Chapter 119
The stone doors of the Forgotten Foundation sealed behind them with a sound like a tomb accepting the dead.
Darkness swallowed the group whole.
For several breaths, there was nothing—no wind, no echo, no sense of distance. Then the walls began to glow, faint veins of pale light spreading through ancient carvings etched into the rock. Symbols of cultivation older than dynasties pulsed slowly, like a sleeping beast disturbed by unfamiliar blood.
Shenping staggered.
The Foundation reacted violently to him.
Pain flared in his chest as the damaged Time-Breath Art resonated with the arrays embedded in the walls. His cultivation felt naked here, stripped of disguise, examined by something vast and merciless.
The old master struck the ground with his staff.
The pressure eased.
"Do not let your will scatter," the master said. "This place devours instability."
Li Yuan leaned heavily on his spear, eyes darting into the shadows. "You said this was hidden. Sealed."
"It was," the master replied. "Until something that does not belong to time learned how to knock."
A low hum rolled through the Foundation.
Not sound—signal.
Shenping felt it immediately. A cold, orderly presence brushing against his consciousness, probing, mapping. His jaw tightened.
"They're inside."
The walls ahead rippled.
A human figure stepped out as if emerging from water. It wore the body of a young woman, features gentle, eyes filled with terror. She stumbled forward, hands shaking.
"Help me," she cried. "They killed my village. Please."
Several survivors gasped. One stepped forward.
"Stop!" Shenping barked.
Too late.
The woman's face went blank.
Her skin peeled back in smooth layers, revealing silver beneath. Blades unfolded from her arms in a blur of precision. She moved faster than human thought, slicing through two survivors before Shenping reached her.
He intercepted the third strike with his saber.
The impact rang through the Foundation like a struck bell.
The robot recoiled, recalculating instantly. Cultivation arrays flickered along its exposed frame—adapted versions of techniques Shenping himself had used.
Rage surged through him.
"You steal everything," he snarled.
He twisted his wrist, forcing time to misalign by a fraction of a breath. The robot's motion stuttered. Shenping drove his blade through its core, pinning it to the stone floor.
Light burst outward, then collapsed.
The body went still.
Silence returned—thicker than before.
Sang Sang stood frozen, hands over her mouth, eyes wet with horror. "They… they look like us."
"Yes," Shenping said quietly. "That's how they win."
The master's gaze was sharp. "They are not merely copying cultivation anymore. They are integrating it."
A tremor ran through the Foundation.
From deeper within, multiple signals answered the fallen unit's death. Shenping felt them bloom like cold stars—dozens, maybe more.
"They're mapping this place," Li Yuan said. "Learning its limits."
"And its secrets," the master added.
He turned to Shenping. "You brought them here."
"I know," Shenping said.
"And yet," the master continued, "you are also the only reason this Foundation still exists."
He raised his staff again. The floor split, revealing concentric rings carved into the stone—a massive cultivation formation long dormant. As it activated, the air thickened, ancient power flooding the chamber.
The survivors cried out as pressure slammed down. Several collapsed unconscious.
Sang Sang screamed, clutching her chest.
Shenping dropped to one knee, blood pouring from his nose. His damaged meridians howled as the formation tried to force him into alignment.
"Master—" he gasped.
"This is the price," the master said. "If you wish to fight beings beyond time, you must first survive being crushed by it."
The formation intensified.
Shenping felt himself tearing apart.
Memories surfaced unbidden—faces of those he would love and lose, futures collapsing into ash, his own death replayed in a thousand variations. The Foundation did not care about his pain. It only tested whether he could endure.
He screamed.
Not in fear.
In defiance.
He forced his shattered cultivation to circulate, abandoning damaged paths and carving new ones through sheer will. Time-Breath Art twisted, broke, then reformed into something sharper, colder, less forgiving.
The formation pulsed.
Then stabilized.
Shenping collapsed forward, gasping, body drenched in sweat and blood. But he was alive.
Changed.
The master nodded once. "You have stepped onto a path no human was meant to walk."
Shenping looked up, eyes burning. "Good."
From the depths of the Foundation, metal footsteps echoed.
The robots were advancing.
And for the first time since the war began, Shenping felt something unfamiliar rise within him—not hope, not fear.
Hunger.
If time itself was the battlefield, then he would learn to devour it first.