The waters of the River of Worlds had turned murky.
If the waters three days ago had resembled a stagnant pool, then the river now was a flowing graveyard.
Huge chunks of continental debris floated atop it.
Some still retained half a palace, their glazed tiles gleaming with an eerie, deathly white beneath the faint light of the void; others were entire burning forests, their flames dancing soundlessly in the vacuum, holding no heat—only bone-piercing cold.
The Bone Black Ship rammed through a hundred-meter-tall broken cliff.
Boom.
Rubble exploded outward, yet not a single chip of paint came off the black ship's hull.
Chu Qing stood at the bow, clutching a piece of "ember" fished out of the river.
It was a broken finger bone wrapped in grayish-white mist.
His fingers tightened.
The finger bone shattered. The mist, like a living thing, tried to burrow into Chu Qing's pores, only to be blasted apart by the blood energy surrounding his body.
"So this is the aura of an Old World Being?"
Chu Qing brushed the bone dust from his hands.
Over the past three days, such things had appeared in increasing numbers.
And among these drifting ruins, hunched figures had begun to emerge.
Wrapped in tattered gray robes, they crouched over the remnants of worlds like vultures, digging and searching with withered fingers.
Whenever they found a trace of lingering world origin, they stuffed it into their mouths, making a teeth-grinding crunching sound.
The system called them—Reapers of Years.
But to Chu Qing, they were just a pack of scavenging wild dogs.
Suddenly.
On a floating island to the left, a gray-robed figure chewing on half a stone stele stopped moving.
It slowly turned its head.
There was no face beneath its hood, only a swirling gray vortex.
It saw