Retrieving the Token from the Secret Realm, Farewell to Space-Time
The Void God Hall turned into a streak of light dazzling beyond measure and plunged straight into Qin Yuan's forehead like a star tearing through chaos. In that instant, Qin Yuan felt the illusory image of a vast, towering hall appear in his sea of consciousness. Mysterious Hunyuan-level Dao resonance flowed across it, and even as it hovered in stillness, it radiated a tremendous aura that could suppress space and time for all ages. It merged completely with his soul until the two were indistinguishable.
But Qin Yuan did not immediately use his power to return to the Primal Universe, from which he had long been absent. He stood at the exit of the Space-Time Secret Realm, a faint veil of space-time power wrapped around him, and calmly looked at the Chaos City Lord, the Giant Axe Founder, and the other foremost experts of the Primal Universe beside him. These beings, who ordinarily stood high above the masses and looked down upon all life in the universe, now gazed at Qin Yuan with awe and admiration, along with a trace of relief that was difficult to discern.
The moment Qin Yuan fused with the Void God King's origin and broke through to the True God Realm, they had understood completely that the young man before them had long since surpassed the Primal Universe's current level and set foot on the supreme path leading to the Universe Ocean and even higher realms. All they could do was silently see him off and witness the rise of a peerless expert.
"Everyone, this is where we part." Qin Yuan nodded slightly, his voice calm yet carrying an unquestionable force. As his words fell, he lifted his foot, and without resorting to any secret technique, his figure naturally merged into the turbulent currents of space-time beside him. Once again, he entered the Space-Time Secret Realm where he had cultivated so arduously for fifty years.
This time, he had come neither to cultivate and comprehend the Dao nor to temper himself. He had a clear goal: to travel to the most central, hidden depths of the secret realm and retrieve the supreme token the God King of Jin had left there long ago.
Inside the Space-Time Secret Realm, the bizarre landscape remained unchanged: time flowed at chaotic rates, and folds in space crisscrossed everywhere. Fragments of space-time stood still, regions of time raced past, and spatial nodes constantly collapsed and reformed. If an ordinary Universe Master entered this place, the slightest carelessness could see his soul torn apart by the power of space-time and utterly annihilated within the secret realm. But to Qin Yuan, now at Peak True God and the peak of great mastery of the space-time law, all the turbulent currents of space-time here were like docile children, unable to shake him in the slightest.
He traveled through the depths of the secret realm, each step automatically smoothing out the chaotic space-time laws around him. The space-time storms and spatial rifts along his path dispersed on their own the moment he approached. He pressed onward and, in mere moments, reached the ultimate depths of the secret realm.
There was no brilliant light here, nor any vast energy fluctuations. Instead, all was deathly still. The surrounding space-time seemed completely frozen, even the tiniest particles of energy motionless. At the very center of this silent space, a fist-sized token hovered quietly.
The token was pitch-black all over, its surface devoid of any unnecessary ornamentation, yet it carried a vast, ancient aura from the Origin Continent, as though it had existed here since the birth of the universe. Qin Yuan slowly reached out and took the token in his palm.
The moment he touched it, he felt a coolness that did not bite. The token's material was exceedingly peculiar; even after exhausting everything he knew, Qin Yuan could not determine what substance it was made of. It was neither the divine metals and secret crystals commonly found in the universe nor an energy body formed from condensed laws. It did not even belong to any known form of matter in the Primal Universe or the Universe Ocean. It seemed to have been condensed from the purest "will" between heaven and earth, weighty and unadorned, yet bearing supreme majesty.
Qin Yuan focused his gaze on it. On the front of the token was engraved an ancient, vigorous character for "Jin." The strokes contained a supreme power like that which split heaven and earth; that single character seemed to bear the fortune and strength of an entire kingdom. On the back was a boundless diagram of a starry river. Stars revolved and starry rivers surged within it, encompassing the outlines of countless star regions in the Universe Ocean. It appeared motionless, yet seemed to be constantly evolving, containing endless mysteries of space and time.
"The King of Jin Token," Qin Yuan murmured, his voice echoing softly through the deathly still depths of the secret realm.
While he had been fusing with the Void God King's origin, a piece of ancient information, sealed away for a long time, had appeared in his soul. That information happened to concern this pitch-black token.
The King of Jin Token was the supreme token of identity held by the God King of Jin-known to all in the Universe Ocean as the Sitting Mountain Guest-during the Jin Kingdom's heyday on the Origin Continent. Its status was incomparably exalted. Whoever held it was equivalent to the God King of Jin himself, able to command without condition all the Jin Kingdom's covert agents and hidden forces left throughout the Universe Ocean, as well as the vast resources and Supreme Treasures accumulated over countless years.
Back then, the Sitting Mountain Guest had hidden the King of Jin Token in the deepest reaches of the Space-Time Secret Realm and set up trial after trial, intending it for the true successor who could pass every trial in the secret realm and obtain his entire inheritance. And Qin Yuan, who had endured fifty years of tempering between life and death, successfully broken through to True God, and fused with the Void God King's origin, was undoubtedly the inheritor recognized by the Sitting Mountain Guest.
Qin Yuan tightened his palm slightly, feeling the vast will contained within the token. Then, with a thought, he put the King of Jin Token into the System Space. A soft glow automatically rose within the System Space, securing the token and preventing its aura from leaking out.
After doing all this, Qin Yuan lifted his eyes one last time and looked around the Space-Time Secret Realm that had been with him for fifty years.
Fifty years had flowed silently by in the secret realm, where time had nearly stood still. He still remembered that when he first entered, he had only just stepped over the threshold of Universe Master, his Gene Level was merely a hundredfold, and even the guardian of the secret realm's first trial could crush him at will.
How many times had he stood on the brink of life and death-swept into spatial rifts by law storms, fighting guardian puppets until his Divine Power ran dry, and enduring years of torment at a bottleneck in his comprehension, unable to make a single step forward. Throughout those long years of loneliness enough to drive a person mad, only the eternal silence of the stone hall had kept him company. Every mark in the secret realm was a trace of his growth, carved with blood and sweat; every inch of space had witnessed a weakling's transformation into a Peak True God.
But there was not the slightest reluctance in Qin Yuan's eyes. His gaze was calm and resolute, like that of a traveler who had sailed through countless voyages, grateful for the harbor that had once sheltered him but unwilling to stay. However vast the Space-Time Secret Realm was, it was no more than a trial ground left behind by the Sitting Mountain Guest. His path had long since pointed to a farther horizon-the boundless Universe Ocean, where chaos churned, and the endless starry road leading to the supreme.
He turned, his steps unhurried but resolute, and entered the teleportation array he had locked onto long ago. Silver light rose beneath his feet, brilliant as a cascading river of stars, and swept over his entire body in an instant. The teleportation array's power erupted with a roar, and in a flash, space twisted, folded, and was pierced through. Qin Yuan's figure gradually blurred in the silver light, finally turning into a streak of light that vanished into the frozen space-time.
Silence returned to the secret realm. The traces left by fifty years of arduous cultivation would eventually weather away with time, while the man who had walked out of this place would go on to write a legend of his own.