The roaring current of the River of Oblivion broadened into a vast, shallow delta where the glowing green water spread across beds of crushed white silt.
Lin Tao stopped at the edge of the expanse, crouching low to inspect the pale settled mud. Under his fingers, the white silt didn’t feel like river sand or decomposed limestone. It was cool, chalky, and fully empty of organic grain. It was bone-ash—the hardened stone byproduct of billions of mortal forms whose spiritual signed names had been scrubbed and processed through the river over untold deep-rock epochs. The mist rising from the shallows glowed with a faint glowing shimmer. It drifted across the shoals like ghostly banners.
Beside him, Tie Shan scooped a handful of the white powder. That let the dry silt run between his calloused fingers. The giant’s jaw was clamped tight. In the mining quarries of Mount Taiyi, they had seen heaps of lime and crushed quartz. But this dust carried an unsettling, hollow weight that had nothing to do with stone mass.
“Dust of ancestors,” Tie Shan murmured, his voice heavy. “Too many graves here.”
“A hundred ages of mortals washed clean of their memories,” Lin Tao replied quietly, brushing the white dust from his knees. “The sky machine doesn’t bury its waste. It grinds the leftovers into foundation silt to pave the riverbed.”
