Once their pursuer had given up and gone, Yue Yang and Liuye continued their careful exploration of the steel fortress, gathering as much intelligence as they could.

The structure, over five hundred meters in diameter, turned out to be an enormous installation. Sentries were posted with almost obsessive density — every five paces a watch, every ten a guard post. Every significant corridor and every entrance to a communal hall had its own watch, and the mutant fishfolk were strict about it: anyone seeking entry had to present a specific token and submit to inspection.

Slipping past unnoticed should have been impossible.

Liuye was tense at first. She’d never attempted this kind of covert infiltration before. There were moments when a patrolling guard passed within ten meters around a single corner, and she had to react correctly before he turned and saw them. Without Yue Yang there, she was certain she would have been caught more than once. She understood that he was using this as an opportunity to train her, and opportunities like this didn’t come often, so she gave it everything she had, determined to perform well in front of him. Fully focused, she found herself operating at ten times her usual capability. The few small mistakes she made, Yue Yang corrected instantly, turning near misses into nothing at all.

Her success rate climbed. Her confidence climbed with it.

Her resolve steadied.

With him there, she had nothing to fear, and she kept exceeding her own expectations.

Gradually the tension dissolved, replaced by focused immersion and a kind of charged exhilaration — what Yue Yang liked to call her small universe catching fire.

Watching enemy checkpoints fall away behind her, one after another, completely unaware of her passage, filled her with a quiet thrill.

It wasn’t combat. But it carried the same satisfaction as winning one.

After a full sweep of the fortress’s interior, Yue Yang signaled Liuye to rest, and gently wiped away the fine sweat that had gathered on her forehead without her noticing. She’d done well — there was no need to demand more than that right now. Liuye felt a wave of shyness, followed by something warmer. He could be strict sometimes. But more often, he was simply gentle.

The brief rest eased the tightness in her mind, and she found her confidence in the synchronized transfer technique growing stronger still.

They left the fortress’s interior and continued in the direction opposite White River City.

This stretch went even more smoothly than before. Liuye’s growing confidence made her transfers sharper and more precise, and the guards in this section were both somewhat weaker and visibly more relaxed than the ones before. Inside the ten-meter steel conduit, watch posts appeared roughly every kilometer, staffed by pairs working what looked like segmented shifts. Patrol teams of three swept through every five kilometers or so.

Given that level of coverage, the only way they’d be caught was direct visual contact with the target — which wasn’t happening.

Following the winding steel passage for another ten-odd kilometers, they finally reached a second massive structure. Stepping into this space, they found it dwarfed the first — the earlier fortress wasn’t even a tenth its size.

Even Liuye, who knew nothing about mechanical constructs, could see the difference immediately.

The smaller fortress and this larger one belonged to entirely different styles — products of entirely different eras. She couldn’t place the timeframes specifically, but Yue Yang could. From the inscriptions carved into the iron walls and the long-forgotten patterns that only belonged to the ancient era, he could tell that this larger structure was the genuine ancient artifact. What they’d passed through earlier was nothing more than a later-era replica.

“Is this where the mutant fishfolk are trying to revive their ancestor?” Liuye asked, curious.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Yue Yang shook his head.

“Then is this the place we need to break the ancient seal?”

“By rights, it should be a seal point, yes. But the way the mutant fishfolk are behaving has me confused. Let me look around more before I draw any conclusions.” Even with everything he knew, Yue Yang couldn’t immediately work out why breaking an ancient seal to open the final treasure vault would have any connection to reviving an ancestor.

Curiosity carried them through the better part of a day inside.

Yue Yang kept transcribing the carved inscriptions and patterns while Liuye stood watch. There were moments that genuinely frightened her — guards passing within arm’s reach while Yue Yang continued his transcription with complete unconcern, as though nothing in the world could touch him.

The base of the great fortress sank deep into the peak of an underwater mountain. Its lowest level was clearly the most restricted space in the entire complex — and the most heavily guarded section Liuye had seen yet, at least five hundred sentries packed densely around a great steel door. Based on everything Yue Yang had gathered, this should have been the location where the mutant fishfolk were attempting to revive their ancestor.

But according to the translated treasure map, this was supposed to be the seal-release point.

Yue Yang made a bold decision: disguise themselves as mutant fishfolk and walk straight in.

Guards rotated on an hourly schedule. His plan was to simply follow the rotating shift in through the door.

Liuye knew his Creation Domain could simulate nearly anything, but they were, undeniably, human, and the idea of walking openly through the front gate felt deeply wrong on a level that had nothing to do with logic. What if someone noticed something? And even if no one did, she had no idea what she was supposed to do once they were inside.

“Don’t worry. Treat them like furniture. I promise you, they won’t see us as anything out of place — and even if something registers, it won’t trigger suspicion. Everything is under control. Just stay calm and follow my lead.”

He could have slipped them in unnoticed without any of this. But he was doing it this way deliberately, to push Liuye’s resolve as far as it would go.

