As he stepped onto the plain paved with countless shattered weapons and enormous bones, brittle cracks sounded beneath his feet, piercingly loud in the deathly silence. The air carried a mingled scent of rust, rotting bones, and an indescribable ancient dust, laden with a weight of history and sorrow beyond even the demonic aura on the outskirts.
The ruined black altar stood in the center of the plain like a silent giant, enduring the solitude of countless ages. Its stone was unlike anything commonly found in the Primordial Realm: black as ink, neither metal nor jade in texture, cold to the touch, and faintly exuding a deathly stillness that cut off all vitality and spiritual energy. The runes carved upon it were twisted and bizarre, utterly unlike any formation or talisman system Ye Chen knew. They held something primal and savage, yet pointed straight toward the source of the laws.
The Nameless Fragment and Black Iron Piece against his chest were no longer merely warm. Like two beating hearts, they pulsed with a scorching, urgent resonance, almost bursting free of his body as they pointed toward a spot beneath the altar's base.
Ye Chen slowly approached, chaotic light flowing through his Dual Pupils as he carefully examined the altar. It had suffered a severe collapse, most of its structure reduced to rubble scattered around it. Only the base and a few thick stone pillars still stood stubbornly, covered in marks left by blades, axes, and divine abilities, bearing witness to the brutality of that ancient battle.
"It wasn't used for sacrifices. It looks more like a... sealing platform, or perhaps... a summoning formation?" Drawing upon his extensive knowledge, Ye Chen made a preliminary assessment. The paths of the runes and their energy circuits were geared more toward restraint and communication than sacrifice and supplication.
He walked around the altar's base, lightly brushing his fingertips over the cold engravings. The instant his fingers touched an inconspicuous depression at its center, a sudden change erupted!
"Humm—!"
The entire ruined altar shuddered violently! The runes on its base, dormant for untold tens of thousands of years, seemed to come alive, lighting up one after another with a dim purplish-black glow! A will far purer, older, and more savage than the demonic aura on the outskirts abruptly awakened, like a ferocious beast that had slept for countless epochs!
At the same time, the Nameless Fragment and Black Iron Piece flew out from Ye Chen's chest of their own accord and hovered before him, blazing with light! The twisted symbols on the fragment and the broken lines on the iron piece formed a mysterious resonance with some of the glowing runes on the altar, intertwining and completing one another!
An immense torrent of chaotic memory fragments, filled with endless resentment and defiance, surged into Ye Chen's sea of consciousness like floodwaters bursting through a dam!
It was a scene of heaven collapsing and earth splitting apart, the sky torn open like a ragged cloth as endless chaotic qi poured through!
It was a dirge for fallen Gods and Devils, their towering figures plummeting from the sky like the remains of stars, their blood staining the earth and rivers red!
It was a furious roar that shook the universe, filled with despair and madness: "Transcendence?! All of it is a lie! This entire universe is a cage!!"
Finally, there was utter darkness and cold, as though even consciousness would be frozen and ground into oblivion...
These memory fragments were disordered, yet carried an unmistakably genuine aura of antiquity as they battered Ye Chen's mind. Had his soul not been of an exceptionally high nature, and had the Primordial Chaos Purple Qi not protected him, that immense flood of information would likely have crushed his consciousness in an instant, leaving him mindless.
"Lingering fragments of will..." Ye Chen steadied his mind, his gaze sharp. He understood now. What this altar sealed—or summoned—was not a physical entity, but part of the remnant soul and obsession of an unfathomable being that had fallen in that ancient war!
Over countless years, this remnant soul had merged with the altar and this demonic abyss. It had long since lost any complete consciousness, retaining only its most fundamental resentment, defiance, and mad obsession with its failure to achieve "transcendence."
"Cage... transcendence..." Ye Chen seized upon these two crucial pieces of information, his heart shaken. How closely they resembled the goal his Ye Clan had pursued for countless epochs! Had the ancient Gods and Devils of the Primordial World also tried to transcend this universe? And... failed?
As he digested this information, the awakened ancient will seemed to notice the presence of this "foreign intrusion," especially the fragment and iron piece—two objects that shared the altar's origin and seemed to serve as parts of a "key"!
"Boom!!"
The depression at the center of the altar's base abruptly split open. A column of purplish-black demonic aura, condensed to the utmost degree, shot skyward and coalesced into an enormous face, indistinct yet possessed of boundless majesty! It resembled no known living creature, its features steeped in chaos and distortion. Only its hollow eyes were clear, burning with a fire of resentment fierce enough to consume the world!
"Thief! Traitor! Return... my essence!!"
A psychic assault imbued with chaotic laws stabbed savagely at Ye Chen's soul like billions of steel needles! This attack had neither shape nor substance, yet was vastly more perilous than any physical divine ability!
Ye Chen gave a muffled grunt. Purple qi surged through his sea of consciousness like a river of stars sweeping backward, blocking and annihilating the psychic assault in its entirety. He looked coldly at the enormous demonic face.
"A mere lingering obsession, and you dare run wild?"
He held two fingers together like a sword. Purple qi gathered at their tips, no longer a faint current, but a purple blade aura as radiant as the blazing sun, imbued with the essence of creation and ending!
"Primordial Chaos—World-Opening!"
His sword strike swept out without a sound, yet seemed to cleave through the silence of countless ages! Wherever the purple blade aura passed, the chaotic demonic aura melted like spring snow, and shattered laws were forcibly smoothed out and reconstructed! The enormous demonic face roared soundlessly, twisting as it tried to resist. Yet before that pure primordial chaos will, which stood above all myriad Daos, its resentment and defiance seemed pale and powerless!
The blade aura cut through the demonic face like a hot knife through butter, splitting it in two! The face contorted violently and broke apart, reverting to pure demonic aura. Without that concentrated will, however, it became muddled and senseless.
The glowing runes on the altar rapidly dimmed as well. As though gravely wounded, the awakened ancient will sank into silence once more.
The light of the Nameless Fragment and Black Iron Piece hovering in the air gradually faded, and they slowly settled back into Ye Chen's hands. Now, however, the previously blurred symbols on the fragment seemed a little clearer, while a faint, almost imperceptible line had appeared along the edge of the Black Iron Piece.
Ye Chen looked at the quiet altar, then at the two objects in his hands, his gaze deep.
"One who failed to transcend... a cry from within a cage... it seems the secrets of this Primordial World are far more astonishing than I imagined."
He felt as though he had touched a corner of a staggering secret concerning this realm, and perhaps even the wider universe.
And all of it seemed faintly connected to him and to the pursuit his Ye Clan had maintained for countless epochs.
He did not leave immediately. Instead, he sat cross-legged beside the altar and began carefully contemplating the scraps of information he had gleaned from the ancient fragments of will during their brief clash, along with the changes in the fragment and iron piece.
The gains from this journey into the Demon-Burying Abyss had far exceeded his expectations.
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