81: Chapter 81 I won't cry for help, I'll just shout for a fire.

When the rock dust from the Xuan Yan completely dissipated into the air, the residual echo of that voice—'Go... don't wake them...'—still buzzed in Chen Fan's ears.

He knelt beside Su Shuang, watching the stardust seeping from the broken zither on her fingertips, her hair ends still clinging to rock ash. He suddenly recalled three days prior in the Teahouse, when she was brewing tea with her eyes downcast, the tea mist blurring the red mole at the corner of her eye—back then, he never imagined this red mole would be stained light brown by rock ash today, yet it burned his chest more intensely than ever.

"The stele is shaking," Su Shuang's voice interrupted his reverie.

Chen Fan looked up and saw web-like cracks splitting the base of the giant stele, withgravel (broken stones) clattering down by his feet.

He instinctively pulled Su Shuang closer into his embrace, but froze when he saw the scene behind the stele—a bronze door was materializing from the dust. The door's patterns were not common runes, but an interlocking design of starlight and fox tails, as if someone had twisted starlights and fox fur together and branded it onto the bronze.

Su Shuang suddenly pulled away from his arm.

Just as Chen Fan was about to shout 'Be careful,' he saw her stumble forward to the door and yank a piece of qingqiu jade from her neck.

It was the ancient item he had seen in her Teahouse last time, said to be passed down from her ancestors. Now, as she pressed it into the center of the door, the jade body emitted a deep blue light, perfectly interlocking with the fox tail patterns on the door.

"A covenant sealed in blood," Su Shuang murmured, and the Fox Fire gathered on her fingertip suddenly stabbed toward her wrist.

Chen Fan's pupils constricted. Just as he moved to stop her, blood was already flowing down her snow-white wrist, dripping onto the bronze door.

The moment the blood drops merged into the patterns, the door body suddenly rippled, and countless shadows surged out—people in starlight-threaded robes holding glowing bells, fox ear girls cradling qingqiu jade, stone-skinned giants carrying mountain rocks, and a Crimson Nightmare engulfed in flames fighting a black-purple light cluster in mid-air.

"Are those... Star Speakers?" Chen Fan narrowed his eyes.

In the vision, the person in the starlight robe tapped the foreheads of the crowd, and identical star patterns appeared above them.

But in the next scene, the black-purple light cluster suddenly expanded, and countless chains shot out, wrapping around the Star Speakers' necks. The final image showed the Star Speaker High Priest pinned before the book of fate, the system prompt sounding piercingly: [Anomaly civilization detected, initiating purge protocol].

"They didn't die..." The broken zither suddenly emitted a hoarse tremor.

Chen Fan turned to see the soul of the zither-burning entity hovering above the broken zither. Only three remaining strings glowed pale gold. "They were just hidden in the 'book of fate interlayer'... like dried flowers between pages..." His voice grew weaker, and as the last word faded, another string snapped.

Before Chen Fan could respond, a light 'ding' sounded in his mind.

His consciousness sank into his Sea of Consciousness, where he saw small text added next to the originally five-section Critical Hit Charge Bar: [Selectable Attribute Deprivation: Strength / Agility / Endurance / Spirit / Critical Hit Rate].

He stared at the word 'Selectable' and his throat moved—previously he could only plunder randomly, but now he could finally choose what to take.

"Brother Fan!" Su Shuang's startled cry snapped him back to reality.

The ground was wrinkling like crumpled cloth, and scarlet lava was surging out of the cracks, only half a foot from their feet.

Just as Chen Fan was about to drag Su Shuang away, a gray shadow suddenly blocked the space in front of them.

It was Smoke Slave. The gray cloth wrapped around him flapped violently in the hot air, yet he planted himself on the ground, pressing both hands down: "I can still control the fire for three minutes."

Chen Fan then noticed Smoke Slave's hands—his fingernails were filled with black ash, and his palms bore scorched marks from the fire.

