Chapter 34: Topology of the Void… and the Sands of the Fading Continent
As the spatial gateway closed behind them, Chu Fan and Ling'er did not feel the usual dizziness or nausea that accompanies conventional teleportation.
For Chu Fan, the gate was not a tunnel—it was a fold in the very fabric of spacetime, erasing the distance between two points.
They suddenly found themselves standing atop an endless dune. Its sands were not yellow—they shimmered in a pale silver, reflecting the light of three small suns suspended in the vast sky.
This was the Continent of Secrets: a place where time is said to move in circles, and where physical laws shift according to the strength of belief, not the power of spiritual essence.
"The environment around us is saturated with illogical noise," Chu Fan said, adjusting his collar. His nebula-like eyes were operating at maximum output, scanning and cleansing the area.
"The sands here are not governed by ordinary gravity; they move according to sonic frequencies emitted from the earth itself. Ling'er, stay within my Isolation Matrix. The air here contains atoms of Oblivion. Inhale too many, and you might forget your own name within an hour."
Ling'er shivered as she gazed at the infinite horizon.
"This place feels like I'm inside someone else's dream. Why are there no winds, even though the sands are moving?"
"Because the movement here is not physical—it is probabilistic," Chu Fan replied coolly.
"This continent is a cosmic junkyard. All the data that the Overseers could not classify or erase has been exiled here. The ancient lineages dwelling in this place… they are extremely old programming errors."
Deep within the Tomb — The Guardian Awakens
Somewhere beneath the silver sands, inside a hall paved with Dead Spirit Stones, a being stirred and began regaining its power.
He was called The Silence Priest—Urok, a remnant of the Seventh Lineage that had ruled the cosmos before the invention of the Dao.
"The stranger has arrived…" Urok intoned, his voice causing grains of sand to fall from the ceiling.
"He reeks of Processing. He carries that cursed ledger that made numbers lords over the soul. Summon the Sand Phantasms. I want to see how his logic will interact with the unconscious."
The First Confrontation: Sand Phantasms
As Chu Fan walked toward the coordinates of the Tomb of Dynasties, the silver sands before them began to take shape.
They did not form beasts.
They took the shape of Chu Fan himself, the deceased father of Ling'er, and every figure he had lost in his past life—before his obsession with calculations consumed him.
"Optical illusions?" Ling'er scoffed, drawing her sword.
"No," Chu Fan stopped her firmly. "These are not illusions. These are retrieved emotional data. The sands here extract buried memories from our subconscious and give them physical mass. Attack them with your blade, and you attack a fragment of your own soul."
The old version of Chu Fan—before the Calculations—stepped forward and spoke, his voice filled with sorrow:
"Why did you kill our humanity, Chu Fan? Why did you turn the world into cold numbers? Do you truly believe you are alive? You are just an algorithm walking."
Chu Fan's spirit trembled for a fraction of a second.
The calculations in his mind began to display Errors. Emotional noise was attempting to breach his protective barrier.
Emotion Analysis: Guilt… Sorrow… Longing…
Attempted Emotional Breach: Level 4
Solution: (Cold Deduction)
He raised his hand—not to unleash energy, but to emit a wave of truth.
"You are not me," Chu Fan said to the sand figure.
"You are merely a mirror reflection of the electromagnetic frequencies of my brain. The past is processed data. The future is a probability under calculation. The present… is a zero-point where emotion has no place."
At the last word, the sand duplicate exploded into silver dust.
Chu Fan had not defeated it with force—he had defeated it by denying the logical existence of its being.
"Ling'er, do not look at their faces," he said as he continued walking.
"Focus on the values they represent. The more fear you feel, the denser the sands become around us. We are now entering the Chaos Zone, where numbers begin to dissolve."
The Tomb Gate
After hours of trekking, a colossal structure appeared before them.
It resembled no palace they had known.
An inverted pyramid floated above the ground, its apex pointing downward, with chains of black gold anchoring it into the earth.
At the entrance, an inscription glowed in a language Chu Fan had never seen. The Lost Ledger translated it instantly:
[Here lies Meaning… where calculations fail, and belief begins.]
"Master Chu," Ling'er said, pointing to the pyramid's entrance.
"There is someone waiting for us."
An old man stood there, dressed in tattered robes, holding a rosary made of beast bones. He exuded no cultivation aura, but a scent of time forgotten lingered around him.
"Counselor Chu Fan," the old man said with a yellowed smile.
"You have traveled far to find the Key. But you've forgotten one thing… this tomb does not open with numbers. It opens with an illogical sacrifice. Are you prepared to lose your certainty to enter?"
Chu Fan's eyes gleamed.
"Certainty is the foundation of existence, old man. Since I am here, I will redefine your conditions for entry. This inverted pyramid will become a straight cube in the blink of an eye."
He began sketching a matrix in the air.
And thus, the real battle commenced—between the Science of the Unseen and the Science of Calculation.