There was no surge of energy like he'd expected, nor any painful fusion process.
The rotating nebula beyond the gate remained still, but a terrifying gravitational pull erupted from the center of its deep vortex.
It was a gravitational collapse on an astrophysical scale.
As everyone watched in shock, the Yellow Soul Ring representing four hundred years of cultivation shattered the instant it touched the Star Gate's event horizon.
It was no longer a complete ring. The terrifying tidal force tore it apart, turning it into countless streams of golden light particles.
Like meteors caught by a black hole, the particles traced beautiful, tragic arcs through the nebula before plunging irretrievably into the endless blue abyss and vanishing without a trace.
The Light Gate remained a deep blue, and the nebula kept spinning, as though what it had just swallowed was not a Soul Ring but a speck of insignificant cosmic dust.
The air fell deathly silent.
A wind swept through the woods, stirring a few dead leaves that smacked against the group's rigid faces.
Su Yun remained cross-legged, his hands frozen in midair. His Sunglasses, which he'd worn to look cool, had slipped to the tip of his nose when he jerked his head up. His bewildered eyes showed plainly.
"???"
Su Yun blinked and immediately checked his body from within.
Empty.
The solid bottleneck at level ten Soul Power remained completely unchanged.
Not a trace of Soul Power had flowed into his body, and the telltale Yellow Soul Ring had not appeared.
Where'd that huge, bright Soul Ring go—the four-hundred-year one he'd worked so hard to get?
It had just been right here!
Not even a sound. It hadn't left behind so much as a scrap of Soul Power?
"Um..."
Su Yun turned his stiff neck to look at the others, who had all been petrified.
"Does anyone know what just happened? It... didn't enter my body, either."
The kneeling Red Hair's Group gaped, their jaws truly hitting the ground. They couldn't make sense of what they'd just seen.
I'm just a regular guy. You're asking me?
Tang San rubbed at his Purple Extreme Demon Eye, then even spent Soul Power to activate it again. Only after his eyes ached and teared up did he have to accept the truth, impossible as it seemed.
The Soul Ring was really gone, as if the gate had swallowed it.
But the one who took it the hardest was Yu Xiaogang.
The Grandmaster's eyes, which had been filled with anticipation as he prepared to welcome his moment of glory, now looked ready to pop right out of their sockets.
His soot-blackened face contorted. He clutched his frizzy hair with both hands.
!!!!
"It... it ate it?!"
"How could a Martial Soul eat a Soul Ring?! That's not scientific! It's impossible!!"
Yu Xiaogang stumbled over to Su Yun, no longer caring about his dignity. He flopped to the ground and frantically felt around the Star Gate, searching for any trace of the Soul Ring—even a single spark.
"It's gone... It's really gone..."
"A Soul Ring is an energy construct! How could a Martial Soul devour it? Even an Artifact Martial Soul only carries a Soul Ring. It doesn't break it down!"
Yu Xiaogang's worldview completely collapsed.
He'd spent his entire life studying theory and read thousands of records, yet he'd never seen anything so absurd, so overbearing, so utterly unreasonable.
As the Grandmaster descended into madness and babbled incoherently, the mood around them began to shift.
Red Hair was the first to react.
He got up and stared at Yu Xiaogang, who was on the ground searching for the Soul Ring. Suspicion and anger filled his eyes.
"Hey, old man!"
Red Hair strode forward, grabbed Yu Xiaogang by the collar, and hauled him up.
"Didn't you just swear you were ninety percent sure?"
"Didn't you say everything would be fine as long as we followed your method?"
"Where's the Soul Ring now?! My sworn father worked his tail off to get it, and now that gate's swallowed it! Was there something wrong with the mantra you taught us?!"
"I..."
Yu Xiaogang could barely breathe. His face turned a deep red as he waved frantically, trying to defend himself.
"It's not my fault! My theory is perfect! This... this was an accident! This kid's Martial Soul Mutation is just too outrageous!"
"Bullshit!"
Green Hair came over too, pointing at Yu Xiaogang with open contempt.
