The Ancient Web Returns

"Had all the native gods of the Primordial Continent fallen?"

Li Shun looked around. As far as he could see, vast ruins stretched to the horizon like the carcasses of dead giants.

The towering outlines of those broken walls alone hinted at how magnificent this place had once been.

Yet some unspeakable catastrophe had reduced the lofty Ancient Heavenly Court of legend to a realm of death.

With no way back, Li Shun used what little time remained in the Primordial Illusion Realm to venture alone into the Heavenly Court Ruins. He hoped to find some trace of that ancient calamity amid the boundless silence.

And he did notice something that made his hair stand on end.

Nowhere among the grand ruins could he find the slightest mark of divine attacks, blades, or axes.

It was as though some greater power had drained their very essence, leaving them to peel apart and collapse with the passage of time.

Whatever immortal materials had formed these structures had long since lost their imperishable strength. Their imposing shells remained, but inside they had rotted to ash. The lightest touch of a fingertip made them crumble into powder.

More chilling still, Li Shun found that the space within these endless, silent ruins was grotesquely distorted.

It was as if dozens of unrelated building complexes had been forcibly kneaded and crushed together. Within one tiny patch of ground, he had found three or four buildings of utterly different styles.

As he stared at the chaotic, almost maddening disarray, a horrifying image flashed through his mind.

The Ancient Heavenly Court had stood above the clouds of the nine heavens when an indescribable, invisible hand had suddenly seized it.

With one casual twist, that hand had kneaded, warped, and compressed the vast Heavenly Court and the space