VOL.1 Chapter 10: Ashes of the Shattered Ruins, The Six-Month Death Sentence

When daylight seeped back over the broken expanse of Sanxingdui, the entire archaeological dig rested beneath a deceptive, fragile calm.

A cold wind swept across the ground, the rain had halted completely, and the heavy storm clouds had split apart. A pale ash-blue hue of lingering twilight draped over the twisted frames of the collapsed preservation shelter. The earth no longer trembled, the subterranean spirit veins had settled into stillness, and all billowing Void mist had retreated deep into the underground caverns. It was as if the cataclysmic clash that had nearly unraveled the balance of the mortal world had been nothing more than a violent geological illusion.

Yet the wreckage strewn everywhere told the unmistakeable truth.

Tempered safety glass lay crushed into thousands of razor-thin crystalline fragments. Steel support girders bent and warped at unnatural angles, snapped rebar protruding outward with eerily clean, jagged cuts—damage not wrought by natural structural failure, but wrenched and torn apart by an invisible, primal force. The entire work floor of Sacrificial Pit No.3 crisscrossed with jagged fissures, churned soil mangling the once-neat archaeological excavation grids beyond recognition. Deep, jagged gorges split the earth open, their inner walls coated in a faint film of ink-black frost, the only lingering residue left behind as the Void energy receded.

A peculiar, alien tang hung heavy in the air.

It was not the metallic reek of spilled blood, nor the moldy rot of damp soil—it was desolation. A lifeless, primordial bleakness that did not belong to the mortal realm, thin yet unyielding, clinging to every blade of grass, stone shard, and twisted metal scrap. Ordinary human staff could not catch a trace of it, but to the Ruin Guardians’ heightened senses, it served as a constant, unignorable warning: the abyss had never departed, it had only slipped into hiding.

Jam stood dead-center of the pit, Daipithy cradled securely in his arms. His posture remained rigid and upright as ever, yet bone-deep exhaustion leaked from every line of his frame.

His lacerations across the shoulders and back had been sealed shut by strained spirit power to stem bleeding, tattered uniform fabric crusted fast to dried scabs, rough and stiff against his skin. His palms braced Daipithy’s upper back and knees in a rock-steady, balanced hold, no tremor disrupting his grip—even as his own spirit reserves teetered on complete depletion and waves of vertigo crashed over his mind. This unwavering precision was ingrained instinct, the unbreakable bottom line of a squad captain.

Unconscious, Daipithy lay unnervingly motionless.

Her complexion blanched to paper white, all warm color drained from her lips. Fine gilded runes had not fully faded beneath her skin, sunk deep into her flesh like countless dormant golden serpents coiled within her bloodline channels. They were permanent scars carved into her essence by the forbidden art Oath of Ruin Bond: Seal the Rift With One’s Life—irrevocable, indelible marks left by burning her cultivation foundation to fuse her life force to the underground ruin veins.

Her breaths were faint, shallow, barely stirring her ribcage. If not for the faint, lingering warmth of her pulse beneath his fingertips, she might have blended seamlessly into the silent wreckage around them.

Sage was the first to draw near, her footsteps light and deliberate, stepping carefully over loose rubble to avoid every cracked fissure in the spirit vein network.

She sank to her knees, pressing two fingers gently to Daipithy’s wrist. A faint wisp of pale white spirit light flickered beneath her skin, a restrained, precise current designed solely to trace and diagnose core damage, no reckless outpouring of power. After only a few heartbeats, she pulled her hand away, watching the thin glow dissolve into nothing in her palm. Her cool, sharp features held no flicker of emotion as she delivered a cold, unvarnished, purely objective assessment.

“Superficial wounds can be mended. The damage to her primal core is irreversible.”

“She did not simply collapse from overexertion. Every channel of her bloodline vein was burned through, overloaded from merging her life force with the ruin veins. She acted as a living conductive wire, single-handedly absorbing the full backlash of the Wood Ruin’s imminent collapse.”

Jam’s gaze dropped to the unconscious girl nestled in his arms, his voice low, rough, and stripped of warmth. “What are her odds of survival?”

Sage lifted her eyes, sweeping her gaze across the shattered pit, the stagnant underground spirit veins, before settling back on Daipithy’s pale, still face. Her answer was blunt and merciless. “No immediate threat to her life. Long-term prognosis: no guaranteed safety net.”

“The ruin veins borrowed the very foundation of her cultivation, not a temporary reserve of spirit power. The more stable the seal remains, the thinner her hold on life grows. Within six months, if the seal is destabilized again, if Void energy surges for another assault, or if the underground veins spiral back into chaos, she will crumble entirely.”

