Starting as the heir of a marquis's mansion, I gained access to a summoning system.

"The seventh bone pillar is at the end of the bridge, on the side closer to the temple gate."

Dongfang Weiwo stared at the seven bone pillars on the bridge and spread out his bone domain perception.

In my perception, each of the seven bone pillars contained an aura originating from the remains of gods and demons, but the seventh pillar was the most unique. Its light was extremely dim, almost merging into the aura of the bridge itself. That light was being suppressed by something, suppressed very tightly.

"Go down."

After he finished speaking, he leaned on his bamboo cane and was the first to step onto the River of Oblivion.

The bridge surface emitted a faint, distant sigh the moment you stepped on it, as if you were stepping not on bones, but on a soul that had existed for far too long.

There were no traps, no mechanisms, and no guards suddenly appearing. After taking ten steps, there was no reaction whatsoever.

"It's too quiet."

Lin Xiaoman said in a low voice, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the short bamboo cane.

"Because it doesn't require any mechanisms."

Chuan Ying walked behind, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sword. "This bridge itself is a defense. If you're capable, you can take what's inside the bone pillar. If you're not, you can't. There's no need to defend against it."

As they spoke, the four reached the middle of the bridge. Seven bone pillars were arranged in a row on both sides of the bridge surface. The first six were dark and rough, while only the seventh had faint dark gold patterns flowing across its surface. Upon approaching, Dongfang Weiwo stopped.

The seventh bone pillar was taller and twice as thick as the previous six. Its surface was covered with dense ancient runes, each rune deeply embedded in the bone, as if carved stroke by stroke with flesh and blood.

There is a spot in the center of the pillar where the lines are most dense, forming a concave palm print.

The palm print wasn't carved on, but formed naturally—as if someone had pressed their hand here for a long enough time that the palm lines were embedded into the bone.

That was the palm print of the Demon God Lü. It was exactly the same as the one on the Bone Gate of Shattered Bone Ridge, only smaller and deeper, about the size of Lin Xiaoman's palm.

"There are other ways to open it besides the dark gold pattern."

Lin Xiaoman stood before the seventh bone pillar, looking up at the sunken palm print. Her voice trembled slightly but remained clear, "The Demon God Lü left a double lock. The first one is activated by dark gold patterns on those with complete demon skeletons."

The second step involved the descendants of the first guardian using their blood as a key to awaken the seal on the bone pillar from its slumber.

She handed the short bamboo cane to Dongfang Weiwo, rolled up her left sleeve, revealing her slender forearm.

On the inside of the forearm, a light gray line extends from the wrist to the elbow. The line is winding and usually hidden under the skin, but it is now clearly visible under the runes on the bone pillar.

"My grandmother drew this talisman in my blood with a bone-protecting incense when I was little. At the time, I didn't know what it was for. Now I do."

She drew the medicine-cutting dagger from her waist and made a cut in the palm of her left hand.

The blood was thick, dark red in the twilight, flowing down the palm lines, drop by drop onto the palm print of the seventh bone pillar.

Blood seeped into the bone pillar, and the runes on the pillar lit up layer by layer, extending from the bottom upwards.

Dark gold and crimson patterns intertwined, forming a complex web. A muffled thud came from inside the bone pillar, like a lock turning its final circle deep within.

"You can press it now."

Lin Xiaoman took two steps back and held her injured left hand in her right palm. Blood was still flowing, but in the dark red blood, a very thin dark golden light was faintly visible at the wound.

Dongfang Weiwo reached out and pressed his hand on the palm print of the bone pillar.

The palm print fit his hand almost perfectly.

Dark gold patterns emanated from his palm, flowing into every engraving on the surface of the bone pillar.

The column trembled violently, then split open in the middle with a straight crack.

The bone pillar is not empty; it contains layers upon layers of space, like old objects compressed from countless eras stacked together.

The gap widened, and something emerged from the deepest darkness.

It didn't fall out of the bone pillar, but rose slowly from a spatial rift, as if it had been pushed from another world to the Tianwu Continent by some force.

It was a square, thin piece of material that emitted a faint blue light. It was no more than three inches long and wide, as thin as a cicada's wing, and its surface was engraved with the same pattern as the key.