“Are you sure about this?” Liuye’s stomach was in knots.

“You’ve walked through the Gate of Life and Death for training. This is nothing compared to that.” Yue Yang gave her a look, and she nodded immediately, answering with complete seriousness: “Yes, sir.”

Following the rotating guards in was, in practice, agonizing. Liuye felt certain her heart was going to give out from the strain.

But it was, in fact, entirely safe.

No one noticed anything wrong. Yue Yang and Liuye passed through like air, unremarked. The guards themselves said nothing the entire time — mechanical, silent, clearly drilled under strict discipline that forbade conversation during rotation, presumably to keep their vigilance sharp.

Beyond the great steel door was an enormous chamber.

The steel ceiling rose a hundred meters overhead.

At its center stood a massive crystal pillar pulsing with blood-red energy, too wide for ten people to encircle with linked arms, holding within it a reserve of power as vast as an ocean.

At its base, several priests conferred in low voices Liuye couldn’t quite make out.

Around the pillar’s ring-shaped foundation sat numerous energy crystals of varying size, every one of them the same deep red. More than a dozen guards were pouring blood directly onto the crystals, the liquid sizzling on contact, the crystals absorbing it as though they were alive. Once a crystal had taken its fill, it began emitting an unsettling red glow.

Yue Yang’s nerve was, without exaggeration, beyond anything reasonable. Not only did he walk straight in — he proceeded to stand in plain view of dozens of mutant fishfolk and examine the inscriptions carved around the pillar’s base in full sight of everyone.

Liuye forced herself to follow, walking directly behind him.

The sensation of committing theft in plain sight of everyone present was genuinely terrifying.

Yue Yang showed not the slightest awareness that he was, in fact, doing exactly that. He examined every inscription methodically, then turned and greeted several of the priests directly, as though actively concerned they might somehow fail to notice him.

What is his nerve actually made of? Liuye found herself wondering this for the first time in her life.

“It’s fine. Within my domain, they perceive us as fellow priests of equal standing. There’s no flaw for them to find.” Yue Yang offered this reassurance, then proceeded to launch into an animated discussion with the priests — at one point disagreeing with something strongly enough to deliver a thorough critique to one of them. Liuye nearly fainted on the spot. This is supposed to be a covert operation. You are being entirely too confident about this.

She tugged at his sleeve repeatedly, signaling that they’d gathered enough and should leave before something went wrong. Yue Yang continued exactly as he had been, leaving her in a state of mild despair.

It took considerable effort to finally get him moving back out.

Only once they were back on the boat did Liuye properly exhale.

Theft is exhausting work. If it’s not strictly necessary, better to avoid it entirely. Even when nobody catches you, the stress alone is unbearable.

Once she’d recovered, a question surfaced about the massive blood-drinking crystal pillar. “Wasn’t that supposed to be the seal-release point from the treasure map? Why are the mutant fishfolk using it to revive their ancestor? Shouldn’t sealing a living being require some kind of non-energy containment space? Why an energy crystal pillar?”

“Ha! Even you figured that out — that an energy crystal pillar can’t possibly seal a living being. Too bad the mutant fishfolk never worked that out for themselves.” Yue Yang laughed outright. “I’ve got it sorted now. I was confused earlier too, but after seeing the ancient inscriptions and talking with them directly, it finally clicked. Ignorance really will get you killed. Generations ago, one of the mutant fishfolk’s ancestors found this seal location — probably got hold of the treasure map, or stumbled onto the secret some other way, and tried to break the seal himself. A Sky Tower powerhouse of that era killed him for it — body and soul both, annihilated and absorbed into those energy stones. To warn future generations, the one who killed him carved the record into the pillar’s base as a permanent caution. Generations later, the mutant fishfolk found that inscription and completely misread it — they decided that collecting enough blood would somehow bring their unlucky ancestor back from whatever happened to him.”

“What?” Liuye’s mouth fell open. It took her a long moment to process it. “So there’s no actual ancestor to revive at all?”

“The pillar’s energy exists to break the seal on the ancient treasure vault. Does that sound like something that revives the dead to you?” Yue Yang asked.

“Ignorance really is terrifying…” Liuye broke into a sweat just thinking about it.

A warning never to repeat an ancestor’s mistake, and a resurrection ritual — those were about as far apart as two ideas could possibly be.

Granted, the inscriptions were old enough, and the historical thread broken enough, that misreading them wasn’t entirely implausible. But the deeper truth was that the mutant fishfolk had wanted so badly to reclaim the glory of their ancestral era that they’d never bothered to verify what they were actually doing — they’d simply decided that enough blood would bring back an ancestor who no longer existed in any form that blood could reach.

What was meant as a warning against foolishness, intended to prevent exactly this kind of disaster, had been read instead as instructions left behind for resurrection.

A genuinely tragic piece of historical comedy.

Ignorance really will get you killed.