He stood upon another hill overlooking a vast battlefield.
An army of human cultivators stretched as far as the eye could see, their armor radiating an inner brilliance as their weapons drew streams of Qi from the surrounding heavens.
Facing them stood an equally immense army of vampires.
They wore armor forged from a dark metal that seemed to consume light itself. Crimson eyes burned beneath their helmets like smoldering embers. At the center of their formation sat a regal woman astride a midnight-black warhorse, an ancient crown resting upon her brow.
A queen. The two armies stood in absolute silence. Neither side moved.
It was the suffocating stillness before countless lives were about to collide.
Before the first strike could fall, the memory changed again.
This time... He saw a tree. No. A world tree.
Its trunk alone spanned an entire mountain range, stretching miles across. Its immeasurable canopy blanketed the heavens for hundreds of kilometers, casting a gentle emerald shadow over the land below.
Clusters of radiant fruits hung from its endless branches.
Each fruit overflowed with astonishingly pure Qi, the very essence of cultivation condensed into physical form.
The tree was alive. Not merely living. Aware.
Stan could feel its consciousness. Ancient, vast and patient.
Its thoughts drifted slowly across the world like an endless tide, gently embracing every living thing beneath its branches.
Yet as the memories continued, Stan gradually sensed something else.
An emotion. No... A hatred so profound that it eclipsed everything else.
It did not belong to him. It belonged to the one whose eyes he was borrowing.
Whenever the World Tree entered his field of vision, an overwhelming killing intent surged through the memory. It was so intense that even Stan, merely witnessing the past, felt his heart grow heavy beneath its weight.
And it wasn’t directed at the World Tree alone.
The same boundless hostility extended toward every cultivator he saw, regardless of race or allegiance. Humans. Vampires. Werewolves. Demihumans.
To the owner of these memories, they were all the same.
Stan could only watch in silence. He had no way of knowing why the being harbored such overwhelming hatred for the world before him.
He wasn’t hearing its thoughts. He was only seeing through its eyes.
The memory shifted once more to a sight of War, not just one battlefield but hundreds, perhaps thousands.
The entire world had become a battlefield. Human cultivators led by true humans clashed with vampires. Werewolves tore through ranks of demihumans. Ancient alliances were forged only to shatter moments later beneath betrayal and ambition.
Cities burned. Mountains collapsed. Oceans boiled beneath techniques capable of reshaping the world itself.
The heavens were streaked with countless trails of light as divine artifacts fell alongside the cultivators who wielded them.
It was war on a continental scale. No... On a global scale. The devastation was absolute. Endless wars.
Stan watched them all. Yet something gradually became clear.
The perspective from which he viewed these events was not that of a soldier, a king, or a sect master.
Whoever these memories belonged to had always remained slightly removed.
Watching, observing, and recording. As though history itself were unfolding before an eternal witness.
A question formed in Stan’s mind. ’Whose memories are these?’
When he first touched the fragment, he had assumed it belonged to one of the countless skeletons scattered throughout the temple, a fallen cultivator whose lingering consciousness had left behind fragments of their life. But he couldn’t help but think of these memories are that of the voice.
Unable to contain his curiosity, he asked; "Whose memories are these?"
The voice answered quietly; "Mine."
The memory continued uninterrupted. Nothing within the vision changed. Yet Stan felt his heart tighten.
’Mine.’ The voice was not the lingering remnant of some fallen cultivator.
It had witnessed the Age of Dao with its own eyes. It had watched mighty sects rise. It had watched dragons rule the skies. It had stood beneath the World Tree while it flourished. It had watched civilizations wage wars that engulfed the entire world.
And now... Stan was seeing that forgotten age through the eyes of the being who had witnessed it all.
The memory continued.
The wars faded, the battlefields healed, and new sects rose from the ashes of the old, and new alliances were forged. Peace, fragile yet hard-earned, gradually settled over the world.
Stan watched as the Fourfold Accord described in Introduction to Earth finally came to pass.
Human rulers. Vampire monarchs. Werewolf kings. Demihuman/beastkin sovereigns.
They gathered within a magnificent council hall suspended high above the clouds, where they signed a treaty that would preserve peace for three thousand years.
Stan watched it all unfold. Through the memory, he felt a faint trace of the observer’s emotions.
It wasn’t joy. Nor was it pride. It was a quiet, complicated satisfaction.
The peace had not come easily. It had been earned. And somehow...
The owner of these memories had played a part in making it possible. Then, without warning, everything changed.
The world fell silent. Stan sensed it before he saw it.
The Qi that had saturated the world throughout the entire memory began to thin.
The brilliant currents flowing through the heavens slowed.
Then stopped. Then vanished.
The World Tree’s endless canopy gradually lost its vibrant emerald glow, its leaves turning dull shades of gray, till it was reduced to dust.
High above, the dragons stopped flying. One by one, their silhouettes disappeared from the sky.
In the distance, the great sects dimmed as the formations protecting them failed. The very energy that sustained their existence was abandoning the world.
The Qi was dissapearing...
’The Great Withering.’ Stan was witnessing its beginning with his own eyes.
Yet what unsettled him most was not the collapse of civilization. It was the emotions of the one witnessing it. There was no panic.
No grief. No despair. Only peace. Not the peace of resignation but the peace of fulfillment.
Stan felt it clearly through the memory. The owner of these eyes watched the Age of Dao come to its end. Watched Qi vanish from the world. Watched dragons disappear. Watched entire civilizations crumble. And accepted it all with complete tranquility.
As though everything was unfolding exactly as it was meant to.
As though a plan, nurtured for countless years, had finally reached its conclusion.
Stan’s heart tightened. ’Why...?’
Why would anyone find peace in the death of an entire world?
Unable to suppress the question any longer, he spoke.
"Is this your memory as well?"
The answer came softly; "Yes."
A brief silence followed before the voice continued; "It is also my vision."
"I do not know whether my main body remained here long enough to witness these events before departing elsewhere."
"But I visionised this future."
Stan’s thoughts raced. ’Visionised?’
He forced himself to remain calm as something came to mind; "Does that mean?!"
However, the voice gently interrupted him