The phantom golden palace vanished into the void, and Chen Xuan was drawn back into the Immortal Realm with it.
When his feet touched solid ground again, the wilderness mountains were gone. He was inside a palace suspended in the void.
The entire palace was built from translucent golden crystals, their surfaces flowing with countless intricate runes. Those runes wandered over the crystals like living creatures, radiating a warm, ancient glow.
The palace was not large, yet it gave an impression of boundless immensity, as though another world lay hidden behind every wall.
Chen Xuan stood in the palace's main hall. Before him was an enormous golden screen of light, displaying the scene outside the Immortal Realm.
The black sword phantom had become a pitch-black tide, slowly but inexorably enveloping the sphere of light that was the Immortal Realm. Like ink seeping into water, it eroded the power of the laws around its perimeter, thread by thread.
"Thank you for saving my life, Senior."
Chen Xuan cupped his hands toward the empty air.
"No need to thank me." An aged voice sounded from the void. "You are the second person after my master to cultivate the Chaos Body. Your potential has made my master's great enemy feel threatened. Even across the Path to Immortality, he insists on erasing the power of the laws outside the Immortal Realm. That enemy has grown stronger. In a hundred years at most, the power my master left behind will be wiped away."
Chen Xuan followed the voice and saw that a hazy humanoid outline had formed in the center of the main hall at some point.
The figure was composed entirely of golden light. Its features were indistinct and its form flickered, yet it radiated pressure no weaker than that of the Saint Realm's