Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

The seventy-two ice coffin stars begin to bleed.

Scarlet ice flocculates spray from the cracks in the star bodies, weaving into a rotting giant net between the universes. Lin Jin sits on a throne woven from frost-white hair, the chain scar on his wrist burning slightly—that is the "Fire Seed Compass" left by the woman in the ice coffin, now pointing to a coordinate that transcends the dimensions of the heavens.

"Primordial Desolation..."

He strokes the raised ancient patterns on the throne's armrest; those patterns gnawed by the borers are of the same origin as the Northern Wasteland clan stele. The Burial Star Pupil pierces through the space-time mist, glimpsing a scar spanning a hundred thousand light-years curled up on the back of the seventy-second star. Deep within the scar, the roar of dinosaurs vaguely comes.

**Remains of the Battlefield from Three Days Ago**

Lin Jin steps over the frozen brains of the Temple Great Elder, bending down to pick up half a bronze compass. This is the "Realm Key" stripped from the ice spikes of his spine, now secreting viscous star marrow in his palm. When the star marrow drips, a distorted star chart appears in the void—nine star rails are entangled at a certain singularity, forming a chaos vortex shaped like a womb.

"So this is the entrance to the Primordial Desolation."

Lin Jin's chain scar suddenly tears, and seventy-two strands of civilization fire overflow from the wound, burning a new route on the surface of the compass. He sees a coordinate deliberately erased by the woman in the ice coffin: at the core of the vortex floats half a dinosaur tooth fossil.

**On the Throne**

"They are coming."

Lin Jin suddenly grips the frost-white hair tightly, and the ancient patterns on the throne's armrest begin to seep blood. The Burial Star Pupil reflects a terrifying scene: those compound eyes of the borers that were originally lurking in the star light spots are now crawling toward the present world along the ice coffin chains. Their bloated joints are stuck with broken universe membranes, and as their mouthparts open and close, they spray dimensional mold.

The borer vanguard at the very front suddenly stands upright, countless human hands extending from the gaps in its carapace. Those hands are pinching the starting moves of the *All Heavens Burial Divine Scripture* that Lin Jin is familiar with!

"Master is truly a lingering ghost."

Lin Jin sneers, and the fire seed compass on his wrist suddenly surges. Seventy-two strands of civilization fire turn into chains, pinning the borer vanguard to the void. But the pierced insect corpse actually begins to expand, the compound eyes on its carapace splitting and reorganizing, congealing into the ferocious face of the Temple Great Elder: "You think she is truly the savior? Look at this!"

The insect corpse explodes with a roar, and the flying viscous liquid congeals in the air into memory fragments—

**The Tampered Truth**

The woman in the ice coffin stands barefoot on the grassland of the dinosaur era, seventy-two ice coffin seeds floating in her palm. But those kneeling behind her are not Burial Coffin clansmen, but a group of dinosaur-man priests clad in star charts!

"When a civilization develops to a critical point, the dimensional borers will awaken." She implants the seeds into the brow of the dinosaur-man leader. "Send these ice coffins into the asteroid belt at the end of the Cretaceous period, and your civilization will be able to..."

The memory is covered by scarlet mycelium here. When the image recovers, the woman in the ice coffin is gnawing on the brain of a dinosaur-man, and borer larvae are swimming in the brain fluid dripping from the corners of her mouth!

"This is the origin of the Coffin-Feeders." The insect corpse emits the Great Elder's manic laughter. "We are merely the..."

Lin Jin crushes the memory fragments with his bare hands, and the Burial Star Pupil in his right eye erupts with intense white light. He captures a key detail in the shattered image: on the bone staff of the dinosaur-man priest, a womb-shaped vortex mark identical to the fire seed compass is engraved.

**Entrance to the Primordial Desolation: The Sorrow of the Cretaceous**

After passing through the nine-fold star rail turbulence, Lin Jin finally stands before the chaos vortex. Time flows like gel here, and the remains of Tyrannosaurus Rex and interstellar warships are rusted together; three ice coffins float around the dinosaur tooth fossil.

The instant his fingertips touch the fossil, the chain scar suddenly goes berserk. Seventy-two strands of civilization fire are uncontrollably injected into the fossil, and the roar of the dinosaurs turns into tangible sound waves:

"She tampered with our gene sequences!"