This sentence sealed the verdict Kaelor had issued before vanishing into the woods.

The six-month countdown was never merely a timer for the failing seal—it was Daipithy’s personal death sentence, the ultimate hard deadline hanging over the entire Wood Ruin and every Ruin Guardian in their squad.

Off to one side, Bangbangtu knelt half-crouched on the broken earth.

He had made no elaborate attempt to treat the penetrating wound through his chest, only wrapping it crudely with tactical bandages to staunch the bleeding. The fabric was already soaked through with dark, crimson blood, its edges stained with an unwashable film of ink-black Void residue. Corrosive Void energy continued gnawing at his internal meridians with every breath, each inhale sending a stabbing dull ache shooting through his ribcage, yet his face remained utterly impassive, not a single crease furrowing his brow.

His gaze locked rigidly on the shadowed expanse of the western mountain forest.

No black mist swirled there now, no ripples of volatile energy lingered—the area was far too quiet, unnervingly blank.

It was that unnatural stillness that chilled the blood.

“He hasn’t gone far,” Bangbangtu’s voice scraped out rough and raw, lined with the grit of dried blood in his throat. “An ancient entity of his caliber never fully erases their aura when they retreat. He’s lurking on the perimeter of the dig site, masking his presence, watching our every move.”

“He’s tracking our injuries, our supply stores, every formation we draw, every calculation we run. The more broken we are, the greater his reward for waiting.”

Banbandin had by this point finished an urgent full review of all site equipment and stratigraphic data.

He sat amid piles of twisted debris, a barely salvaged spare terminal balanced across his knees. All primary hardware lay totaled, core datasets corrupted and collapsed beyond repair. The only functional backup screen flickered with sparse, cold, incomplete geological readings. At the top of the display, a static red warning blazed unignorably, unable to be cleared:

[Wood Ruin Seal Stability: Critically Overloaded]

[Foundation Lock Array Integrity: 37%]

[Residual Void Activity: Sustained Low-Level Seepage]

His fingers slid swiftly across the screen, filtering out garbled interference and invalid metrics to isolate only the most critical, unalterable underlying truths. His tone remained steady as he relayed the full scope of their predicament, no dramatic flourish, only unflinching data.

“The foundational lock array was never fully repaired.

Daipithy’s forbidden art only forced temporary stabilization, a makeshift patch bolted onto a system on the verge of total meltdown. The surface readings registering perfect stability are an illusion; deep structural fractures remain intact, and the underground vein network has sustained permanent, irreparable damage.

Right now, the seal hangs suspended by nothing. It does not rely on formations, bedrock, or ancient relics—it is held steady solely by the residual primal blood essence Daipithy left woven into the ruin veins.”

Jam’s eyes darkened. “What conditions will trigger a full collapse?”

Banbandin replied crisply, every word carrying lethal weight. “Three triggers. First: another large-scale Void surge exceeding the carrying capacity of her bloodline anchor. Second: Daipithy’s core essence degrades naturally, severing her link to the veins, and the seal destabilizes instantly. Third: the temporary forced loop expires, and the array unravels layer by layer of its own accord.”

“The third scenario will strike no sooner than one hundred eighty days, and no later than one hundred ninety days.”

Their death sentence was carved into a precise six-month window, no room for negotiation or reprieve.

Sage stepped forward to stand at the pit’s edge atop cracked bedrock, her gaze falling to the bottomless fissures snaking beneath her feet. Her cool voice cut through the faint chill of the early morning wind.

“There is a hidden secondary risk we cannot overlook.

When I purged the twenty-seven Void seeds earlier, I only eliminated the large, overt ones embedded near the surface. Countless microscopic Void particles remain trapped deep within the subterranean veins and rock crevices. They do not erupt, stir, or damage the formations—they serve a single purpose: recording.

They log every formation’s logic, every stabilization rhythm, every flaw in the seal, and transmit all data back to Kaelor in real time.

He has no need to scout the site personally, no need to risk exposing himself to our defenses. These microscopic particles act as eyes scattered across every inch of the dig. Every repair we attempt, every adjustment we make, every new formation we draw will be archived and analyzed by him without delay.”

This was the true, unsolvable deadlock they faced.

Their adversary had no urge to launch another reckless assault. He only needed to wait, gathering intelligence as time ticked onward, hunting for every crack in their strategy, drawing on three thousand years of patience to watch the Ruin Guardians exhaust themselves, expose their weaknesses, and march toward inevitable ruin.

