Chapter 198: Riddle

The chamber remained quiet.

Lian stood near the raised platform, eyes moving between the preserved body and the dark blade locked under its hands. Elara finished a careful circuit of the outer walls and returned without finding any immediate traps. Ryzek stayed a few paces back, four amber eyes fixed on the residual energy that still clung to the stone.

It was Elara who noticed the writing first.

She stopped near the base of the platform and crouched. Carved directly into the smooth stone, just above the floor, was a single line of text. The characters were clear and sharp, cut with deliberate precision. Unlike the silver script from the white room, these words were in a language all three of them could read without difficulty.

Lian stepped closer and read it aloud.

“The one who takes what is offered must first leave what cannot be returned.”

The sentence sat alone. No other lines followed it. No explanations. No second verse.

Ryzek frowned slightly.

“A warning,” he said. “Or a condition.”

Elara traced the edge of the carving with her eyes but did not touch it.

“It’s readable. That already makes it different from everything else in this tomb. The earlier script needed translation. This was meant to be understood immediately.”

Lian read the line again in silence. The meaning was unclear. It could refer to the blade. It could refer to the body itself. It could refer to something less obvious. For the moment he set the question aside. Standing over a preserved corpse in the heart of an ancient trial chamber was not the time to get lost in word games.

He straightened and turned his attention back to the body.

The figure’s face was calm, almost empty. Time had not withered it in the normal way. The skin remained smooth, though drained of color. The white hair looked as if it had been arranged after death. Whatever method had been used to preserve the remains had worked far beyond ordinary standards.

Around the platform, the floor was free of dust. The walls carried no decorations beyond the single line of text. The silver light in the chamber came from thin channels cut into the ceiling, still active after however many years the tomb had remained sealed. Everything about the space felt intentional and restrained.

Ryzek circled the platform once more, slower this time.

“No formation lines on the surface,” he said. “If there is a mechanism, it is either buried under the stone or tied directly to the body and the blade.”

Elara remained near the carved words.

“We should not ignore it completely,” she said. “But we also do not have enough information to solve it yet.”

Lian agreed with both of them.

He stepped closer to the platform and examined the dark blade without touching it. The weapon was simple in shape — straight, single-edged, with a plain hilt that showed no jewels or markings. The metal absorbed the surrounding light rather than reflecting it. Even without contact, the quiet density of the weapon was clear. It had not been placed here as decoration.

The hands of the dead man remained locked around it, fingers stiff and unmoving.

Lian finally stepped back.

“We check the rest of the chamber first,” he said. “Every wall. Every corner. If there is anything else left for us, it will be here. After that, we decide what to do with the body and the blade.”

Ryzek gave a short nod. Elara rose from her crouch near the carving.

The three of them spread out through the circular chamber, moving carefully under the steady silver light, while the single line of readable text remained cut into the stone behind them, waiting.

Power Scale / Cultivation Realms (Quick Reminder)

Foundation Realm (Layers 1–9): Body forging, no external Qi.

Circuit Awakening Realm (Early–Peak): First Qi loop, internal bursts.

Core Condensation Realm (Early–Peak): External Qi release, short flight.

Stellar Circuit Realm (1–9 Stars): True flight, Qi armor, energy projection.

Nebula Dominion Realm and higher: Domain control, galaxy-level power, etc

Power Scale Reminder

Lian Yu: Stellar Circuit Star 1.

Elara Voss: Core Condensation Peak

Keep it as reminders