Chapter 1 The Twilight Shrouds the Earth

Dusk shrouded the earth, the sun, moon, and stars obscured by the power of Chaos. Beneath the boundless clouds and twilight, vegetation withered and twisted, mountains crumbled and eroded, and rock and soil transformed into arid, cracked wastelands. Even the eternal fortresses, forged under the personal supervision of the gods, ultimately succumbed to the ravages of time after losing divine favor, decaying into ruins in the ceaseless wind.

Years later, a Holy Domain warrior who survived the Eternal Battlefield recorded the appearance of the "Old World" in his memoirs.

Led by the Mountain King, Hao Ren and his group finally reached the surface. This place should have been the site of a sacred vault entrance at the foot of Mount Asu Man, featuring magnificent white stone gates, imposing statues of ancient sages, and a wide, smooth stone-paved avenue. Before them should have stood the magnificent Hall District of the divinely blessed city. Instead, it was merely a dark, downward-sloping cave. After crawling out of the weathered opening, all that could be seen was an endless, desolate expanse, a dim sky perpetually shrouded in twilight-like clouds, and pillars of wind that swirled unceasingly across the barren landscape, emitting eerie wails.

This was the first sight Hao Ren beheld upon emerging from the cave, and it filled him with a strange sense of familiarity. He instantly recalled the things he had seen in his visions and immediately turned back to look in the direction of the original Mount Asu Man.

Many others turned back as well, and the sound of gasps filled the air.

Where Mount Asu Man had once stood, there now towered an enormous cylindrical mirror, a magnificent pillar like a tower reaching to the heavens, crafted from polished pure silver. Its surface was utterly smooth, without any visible indentations. Yet, the bright silver mirror did not reflect the surrounding desolate land, but rather the mountains and rivers of another space.

Hao Ren recognized them as the landscapes of the planet Colo.

"This is the Reflection Realm, or rather, the manifestation of the Reflection Realm in three-dimensional space," said Gordon, the Mountain King, his voice rumbling. "This mirrored tower is a sign of the Dreaming. Millennia ago, we relied on observing this mirrored tower in our visions to determine our location in the Nightmare World. But now that the Nightmare has contaminated the final defense line, the image presented by this tower has lost its revelatory power."

As he spoke, Gordon pointed to a craggy, dark shape in the wasteland: "That is Twilight Fortress. At least two millennia ago, it was a fully equipped, well-manned place, perpetually bathed in holy light and divine favor. We filled it with war machines and puppet legions. From dawn till dusk, the Warden Legion would fight alongside the valiant souls from the 'real world,' battling the claws of Loke Marton on the front lines. Oh, back then, this place hadn't been eroded to its current state. The heavens and earth weren't dominated by twilight, and there was still the alternation of day and night."

Hao Ren saw the "Twilight Fortress" that Gordon spoke of, but it was difficult to connect it with the great fortress. It was now merely a jumble of charred stones and crooked towers standing haphazardly on the barren ground. The desolate wind howled through it, and there was no sign of life among the ruins.

Hao Ren opened his dimensional pocket and released half of his probes and autonomous machines, instructing them to initiate a wide-area imaging scan to survey the state of this world. Now that the Data Terminal had returned to his side, the high-speed information processing link had been restored, and his dimensional pocket's detection equipment could all be used normally. Otherwise, those high-tech detectors would only be able to operate in basic mode, providing his brain with simple intelligence that did not exceed his data processing threshold, greatly limiting their range.

"So this place is the Abyss of Forgetfulness..." Karasus murmured. The injuries he had sustained in the previous battle had been healed by May's extensive healing spells, and he now appeared to be completely normal. "I never imagined it would be such a vast world..."

"Does it seem a little familiar?" Gordon said, raising his hand and pointing to the distant mountains and ranges. "Look at those horizons, look at those mountains. Does it feel familiar?"

"That's..." A knight of the church exclaimed in surprise, "The terrain is exactly the same as the Holy Domain?!"

"Not just the same as the Holy Domain, but the same as the entire Colo," Gordon said, striding forward as he spoke. "Although there are many mismatched 'displacements,' in locations where the coordinates align, the Abyss of Forgetfulness is a replica of the Colo you know... Or, conversely, it could be said the other way around."

Hao Ren was about to ask Gordon what he meant by his cryptic words when he suddenly heard Nangong Wuyue, who was walking behind him, let out a cry of alarm. Then, a large snake ball slammed into his back with a thud. He stumbled forward, barely managing to regain his balance. Just as he was about to turn around and tell that coward to calm down, he saw a spectacular sight that sent a chill down his own spine.

Behind the churning, rolling clouds, a massive, boundless shadow suddenly appeared and slowly emerged from the cloud layer—it was actually an enormous floating island, or rather, a small continent!

And this floating island, whose size exceeded the limits of visual estimation by any measure, did not stop after emerging from the clouds. With a terrifying angle of inclination, it descended with a speed that was both slow and fast, gradually falling towards the earth!

