A sense of foreboding arose in both of them, but they couldn't quite put their finger on what it was.
The Taichu robes fluttered in the turbulent energy currents.
At the boundary between the primordial pillar of light and the dark tide, countless spacetime rifts burst forth.
He suddenly noticed that Tianqi's fingertips were forming some kind of ancient incantation, and the flowing runes were exactly the same as the marks that Nal Supreme had carved in the void before his death.
"Senior, be careful!" Xuan Yuan suddenly shouted, Reincarnation Mirror in his hand shot out a beam of Clear Light.
Tianqi's figure shifted three feet to the side in a strange way, and the mirror light that should have protected the barrier went straight through the protective Array Core of the source core.
The entire Primordial Origin World trembled violently, and a sickening cracking sound came from the depths of the earth's veins.
Saint Lord Chenyi suddenly turned his head and saw that Tianqi's palm was pressing on the core of the origin, and spider web-like cracks appeared on the surface of the golden sphere.
"You..." Taichu's pupils suddenly contracted, and the Realm Master Seal in his hand suddenly became scalding hot.
The Source River stirred up turbulent waves in his sea of consciousness, and countless long-sealed fragments of memory surged forth.
This white-clad figure also appeared during the great calamity of the Primordial Origin World hundreds of years ago.
Tianqi's long hair moved without wind, and dark golden patterns appeared on his forehead.
"I've said it before, the real threat isn't darkness."
His voice suddenly became overlapping and ethereal, as if a million wills were speaking simultaneously, "It is the truth that you have always refused to face."
At this moment, the seal at the bottom of the Nine Heavens Hell exploded, and countless skeletal arms emerged from the Hundun mist.
Those supreme powerhouses, imprisoned for billions of years, let out maniacal laughter as their decaying bodies devoured the primordial power leaking from the Primordial Origin World.
"Stop!" The sword of the Saint Lord Chenyi pierced three inches into Tianqi's back before it could go no further.
The Taichu inscriptions on the sword began to flow in reverse.
He suddenly understood something, his voice trembling. "You are the creator of the Nine Heavens Hell... those Dark Sovereigns were all your former..."
"A container." Tianqi turned around, and in the hole in his chest scorched by the power of origin, the pulsating core of Hundun could be vaguely seen.
"At the end of each cosmic era, when the Primordial Origin World has given birth to sufficiently powerful guardians, I will use their hands to cleanse the decay."
The dark tide suddenly reversed direction, drawing the prisoners of the Nine Heavens Hell into the vortex.
The Caifeng let out a mournful cry, and her Nirvana Fire turned a ghastly green the moment it touched the Hundun mist.
Six-Eared Macaque's three thousand avatars simultaneously formed hand seals, but froze in place when they saw a certain figure in the mist—it was the inner demon that he had personally killed five hundred years ago.
"This is the cycle of cause and effect." Tianqi's palm finally sank completely into the core of the origin, and the entire Primordial Origin World began to collapse.
"You believe you are protecting the light, but in reality, you are accumulating energy for the rebirth of Hundun. Now, let this erroneous cycle continue..."
His words came to an abrupt end.
The ancient array drawn on the ground by the blood of the Twelve Ancestral Witches suddenly lit up.
Empress Houtu's fingertip pierced her own brow, pulling out a crystalline band of memory light.
That was a fragment of time and space that Nuwa secretly preserved when she Mending the Heavens. It traveled through reincarnation and ultimately recorded the first Tianqi's final struggle before creating the Nine Heavens Hell.
"No!" Suddenly, the sword of the Saint Lord Chenyi burst forth with seven-colored light.
"If you are truly the embodiment of Hundun, why leave behind these memory clues?"
He pointed to the white-clad figure within the band of light, who was sealing itself away, "That is the true Tianqi, and you..."
A deafening heartbeat echoed from the Hundun mist, and the collapsing Primordial Origin World suddenly began to expand in reverse.
The Realm Master Seal of Taichu realm shattered into dust, replaced by a Bronze Key riddled with cracks.
It is the tenth level of the Nine Heavens Hell, the sealing key that no one has ever seen before.
