Immortal World, Void Heaven Palace.
Han Li sat cross-legged, spiritual energy surging around him like a tide.
The bottleneck of the Great Ascension Stage was beginning to loosen. He could clearly feel that the gate to a higher realm was right before him.
After three thousand years of cultivation, he had gone from an ordinary mortal to the threshold of the Great Ascension Stage. He had traveled many roads, killed many people, and kept far too many trump cards hidden.
The Heavenly Bottle grew slightly warm inside his sleeve. That drop of emerald-green Creation Spirit Liquid was slowly taking shape. It was the key to his breakthrough.
"Everything is under control."
Han Li murmured to himself. It was his favorite thing to say, especially when everything really was under control.
Then the Heavenly Bottle exploded.
To be precise, it didn't explode. It went mad.
The drop of Creation Spirit Liquid suddenly reversed course. Its emerald-green light became a vortex, greedily devouring the spiritual energy around it.
Han Li's pupils contracted. Three thousand years of caution made him instinctively retreat, but it was already too late.
Space shattered before him, like a mirror smashed by a sledgehammer.
Black fissures spread, and a terrifying force of suction poured out of them.
For the first time, Han Li lost his composure.
He tried to cast an escape technique, but the Heavenly Bottle sucked his spiritual energy dry.
He tried to activate the defensive formation of the Void Heaven Palace, but its foundations crumbled before the spatial fissure like paper.
"No!"
Han Li's voice was swallowed by the black hole.
His body was dragged helplessly into the fissure. In his final moment, his face remained expressionless—that was his usual disguise—but deep inside, a voice screamed in a frenzy:
Everything under control... my ass!
Great Thousand World, Endless Fire Domain.
Xiao Yan stood at the highest point of the Endless Fire Domain, with the spectacle of all the Heavenly Flames paying homage to their sovereign behind him.
Twenty-three Heavenly Flames roared within his body, unleashing a terrifying power capable of burning heaven and earth to ashes.
He had already surpassed Dou Di and was now striving to reach the legendary realm that no one had ever set foot in.
"After today, no one in this world will be able to stop me."
Xiao Yan's lips curled upward, and the Heavenly Flame patterns on his right arm glowed brilliantly.
He drew a deep breath, preparing to face that final transformation.
Then the Heavenly Flames went out of control.
All twenty-three Heavenly Flames turned on him at once, as if an invisible hand were stirring his power into chaos.
To Xiao Yan's horror, he found that he was rapidly losing control over the Heavenly Flames.
"Impossible! I'm the Flame Emperor! The emperor of all flames!"
He fought to suppress them, veins bulging on his forehead.
But the Heavenly Flames seemed to have been summoned by some higher existence. They completely ignored his commands.
A spatial fissure split open behind him.
Xiao Yan turned and saw the black-hole-like fissure and the strange force of suction pouring from within.
He instinctively tried to flee, but the backlash from the Heavenly Flames left him unable to move.
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river..."
Xiao Yan reflexively roared the famous line. It was his instinctive response whenever he faced adversity.
But this time, he couldn't even finish saying it.
"I haven't even finished shouting, and I'm already being sucked in!"
His voice cut off abruptly, and Xiao Yan vanished into the fissure.
The spectacle of all the flames paying homage to their sovereign collapsed along with him, as though it had never existed.
Above the Heavens, Source of Darkness.
Shi Hao stood bare-chested, his muscles coiled like dragons.
His fist was clenched, blood dripping from its surface. It wasn't his blood, but the blood of the Source of Darkness.
"Arbitrary Eternity!"
Shi Hao roared, his voice shaking the universe.
Those four words were his Dao, his obsession, and the very meaning of his becoming the Desolate Heaven Emperor.
He threw a punch. The laws of time and space intertwined across his knuckles, becoming a force capable of destroying everything.
With this punch, he would put an end to the Source of Darkness once and for all.
Boom!
The terrifying force struck the Source of Darkness, and all of Above the Heavens trembled.
Dark matter surged madly, trying to withstand the punch.
Then something bizarre happened.
Shi Hao's fist not only shattered the Source of Darkness, but time and space as well.
His punch was too powerful—so powerful that it exceeded the limits of what this world could endure. Space began to collapse, and time began to flow backward.
"Arbitrary Eternity... Why's eternity running backward?"
Shi Hao's eyes widened as he watched his body begin to move in reverse. More accurately, time was flowing backward.
The punch he had just thrown was being pulled back by the temporal reversal. His cultivation was falling, and his power was fading.
Spatial fissures tore open around him, like a gaping maw swallowing him whole.
Shi Hao tried to struggle, but the crushing force of time and space left him unable to move even a finger.
All he could do was let out one final roar amid that terrifying current running backward.
"Arbitrary Eternity! Aaaaaah!"
His voice vanished into the depths of the void, and Shi Hao disappeared without a trace.
Within the cycle of reincarnation.
Wang Lin stood at the end of the cycle, facing the figure he had pursued for countless years: Li Muwan.
"Wan'er."
Wang Lin called softly, a rare tenderness appearing on his pale face.
He reached out, wanting to touch the woman he would trade ten thousand lifetimes of reincarnation to bring back.
The Heavenly Inverse Bead slowly revolved between his brows, its gray light enveloping his body.
This was his trump card, the means by which he could reverse cause and effect and break through the cycle of reincarnation.
"In this life, I will surely take you back with me."
Wang Lin's hand was about to touch Li Muwan's cheek.
Suddenly, the Heavenly Inverse Bead spun wildly.
To Wang Lin's horror, the Heavenly Inverse Bead was devouring his Power of Cause and Effect, and far faster than he could control.
"Impossible!"
Wang Lin's expression changed drastically as he tried to sever his connection to the Heavenly Inverse Bead.
But the Heavenly Inverse Bead seemed to have been activated by some external force and refused to obey him.
The Power of Cause and Effect turned on him.
All the cause and effect of Wang Lin's past, present, and future broke apart at once, reformed, then broke apart again.
Even Wang Lin, who had lived through the cycle of reincarnation, had never experienced such agony.
A spatial fissure opened behind him.
Wang Lin turned and saw strange light surging within the fissure.
He knew that if he were sucked inside, he would lose all connection with Li Muwan.
"My reincarnation is not something you can interfere with!"
Wang Lin sneered and tried to resist with his last reserves of strength, but his body didn't budge.
The smug smile at the corner of Wang Lin's mouth hadn't even fully spread.
The next second, the fissure's suction surged. Wang Lin's expression froze, his smug smile still on his face as he was dragged inside.
His retreating figure looked dashing, white robes fluttering and long hair streaming behind him.
But his voice sounded panicked:
"Wait! I'm not ready yet!"
His voice faded away.
Four beams of light converged in the depths of the universe.
One was emerald green, born from the Heavenly Bottle's madness; one was scarlet gold, born from the Heavenly Flames' loss of control; one was chaotic, born from the shattering of time and space; and one was gray-white, born from the backlash of cause and effect.
The four-colored lights collided, spun, and merged in the void, finally becoming a streak of light that tore through the endless void and plunged toward a bizarre and wondrous world.
Some called that world Douluo Continent.
Four figures fell from the sky, streaking across the firmament and hurtling toward unknown lands.
In that world, a blue-haired boy stood at the gates of Shrek Academy, gazing at the shooting stars streaking across the sky as he murmured:
"What a beautiful shooting star..."
The scorpion-braided girl beside him asked curiously, "Third Brother, are you making a wish?"
The boy smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I'm wishing that one day, I'll meet someone worth protecting with my life, and then..."
"Arise, my beloved."
The girl rolled her eyes. "Third Brother, there you go again."
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