The wind stopped.

  The air at the top of the Serpent's Tongue Tower seemed frozen. Those sky-filling black crows had completely melted into the oil sludge, leaving only a mess on the ground and disturbing ether fluctuations remaining in the air.

  Savage sat on the ground, gasping for air heavily. He glanced at that bent iron pipe in his hand, then at the empty sky in the distance, spitting a mouthful of bloody saliva ruthlessly:

  "Damn it, a fake... We risked half our lives, only to smash a damn shadow puppet?"

  This feeling of "Punching Cotton" made the proud dwarf extremely unhappy.

  "That real 'Pale Walker' must be hiding in some gutter laughing at us."

  Lyria leaned against the railing, bandaging the abrasions on her hand with cloth strips. Her gaze still vigilantly scanned the surrounding shadows; the dagger in hand didn't relax for a moment:

  "He didn't act, meaning even his real body dare not set foot here easily. Something in this tower... even he dreads."

  Their gazes finally converged on the center of the platform.

  That metal suitcase snatched back by Carlisle.

  That box was vibrating.

  Not because of the wind, but something inside was hitting the shell madly, making thud, thud, thud dull sounds, like a dying heart beating rapidly.

  "This thing..." Savage swallowed saliva; greed was mixed with a trace of fear. "Carlisle, is this the 'Gold' we are looking for? It sounds alive."

  Carlisle stopped.

  He felt his left eye burning; that burning sensation was stronger than any time before. That was resonance. The fragment in his eye socket was screaming, longing for its kind in the box.

  He didn't step forward directly but turned his back to the box, looking at the two scarred companions.

  "Savage, Lyria." Carlisle's voice was heavy, as if filled with lead. "Before opening it, I have an obligation to tell you the truth."

  He pointed to his left eye, where blue light had overflowed the socket, sizzling in the air:

  "This is not gold, nor ordinary magic item. This thing is called 'Primordial Fragment,' the materialized residue of the world's underlying logic. There is also a piece in this eye of mine."

  Savage and Lyria were both stunned.

  "My mentor died because of studying this thing. It can rewrite reality, and can also attract monsters like 'Pale Walker's' real body, or even worse."

  Carlisle didn't hide anything, honest to the point of cruelty:

  "The reason why the Order hunts us is not just because we caused trouble, but because as long as I live, I am the biggest threat to their 'Absolute Order.'"

  "What's in that box is..." Lyria looked at that trembling box, seeming to guess something.

  "The second piece."

  Carlisle took a deep breath, gaze sweeping over their faces:

  "That shadow puppet just now was just a warning. The real mastermind has already targeted us. If we turn and leave now, maybe we can linger on in the sewers of Blacktooth City for a few days."

  "But if we take it," Carlisle's voice raised a bit, "we become public enemies of this world completely. Not only the Order but also that 'Shadow' hiding in the dark will hunt us madly."

  He paused, clenching his fists:

  "But this thing is also the only key. It is the only trump card allowing us to set our own rules in this world ruled by gods and machines."

  He took a half step back, giving the choice to the team:

  "This is not just my war. Once the box is opened, there is no retreat. Make a decision."

  The air was dead silent for a few seconds.

  "Heh..."

  A rude laugh broke the silence.

  Savage stood up with difficulty, patted the dust off his body with that intact hand, a trace of fanaticism belonging to a desperado flashing in his eyes:

  "Public enemy of the whole world? Sounds much more exciting than catching rats in the sewer. Besides, that bastard hiding his head and tail used a dummy to fool me; this account hasn't been settled yet."

  The dwarf touched his empty right arm, fierce light revealed in his eyes:

  "Since he wants this box, then I won't give it to him! No matter what ghost thing this is, taking it gives a chance to drag the real body out and smash him flat!"

  Lyria also stood straight. She looked at that box; although there was still instinctive rejection of unknown power in her eyes, more was a kind of determination:

  "Nature has been polluted; escape is meaningless. If this thing can end the source of those shadows... I'm with you."

  "Very good."

  Carlisle looked at the two; a true smile belonging to companions finally appeared on the corner of his mouth.

  "Then, let's see what secret this damn world hides."

  He turned around, squatting in front of the box. This time, his back was no longer lonely. Savage held the bent iron pipe standing on the left for vigilance; Lyria gripped the dagger guarding the right. They were a whole.

  Carlisle extended that left hand still carrying a burnt smell; fingertips gently touched the corroded lock buckle.

  Zzzzt—!

  A visible blue electric arc jumped from his fingertip to the box instantly.

  [High Energy Reaction Source Detected]

  [Identification Code: Primordial Fragment (Serial Number: 02)]

  [Status: Inactive / Extremely Unstable]

  "Open it, Carlisle."

  A voice seemed to urge him in his mind. That was the temptation of power, and also the instinctive impulse of an [Inscriber] seeing the highest permission True Script.

