Chapter 15: The Eighth Forbidden Zone: The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs

Shen Qingyue had lost count of how many times Lin Ye had shocked her speechless over the past two days.

Surely, after meeting a Sequence 0 Sovereign, receiving a complete advancement potion, and watching Lin Ye bargain with the Mysterious Merchant, she should have grown accustomed to surprises.

Yet leaning in his arms, with the names Emperor and Oathbreaker echoing through her mind, she still felt everything she’d been taught slowly collapsing.

Only one Sequence 0 could arise from a pathway. That was the most basic theorem of Sequence studies.

That evil gods came from beyond the stars was likewise history accepted throughout the world.

But according to Lin Ye’s account, the Archon pathway had produced two gods at once, one of whom had even become an evil-god Sovereign through an entirely opposite ritual.

One had gained undying authority through the support of his citizens. The other had destroyed his own nation and become eternally bound by an unfulfilled oath.

They shared the same pathway but reached utterly different ends.

She wanted to tell herself Lin Ye was making up a story to amuse her.

But she’d seen the Mysterious Merchant with her own eyes, and he’d deprived her of lifespan. Faced with someone who could casually name several secret pathways and even call a Sequence 0 Sovereign “Old Wang,” she couldn’t find a reason to use academy textbooks that went no higher than Sequence 7 to prove him a liar.

After a long silence, a question occurred to her.

She turned and gripped the arm around her waist, speaking faster. “Wait, Young Master Lin. There’s something in your story that doesn’t make sense.”

He looked down at her. “What doesn’t?”

“If the Oathbreaker became an evil-god Sovereign by completing that ritual seven or eight thousand years ago, where did the earlier evil gods come from?” She sorted through her thoughts, anxious not to miss anything.

“According to the historical records, evil gods had already existed for a long time when the Dark Age began. Humanity only gradually discovered supernatural powers, organized pathways, and developed advancement methods after those disasters.”

The more she spoke, the more certain she became that she’d found the key. “That means other evil gods existed long before the Oathbreaker. If the evil-god ritual only appeared then, those earlier gods couldn’t all have advanced from humans too, could they?”

A trace of surprise appeared in Lin Ye’s eyes.

He’d expected her to take much longer to digest the story, but she’d quickly organized the information and found the chronological contradiction.

Apparently advancing a Sequence had made her mind nimbler too.

“Good.” He nodded approvingly and pinched her cheek. “Your brain still works. You didn’t get so carried away being happy about becoming a supernatural that you forgot to think.”

His pinch distorted her cheek slightly, but she didn’t bother avoiding it. “So am I right? If you can’t explain that, what you said earlier can’t be entirely true.”

“Of course I can explain it. You just haven’t really understood the saying I told you to remember.”

He released her cheek, his expression growing complicated.

“People know ghosts are frightening; ghosts know how vicious a human heart can be.”

She frowned. “You’ve said that twice. What does it have to do with the earlier evil gods?”

“Have you considered that human supernatural powers might have originated far more than a few thousand years ago?” Looking over the rolling forest in the moonlight, he lowered his voice.

“The history of powers we can trace is only a few thousand years long. That doesn’t mean humans have possessed them for only a few thousand years. It only proves that’s as far back as the surviving records go.”

The confusion on her face slowly froze.

He continued, “The books tell you humans had no powers before the Dark Age, and every pathway was born after the evil gods descended. But what’s their evidence? A few ruins, batches of incomplete documents, and conclusions pieced together from surviving material by people who lived thousands of years later.”

“If the cities, writings, and supernaturals from an earlier age were completely destroyed, with no trace left to prove they existed, later generations would naturally believe everything began after the ruins.”

She understood, but that made it harder to accept. “You mean humanity had a complete supernatural civilization before the Dark Age, and that history was lost?”

“It wasn’t lost naturally.”

His voice turned cold.

“It was shattered by war, its legacy broken.”

The night wind remained gentle in the canopy, yet a chill ran down her back.

A break in civilization didn’t mean a few cities destroyed, or a single nation fallen.

It meant the knowledge, history, and inheritance of an entire age had been erased. The survivors didn’t even know what had happened and could only rediscover power among the ruins.

“Who did it?” she asked hesitantly. “Evil gods?”

Lin Ye gave a soft, derisive laugh. “The conflict between the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs and that one has gone on for who knows how many tens of thousands of years. For all that time, the Bureau has tried to cast itself as the savior of the world and protector of all life. But when they actually fight, who cares how many people die beneath their feet?”

His gaze grew exceptionally cold. “I doubt even they remember how many times their battles shattered human civilization and broke its history.”

Shen Qingyue stared, then instinctively turned toward the temporary camp nearby.

Through the leaves, she could still see lights moving as Bureau personnel kept watch.

To her, those people had always represented order. Academy textbooks repeatedly stressed that the Bureau had built cities, sealed forbidden zones, and cleared corruption, allowing what remained of human civilization to survive.

Yet Lin Ye was telling her the Bureau itself had repeatedly broken the continuity of human history?

“The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs?” she whispered in disbelief. “The same Bureau those people in the camp belong to? It’s the world’s largest organization of supernaturals, and it does have many high-Sequence powerhouses, but corruption incidents are increasing everywhere. They’re already struggling to maintain the cities they have.”

She pointed in the direction of White Stone Town. “Just one small town losing all signs of life means the Skyvault City branch has to bring people in from other cities. If they’re powerful enough to destroy an entire civilization, why can’t they deal with the forbidden zones and corruption now?”

“Those people?”

Lin Ye snorted and glanced toward camp. “That bunch of rotten nobodies? You think they’re capable of breaking human civilization, or fighting that one for tens of thousands of years?”