"The ice coffins are a trap!"

"Do not believe the tears!"

Ancient stele inscriptions like claw marks appear on the surface of the fossil, and the Burial Star Pupil automatically deciphers them:

**"The true entrance to the Primordial Desolation is before the birth of civilization; it requires the pure-blood ice marrow of a Burial Coffin clansman as a key."**

He suddenly remembers the day the Northern Wasteland was destroyed, the scene where the woman in the ice coffin touched his mother's belly and his umbilical cord fused with the ice coffin fragments. The chain scar on his palm begins to ache violently, and the cry of an infant comes from deep within the scar—that is the "Life Fetus" stripped away when he was born!

**The Deal in the Dimensional Crevice**

"Trade this for the truth."

Lin Jin tears open his chest, gouging out half a crystallized heart. The surface of the heart is beating with the frost-hair patterns left by the woman in the ice coffin, and he throws the heart toward the chaos vortex.

A reptilian vertical pupil opens deep within the vortex, and the dinosaur tooth fossil suddenly comes to life, biting the heart and injecting some kind of information torrent. In his excruciating pain, Lin Jin sees the ultimate truth:

The woman in the ice coffin is indeed the incarnation of the creation law, but the dimensional borers originate from "Observers" of a higher dimension. Those Observers take pleasure in the rise and fall of civilizations, and when a civilization might break through dimensional limits, they deploy borers for "pruning."

The dinosaur-man civilization once touched dimensional technology, and the woman in the ice coffin was forced to harvest them prematurely. She deployed the ice coffin matrix in the asteroid belt at the end of the Cretaceous period, not to destroy, but to compress the dinosaur-man civilization into "Civilization Amber" to avoid the Observers' scanning. And the Coffin-Feeder system was for her to cultivate "Pseudo-Borers" capable of deceiving the Observers!

"Your current aura perfectly matches the definition of a pest by the Observers."

The dinosaur tooth fossil suddenly speaks. "This is also the reason she chose the Burial Coffin clansmen—your bloodlines naturally attract borers."

Lin Jin suddenly presses down on the trembling throne. The seventy-two ice coffin stars emit wails in unison; those borers are not invading, but... fleeing!

The chaos vortex shakes violently, and some existence that transcends cognition is approaching. The dinosaur tooth fossil instantly turns into powder, and the final warning echoes in the void:

"Run! The Observers have marked you as an experimental subject too!"

**The Choice on the Throne**

Lin Jin wraps the frost-white hair around the fossil powder, refining it into a reverse-blade ice knife. The Burial Star Pupil pierces through the dimensional barrier, and he sees the true face of the Observers—it is a collective of countless mirror images of the woman in the ice coffin, each mirror image gnawing on its own heart.

"So the so-called Observers..."

He suddenly chuckles, the reverse-blade ice knife stabbing into his own Burial Star Pupil. "Are the future fallen versions of us."

The tip of the knife picks out an ice crystal, inside which the final fire seed of the dinosaur-man civilization is sealed. When the fire seed merges into the throne, the chaos vortex reverses, revealing the true entrance to the Primordial Desolation—there is no concept of space-time there, only seventy-two ice coffins connected head-to-tail, forming the infinity symbol "∞".

The phantom of the woman in the ice coffin appears in the center of the symbol, the frost hair wrapped around her fingertips showing fragility for the first time:

"Now that you know, do you still want to continue?"

Lin Jin shatters the throne, letting the reverse-blade ice knife cut his divine soul:

"My teacher taught me, a coffin..."

He drags the frost hair and leaps into the entrance of the Primordial Desolation, "Can also become a dagger that pierces destiny."

**Observer Log Update**

**Experiment Number 72**

**Sample Name: Lin Jin**

**Status: Out of Control**

**Recommended Disposal Plan: Awaken the Mother Body 'Ice Coffin Woman - First Observer' for recovery**

In a laboratory of a higher dimension, among countless ice coffin display cabinets, the label of the 97,000th cabinet suddenly seeps blood:

**"Lin Jin, Coffin-Feeding Ninth Disciple, recommended for upgrade to Observer Candidate."**

The cabinet door opens slightly, and a wisp of frost-white hair is quietly drilling out of the gap.