus of Establishment> that she had utilized to maintain the pretense of a cultivator; everything had been ruined by the appearance of this scar that threatened to bisect her body!
After she had disengaged the thirty lotus petals to experiment with the peculiarity at the number of weaponry consisting her arsenal, the lots petals had suddenly disengaged their connection to the sea of spiritual essence at her heart, refusing to respond regardless of her calls. Furthermore…
She couldn’t transfer spiritual essence to the Eight Extraordinary Meridians!
The moment the threads of golden light dared to interweave through the dense web that was her meridians and encroach onto the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, the eight distinctly colored channels would react with a fierce pulse of heat, eviscerating the thread into nothingness.
The golden light simply vanished from sight, not even appearing in the mental visualization of her own body.
It wasn’t as though the Eight Extraordinary Meridians had consumed the tendril of golden light nor had they dispersed it; the thread was completely reduced and destroyed without a trace.
…though it was good enough that she was still able to weave spiritual essence at her fingertips…
“Ah, this is so frustrating!”
The young girl howled at the base of her heart as she stifled the urge to hanker down and relinquish a spiteful sob. An Fei rubbed at the hem of her dress, her cheeks puffed in no small amount of anger.
Whoever it was that was responsible for this catastrophe, she was going to pummel them to death once she found them!
–
“So frustrating… so frustrating…”
An Fei was unable to suppress the malevolent murmur as she toured the Archives of Time, the layout of the platform firmly etched into her mind. The young girl’s body swayed as she walked through the outer perimeter of the platform, her eyes tracing over the silvery outlines of the books and their covers.
“<Violet East>, <Hemorrhaging Palm>, <Oblivion>…” she muttered, her fingers rubbing at the base of her chin.
Other than the tens of thousands of books’ contents, An Fei believed that she had discovered everything that the seventeenth Archive of Time could offer.
The young girl sighed as she returned to the center of the platform with the three new tomes tucked underneath her arms, her gaze flitting over onto a peculiar manual lazily discarded onto a bedstand.
<Heavenly Talisman>.
The shabby old book that appeared to be on the final vestiges of decay, as though a single misplaced tap could cause the pages to disintegrate into a flurry of yellow and black.
The book was nondescript and lackluster compared to the others that surrounded it on all directions, and even the aura emanating from the sheets contained within was pale – weaker than the fragments of light emitting from the loose pages of An Fei’s notes on the <Golden Lotus of Establishment>.
And yet, An Fei could not bear herself to return the book to the bookshelves.
The nearly destroyed appearance as well as the rough state of decay, the young girl could feel an unknown familiarity at the depths of her heart. At the same time, An Fei did not dare to open the frayed leather cover to view its contents.
The tome that idled on top of the bedstand in its utter lonesomeness was akin to a forbidden object – a sacred familial artefact in a sense.
“Should I open it?” the young girl’s heart shivered with the question the moment her gaze flickered over the strips of leather that bound the faded pages.
“Shouldn’t I leave it alone, since its in such a terrible condition?”
What reason did she have to view its contents when the book seemed to be the only one in such despotic condition amongst tens of thousands of others?
And yet, why did she have the urge…
“I…”
An Fei hesitated as her body slowed to a still, her brows knitted into a dense frown. The young girl placed her three books onto a nearby ledger with an absentminded mood, her eyes flickering with an unknown thought.
“I…”
The same word escaped her lips, but the second time was infused with a bitter contemplation. Curling her fingers into tight fists, An Fei’s legs began to drag her body towards the tatter book hanging upon its final threads.
To read, or to not read… did she even have a choice anymore?
Her imitation of the <Golden Lotus of Establishment> was crippled and unusable, as well as the handle-less sword that had faithfully served her well since its conception.
Her meridians seemed to have gained a life of their own as they greedily closed themselves off from her intervention to absorb the golden light of the Sanctum with utter gluttony.
Furthermore, the little raven and small fox had disappeared to some location, taking her leather bag with them.
With only a small qama to guard her body – disregarding its obnoxiously lethal and bloodcurdling venom – and the <Steps of Underlying Shadow> to ward against physical assaults… could she be considered safe?
…as she was currently resting in Dong Lin City – a city in which was heralded as a gathering spot for numerous cultivators, and none of her current defenses or physique could handle an ounce of spiritual essence, even if it were her own…
“I don’t have a choice! Hopefully, this won’t let down my expectations!”
The young girl convinced her unruly heart as she crossed over the final chasm separating her from the leather tome.
Prying apart the decaying leather with a set of trembling fingers, An Fei gently opened the <Heavenly Talisman>, exposing its contents to the world.
The pages were exceptionally frayed, much to her expectations.
The glue that bound the pages to the spine of the book had long since eaten away at itself and dissipated into nihility. Thus, the instant she turned the cover to expose the first page, the remaining sheets fluttered away into the various corners of the platform.
However, the young girl remained nonplussed by the dismaying circumstances, and remained silent.
Her body stood rigid as it stared forwards towards the plain walls of sky-blue crystal, her thin lips hardened into a firm line. An Fei’s countenance was a stone-cold, her scarlet irises casting away their dull lustre to blaze with a tyrannical light.
Contrary to her expectations, the pages of the <Heavenly Talisman> were blank.
Blank not as in the ink had faded out from the weathered sheets of paper, but blank as in that nothing had been written in them before.
The yellowed pages morphed into a fragile typhoon as they whirled around the far edges of the seventeenth Archive of Time, settling onto the crystalline ground the moment their unusual strength had dissipated.
Unknownst to anyone’s perception, the leather cover had vanished from sight, but the young girl remained standing.
Unbidden by anyone, her soul flickered back to the moment of which the pages had scattered themselves to the far corners of the Sanctum. The scene of the explosion of yellowed paper replayed itself in her mind at an excruciatingly slow pace, the contents exposed to scrutiny.
No – to be correct, the yellow pages of the <Heavenly Talisman> were not blank.
The leather volume that seemed to boast a sizeable array of words, only possessed a single phrase. Perhaps, the chain of words did not even qualify to assume the title of a phrase.
[Invoke Manifestation].Where had she seen these words before!?
