Reflected in the bronze mirror, the first thing Chen Yan saw was his own face.
There was nothing unusual about it, as if he were looking into an ordinary mirror.
What the Heavenly Summit Mirror reflected was the main hall of the Heavenly Summit Palace behind Chen Yan, empty, silent, and cold.
On Heavenly Summit Mountain more than two thousand zhang below the palace, there was a roar of human voices; nearly thirty thousand cultivators from sects across the Chenping Continent had gathered in the mountain’s six pavilions for the once-in-a-decade Heavenly Summit Mountain Dao Inquiry.
But Heavenly Summit Mountain had been destroyed for over fifty thousand years, nearly sixty thousand.
Compared with the bustling crowds that once filled the mountain, only the Heavenly Summit Palace, suspended in the sky, looked more like a tombstone mourning the cultivation sanctuary that had stood on the Chenping Continent tens of thousands of years ago.
The warmth in Chen Yan’s palm could not heat that cold bronze mirror; on the contrary, the mirror’s chill seemed to pierce his skin and seep into his bones.
The mirror’s surface continued to calmly reflect Chen Yan’s face and the unnervingly desolate main hall behind him.
Then, a strange phenomenon erupted.
Immediately, as if a wave had passed over the glass, images began to change from the very center of the bronze mirror.
It was no longer an empty white jade hall.
Faint, shifting shadows started to emerge from the mirror.
But when Chen Yan turned to look behind him, the main hall of the Heavenly Summit Palace remained utterly empty.
He then returned his gaze to the mirror in his hand and involuntarily paused in his breath.
An old man in moon-white daoist robes stood right behind him.
From the lingering resonance of the immortal path emanating from the man, it was clear that this robe-clad elder in the mirror was one of Heavenly Summit Mountain’s Ascended Stewards.
“How is the situation?”
The old man’s stern voice came from within the bronze mirror.
Then, beyond the mirror’s images, another voice sounded:
“They’re all dead.”
“Good, then. Thank you for your effort.”
All dead?
Who was dead?
What exactly was the scene shown in the mirror — something that had happened on a past timeline?
The steward in the mirror seemed about to say more, but his voice grew fainter and fainter, as if receding into the distance.
The mirror’s images continued to shift.
Another steward appeared, his features harder than the previous one, likewise wearing moon-white robes, an Ascended powerhouse of Heavenly Summit Mountain.
“Will the truth continue to be concealed?”
The hard-featured steward asked.
“Of course.”
The voice outside the mirror answered, sounding identical to the one that had spoken to the previous elder.
“How long will it be hidden?”
“Until everyone forgets.”
“Including Zhu Zhang?”
“Of course.”
What was the truth? What exactly were they hiding?
The images kept changing, one after another: figures in moon-white robes flickering past. From the momentum in their gestures, it was obvious each of them was an Ascended powerhouse, a steward of Heavenly Summit Mountain.
In other words, the twelve stewards of Heavenly Summit Mountain were appearing through the mirror, one by one.
On the tenth flicker of the images,
“Steward, in the northwest region of the Chenping Continent, someone has ascended,” a voice said.
From the third flicker onward, the voice that had previously appeared twice — a voice that seemed on par with the Heavenly Summit stewards — had completely vanished.
After that, with each flicker, the voices coming from beyond the mirror were entirely different.
“Is it Yan Yunhe?”
The elder in the mirror, who looked barely in his twenties and unusually fair, spoke calmly.
Although the appearance was nothing like Si Youyou as Chen Yan remembered her eight thousand years later, he could still recognize by the tone that this person in the mirror was the tenth-generation steward of Heavenly Summit Mountain, Qiu Siruo.
“Yes.”
The voice outside the mirror replied.
“Understood.”
Qiu Siruo nodded.
Then the mirror kept flickering; for each generation of Heavenly Summit stewards that appeared, the image paused for a few breaths.
Only for a few breaths.
Except for the last one.
Qinghong Realman, Shen Xi.
The previous eleven Ascended stewards all appeared while conversing with someone off-screen in the mirror.
But Qinghong Realman did not.
This twelfth and final Ascended steward of Heavenly Summit Mountain simply sat alone—eyes gently closed—in the main hall of the Heavenly Summit Palace.
One breath passed, then two.
Time flowed in such peaceful silence that the flow of spiritual energy through the meridians of the Chen Yan who was actually sitting on the Dao Platform in the center of the palace began to slow, mirroring the tranquillity of the mirror’s image.
He didn’t know how long had passed—
Clang!!!!!!
A clear, lingering toll of a bronze bell ripped through the sky overhead, making Chen Yan flinch all over.
He widened his eyes and his breathing quickened.
Chen Yan recognized that bell!
He knew what that bell toll signified!
Sitting upright on the Dao Platform in the main hall of the Heavenly Summit Palace, Chen Yan fixed his gaze on the Heavenly Summit Mirror in his hand.
On the mirror’s surface, the white jade walls of the palace suddenly erupted with countless fine cracks, most of which then slowly faded away.
Chen Yan knew what that meant.
The scene in the mirror was from nearly sixty thousand years ago, the moment Heavenly Summit Mountain was destroyed!
Chen Yan, who had used fragments of the Heavenly Summit Mirror to construct an illusion and return to the era of the mountain’s destruction, had not truly traveled back in time; rather, from the Heavenly Summit Palace eight thousand years later, he was witnessing the scene of Heavenly Summit Mountain’s destruction.
And now he was seeing the interior of the palace at the time of the catastrophe.
Qinghong Realman still sat motionless within the Heavenly Summit Palace.
Then, in the next instant, countless jet-black cracks began to crawl over his body, spreading and widening.
Eventually, the entire man was swallowed and consumed by a tremendous black rift tearing through space.
From that black tear, a single eye slowly emerged—or rather, an eyeball.
It had no eyelids, just a dry, exposed eyeball.
That eye stared straight forward.
Its fixed gaze pierced through the Heavenly Summit Mirror that Chen Yan held, and looked directly at him.
“This is…”
Chen Yan could not comprehend it. In his mind, only two things surfaced: Li Haowen, and what Mr. You had once described to him—
that existence.