"Mutation, my ass. You're a fraud! You went the wrong way looking for rats, got hung up in a tree during the fight, and now you've made the Soul Ring disappear!"
"And you call yourself a Grandmaster? You're a big fat liar!"
"Th-this is absurd! You can't explain ice to a summer insect!"
Yu Xiaogang trembled with rage. Pointing at Su Yun's Star Gate, he shouted hysterically, trying to make one last stand:
"Su Yun! Say something! You don't have a Soul Ring, but your Soul Power increased, didn't it? Or maybe your Martial Soul underwent some kind of qualitative change? You must have felt something, even if it was just a little!"
Su Yun looked at the Grandmaster, who was close to tears. He checked his Soul Power, still stuck at level ten, then glanced at the aloof Star Gate, which hadn't changed at all.
He fell silent for two seconds, then honestly shook his head.
"Grandmaster, to be honest..."
Su Yun pushed his slipped Sunglasses back up, his voice resigned.
"Still level ten. The bottleneck hasn't budged."
Boom!
Those words were the last straw for Yu Xiaogang.
Yu Xiaogang's eyes went blank. He murmured to himself, swayed, then collapsed to the ground with a thud.
It was over.
This time, it really was over.
Not only had his guidance failed, he'd made the other man lose a top-grade four-hundred-year Soul Ring.
A four-hundred-year Spatial Soul Ring!
A priceless treasure, impossible to buy!
Looking at Red Hair and the others, whose eyes seemed ready to devour him, and Tang San, who hadn't spoken but clearly thought his teacher was unreliable after all, Yu Xiaogang felt that his reputation had been ruined for good in these woods.
He clutched his head, painfully tugging at his hair, and let out a wretched wail:
"I can't tell them apart... I really can't tell them apart..."
But before the Grandmaster's despairing wail had even faded, a terrifying vibration unlike anything before burst without warning from the Star Gate!
Everyone looked up instinctively.
After swallowing the Soul Ring, the gate had shown no reaction. Now, the deep nebula vortex within it began to spin wildly!
It spun so fast that it instantly became a dark, frightening eye of the storm!
Then—
Crack, crack, crack!
Countless intricate, shadowy patterns across the silver metal frame lit up with blinding blue light, as if a circuit had just been activated!
A grand aura from another world surged out from the center of the vortex!
The blue light turned into a blinding, ghastly white.
It felt like a television signal had been forcibly cut, leaving only frantically dancing static on the screen.
"Bzz... Bzzzt... Warning... Coordinates... lost..."
The conversation between Su Yun and Lei Zhan in the Tactical Earpiece hanging over his ear abruptly cut off. In its place came a shrill burst of static and a cacophony of noise that sounded as if it came from the bottom of the sea.
"Hello? Captain Lei? Can you hear me? This is 001."
Su Yun frowned and pressed a finger to his earpiece, calling three times in succession.
"Bzz—bzz—"
There was no response.
Su Yun's heart sank.
Ever since he'd come to this world, communications had never been interrupted, whether he was in a bustling city or deep in the mountains.
But now, they'd been cut off.
It wasn't a weak signal. It was...
The anchor point had changed.
Su Yun abruptly looked up at his Martial Soul.
The streams of data flowing across the gate's frame were no longer silver-blue, the color of Earth technology. They had turned an ancient, desolate purple-gold, steeped in the aura of primordial times.
"Did this gate... switch channels?"
Su Yun pushed his Sunglasses up, a sense of foreboding rising in his heart.
The Soul Ring hadn't been absorbed. It seemed to have served as some kind of toll, or fuel, forcibly changing the Star Gate's connection coordinates.
It was no longer connected to Earth.
It was connected to an unknown plane, one more ancient and dangerous.
"Pfft—"
Just as everyone was staring in uncertainty, a faint puff of silver smoke suddenly burst from the center of the Star Gate's vortex.
Then—
A snow-white, immaculate hoof shattered the chaotic starlight and stepped out from within the gate.
Before you continue