Protective Stone Talisman

The Protective Stone Talisman is Archean Mountain's last and only remaining talisman of its kind. Qin Wu entrusts it to Meng Chuan as a final safeguard while his reconnaissance work makes him indispensable to the human war effort.

History

A last resort remains deliberately unspent

Qin Wu produces an ordinary-looking gray stone covered in runes that make the surrounding spacetime seem chaotic. He orders Meng Chuan to crush it only when death is otherwise unavoidable, explaining that it can preserve his life anywhere in the human world but will be consumed by use. Its rarity makes restraint part of the instruction: Archean Mountain has no replacement. (Chapter 262)

Meng Chuan carries the talisman through later high-risk battles without activating it. When the Three Terminal Formation blocks Clear Sky and outside communication, he doubts whether even the talisman can overcome the isolation, yet he survives by his own techniques until the formation collapses. During Nine Abyss's ambush, he considers hiding Liu Qiyue and relying on the talisman to escape, but rejects that option because it would leave Jiang State Capital exposed. (Chapters 359–361 and 403)

Abilities and properties

The talisman's stated effect is absolute life preservation within the human world: the user crushes it in mortal danger, and Qin Wu assures Meng Chuan that it will keep him alive. The corpus does not specify whether that rescue works by teleportation, shielding, intervention, or another mechanism, so those possibilities remain unconfirmed. (Chapter 262)

It is single-use and externally powered. Once crushed it is gone, and without the human world's power source it is useless in other worlds or in the World Gap. That geographic limit also explains Meng Chuan's uncertainty inside a formation designed to block the world and spacetime. (Chapters 262, 276, and 359)

The talisman is a means of escape rather than a way to protect an entire city or defeat an attacker. Meng Chuan's choice not to use it against Nine Abyss reflects that interaction: it might save him and his wife after she enters his grotto-heaven, but would not stop the demon sage from attacking the population. Its latest explicit state is therefore intact and unused in his custody. (Chapter 403)

Owners and wielders