Bangbangtu slowly pushed himself upright off the rubble, the movement tearing at his chest wound and soaking the bandages once more with fresh blood. He paid the agony no mind, his tone hard and unyielding. “That means every single move we make from this point forward is laid bare before him. No secrets, no surprise strikes, no hidden fallback plans to leverage.”

“Correct,” Sage confirmed without hesitation, laying bare the full weight of their hopeless position. “From this day onward, every tactic, formation design, and seal restoration plan we devise is laid out for Kaelor to dissect at his leisure. He understands better than we do exactly when the seal will fail, and exactly when our strength will run dry.”

A heavy silence settled over the wrecked excavation pit.

Distant voices and shrill emergency sirens drew steadily closer. Civilian security guards, remaining archaeology staff, and emergency response teams converged on the site, their footsteps noisy and their chatter chaotic. Vehicle headlights cut through the thin morning fog, sweeping over the collapsed shelter frames and split earth, illuminating the field of broken debris.

Soon, the mortal world would dismiss everything as a minor, extreme geological anomaly.

The site would be cordoned off, cleared, restored. Wreckage hauled away, fissures backfilled, all data filed away for bureaucratic archives, the incident faded into quiet obscurity. No one would dig deeper, no one would uncover the truth.

The peace ordinary humans took for granted was always built upon the Guardians’ silence and sacrifice.

Jam lifted his gaze, staring past the mounds of rubble and morning fog toward the approaching crowd of civilians. His tone turned rigid as he issued their first post-battle operational order.

“All personnel, suppress your auras immediately.

Seal away all spirit power, conceal every wound, erase all trace of your unique energy signatures. Unified official statement for external inquiries: localized geomagnetic disturbance triggered minor stratigraphic shifting, all equipment suffered signal interference. No critical personnel injuries, no lost cultural relics, zero safety hazards present.”

Banbandin responded instantly. “Acknowledged. I will overwrite redundant backend terminal data, erase all anomalous energy spike records, and fabricate a smooth geological disturbance curve to fully erase all Void energy traces, undetectable by standard monitoring systems.”

Sage nodded sharply. “I will neutralize all residual runic marks, spirit energy ripples, and formation trajectories. A full site-wide runic erasure to wipe all evidence of ancient spiritual arts, eliminating any risk of later instrumental trace analysis.”

Bangbangtu braced his chest wound and straightened his spine, his voice cold and decisive. “I will manage perimeter security. Contain all civilian staff, media personnel, and ground crew to restricted zones, block all close-range inspection and photography of the excavation site.”

Even battered, drained, and bearing life-threatening wounds after a brutal fight to the brink of death, the five-person squad maintained flawless tactical coordination and unbroken discipline. Faced with an impossible deadlock, there was no complaint, no panic, no despair—only ingrained restraint and unwavering execution.

Jam’s gaze drifted back down to the unconscious Daipithy in his arms, a faint flicker of heavy shadow crossing his eyes before it was buried beneath cold, unyielding logic.

“Daipithy’s condition is classified top-secret, no external disclosure whatsoever.

Official cover story: mild syncope from physical overexertion, will recover fully with standard rest. Internal squad classification: critical life-threatening trauma, highest response priority.”

There was no sentimental lament, no pity—only pragmatic, rigorous risk assessment. The Ruin Guardian order did not glorify sacrifice; it only accounted for its cost, patched its vulnerabilities, and pressed onward with the fight.

Footsteps from the civilian staff reached the outer cordon at last.

Workers craned their necks to peer inward, staring at the collapsed shelter and split ground with undisguised shock and unease, whispering amongst themselves, yet none dared cross the boundary into the devastated excavation zone.

Bangbangtu turned to intercept them, his posture tall and steady, masking his grievous injury completely. His tone flat, calm, and authoritative, instantly quelling all curiosity and unrest.

“A localized geological shift occurred within the work zone. Initial sweeps confirm no secondary hazards. All personnel step back, entry is prohibited, photography forbidden—await official formal briefing for all updates.”

A handful of plain sentences, cool and unnegotiable, stabilized the perimeter instantly, walling off all civilian curiosity from the site of their brutal battle.

At the same time, Banbandin finished overwriting all terminal backend data.

The terrifying Void energy peak readings, the collapsed formation metrics, the overloaded spirit power surges, the catastrophic stratigraphic fracture logs—all were wiped clean, replaced with a seamless, standardized dataset matching routine minor geological fluctuations, undetectable to any mortal monitoring equipment.

Sage lifted a hand, wispy pale white spirit light drifting silently across every inch of the pit.