It turned out his earlier boast about 'suppressing the earth veins' was not empty talk; he was truly fighting the magma with his life.

At this moment, he closed his eyes, his breathing sounding like a bellows. With every inhale, the surging magma slowed down; with every exhale, the lava was forced to divert, forming a semicircle around them.

"Behind the door is the 'Star Speaker Corridor'," Fen Qin's voice sounded again, this time weaker, like wind blowing through a broken window. "But the entrance requires the 'Sound of Resonance'..." His last two remaining strings vibrated softly. "Only Fox Fire and qingqiu jade..."

Su Shuang looked down at her still-bleeding wrist, then looked up at Chen Fan.

He saw a fire burning in her eyes—it was the same look he saw when he was hauling bricks at the construction site, staring at the wall washed away by a downpour, yet stubbornly stacking bricks again. "Endure it," she smiled at him, and Fox Fire rose from her fingertip, pressing directly onto the broken zither strings.

Blood drops dripped onto the strings via the Fox Fire, instantly igniting a pale purple flame.

Chen Fan heard a clear, crisp zither note, like spring ice just beginning to melt, or like a star falling.

The crack in the bronze door 'creaked' open slightly, but just then, a hoarse male voice suddenly sounded from near their feet: "Don't go in..."

Chen Fan jumped in fright and looked down to see the Gray Pupil kneeling on the ground, his petrified eyes glowing with a strange grayish-white light, yet he was staring intensely at Chen Fan: "There is 'living memory' inside... it eats people..." He pointed a finger at his own eyes. "I can see... Three hundred years ago, the Star Speaker High Priest locked his soul at the very bottom of the book of fate... waiting for someone who can 'listen'..."

"Smoke Slave!" Su Shuang suddenly shrieked.

Chen Fan turned to see Smoke Slave's gray cloth already burning, revealing scorched black skin underneath.

His breathing became ragged, and the magma began to surge again, only an inch away from the Gray Pupil's feet. "Go!" Smoke Slave roared, expelling his last breath of stale air, and the gray mist pushed them forward.

Chen Fan instinctively hoisted Su Shuang onto his back and kicked the bronze door. With a 'bang,' the door flew open.

Behind the door was not a tunnel as he imagined, but a floating void.

Countless star map fragments drifted around, like a night sky crumpled into pieces.

In the very center hung a bronze bell, covered in cracks, but it swayed slightly the moment they stepped in.

Chen Fan heard countless voices sounding by his ears—a woman's low murmur, a child's cry, and a steady male voice saying, "Wake... up..."

He reached out to touch the bell when the system suddenly flashed a blinding red light: [High-dimensional memory fluctuation detected, Critical Hit module upgrading...]. Before he could see clearly, a crisp 'crack' sounded from afar, as if some seal had been broken.

Chen Fan instinctively turned his head and saw a pitch-black high tower emerging in the void. Countless books of fate inside the tower trembled simultaneously. The book of fate on the very top layer suddenly flipped open, revealing the blood-written words 'Star Speaker High Priest · Luo Yan,' the ink still dripping down.

"Brother Fan..." Su Shuang's voice came from his back, laced with a slight tremble. "The door... is moving."

Only then did Chen Fan realize that the bronze door behind them had closed at some point, and a fissure was slowly opening in the void ahead.

What surged from the fissure was not wind, but scalding hot air mixed with the smell of sulfur.

He squinted, barely making out the depths of the fissure—it was dark red, like molten iron heated red-hot, churning and bubbling.

"The Magma Heart Rift..." The Gray Pupil had followed them in at some unknown time, standing by their feet, his petrified eyes staring straight at the fissure. "This door... is not a passage..."

Chen Fan did not reply.

He looked at the widening fissure, felt the warmth of Su Shuang on his back, and touched the restless Critical Hit slot in his Sea of Consciousness—this time, it was his turn to settle accounts with the system.