Inside the villa, time seemed to have been infected by Ling Ye's salted-fish sprawl, flowing slowly and thickly. Su Wanqing returned the now-empty Chaos Green Lotus Basin to the corner and stared at the few drops of golden liquid clinging to its walls, her mind still dazed. Water used to wash someone's feet had been poured on a flower, and the flower had become even more miraculous... What in the world was happening?
She subconsciously rubbed her forehead, where the subtle sensation of being lightly patted by a foot smeared with "essence" still seemed to linger (along with the psychological trauma). The vast power within her, forcibly sorted out and settled, flowed docilely through her body, bringing her an unprecedented sense of security. Yet whenever she thought of where that power had come from, her feelings became so complicated that she wanted to claw at the walls.
Ling Ye had no interest in the storm raging inside the female CEO's heart. He was even too lazy to spare another glance at the foot-washing basin that had just finished putting its "residual heat" to use. He adjusted his position on the sofa, trying to find an even more perfect angle for lying flat. His brows furrowed slightly, as though he still wasn't satisfied with the comfort of his current position.
"Tsk, this sofa... It's too soft. It makes my waist sink." He muttered disdainfully, as if the top-grade leather sofa worth hundreds of thousands beneath him were some torn sack he had picked up off the roadside.
Su Wanqing: "..." She no longer had the strength to complain.
Just as Ling Ye was considering whether he should use the half "steamed bun" in the corner to support his waist—
Deep underground.
That cold, eerie energy formed from pure shadow, like the most cunning venomous snake, finally and cautiously pierced through the last few meters of dense rock and reinforced concrete. Without making a sound, it touched... the Primordial Anchor Fragment buried deep beneath that load-bearing pillar!
"Sizzle..."
It was an extremely faint sound of contact, perceptible only to the shadow energy itself.
Success!
The being hidden in an unknown dimension deep beneath the earth, the owner of those shadowy eyes, was flooded with wild joy! It had felt it! The ancient, incomplete spatial power contained within that fragment! Although it was being suppressed by an even more terrifying and weighty force (it instinctively avoided thinking about the source of that force), its essence remained active, like a vicious beast imprisoned in a cage and yearning to break free!
So long as it... so long as it could establish a connection with the fragment, even the shallowest resonance would be enough. It could use it as a springboard, gradually infiltrate it, and ultimately... steal it! Seize control of this "keyhole" leading back to the Primordial World!
Wild joy drowned out the last trace of caution. Like a vine that had found a crack, the shadow energy began winding around and infiltrating the anchor fragment, which had been forcibly pinned in place by the aura of the Fragment of Buzhou Mountain, attempting to imprint its will upon it and establish an initial link.
All its attention was focused on the fragment, to the point that it completely overlooked... the few drops of golden "essence" in the deeper soil beside it, which had just seeped down and still radiated faint chaotic starlight and the aura of divine soil!
The remnants of that "foot-washing water," upon touching the shadow energy, seemed to trigger some mechanism. Ever so faintly... they flashed once.
On the sofa, Ling Ye, who was troubled by how soft it was, did not even open his closed eyes. He merely smacked his lips with extreme impatience, as if shooing away a fly by his ear.
"Annoying."
The single word drifted lightly from his lips, carrying even a hint of drowsiness.
Yet the instant he uttered it—
The Fragment of Buzhou Mountain, which he had casually nudged into the shadows in the corner of the kitchen island, lay flat there. The profound, twisted patterns on its surface flickered ever so, ever so slightly... just once! The flash was so faint that even Su Wanqing, who was right beside it, failed to notice.
An invisible and intangible will of "constancy," so heavy that it defied description, acted like an activated automatic defense mechanism. Following some mysterious and unfathomable connection, it instantly crossed space and precisely "slammed" into the anchor fragment being touched by the shadow energy deep underground!
It was not an attack! It was not suppression!
Instead... like a stamp confirming ownership... it deepened its own "imprint" once more!
"Pfft—!"
Deep underground, that mass of shadow energy was struck viciously by an invisible warhammer imbued with the weight of the entire starry sky! The energy tendrils it had painstakingly built to connect with the fragment failed to endure even one ten-thousandth of a blink beneath the crushing force of that absolute "constancy." In an instant... they shattered! They were annihilated!