  Click.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  The lock popped open; the heavy lead-lined cover slid down slowly under gravity.

  No imagined golden light, nor demon's roar. But the moment the cover landed, the entire tower top platform fell into a suffocating, absolute "Law Error" state.

  What lay in the box was not matter.

  That was an irregular polyhedron with extremely sharp edges, as if cut from the night itself. It floated in the center of the box; surface had no reflection, no texture, only a "Void" deep to the extreme capable of sucking people's sight in dead tight.

  The moment surrounding light approached it, it wasn't swallowed but Folded.

  Lyria watched in horror as the pale searchlight shining on the box was actually sucked over by that fragment like flowing liquid, then formed a circle of visible, twisted halo accretion disk around it.

  "Light is swallowed by it?" Lyria's voice changed tone, retreating instinctively.

  "No."

  Carlisle stared dead at that fragment; his left eye didn't bleed but cracked open. Countless fine blue True Script streams overflowed along the eye socket, sizzling in the air, trying to analyze this terrifying existence before eyes.

  "It is not only eating light... it is rewriting surrounding physical parameters. It is a living Singularity."

  Carlisle reached out. His fingertips were trembling, not because of fear, but because his flesh was resisting this high-dimensional contact.

  "I want... to Inscribe it."

  The moment fingertips touched the fragment.

  Hummmm————!!

  A loud noise unable to be heard by ears but bombarding the soul directly exploded.

  Carlisle felt himself instantly dragged into two opposing primordial ether vortexes; even his soul trembled in the collision of laws.

  That wasn't energy; that was Information. Massive, violent primordial True Script from the bottom of the world rushed into his narrow brain domain like a flood bursting a dam.

  [Warning: True Script Overflow!]

  [Warning: Mind Palace Collapse!]

  [Warning: Soul Disassociation Imminent!]

  In his spiritual world, those fragile "Parameter Modification Formulas" originally constructed were smashed instantly. He was like a mortal trying to catch a waterfall with a teacup; the cup broke, and the hand broke too.

  "I can't hold it... too much..."

  In reality, Carlisle's body began to present a terrifying "Translucency." His skin became flowing noise points; bones became looming wireframe diagrams. He was being assimilated by this fragment, about to become part of this error area.

  "Carlisle!!" Savage wanted to rush up but was bounced away by an invisible repulsive force.

  Just at the moment Carlisle's consciousness was about to dissipate in the True Script torrent, a memory fragment from Mentor Eldritch suddenly flashed in his dying mind.

  That was the last lesson before the mentor was taken away by the Order. The old man stood in the ruins of the laboratory, pointing to formulas on a blackboard:

  "Child, modifying parameters is just a trick. A true mage must inscribe his own truth in the void."

  "Don't try to block the flood... guide it. Build a canal for it, build a dam for it."

  "Inscription... is Definition."

  A mass of unprecedented, pure white light suddenly erupted from Carlisle's left eye about to disperse.

  In the center of this out-of-control digital storm, he no longer tried to calculate those chaotic variables. He began to use all his soul power to "Write" an extremely complex, stable structure stroke by stroke in the spiritual world.

  That was no longer modification; that was Creation.

  Boom—!

  A dazzling white light column shot up from Carlisle to the sky, piercing the firmament.

  This was not the burning of mortal fire, nor the riot of elements. This was the material world hearing the scream from the underlying logic for the first time since the "Great Silence."

  ...

  The light column dissipated.

  That disgusting reality distortion finally disappeared, but the air still retained the smell of high-concentration ozone and blood.

  Savage crawled back from outside the railing with difficulty, collapsing on the ground like a puddle of mud, face pale: "Damn... that felt like being stuffed into a washing machine... I never want to experience this kind of 'Spatial Shock' again..."

  Lyria also knelt on the ground; the dagger in hand dropped aside. She gasped for air heavily; cold sweat soaked her clothes. That feeling of law chaos just now made her, an elf relying on natural contracts, almost suffocate, as if rejected by the whole world.

  When vision regained focus, everyone's eyes concentrated on the center of the venue.

  That terrifying black fragment now floated quietly above Carlisle's palm. It no longer swallowed light violently because around it, three precisely rotating "Mantra Chains" composed of gloomy blue light particles surrounded it.

  Carlisle opened his eyes slowly.

  His left eye was no longer chaotic deep blue; deep in the pupil presented an extremely precise silvery-white geometric pattern like clock scales. Those patterns were rotating slowly; every engagement emitted palpitating oppression, like a mechanical eye prying into truth.

  But the price he paid was also huge.

  Two lines of fresh blood flowed down the corners of his eyes, crossing pale cheeks, looking shocking. And that left hand holding the fragment, skin almost completely carbonized, turned into charred dead wood shape; that was the cruel consequence of a mortal body forcibly containing high-energy True Script.