Everyone stirred and exclaimed in alarm, but the ten ancient wardens, led by Gordon, remained completely calm. Seeing this, Hao Ren also calmed down, but he could not help but watch with trepidation as the floating land plummeted diagonally from the horizon, making contact with the earth.

However, the anticipated cataclysmic destruction did not occur. The floating continent that had fallen from behind the clouds was like a phantom. After touching the earth, it silently continued to sink, its other end still behind the thick clouds, while its front end had already penetrated the surface of the earth, like a tilted sundial, gradually being swallowed by the earth. This bizarre "falling" process lasted a full five minutes until the "fallen" land completely disappeared from sight, and only then did everyone regain their ability to breathe normally.

"This is the 'mismatched displacement' that I mentioned earlier," Gordon's voice came from above. "Those are fragments of Colo, parts that have broken away from the normal spacetime curvature. The entire planet was torn apart, but only five continents survived. The remaining planetary fragments became things like this. They are drawn into the wrong spacetime, wandering and revolving like ghosts of the planet. As they revolve, they pass through the solid world. As you have seen, the spectacle is quite frightening, but in reality, it does not cause any harm..."

As he spoke, Gordon paused and shrugged. "Well, perhaps there are some harms. Irregular disappearances and energy losses have occurred when these phantom continents pass through the solid world. Sometimes, strange things are left on the ground after these phantoms pass through the earth. But all of these are completely irregular. Do you understand?"

Most people shook their heads, but only Hao Ren, Vivian, and Izhaks showed thoughtful expressions—oh, and Lily was also deep in thought, after all, she had graduated from Peking University four times.

"In other words, those phantom-like continents are actually the remaining fragments of the planet Colo," Hao Ren nodded slightly. "Then why can't they be seen in the outside real world? Is this 'Abyss of Forgetfulness' more complete than the outside real world?"

"Just as you say," Gordon's answer startled many people. "Surprising, isn't it? But the truth is often surprising. In the eyes of us ancients, the real Colo... is this world of nightmares!"

Hao Ren looked up at the Mountain King's massive body, waiting for him to explain further.

"Colo, it was originally a complete celestial body, which you should have heard in many ancient legends. But what you haven't heard is that Colo was not originally divided into a real world and a nightmare world. It was a single entity," Gordon said slowly, looking up at the distance, his voice filled with nostalgia and lament. "At first, the Mother imprisoned Loke Marton deep within this planet. It was just an ordinary prison and modification facility. No one ever thought that things would develop like this. Loke Marton became increasingly bizarre and grotesque. It gradually twisted into a monster between reality and illusion. The growing nightmare power overwhelmed the original systems of the prison, and one day, it reached a critical point—ten thousand years ago, on that catastrophic day, Colo was torn apart. The entire planet, along with the vast area around it, was thrown into the imaginary space, and Loke Marton's power exploded in this situation, almost breaking free from control. To avoid the worst-case scenario of containment failure, we had to activate an emergency procedure in Asu Man. This procedure was an extension of the Covenant Engine. It called upon some of the engine's functions, and the result was that Colo was cut off from the prime material universe, becoming a closed space bubble, and undergoing an overall inversion..."

Gordon's explanation was obscure and difficult to understand, filled with a great deal of complex and profound theoretical knowledge. He was clearly not speaking to Karasus and the others, as the latter were now completely lost. Only Hao Ren and his group, because of their frequent contact with similar events, seemed to be able to accept this kind of knowledge.

"After the inversion, the torn Colo became the Abyss of Forgetfulness. Fragments of the material universe and cracks in the imaginary space shattered this place. Loke Marton's power also crashed around in this completely closed prison, gradually transforming it into a nightmarish place. In order to maintain control over this nightmare-like imaginary space, we opened a rift in Asu Man at the top of the world—that is, the Holy Domain—and built a new Colo outside the rift using data mapping. At the same time, to prevent Loke Marton from escaping through this rift, Asu Man also passed through the rift and parked in the new Colo, blocking the passage in the form of the Crystal Holy Mountain. As for the surviving ecosystems after the Great Colo Tear... we also transferred them to the new world outside."

After speaking, Gordon paused for a long time, giving everyone time to think.

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief: "In short, Loke Marton tore apart the Old World, so you sealed off and transformed the Old World into the Abyss of Forgetfulness, and built a New World on the basis of the Old World. The so-called real world is this New World, the place where the people of today live, and this... is the original planet Colo?!"

Gordon laughed. He turned around and opened his arms. "Therefore, I say again, welcome to the Old World in the nightmare—the real Colo."

Behind the Mountain King, the clouds churned and surged, and another continent tilted down from the sky. On the continent, one could vaguely see magnificent cities and fortress clusters. It slowly swept across the sky, like a snowflake scattered in a dream, slowly sinking into the earth without stirring up a ripple.