307: Chapter 305 The Lost Ballad

Streams of light extended through the Chaos, resembling a slender silver thread that pierced through the ink-blue mist and pointed deeper within.

Shen Nian walked along it for about two hours.

Along the way, he passed several scattered fragments—a few half-buried metal plates, a broken section of a pillar, a piece of crystal that looked as if it had been melted—none of which retained any structure, resembling more the scattered embers of some colossal building after its disintegration.

He did not stop, merely memorizing their locations and continuing forward.

Then he saw the staircase.

The staircase emerged from the Chaos, resembling a mountain ridge slowly rising from the deep sea.

It was constructed from translucent crystals, and every single step refracted a faint light—not coming from the outside, but seeping from within the crystals, resembling some extremely ancient light slowly releasing its final lingering warmth.

The staircase extended upward, disappearing into the depths of the Chaos with no end in sight.

Shen Nian stopped before the staircase and looked up.

It was not steep, and each step was about three zhang wide, enough to accommodate dozens of people standing side by side.

The surface was extremely smooth, without a single crack or any wear and tear, looking as though it had just been cut and polished.

But that was merely an illusion.

When Shen Nian stepped onto the first step, he felt an extremely subtle vibration coming from deep within the crystal, slowly spreading upward along the soles of his feet.

That vibration was very faint, resembling the final heartbeat of a person whose pulse had almost stopped, but it truly existed, as if telling him that this staircase was not completely dead.

He continued walking upward.

The second step, the third step, the fourth step.

With each step he ascended, that vibration grew slightly clearer by a fraction.

Like a string stretched for too long, it produced a barely audible echo with every touch, only to return to silence once his fingertips left it.

Those echoes did not seem like the aftershocks of the structure itself, but rather like a forgotten rhythm—someone had once walked along this staircase, every step treading to a fixed beat, leaving behind an exceptionally faint and distant lingering echo.

When he reached about the tenth step, Shen Nian stopped.

He heard a sound—not beside his ears, but emerging directly within his Sea of Consciousness.

It was an extremely subtle vibration, resembling the lingering resonance of a metal wire being gently plucked, or someone humming softly in a distant place.

That sound had no lyrics, no definite meaning, but was merely a pure melody.

Slow and lingering, it seemed to be narrating a story from a long time ago, yet it omitted all the words, leaving only the tune itself.

Shen Nian stood in place, closing his eyes to listen for a moment.

Then he continued walking upward; with every step he ascended, that melody became a bit clearer.

It was as if this entire staircase was breathing in accordance with the same rhythm, and every single step was repeating the exact same beat.

He involuntarily slowed his pace, aligning his footsteps with the beat of that melody.

When he reached about the thirtieth step, he understood the rhythm of that melody—it was not a monotonous repetition, but a continuously accumulating sequence, resembling some extremely ancient "template", step by step constructing an increasingly complex form.

It was guiding the listener, as if saying: "Walk along this sequence, and you will reach a certain destination."

Shen Nian stopped on the thirty-fifth step.

He crouched down, carefully looking at the surface of the crystal beneath his feet.

Amidst the extremely faint inner glow, he vaguely saw some extremely faint patterns—they were not carved on, but rather resembled brands left behind by sound, looking like traces formed after some vibration slowly solidified inside the crystal.

"When the Tiangong Clan built this staircase,"

Shen Nian spoke, his voice echoing softly across the empty steps, "did it know of the existence of this melody?"

The glow of The Artisan emerged behind him, falling silent for a moment: "We built this staircase."

But we did not create that melody.

Only when we finished building the final step did we discover that the entire staircase began to produce sound on its own."

"Was it a resonance unintentionally formed during the construction process?"

"We once thought so.

But we tried replicating the exact same structure elsewhere and failed to do so.

Only this staircase can produce sound by itself.

We later concluded that it was a design left behind by the Creator—they used sound as part of the structure.

The vibration is not an addition, but the staircase itself."

Shen Nian stood back up and looked toward the staircase extending into the Chaos.

If sound was a part of the structure, then the end of this staircase should correspond to the destination of that melody.

When the melody was completed, the staircase would reach its destination.

He continued walking upward.

His pace remained aligned with the beat of the melody.

He walked over a hundred steps.

The surrounding Chaos grew fainter and fainter, and his vision expanded, as if the staircase was bringing him to a higher region.

Then that melody stopped—not gradually fading, but halting abruptly, like a sentence cut off halfway when the voice suddenly disappeared.

Shen Nian's footsteps also stopped accordingly.

He stood on an ordinary step; the staircase ahead continued to extend, but the melody no longer sounded.

He looked up, and ahead were still those translucent crystal steps, continuing upward with no end in sight.

But at the spot where the melody stopped, the luster on the surface of the steps underwent an extremely subtle change—shifting from warm and gentle to cold and rigid, as if something ceased to live after that point.

"The melody cuts off here."

Shen Nian's voice was very soft.

The glow of The Artisan flickered slightly: "We have also been searching for its destination.

But we have never found it.

The melody always stops here, as if its second half has been erased."

Shen Nian sat down at the edge of the steps, looking at the crystal steps ahead that continued to extend but no longer vibrated.

He closed his eyes, attempting to continue that unfinished melody within his Sea of Consciousness.

But those notes were like beads slipping from his hands; he could only touch their incomplete outlines and was unable to piece them back together into a complete sequence.

He opened his eyes, his gaze falling upon those steps: "Perhaps the second half of it is not here."

He stood up, not continuing upward, but instead turning around and walking down step by step along the path he had come.

That melody remained silent behind him, as if waiting for a day when someone would bring its missing chapters and step once more onto a truncated path.