CHAPTER 64:THE FALL OF 81 II
The battlefield had gone silent.
Not the silence of peace, but the kind that followed catastrophe...thick, oppressive, unnatural. The sky above the shattered plains was still stained with lingering divine light, fragments of broken authority drifting slowly through the air like dying stars.
Eighty-one demigods had fallen.
The ground itself seemed unable to bear the weight of what had happened. Miles of earth had collapsed inward, fissures spreading like veins through the land. Rivers of molten stone glowed faintly beneath the cracked crust, and the air trembled with residual power that refused to dissipate.
Leylin stood at the center of it all.
His robes fluttered lightly in the unstable currents of energy, but he did not move. His gaze remained fixed on the battlefield around him.
Bodies lay scattered across the ruined expanse.
Some had already begun dissolving into streams of faint light. Others remained intact, their divine authority slowly leaking into the atmosphere. Under normal circumstances, the death of a demigod would shake the heavens. Their power would return to the world, dispersing naturally like rain returning to the sea.
But something about this battlefield felt wrong.
Leylin's eyes narrowed slightly.
The energy was not dispersing.
At first glance it appeared chaotic..wild currents of divine essence swirling through the air. But beneath the surface, something else was happening.
The power was moving.
Slowly. Almost imperceptibly.
But it was moving with direction.
Leylin lowered his gaze toward the shattered ground beneath his feet.
Faint lines glowed deep within the cracks of the earth. They were nearly invisible beneath the destruction, buried under rubble and molten stone, but they were there.
A formation.
An enormous one.
Leylin's expression did not change, but his mind moved rapidly.
The eighty-one demigods had not simply died here.
Their deaths had been used.
Streams of divine essence were flowing through the hidden formation lines like blood through veins, being drawn away from the battlefield and into the depths of the planet.
Leylin followed the direction silently with his perception.
Far away.
Very far.
Where the power was going, he could not yet see.
But the scale of it alone made one fact immediately clear.
This battlefield had never been the true objective.
For a long moment, Leylin remained motionless.
Then he exhaled quietly.
"…Interesting."
There was no anger in his voice. No triumph either.
Only curiosity.
If someone had prepared a formation capable of harvesting the deaths of eighty-one demigods, then the battle itself had merely been a step within a far larger design.
And that meant something else.
The one who prepared it had been watching for a very long time.
Leylin slowly lifted his hand, letting a faint strand of residual divine energy drift across his fingers. The power trembled slightly before slipping away toward the unseen formation lines.
His eyes followed it until it vanished.
Then he turned his gaze toward the distant horizon.
For a brief moment, his expression grew thoughtful.
"…So that's how it is."
But he did not pursue the energy.
Not yet.
Because at that very same moment..
Far away, beneath the endless dunes of the desert…
Another pair of Leylin's eyes opened.
The desert stretched endlessly beneath a burning sky.
Wind swept across the dunes in slow, whispering waves, carrying grains of sand that had not been disturbed for centuries.
A lone figure walked across the wasteland.
His steps were light, almost casual, but his gaze remained alert.
This Leylin looked identical to the one who had stood on the battlefield.
The same face. The same calm eyes.
But the aura surrounding him was different..quieter, restrained, almost hidden.
A clone.
He had been walking for several days now.
The coordinates he followed were old. Extremely old. Even the system's records could only estimate their accuracy.
But eventually, the sand began to change.
The dunes thinned.
Stone emerged from beneath the desert's surface..ancient black rock etched with faint markings long eroded by time.
Leylin stopped.
Half-buried beneath layers of sand stood the remains of a structure.
Not a ruin of a city.
Not a temple either.
It was something else.
The architecture was wrong.
Smooth surfaces. Perfect angles. Stone panels fused together without visible joints. The design resembled neither ancient kingdoms nor known cultivation sects.
Leylin studied it silently.
"…Artificial."
The word left his mouth softly.
Not ancient craftsmanship.
Construction.
He stepped forward.
As he approached the structure, the wind around him suddenly weakened, as if the desert itself hesitated to touch this place.
Half of the building had collapsed long ago, leaving a jagged opening leading downward into darkness.
Leylin looked inside.
A staircase descended into the earth.
Deep.
Very deep.
For several seconds he remained standing at the entrance.
Then he stepped forward.
The air inside was colder than the desert above.
Dust covered the floor in thick layers, untouched by movement for centuries. The walls were lined with strange metallic panels, most of them dark and inactive.
Leylin walked slowly through the corridor.
Each step echoed faintly through the underground chamber.
The deeper he went, the stranger the structure became.
Broken tubes.
Shattered glass cylinders.
Fragments of mechanical devices whose functions could no longer be guessed.
Leylin stopped beside one of them.
He crouched slightly, brushing dust away from a cracked panel.
Symbols appeared beneath the surface.
Not runes.
Not cultivation scripts.
Data markings.
His eyes sharpened slightly.
"…So this is where it began."
The corridor continued deeper into the facility.
At the far end stood a massive sealed door.
Or rather..what remained of one.
The metal barrier had been torn open from the inside long ago, leaving jagged edges where immense force had ripped it apart.
Leylin stepped through the opening.
And stopped.
The chamber beyond was enormous.
Rows upon rows of glass pods stretched across the room like a silent army.
Thousands of them.
Most were empty.
Some were shattered.
But many still remained intact.
Leylin's gaze moved slowly across the chamber.
Then it stopped.
Inside one of the pods… floated a body.
A young man.
Pale skin.
Black hair.
Closed eyes.
The face was calm, expressionless.
Identical.
To him.
Leylin did not speak.
His gaze moved to the next pod.
Another identical body.
And the next.
And the next.
Rows of them.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
All bearing the exact same face.
For the first time since entering the facility, Leylin remained completely still.
The silence in the chamber deepened.
After a long moment, he walked forward slowly.
His reflection stared back at him from every glass surface.
Finally he stopped in front of one empty pod.
The interior cables still hung inside, waiting.
Leylin studied the interface panel beside it.
Dust covered the controls, but the system architecture was still faintly recognizable.
A connection terminal.
For synchronization.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then a faint smile appeared on his lips.
"…I see."
The desert wind howled faintly above the buried laboratory.
But deep underground..
Leylin reached toward the interface panel.
And activated it.