The name led nowhere.
Chen Yuan spent two full days asking questions.
He visited registries.
He spoke with mercenaries.
He listened to drunk veterans in taverns who claimed to have survived the Great Zone.
He even returned briefly to the School of Archeology.
Nothing.
No record.
No legend.
No half-buried myth.
"The Dungeon of Demise?" Lu Fu repeated, pushing his glasses up as he skimmed through stacks of parchment. "I've never heard that name. And trust me—if something that dramatic existed, someone would've exaggerated it into nonsense by now."
"So there's nothing?" Chen Yuan asked.
Lu Fu frowned.
"There are many unnamed ruins in the Great Zone. Places people enter and don't return from. But nothing officially recorded as a 'Dungeon of Demise.'"
Chen Yuan nodded slowly.
That answer bothered him more than ignorance would have.
A dungeon with no name…
or a name no one remembered?
He thanked Lu Fu and left, the weight of the System's mission pressing against his thoughts.
That night, alone in his room, Chen Yuan sat cross-legged on the floor. The Conquest lay across his knees, its blade dull and unremarkable in appearance—too normal for a sword that had once devoured an empire.
"Dungeon of Demise," he murmured absentmindedly.
The Conquest twitched.
Just slightly.
Chen Yuan froze.
He repeated it, slower this time.
"Demise."
The sword vibrated.
A faint pulse ran through the blade, crimson light flickering along its edge for the briefest moment before vanishing again.
Chen Yuan's breath caught.
"…You reacted."
He lifted the sword carefully, holding it in both hands.
"So you know."
The Conquest did not glow dramatically.
It did not speak.
It did not guide him outright.
But when Chen Yuan stood and turned slightly to the west—
The blade grew warmer.
When he turned south—
Nothing.
When he turned north—
A faint resistance, as if the air itself pressed against the blade.
Chen Yuan's heart began to race.
"This isn't coincidence…"
He slowly rotated in place.
And when he faced the distant horizon where the Great Zone loomed—dark, vast, and ominous—
The Conquest pulsed.
Once.
Strong.
Decisive.
Chen Yuan swallowed.
"So that's it," he whispered. "You're the map."
The realization settled heavily in his chest.
The sword did not merely carry history.
It carried memory.
It had been there.
Whatever the Dungeon of Demise was, The Conquest had crossed paths with it—or something like it—long ago.
Chen Yuan tightened his grip.
"Alright," he said quietly. "Then lead."
At dawn, he left Central City without ceremony.
No companions.
No fanfare.
No witnesses.
Just a lone cultivator walking toward the most dangerous place in the Ascendant Grounds, holding a sword pointed forward—not as a weapon, but as a compass.
As he crossed the boundary into the Great Zone, the air changed immediately.
Heavier.
Colder.
Sharper.
The Conquest grew warm in his hand, its faint crimson pulse steady now, pointing unwaveringly deeper inside.
Chen Yuan took a breath.
"Dungeon of Demise," he said one last time.
The sword answered.
And Chen Yuan walked forward, following not knowledge—
but memory.