Quality Suppression [Life and Death Dao Leaf].
This gray leaf seemed to have been branded directly into Chen Yan's consciousness.
There were no words, no sound.
All there was was an instinctive "knowing."
About life, about destruction—rules that originally would have required painstaking effort and mental focus to comprehend had now become part of him, as natural as eating and drinking.
With a thought from Chen Yan, the domain on the surface of his body opened once more.
It was no longer the pale gray from before.
The domain turned ink-black, so deep its bottom could not be seen, enveloping the three feet around him. The texture of the entire domain was at least thirty percent heavier than before.
The domain from before had been more like borrowed power; using it always came with a layer of separation.
Now...
Chen Yan felt this domain was a body he had extended outward, moving as easily as his own arm and fingers.
No, it was even more intimate than that.
This was a world he had created.
Chen Yan's consciousness body extended a finger and lightly tapped an ordinary stubborn rock on the Central Continent beneath his feet.
A wisp of ink-black aura drilled out from his fingertip and sank into the stone.
There was no sound, no flash of light.
That hard, head-sized rock quietly began to "melt" from its core.
It did not shatter, nor did it weather away. Rather, its very "existence" was erased. The matter that formed it was restored to the most fundamental state—Void, which was nothing at all.
In less than a second, the stone disappeared, leaving only a shallow pit where it had been.
"So this is the essence of destruction. It isn't breaking something. It's returning it to zero."
Thoughtful, Chen Yan withdrew his