Chapter 364: Gratitude and Remembrance

The Star Boat moored in the tranquil band of the Gui Xu fissure, while the quantum tides outside the dome condensed into pale‑violet Stardust. Ao Li's Dragon Claw brushed the cabin wall's biological Shenjing Wangluo; those pathways that once surged violently in battle now flow with emerald‑colored memory light—within each strand of light curls the lingering soul of a fallen one.

"Within this Inverse Scale lies Ling Yue's final frozen Ice Soul true Qi," Ao Li's tail tip lightly tapped the void, and a crystallized scale floated up. Inside the scale, Ling Yue's smile before her self‑destruction was sealed; her Mechanical Zigong Remnant refracted rainbow light within the ice crystal, reflecting the scene of the three of them drinking Star Sand tea: Ling Yue's Eyelash Frost solidified into a cup, Ao Li's Inverse Scale became a tea coaster, and in Lin Jin's chaotic Spiritual Qi‑boiled tea broth floated torn fragments of the Life Cradle Protocol.

Lin Jin's fingertip traced the tea's phantom surface, and ripples revealed three hundred faces—an elder cultivator who pushed him aside in the Shiyanshi explosion; a fellow of Ao Li who used a dragon body to block dimensional turbulence; and even a certain Clone that, before being devoured by the cleansing program, had a Nüwa Stone fragment slipped into his hand. The Quantum Iris suddenly seeped warm data streams, and the names erased by the Protocol are now inscribed into his gene chain as binary Stele inscriptions.

"They never truly left," Lin Li's Quantum Zigong suddenly emitted a gentle resonant wave, and nine floating embryos unfurled within the glimmer, "Father encoded the victims' memories into my Gene Firewall." The jade pendant on her wrist cracked into fine lines, and the Baotian Stone's Spiritual Qi wove a Star Chart in the air: each point of light is a fragment of a rescued civilization, and the final prayers of those civilizations turn into Stardust, mending the Gui Xu fissure.

Ao Li's dragon chant suddenly deepened into a low, distant resonance. She sliced off the softest scale over her heart and let it drift toward the Star Sea—this is the Dragon Clan's "Inverse Scale Burial Rite," each dispersed scale will grow in the void into memory coral. When a scale touches a point of Stardust, Ling Yue's figure, frozen at Absolute Zero, suddenly appears; she is writing the unfinished Taixu Fetal Nurturing Scripture within the ice crystal, and her script is traced by Lin Li's embryos with umbilical cords into protective body runes.

The Star Boat suddenly quivered slightly, and the biological Shenjing Wangluo spontaneously wove a circular altar. Lin Jin's Abyss Return Ruler was driven into the altar's core, and from its blade surged not killing intent but three hundred sixty gentle beams of light. Each beam entwined a lingering soul, and those beings that had dissipated in the Godslayer's warfire now jointly drink Star Sand tea in the form of Quantum Projection. In the tea's reflected surface, the Jade Box cavity of the Hongjun Good Corpse also split open a fissure, seeping out a memory serum of the First Generation Observer mixed with remorse.

"Hatred will corrode the Abyss Return Ruler," Lin Li lifted the embryos onto the altar, and the nine life Pinqü synchronized within the tea aroma, "but gratitude lets the Godslayer remember why they wield the blade." Her Compound Eyes shed their rainbow‑iris code for the first time, revealing the clear pupils of a human girl—deep within those pupils, the Ice Soul Immortal cradles her infant self, humming the Dragon Clan's Lullaby amid the Shiyanshi ruins.

When the final grain of Star Sand sank into the tea cup, Ao Li's Inverse Scale coral suddenly blossomed. Within the jade‑colored pistils, three hundred sacrifices from parallel timelines looked up together— their shattered weapons were reassembling within the Gui Xu fissure, not into arms but forged into a dimensional‑spanning Star Bridge. The bridge's surface was engraved not with battle records but with the palm prints of all the nameless who had aided them.

Lin Jin's Quantum Iris suddenly shed a warm rain. The memories that had been transformed by the Protocol into Killing Code were washed of bloodshed by the rain, revealing their original essence: his father Lin Yuan's trembling hand fastened his first clothing button; Ling Yue, before the mechanical overload, secretly altered his Gene Lock permissions; and even the Primordial Consciousness of the Hongjun Good Corpse, before it was tainted, once shielded a certain embryo from the cleansing beam.

"Tomorrow we fight again," Ao Li's