Every scrap of residual runic energy, every lingering spirit power trail, every trace of spiritual combat dissolved into thin air. The stale desolate Void tang clinging to the atmosphere was purified layer by layer, the faint black frost coating the fissure walls fading entirely. From a spiritual perspective, the entire dig site returned to perfect, unremarkable calm, as if the clash between primal light and Void shadow had never happened at all.

Every trace of their battle was erased by their own hands.

The mortal world would only ever see the peace they fought to preserve.

Only the five Guardians would carry the memory of the cataclysm that had nearly swallowed the land, the desperate sacrifice of their comrade who traded half her lifespan to anchor the seal, and the six-month death sentence hanging over every living soul in the mortal realm.

Jam held Daipithy steady as he stepped slowly out from beneath the wrecked preservation shelter.

Morning mist settled light and cool across his hair and shoulders, unable to wash away the stench of battle or the blood crusting his wounds. He moved slow and deliberate, every step planted firmly on solid bedrock, carefully avoiding every hidden fissure in the spirit vein network, acting with extreme caution and rigid self-restraint.

As he crossed the perimeter cordon, dozens of civilian eyes locked onto him—curious, probing, fearful stares blending together.

No one knew the young woman he carried had burned away half her natural lifespan to shield their ordinary lives.

No one knew this unassuming specialized task force had stood on the razor’s edge of the abyss, single-handedly blocking an apocalyptic disaster that would have rewritten human civilization.

The moment he stepped past the crowd of onlookers, Jam lowered his voice, speaking into the squad’s private encrypted comms channel to deliver their core post-battle deployment, his tone cold, unflinching, and unsparing.

“Activate the six-month emergency contingency plan effective immediately.

First: Sage, lead the full review of all Wood Ruin archives and runic lineage records. Prioritize reverse-engineering the original logic of the Dai bloodline seal art to develop an alternative stabilization method that does not require sacrificial bloodline anchoring. A complete theoretical framework must be finalized within three months—zero margin for error.

Second: Banbandin, reconstruct the full-site monitoring array from scratch. Abandon all outdated hardware systems, build a new microscopic Void particle capture network capable of full zero-blind-spot tracking and instant early warning, to pinpoint Kaelor’s hidden movements and all Void infiltration trajectories.

Third: Bangbangtu, oversee all forbidden zone perimeter patrol and border suppression. Round-the-clock rotating shifts, eliminate all gaps in coverage, block every potential path for Void seepage and Orb Reaver incursion, seal off all avenues for surprise assault.”

The three others responded in unified, low voices. “Acknowledged.”

No hesitation, no shifting of burden—every member slipped straight into wartime high alert.

Jam’s gaze fixed on the road stretching forward, Daipithy still silent and unconscious in his arms. His voice dropped to a heavier register, carrying the crushing weight of their three-millennia-long fate-bound conflict and unyielding resolve.

“We have no time for rest or recovery.

Kaelor waits for us to crumble. Our only chance to survive is to carve out a path before the seal fails entirely.”

A plain, unmarked vehicle waited quietly beside the site’s service access road, its muted frame blending seamlessly into the morning fog.

Jam pulled open the rear passenger door, shifting carefully to lay Daipithy down gently on the back seat, his movements soft yet efficient, perfectly steady all the while. He leaned in to adjust her posture, carefully cushioning all her wounds to keep her bloodline channels unobstructed, then closed the door firmly, sealing off all civilian noise and curious stares from the unconscious girl.

The instant the window shut, the fabricated illusion of mortal peace was locked outside.

Dim light filled the vehicle’s interior, a heavy, oppressive silence hanging thick in the air.

Daipithy lay motionless across the back seat, her breaths thin and weak, the golden runes beneath her skin still dormant, the mark of a martyr who had poured all her fire into a single desperate act of protection, left only with quiet exhaustion.

Jam stood beside the car door, glancing back over his shoulder toward the sprawling Sanxingdui excavation site.

Morning sunlight spilled across the broken ruins, faint new life stirring in the churned grass, staff members returning to their routine work, everything snapping back to the mundane rhythm of ordinary days.

Peace remained unbroken, mortal life carried on as normal.

Only the Ruin Guardians knew the truth: deep beneath the soil, the rift still gaped open, Void energy lingered unvanquished, and their battle with fate was far from finished.

The three-thousand-year game had not reached its end.

The six-month death sentence had only just begun.

The Void lurks hidden in shadow, fate bears down heavy upon the mortal world.

A new round of silent, unending intrigue unfolds quietly above the mist-shrouded shattered ruins.