His description left her briefly speechless.

“The Bureau I’m talking about isn’t the one you mean,” he explained. “The city branches in the real world are just offices left outside. They probably don’t have even one percent of the true Bureau’s strength, let alone a tenth.”

“The Skyvault City branch, the other city branches, even the headquarters offices you know about are essentially an outer organization placed in public view. As for the real Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, it moved its headquarters to a place beyond reality long ago.”

Growing more uneasy, she nevertheless asked, “What does beyond reality mean? Outside the territories of the three empires, or hidden in a forbidden zone?”

“Neither.” He shook his head. “That place itself stands above the real world. It’s an independent world created by the God of Creation, Sequence 0 of the Madman pathway.”

“The Madman pathway?”

The name sounded nothing like a normal pathway to her, so Lin Ye explained.

“A remarkable pathway. Beginning at Sequence 9, its followers must construct a worldview in their minds that’s completely different from reality but internally consistent.”

“They also have to force themselves to believe that imagined world is real and the real world is false. They must cast themselves as a pivotal figure within it.”

“From then on, their path is to manifest things from that imagined world little by little. The ritual for Sequence 0 to become a god is to manifest the entire world in full. That’s why it’s called the God of Creation.”

“What was its evil-god aspect called again? Something like the Paradox Twins. Anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. Back to the Bureau.”

“The true Bureau’s headquarters is there. Even the vast majority of its senior officials don’t know. Across the whole Bureau in the real world, I doubt more than five people actually know that headquarters exists.”

Shen Qingyue instinctively held her breath.

Was she really allowed to hear this?

Lin Ye remained casual. “That headquarters is known as the Eighth Forbidden Zone. If the true Bureau acted with all its strength, regardless of the cost, it could even take down an entire forbidden zone through sheer force.”

“So naturally it wouldn’t be difficult for them to wipe human civilization flat. Rewriting history and burying the truth would be the easiest part.”

She felt that her understanding had not merely collapsed. Lin Ye had torn it open to reveal another world beneath, one completely unfamiliar to her.

She’d thought the three empires, seven forbidden zones, and Bureau of Supernatural Affairs were the whole world.

Now she discovered that the Bureau she knew was only the shadow of something vast cast into reality, while the owner of that shadow occupied an independent world created by a Sequence 0, a place called the Eighth Forbidden Zone.

“If they’re that strong, why stay outside reality?” she asked. “If the true Bureau were willing to act, corruption across the world wouldn’t have become this serious. We wouldn’t need to investigate the anomaly at White Stone Town either.”

“You think they don’t want to come back?”

He laughed, though there was little lightness in it. “They didn’t choose to move headquarters away. They were driven out. The real Bureau hasn’t brought headquarters back into reality not because it can’t, but because it doesn’t dare.”

She immediately thought of the title he’d used repeatedly.

“That one you mentioned?”

“Yes.”

“Who are they? Another evil-god Sovereign, or a being above the Sovereigns?”

Lin Ye didn’t answer. He only looked down at her.

Only then did she realize.

He could speak the Mysterious Merchant’s exalted name, comment freely on the Emperor and the Oathbreaker, and mention the God of Creation without a qualm.

Yet when he spoke of the being that had fought the Bureau for tens of thousands of years, he had called them only “that one” from beginning to end.

She hurriedly covered his mouth, her voice nearly lost in the wind. “Don’t say any more, Young Master Lin. You really shouldn’t continue.”

With her hand over his mouth, he could only ask indistinctly, “Weren’t you the one asking?”

“I was curious, but now I think these things aren’t for me to know.”

She looked nervously around. “Evil gods, breaks in civilization, the Eighth Forbidden Zone, and someone whose name can’t even be spoken. If I keep listening, I’m afraid I won’t even know how I died.”

After a pause, she hurriedly added, “And don’t talk about this casually outside. We’re too close to the Bureau’s people. What if they hear?”

Lin Ye took the hand covering his mouth and burst out laughing. “You dared question me a moment ago. Scared now?”

“That’s different,” she protested earnestly. “I questioned you because what you said contradicted the textbooks. That doesn’t mean I want to know every secret. I do understand that the more you know, the faster you die.”

“Such a coward.”

He pulled her back into his arms, holding her securely around the waist, his usual laziness returning. “Don’t worry. As long as you follow me and do as you’re told, whether it’s the Bureau, a forbidden zone’s Sovereign, or that one in person, I can keep you safe.”

Resting against his chest, she couldn’t help feeling a rush of happiness.

When she’d first approached Lin Ye at Skyvault Academy, she’d genuinely wanted a connection in the Upper City.

For an ordinary student, his position alone was enough to change a life. Even becoming a casual friend could save her many detours.

But since yesterday, she’d gradually discovered that he was far more than an ordinary rich young master from the Upper City.

He could identify the Mysterious Merchant at a glance and casually name numerous pathways she’d never heard of. He even knew a great deal about secrets at such an exalted level.

The powerful people of Skyvault City, perhaps even the emperors of the three great empires, might not know as much as Lin Ye did.

More importantly, he was willing to tell her these things, choose a pathway for her, secure the materials, and personally turn her from an ordinary person into a supernatural.

She lifted her face to look at him so close above her. The happiness in her eyes was open, and no longer quite the same as when she’d first approached him.

She nodded gently, slowly wrapped both arms around his neck, and pressed herself into his embrace.

“Of course I’m yours, Young Master Lin.”

Her voice was soft, but she didn’t look away. “From now on, I’ll do whatever you ask. As long as you’re willing to let me stay with you, you can do whatever you like.”