  Carlisle didn't care about the severe pain. He took a deep breath, feeling that Mind Palace just completed in the spiritual world, stable as a dam.

  "What... did you do?"

  Savage looked at this young man whose temperament changed greatly, swallowing saliva subconsciously. He could feel Carlisle was no longer that technician who only knew how to repair appliances; there was a dreadful "Divinity" on him.

  Carlisle turned his head; the fragment in hand rotated obediently under the restraint of those "Mantras."

  "I am no longer just 'Looking.'"

  Carlisle's voice was calm, yet revealing an absolute confidence after mastering truth.

  He clenched his fist; that layer of rune halo constricted instantly, suppressing that fragment enough to blow up half a city perfectly in the palm, as if playing with an ordinary glass ball.

  "Before, I was just an 'Awakener' fumbling for the switch in the dark, only able to pray for the charity of power."

  He raised his head slowly; that bleeding mechanical eye passed through layers of clouds, looking at the dense silvery-white light points rapidly approaching in the distant sky—that was the Order's flagship "Truth Adjudicator" and its escort formation.

  The army was pressing on the border.

  Facing this destructive power, a sharp arc curled on the corner of Carlisle's mouth instead:

  "But now, I learned to write rules."

  That severe pain as if burning through the soul gradually subsided, replaced by an unprecedented, cold clarity.

  Carlisle looked down at his right hand.

  Still that hand, fingertips with ink calluses left by copying cheap scrolls for a long time, back of hand with frostbite scars unique to slums. Looking no change.

  But in his vision—in those just awakened "Eyes of Truth," this hand had changed.

  At this moment, the world in his eyes was no longer integrated color blocks, but countless flowing, interwoven, precisely engaging silvery data streams. Wind flow was fluid dynamics formula; light flickering was ether fluctuation frequency; even dust floating in the air was marked with original material parameters.

  In a trance, Carlisle's thoughts were pulled back to that night ten years ago when rain poured down.

  At that time, he was still a wild dog rolling in the mud of the lower city. To eavesdrop on a low-level mage chanting the lowest-level "Illumination," he lay on the leaking roof for a whole night, finally exchanging for a disdainful kick from that mage, and a comment like looking at garbage:

  "Give up, bug. Magic is noble bloodline, a gift from gods. Something like you growing up in a stinking ditch, even if you rack your brains, will always just be a mortal kneaded from mud."

  In that world, magic was an unattainable privilege; mortals could only kneel on the ground, praying for a little miracle leaking from the fingers of mage lords. Mortals learning magic was like trying to copy god's paintings with mortal eyes, only able to imitate clumsily, never able to understand the charm within.

  That was a whole insurmountable abyss between "User" and "Creator."

  But now.

  Carlisle clenched his fist slowly. Fingertips passed through the air; he clearly saw ether molecules in the air trembling and reorganizing under his will.

  That feeling was like a blind man fumbling in the dark for a lifetime suddenly opening eyes and seeing the sun; also like an audience only worthy of looking up under the stage suddenly pushed onto the stage, a pen stuffed into hand.

  A pen that could rewrite the script.

  This was [The Inscriber].

  This was not just enhancement of power; this was the promotion of life level.

  From this moment on, he was no longer that mortal kneeling for miracles, nor that lame apprentice who only knew how to memorize spells by rote.

  He crossed that chasm named "Talent," pushed open that door named "Truth." In this cruel world composed of strict mandates and cold laws, he finally changed from a humble "Executor" to an "Administrator" capable of modifying underlying codes.

  That gap once unattainable in his eyes was now trampled under his feet.

  Carlisle looked up at the night sky dyed bizarrely by neon lights overhead. That huge world that once made him feel suffocated, at this moment in his eyes, actually seemed a bit... fragile.

  If mortals were chess pieces struggling on the board.

  Then starting from this fatal handshake, he became the person playing chess.

  ...

  Meanwhile. Three thousand meters high in the sky.

  Bridge of the Seventh Purge Fleet Flagship—"Truth Adjudicator."

  That man wearing a spotless white robe was holding a cup of black tea, elegantly looking at that light point just extinguished below.

  "Found it."

  Alastor put down the teacup; the saucer made a crisp clink. There was no surprise in his golden eyes, only a pleasure of "As Expected."

  "I knew those shadows were just a group of rude robbers. And that child... he is the guest who truly understands manners; he actively lit the streetlamp home."

  He turned around, looking at the rows of "Purge Knights" wearing heavy power armor ready to go behind him.

  "All units attack."

  Alastor adjusted his white gloves, tone gentle as if going to attend a dinner party:

  "Target: Serpent's Tongue Tower. Mission: Retrieve the Sacred Relic, and... clean up all witnesses."

  "Whether human or shadow."