The world's historical anchors collapsed. Terracotta warriors opened their eyes and hunted down killers, Dunhuang's flying apsaras stole souls, and Sanxingdui's sacred tree entwined itself with alien crystals. As artifact-born "Dread Domains" devoured 90% of the land, their rules became both the path to survival and an inescapable death trap.
Chen Yan, a Yenching University student specializing in ancient book restoration, was born with a burning Jade Balance pattern on his left hand. By chance, he activated the Artifact Resonance System: restoring a damaged Song Dynasty manuscript earned him the "Fragment Page Defense Art," while assembling a bronze sword won him the "Qin Emperor's Armor-Piercing Technique." Better yet, he could see the fatal loopholes in a Dread Domain's rules. "No lighting lamps during the Hour of the Rat"? He lit an oil lamp and broke the deadlock. "Anyone without armor will be assimilated"? He put on a modern bulletproof vest and charged straight into the Terracotta Warriors' pit!
From narrowly escaping the living-type Dread Domain at Yenching University, to diving into an ancient shipwreck in the South China Sea to retrieve fragments of the Imperial Seal, and finally uncovering his origins before the Dragon Throne in the Forbidden City: his parents had been guardians of the previous civilization, while the villains of the Tracing Society planned to use alien crystals to rewrite human history and erase the memory of civilization.
Alongside Su Qingyue, a top student in history, Chen Yan wielded ancient-book restoration as a blade and artifact skills as a shield. In the cold gleam of the Terracotta Warriors' bronze, he exposed a forged imperial edict; among the flying apsaras' ribbons in Dunhuang's murals, he broke through an illusion of memory. At last, he faced the ultimate battle in the Historical Rift. When the three great artifact anchors merged, he became the embodiment of civilization and severed the ten-million-year torrent of history with a single sword.
But when the world's Dread Domains vanished, unknown ruins of a civilization appeared in Antarctica, and a strange text message arrived once more: "The next anchor is the origin of humanity." This time, did the Jade Balance pattern point to protection, or to an even deeper deception in history?