Even more terrifyingly, that will of "constancy" clung to it like a bone-eating parasite. Following the path the shadow energy had taken, it ignored the barriers of space and instantly rebounded back!
"Gaaah—!!!"
A soundless scream erupted violently within the unknown shadow dimension underground, far more miserable and agonized than when Shadow Thorn had died before, filled with endless terror and an aura of destruction.
Those enormous shadowy eyes seemed to have been cast into the fires of hell, instantly filling with countless cracks! The pure shadow energy composing them twisted, boiled, and evaporated wildly! A terrifying force that seemed capable of grinding even the soul to pieces and transforming it into absolute "stillness" surged brutally into its core essence!
"Who is it?! What kind of existence are you?!" The shadow being released a desperate, frenzied soul shriek. It felt like an ant attempting to shake Mount Tai, only to be crushed into dust in an instant by an absolute power it could neither understand nor resist!
It exhausted the last of its strength and frantically severed every connection with the surface, like a lizard casting off its tail. It even detonated part of its own essence before barely managing to block that terrifying backlash of will outside its core!
The enormous shadow dimension shook violently, as if it might collapse at any moment. Those shattered eyes rapidly dimmed and contracted before finally vanishing completely into the depths of endless darkness, leaving behind only countless wisps of dispersed shadow energy and a soul echo filled with utmost terror and venom:
"Rule... controller...?!"
Inside the villa's living room.
Ling Ye rolled over comfortably on the sofa, changing from lying flat to lying on his side. He seemed to have finally found a reasonably satisfactory position. He smacked his lips and muttered something that sounded like a sleepy dream:
"Mm... This is... a little more comfortable..."
It was as if the "annoying" he had uttered just now, along with the ensuing upheaval deep underground, had truly only been meant to drive away a noisy mosquito so he could sleep more comfortably.
Su Wanqing had no idea that a terrifying clash had taken place underground, one that had brought an ancient shadow being to the brink of destruction. She merely saw Ling Ye roll over and appear to fall into an even deeper sleep. She breathed a sigh of relief, then carefully moved the Chaos Green Lotus Basin a little farther into the corner, trying to make it less conspicuous so it would not "get in the way" of the big shot's eyes again.
However, as she moved the basin, the corner of her eye seemed to catch sight of the pitch-black short rod lying flat in the corner of the kitchen island. It seemed to... move ever so, ever so slightly on its own? As if dissatisfied at being ignored, it had adjusted its position while lying flat?
Su Wanqing blinked hard. When she looked again, the short rod was still lying quietly in the shadows, showing no sign of anything unusual.
Had she imagined it?
She shook her head, deciding that her nerves must have been too tightly wound and that she was hallucinating. How could a stick move on its own?
She stopped thinking about it and tiptoed to the other side of the sofa. Keeping as far away from Ling Ye as possible, she curled up in a corner, hugging her knees as she tried to digest everything that had happened that morning—an experience more fantastical and bizarre than the sum of the previous twenty-plus years of her life.
Outside, the sunlight was bright. In the courtyard, the Ancient Orchid watered with "foot-washing water" had become even more miraculous, filling the air with a pleasant fragrance.
For a while, an eerie silence descended over the villa.
Only inside the command vehicle in the distance, the straight line on the monitoring screen representing the underground energy field—after undergoing a violent tremor like a silent nuclear explosion—had completely settled into a flat, deathly stillness, silently recounting some heart-stopping truth.
The technician stared at the utterly motionless line, then glanced at the sleeping target lying on his side on the screen. He silently recorded a line in the experiment log:
[Observation Record: The target is suspected of possessing a highly automated, rule-level passive defensive counterattack mechanism. Trigger conditions unknown. Counterattack method unknown. Destructive power: world-ending level. Recommendation: Absolutely prohibit all forms of active contact and probing. The target may be even more dangerous while dormant.]
After finishing, he exchanged a glance with Thunderstorm beside him. They both saw the same despair and profound helplessness in each other's eyes.
This shift... was impossible to keep watch over.
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