Relict

The towering stone guards, these silent warriors stepping out from eternal darkness, were kneeling on one knee before them in the most humble posture imaginable.

No, not before them.

Before Chen Guan.

Hong Yuan looked at the bowed stone statues, then turned her head to look at Chen Guan, who stood at the very front of the group without even shifting his stance. She felt her entire understanding of reality undergoing an unprecedented shock.

"Hey..."

Hong Yuan's voice broke the frozen silence, sounding particularly abrupt in the empty corridor.

She swallowed hard, trying to make her tone sound normal. "Chen Guan, what's going on? Do you know them? Or... did you secretly cast some kind of illusion on them?"

"Do I look like someone with that kind of ability?" Chen Guan finally spoke, sounding exceptionally helpless.

Who could cast an illusion on a bunch of rocks anyway?

He turned half-way around, his gaze sweeping over the faces filled with astonishment behind him.

"Then explain, what on earth is going on?"

Hong Yuan slammed her giant axe onto the ground, the thud making everyone's heart skip a beat.

"Just a moment ago they looked ready to tear us to pieces. Why is it that the second they saw you, they acted like mice spotting a cat?"

"It's not mice spotting a cat."

Yin Chen's calm voice rang out. He lowered the hand holding his short staff, though the frost shield surrounding him remained active.

"Their posture, just as Su Yuehe said, is a gesture of submission. It's not fear, but reverence."

"Like believers revering a god."

This was even more unexpected than Chen Guan taming the cheetah. Taming an incredibly fierce beast was at least within the realm of comprehension—it just meant he was a bit of a monster. But the submission of these guards right before their eyes carried a vastly different significance.

It gave off the absurd feeling of seeing Emperor Qin Shi Huang riding a polar bear.

"I don't know," Chen Guan gave an answer that caught everyone off guard.

"You don't know?"

An Changqing frowned. He knew very well that this kind of unknown goodwill was sometimes more terrifying than direct hostility.

Because the rules it represented were completely beyond their understanding.

"I really don't know," Chen Guan repeated. "I just feel that the aura here is very familiar."

Chen Guan chose to tell the truth. An Changqing and the others were reliable enough, so there was no harm in being honest.

Besides, he also wanted Su Yuehe, someone well-versed in ancient and modern history, to tell him what was going on.

Familiar.

That word made Su Yuehe's body tremble slightly.

But it was out of excitement.

She stared intently at Chen Guan's back, countless disconnected clues rapidly weaving together in her mind.

Su Yuehe knew exactly what familiar meant. Furthermore, An Changqing had seen Chen Guan's file before—the answer was that Chen Guan was just an ordinary student. This made everything about him inexplicably baffling.

She once thought that Chen Guan was connected to a scandal in her own family, which accounted for his strangeness.

But now, everything seemed to have a different answer.

"An Changqing, do you remember Chen Guan's file that you read?"

Su Yuehe didn't turn around, but her words were directed at An Changqing. "A family as ordinary as can be, with no family history related to Espers. Yet, his strength, his talent... none of this can be explained by the word 'ordinary'."

An Changqing naturally remembered.

And precisely because he remembered, the turmoil in his heart right now was more intense than anyone else's.

Everything about Chen Guan was a mystery, and now, the answer was right in front of them, revealing itself in a way that surpassed everyone's imagination.

"You mean..."

An Changqing followed Su Yuehe's train of thought, a bold guess taking shape in his mind.

"Exactly!" Su Yuehe whipped around, her eyes astonishingly bright.

"We've all fallen into a cognitive trap, always trying to use the existing system to explain Chen Guan's uniqueness. But what if the source of his power doesn't belong to this era at all? What if he himself is a piece of living history?"

She reached out, pointing at the stone guards still kneeling on the ground, then pointed at Chen Guan ahead.

"These guards are following orders from an ancient civilization. In their eyes, we don't exist; there is only their king. The familiarity Chen Guan feels isn't a familiarity of memory, but a resonance of bloodline. He is a remnant of an ancient civilization, the descendant of a lost kingdom!"

Su Yuehe's conclusion was like dropping a bombshell into the dead-silent corridor, leaving everyone somewhat stunned.

"A descendant... of an ancient civilization? A king?"

Hong Yuan, carrying her axe on her shoulder, looked at Chen Guan, then at Su Yuehe. Her mouth fell open and stayed that way for a long time.

How did a perfectly normal commoner student suddenly turn into a prince?

Damn it, what would it cost the world to make me a second-generation heir too?

Her only commoner friend had defected. Hong Yuan looked heartbroken.

"I actually find this explanation very reasonable."

Yin Chen's voice chimed in at the right moment. He dimmed the overly bright light on his staff, softening the ice-blue shield.

"It explains why the magnetic suppression of this place has minimal effect on him, and it also explains why these creations of uncanny workmanship are full of hostility towards us, yet bow in submission to him."

He looked at Chen Guan with a hint of envy in his eyes.

The power of a bloodline inheritance was far purer than Esper abilities cultivated later in life.

"A descendant..." Long Ao muttered the word under his breath. His constantly tense body relaxed a little at this moment.

He looked at Chen Guan's back with a complex gaze.

He had always viewed Chen Guan as a partner and an opponent with unfathomable strength, but he never imagined that the other party's background was this massive.

Su Yuehe's deduction echoed through the gloomy corridor, causing everyone's thoughts to stall momentarily.

Words like king and descendant, which usually only existed in epic legends, were now vividly applied to a classmate they spent day and night with, bringing about a strong sense of absurdity.

Hong Yuan reached out and gestured at the surrounding stone carvings.

"This is honestly even more outrageous than the stories they tell in our academy's history classes."

Yin Chen glanced at her, for once refraining from making a snide remark.

He looked past the crowd at Chen Guan's back. A royal descendant—if word got out, it would be a huge deal.

"I'm more inclined to believe that, whatever the reason, Chen Guan is the only key to this ruin."

Yin Chen pointed at the stone statues with their heads bowed.

"These guards don't recognize strength or weakness; they only recognize authority."

An Changqing slowly let out a breath of stale air, trying hard to suppress the surging waves in his chest.

He took a step forward. "Chen Guan, what do you think of Su Yuehe's guess?"

At this moment, everyone's eyes converged on Chen Guan.

Facing their burning gazes, Chen Guan finally ended his long silence.

He turned around, a hint of helplessness appearing on his usually expressionless face.

"I don't know."

It was the absolute, unadulterated truth.

He wanted to know too. He had just come out for a trip, so how did he inexplicably become some royal descendant?

Suddenly gaining an ancient ancestor out of nowhere—it was all just very sudden.