Hiss, hiss, hiss!
Black Malice welled up over Chen Yan's physical body.
Malice as dark as ink seeped from deep within his marrow, hardening over Chen Yan's aged skin into a jagged, shattered suit of armor.
Black Mist, like the breath of death, slowly rose and curled around Chen Yan.
His appearance had not changed, yet he seemed like an emperor who had long since sunk into darkness and deathly silence.
Every breath he took carried thousands upon thousands of murmurs and madness.
He sat there like a doomsday Divine King, a vessel containing boundless evil.
Crack, crack, crack.
Chen Yan moved his body, head bowed. Fragments of black Malice Crystal fell from his pale hair.
Ancient God auras continued to arrive.
The aura around Chen Yan grew more and more evil, more and more chaotic.
Black Pattern Lines filled his cracked wrinkles, smoothing them over. Thorn-shaped dark marks appeared from his jaw to his temples, like shackles branded there by fate.
Chen Yan no longer used his Will Rank to suppress the Ancient God Rank.
Instead, he protected his Will Rank.
He could clearly feel his consciousness being crudely twisted by the Ancient God Rank.
But the presence of his Will Rank allowed him to retain his own clarity.
That was the most crucial thing.
If he lost his reason completely, Chen Yan would no longer be Chen Yan.
He would truly become an Ancient God who could no longer distinguish friend from foe.
His Will Rank was like a kindling flame.
The last spark of Chen Yan's reason.
"Return to One..."
Chen Yan murmured. His voice was no longer clear, but blurred and indistinct, like a deep abyssal growl, filled with chilling evil.
Fan Ni had not told Chen Yan what that word—"Return to One"—actually meant.
But she