"I see." Taichu let the primordial power tear at his soul, gripping the Bronze Key with both hands and plunging it into his Spirit Platform: "The tenth level has never imprisoned a particular being, but rather the cycle of the universe itself."
Time and spacetime stood still at this moment.
From the crack in the key, pure primordial light surged forth, and the supreme beings that had been devoured suddenly stopped roaring.
Within their decaying bodies, sparks of starlight rise, converging into a long River of Fate that stretches across time.
Tianqi's figure began to blur, and an unwilling roar echoed from the Hundun mist.
"How dare you..." His words were interrupted by the sudden sound of chime bells, the Taichu sound from the very beginning of the universe.
The blood array diagram of the Twelve Ancestral Witches rose into the air and intertwined with Nuwa's memory light band to form a net.
Suddenly, Saint Lord Chenyi burst into laughter. "The Taichu, now!"
The Bronze Key in Taichu's hand exploded with a bang, and the Primordial Origin World collapsed into a singularity in the intense light.
When the light faded, everyone found themselves standing amidst a vast sea of stars, with a slowly rotating Hundun Taiji Diagram beneath their feet.
Tianqi, bound in chains, emerged from the void. His left eye flowed with a golden river of light, while his right eye was a dark vortex that devoured everything.
"How many cycles has this been?," his voice weary with a sense of fatalism, the clanging of chains echoing through the starry sky. "Each time, you make the same choice."
As the voice faded, his figure gradually became ethereal and turned into starlight, landing in various parts of the Primordial Origin World.
Taichu looked down at his transparent hands and suddenly smiled with relief.
"This time, we saw starlight beyond the cycle of reincarnation." At his fingertips, a wisp of light from another cosmic era was shimmering gently.
The Hundun Taiji Diagram suddenly rotated in reverse, and countless starlight burst forth from the body of Taichu.
The sword intent of the Saint Lord Chenyi, the memories of Nuwa, and the blood of the Twelve Ancestral Witches simultaneously flowed into the crack between Tianqi's eyebrows, tearing him into two beams of light.
One fell into darkness and continued the cycle of reincarnation, while the other transformed into a shooting star that streaked across all cosmic eras.
When the Primordial Origin World was re-formed, everyone discovered that the Nine Heavens Hell had drifted away into the distance.
The Primordial Origin World truly achieved the Nine Realms United.
The place where the Primordial Origin World was originally sealed was the location of the Nine Heavens Hell.
The true Nine Realms United was not about unifying the Nine Realms, but about separating the Nine Heavens Hell from the Nine Realms.
At this moment, a faint halo emanated from Taichu's body.
An ancient, massive seal slowly sank into Taichu's forehead, and at this moment, Taichu became the true Lord of the Nine Realms.
His cultivation level also broke through to the Quasi-Emperor Realm.
Taichu slowly opened his eyes, his eyes filled with the hope of new life.
Everyone cheered for the restoration of peace in the Primordial Origin World, but Taichu felt a faint unease in his heart.
He gazed into the distance, where an unknown force seemed to be watching from the shadows.
Just then, a ripple appeared in the once calm starry sky, and a huge, mysterious spaceship slowly approached.
A group of people dressed in strange armor disembarked from the ship. The leader had a cold look in his eyes. "You have disrupted the balance of the universe and you must pay the price."
Everyone looked astonished. Taichu stepped forward and said, "We saved the Primordial Origin World. How can you say that we disrupted the balance?"
The man sneered, "The Nine Heavens Hell was originally a tool to balance the various universes and eras. Now that you have stripped it away, it will inevitably trigger a chain reaction."
After he finished speaking, he raised his hand and waved it, and the people behind him immediately formed an attack formation.
Taichu clenched his fists; it seemed a new battle was about to begin.
But at this moment he felt no fear, after all, his cultivation had improved to a higher level.
The Supreme Realm Peak and the Quasi-Emperor Realm are only one step apart, yet they are worlds apart.
Taichu looked sharply at the newcomers, "We fought to save ourselves. Since you are so disrespectful, let's settle this with our skills!"