It is not jade, not bone, not metal, not any material that Dongfang Weiwo has ever seen. It feels warm to the touch, and the surface texture flows as your fingertips touch it. The Return Journey Order.

This is the Return Token—something that Lu Moshen brought from Tianxuan to Tianwu thirty years ago, was chased by the Lord of the Undying Palace, and was ultimately hidden by him personally in a bone pillar.

It is also the only key that Dongfang Weiwo has been able to use to open the way home after crossing two worlds to come to Tianwu Continent.

He reached out to take it. The moment his fingers touched the Return Token, the entire River of Oblivion suddenly trembled.

Dongfang Weiwo saw the tightly closed palace door at the end of the bridge silently open.

There was no light, no wind, and no sound from within the gate. Only a tall, slender figure emerged from the depths of the palace, stepped across the bridge, and approached step by step.

The figure was neither tall nor strong, and was even somewhat thin.

He wore a very simple black robe, the hem of which trailed on the bridge surface, sliding silently with each step.

The face was indistinct in the twilight; only a pair of eyes were visible, tinged with a faint, eerie green in the darkness.

He stopped ten steps away from the seventh bone pillar, put his hands in his sleeves, looked Dongfang Weiwo up and down, and then looked at the Return Token in his hand that emitted a dark blue light.

"They've arrived." The voice of the Lord of the Undying Palace was not cold or harsh, but rather carried an unexpected calmness, like a host who had been waiting by the bridge for many years welcoming guests from afar.

He was thinner than he was thirty years ago, and his dark green eyes showed no emotion, as if time had erased all traces of the pursuit by the Demon God Lu.

Thirty years ago, Lu Moshen was in the same position as you.

He pressed the Return Token into the bone pillar, then turned around and blocked my palm strike with his left hand. That strike broke his left arm.

The Lord of the Undying Palace slowly raised his right hand, revealing a pale, slender, almost transparent hand. "Then he ran away. Covered in wounds, he fled from Tianwu back to Tianxuan."

He left behind the Return Token, scattered fragments, and a promise to the guardian of the token. He could have taken the Return Token with him. But he didn't.

Dongfang Weiwo gripped the Return Token tightly. The dark gold patterns on his left ulna throbbed violently beneath his skin, and the seven fragments hummed simultaneously. The divine and demonic skeleton instinctively sensed the pressure emanating from the Supreme Realm expert.

"So?" His voice was calm, but his entire body was already in a state of combat readiness. The veins on the back of Chuan Ying's hand holding the knife behind him were bulging, and Yan Fei's sword was also quietly raised three-tenths of its length.

"So this means that he deliberately left the return journey order for you."

The Lord of the Undying Palace withdrew his hand, tucking it back into his sleeve. His tone was calm. "You may not know, but this token is no ordinary thing. It is a key to a boundary gate, capable of opening the path to the core of the Myriad Star Domain."

The Demon God Lu obtained it back then because he too had walked a path similar to yours. Only, he didn't finish it.

He turned to the side and looked at the bottomless crack below the Wangchuan Bridge.

"Now that you're standing here with it, you probably want to go to the Myriad Star Domain. But I must remind you of one thing—no one has ever returned from the other side of the Return Token."

He paused, his eerie green eyes falling back on Dongfang Weiwo, like two undying flames of the underworld.

"Lu the Demon God has never returned, but he left you behind."

A newcomer. Now you can stay, leave the Return Token behind, keep the path for yourself, abandon everything on the Tianwu Continent, and find a path no one has ever returned from. Or—”

He slowly walked to the edge of the crack on the side of the bridge, stood by the bridge railing, with his back to the crowd, and looked into the depths of the crack.

"Leave it here. Leave it to me."

Dongfang Wei didn't speak. He was feeling the warm Return Token in his left hand.

The other end of the Return Journey Order is the core of the Myriad Star Domain.

The outer realms that the old sage mentioned in the Tianxuan Continent, the place that once cast its gaze upon the lower realms.

He suddenly realized that the Return Token was not as simple as a key.

Lu Moshen hid the Return Token in Tianwu because he could neither take it back to Tianxuan nor open it to access the Myriad Star Domain.

