Lin Ye remained still for several heartbeats after Yan Shi vanished from the path. Not because he doubted what had happened, but because the world itself seemed slow to accept that the conversation was over. Space retained a faint tension, like a trace that refused to fully fade.
"Released…" he repeated softly.
It was not a comforting word. It implied neither refuge nor belonging. Rather, it meant that someone had chosen to withdraw their hand without closing the wound.
He resumed walking with caution. The road now led into a region of terraced hills, covered in low vegetation and half-buried ruins no one bothered to clear away. They were remnants of ancient imperial routes, older even than the formal founding of Aureon. Traces of worn formations still lingered in their stones—structures once meant to stabilize flows… that no longer existed.
The fragmented clock responded with a faint but constant vibration.
Not immediate danger.
Historical proximity.
Lin Ye understood that Yan Shi had not chosen that place at random. This region had once been a node—not of trade or war, but of decision. Places where ancient authorities determined which anomalies would be corrected… and which would be allowed to exist.
He stopped before a half-ruined structure: an arch of black stone, split down the middle, covered in moss and cracks. There were no visible inscriptions, but as Lin Ye passed beneath it, he felt a slight pressure in his chest, as if something had attempted to evaluate his coherence… and abandoned the process halfway through.
"An ancient filter," he murmured. "It no longer works."
Or perhaps it did.
It simply no longer recognized modern criteria.
Beyond the arch, the landscape changed in a way that was almost imperceptible. The air was the same, the light similar—but the world felt less insistent, as if reality within that perimeter had learned not to intervene too aggressively.
The fragmented clock grew calm.
Lin Ye walked for hours without encountering anyone. No animals. No travelers. Not even recent traces. This wasn't a natural wasteland, but an administrative void—a place no faction claimed, because doing so would entail responsibilities no one wished to assume.
That was when he saw the tower.
It wasn't tall or imposing. In fact, it looked almost modest: a cylindrical structure of gray stone, with barely three visible levels and a flat top. It bore no banners, no active seals, no obvious guardians. Even so, Lin Ye felt a different kind of pressure when he looked at it—not oppressive, but… expectant.
The fragmented clock vibrated once.
Partial recognition.
Lin Ye approached cautiously. Each step felt permitted, but not welcomed— as if the place accepted his presence, but saw no reason to make things easier for him.
The entrance stood open.
Inside, the air was cool and stable. Too stable. Lin Ye immediately sensed that the place was cut off from the common flow, not through force, but through exclusion. The world's fluctuations simply… did not enter.
A figure sat at the center of the circular hall on the first level.
She was a woman of indeterminate age, with dark hair tied simply back and unadorned clothing. Before her floated several objects: crystal fragments, broken plates, remnants of clearly defective artifacts. All shared one trait—they emitted faint, contained echoes, like memories that refused to disappear.
The woman did not look up when Lin Ye entered.
"You arrived sooner than expected," she said.
Lin Ye stopped a few steps away.
"I didn't know I was coming."
She smiled faintly.
"No one ever does."
She finally raised her gaze. Her eyes were calm, but deep, as if they perceived layers Lin Ye had only just begun to sense.
"My name is Mu Qian," she said. "This is one of the Towers of Relegation."
Lin Ye frowned.
"I've never heard that name."
"Of course not," she replied. "The Empire calls them obsolete zones. The hidden houses call them useless repositories. The gods…" She paused. "They forgot them."
She gestured toward the floating objects.
"Here, we keep what the world decided not to resolve."
A chill ran through Lin Ye.
"Echoes," he said. "Phase-displacement containers. Artifacts that don't fit."
"People," Mu Qian added gently. "In earlier times, people as well."
The silence thickened.
"Yan Shi said we were Released," Lin Ye said. "Is that what we are to you?"
Mu Qian studied him with renewed attention.
"To us, a Released is someone whose final verdict was withdrawn," she explained. "They were not corrected. Not eliminated. Not integrated."
"And why?"
"Because the cost of deciding was greater than the risk of waiting."
Lin Ye understood.
"The Empire released me for the same reason."
Mu Qian nodded.
"Aureon inherited that method. It didn't invent it."
She rose calmly to her feet.
"But there is an important difference," she continued. "Most Released eventually break themselves. They go mad, dissolve, or force their own end in search of meaning."
She stopped in front of Lin Ye.
"You won't."
The fragmented clock vibrated cautiously.
"You reduce damage," Mu Qian said. "You don't erase it. You don't exploit it. You displace it."
Lin Ye didn't answer.
"That makes you rare even among the Released," she added. "A potential mobile stabilizer."
The term carried more weight than it should have.
"I don't want to be a tool," Lin Ye said.
Mu Qian smiled—not mockingly.
"No one here does. That's the irony."
She turned and walked toward a spiral staircase leading to the upper level.
"Stay tonight," she said. "Tomorrow, we'll show you something the Empire cannot afford to see yet."
Lin Ye hesitated only for a moment before nodding.
That night, as he rested in one of the tower's simple chambers, the fragmented clock remained unusually still. There were no warnings. No pulses. It was as if, for the first time in a long while, the world wasn't trying to decide what to do with him.
And paradoxically, that unsettled him more than any pursuit.
Kilometers away, in a sealed chamber of the Aureon Empire, Xu Liang's eyes snapped open.
"He's entered a Tower of Relegation," he murmured.
Zhao Wen frowned.
"Is that good… or bad?"
Xu Liang remained silent for several heartbeats.
"That," he said at last, "depends on whether he chooses to leave it."
The board continued to expand.
And now, Lin Ye was walking through places that existed precisely because the world didn't know what to do with them.