Outside Of Time

1786  The Singular State!

The cold wind slipped through the window, causing the candle flame to flicker—and with it, the pages of the Atlas of Civilizational Cycles stirred.

The diagrams within traced the rise and fall of every dynasty, all converging under his meticulous hand into a closed circle—like the moon's eternal path across the long night.

Gazing at this circle, Chen Mo suddenly understood: every character in the historical records, every era name, was merely the imprint of a wheel's passage. The wheel itself never ceased turning.

And so, with the last of his strength, he spent his final hours carving a lifetime of realizations onto twelve bronze slips.

Even though he knew—the truth he had chased all his life, these twelve bronze slips meant to withstand the erosion of time—were but a tiny ripple in the river of cycles.

He did it anyway.

Under his chisel, the obscured overlaps of dynastic timelines, the cataclysmic truths buried beneath myth, the identical prophecies wrapped in different scripts—all were laid bare.

When the final stroke etched the seven words: "All things cycle, returning to one silence," a deafening thunderclap exploded outside!

The heavens split open. Rain plummeted, hammering the earth, drumming against glazed tiles.

The rhythm, the cadence—it left Chen Mo dazed. For a fleeting moment, he thought it mirrored the annihilating storm recorded in The Tribute of Seals a thousand years prior.

"My time has come…"

Chen Mo murmured as his life began to gutter out, the existence before him blurring.