As for myself, having come from Tianxuan to Tianwu, and having traversed Shattered Bone Ridge, Yin Bone Tomb, Ancient Battlefield, and Su Luo Forbidden Land, and collected all the fragments of the Demon God Lü, I may have already been watched by some being.

"I have a question," he finally spoke, his voice drowning out the wind beneath the River of Oblivion.

"ask."

"You chased after Demon God Lü back then for the Return Token. Thirty years later, you asked me to retrieve it, yet you didn't lift a finger. Why didn't you retrieve it yourself? If you could kill him, you shouldn't be unable to take what's on this bridge."

The Lord of the Undying Palace did not turn around, but merely chuckled softly.

The laughter was extremely soft, as if it came from the deepest underground:

"Because I can't touch it. The Return Token is something from outside the boundary; only those who are simultaneously rejected and accepted by two worlds can touch it."

"So it is with Demon God Lü, and it is with you. As for me, I have never left the Tianwu Continent for a single day; my roots are already etched into the very bones of this world. Even if I touch it, it will never belong to me."

He turned around, his deep green eyes as dark as an abyss.

"So, let's make a deal. You take me to the Myriad Star Domain, and I'll tell you everything I know—including where the remains of the ancient gods and demons are."

The moment the words left his mouth, snow began to fall on the entire Wangchuan Bridge.

It wasn't snow, it was bone meal. The wind blowing up from the depths of the crack carried billions of tiny bone fragments, which fluttered down onto the bridge surface, onto the seven bone pillars, and onto everyone's shoulders.

The Return Token in Dongfang Weiwo's hand suddenly lit up, its eerie blue light casting a cold, otherworldly glow over the entire bridge.

In the blue light, he saw the shadow of the Undying Palace Master split into two on the bridge.

One was black, the other grayish-white. The two shadows flickered alternately, as if two beings were sharing the same body.

Lin Xiaoman covered her mouth. She recognized the aura of the gray shadow; it was exactly the same as the eyes that opened beneath countless bones in the deepest part of Shattered Bone Ridge.

Ancient gods and demons. The remnants of the consciousness of ancient gods and demons also reside within the body of the Lord of the Undying Palace.

All the clues suddenly connected at that moment.

Shattered Bone Ridge is the remains of ancient gods and demons, the Forbidden Land of Su Luo is a node of the bloodline of gods and demons, the ancient bone mine of Changing Bone Village is the remnant of the bone marrow of gods and demons, and the crack under the Forgotten River Bridge is simply a wound on the remains of ancient gods and demons.

The entire southeastern part of the Tianwu Continent is built upon a complete ancient god-demon corpse. Thirty years ago, the Lord of the Undying Palace hunted down the Demon God Lü and extracted something related to the ancient god-demon from his body. That thing is now in the Lord of the Undying Palace's possession.

He wanted the Return Token not because he wanted to leave Tianwu, but because he wanted to retrieve a method from the Myriad Star Domain that could reawaken the ancient gods and demons.

Dongfang Weiwo held the Return Token tightly in his hand, his palm reflecting a transparent, eerie blue light.

Chuan Ying drew his thick-backed sword from its sheath, the blade gleaming with an inky black light. Yan Fei held his old sword horizontally, his sword intent spreading across the bridge like a crescent moon.

"So now, what's your answer?" The Lord of the Undying Palace stood there, with two shadowy figures, one black and one gray, intersecting behind him.

Dongfang Wei tucked the Return Token into his robes, tapped his bamboo staff on the bridge, and said, word by word:

"I never make deals with anyone. Especially not with the remnants of ancient gods and demons who want to use my body as a vessel."

He raised his hand, and a dark gold longsword materialized, its tip pointing at the Lord of the Undying Palace.

The seven dark gold patterns on the sword shone brightly at the same time, illuminating the bone powder that permeated the Bridge of Oblivion like shooting stars in broad daylight.

"I can cross this bridge, and I can come back. You can't stop me."

Chuan Ying's dagger and Yan Fei's sword were drawn simultaneously. In the instant the swords clashed, the millennia-old death aura beneath the Wangchuan Bridge was forcibly torn open.

All nine suns sank to the edge of the Ember Sea, marking the end of the last twilight on the Tianwu Continent.