Guarding the Nine Cauldrons on Kunlun: A Starbound Expedition

After an earthquake in the Qinling Mountains, the Nine Cauldrons appeared. Geologist Chen Qiming took over from his missing father as the thirteenth guardian of the cauldrons, only to discover that they were no mere symbols of imperial authority. They were civilization anchors left behind by the Observer Civilization, designed to trap Earth in an endlessly repeating simulated universe. From the Kunlun Ruins to the Mariana Trench, from the icy seas of Europa to the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, Chen Qiming led a coalition of guardians from across civilizations as they uncovered a brutal truth: the ancient civilizations of China under Yu the Great, the Egyptian pharaohs, the kings of Sumer, and more were all repeat subjects in the same experiment. Guixu was not the enemy, but the System's “cleanup protocol.” Faced with the ultimate choice between “staying in a false eternity” and “breaking into the real ruins,” Chen Qiming fused four divine artifacts: the Nine Cauldrons, the Heart of Harmony, the Loom's Origin Point, and the Anchor of Time. He led the civilizations in breaking free of the cycle's prison. At the edge of the true universe, where concepts themselves were fading away, they took a shattered cauldron as their hammer and the memories of civilization as their anvil, and began a creation expedition to defy fate.