In the gloom of the Boundary Land, Feng Qingyao stood there like an eternal, unchanging statue.
The darkness around her was no longer nothingness, but thick, liquid-like sludge of rules, slowly and stubbornly squeezing against her existence.
Every breath came with deeper exhaustion.
The light seemed to have faded from her eyes. Countless minute, intricate rule patterns flickered and flowed within those star-filled eyes before gradually dimming and vanishing, like erased strokes of ink.
They were proof that she could exist here, a barrier against erosion, and at this moment, the absolute stillness was slowly stripping them away.
Her gaze pierced farther ahead, into the distant depths of the Boundary Land, where even the rules appeared shattered and fragmented.
There, at the end of her sight, a faint figure seemed to stand.
That figure was exceedingly blurred, like a fading afterimage branded against the backdrop of endless darkness.
He was deeper in than Feng Qingyao, enduring pressure beyond imagination, yet he remained.
Like a dim lighthouse.
Though he was clearly on the verge of collapse, as if the surrounding darkness would completely devour and assimilate him at any moment, he still exuded an indescribable resolve.
He was holding back something more powerful. In a way Feng Qingyao could not yet fully comprehend, he was steadfastly blocking everything deeper and more terrifying behind him, around him, and beneath his suppression.
Feng Qingyao looked at that figure, and the faintest ripple passed through her dulled eyes.
Was that... a pioneer who had entered this place before her?
Or...
She had no answer, nor could she spare the focus to investigate.
At her waist, the Dragon-Phoenix Carved Jade Pendant had already turned ice-cold, its gentle glow as weak as a guttering candle in the wind. The time she had left herself was truly