Qin Yu walked along the main street for half an hour before finally choosing a large restaurant called "Emanating Light Heavenly Pavilion". The entire restaurant rose more than thirty feet from the ground, so tall that it seemed to stand shoulder to shoulder with the floating island bridge next to it. The vermilion pillars and golden eaves intertwined to form a dazzling array, making it look like a small palace from the outside. Hundreds of people were lined up outside the gate, the noise was deafening, and the place was bustling with activity. Cultivators, merchants, and travelers from all sides had gathered here. The oppressive aura alone was enough to make ordinary people feel breathless.
As Qin Yu stepped inside, the crowd seemed to be gently parted by some kind of gentle force, and a wide path automatically opened up on both sides, as if the restaurant itself was welcoming guests. In the hall, a dozen giant wooden pillars supported the sky, and spiritual light flowed like water in the patterns. Hundreds of tables were full, and waiters moved around like the wind. The spiritual smoke and food aromas on the trays intertwined to form a mysterious mist of light.
Looking at the scene before him, Qin Yu's mind stirred, and he softly called out from the depths of his consciousness, "Azure Ring, there's something delicious to eat."
A faint blue light rippled through his mind, and a tiny figure seemed to be rubbing its eyes as it woke from a dream, its voice soft and nasal. "Delicious... hehe... where is it--"
The next moment, a small figure, only sixteen centimeters tall, jumped out from behind Qin Yu's shoulder. Her long, dark blue hair was loose, and the blue flames at the ends of her hair flickered slightly under the lights of the restaurant. She was barefoot, and the thin chain on her ankle dragged the broken ancient bell. With a very soft "clang," it landed on Qin Yu's right shoulder.
Azure Ring blinked her light blue ringed eyes as if she had just woken up. Her small eyes, devoid of pupils and only Annihilation Pattern, lit up immediately when she saw the dazzling array of delicious food filling the building. "Wow... Little Qinzi, this smells so good!"
She sat on Qin Yu's shoulders, her slender legs swinging back and forth. Her soul-light tattered skirt fell and regenerated in an instant, melting the hearts of onlookers. However, no one could see her presence at all— Azure Ring was originally a being deep within Qin Yu's Fate Soul. Unless she wished to manifest, no one in the world could see her.
Just then, the waiter, with sharp eyes, saw Qin Yu enter and immediately greeted him with a beaming smile, "Honorable guest, please go up to the third floor! We happen to have a window seat available today, with a superb view!"
Qin Yu nodded and, led by the waiter, went up to the third floor. This floor was even more luxurious than the one below. Outside the window was the entire cloudscape of Enxi Shadow Main City. The sky was like a ring, and floating islands of mountains and seas shuttled through the clouds, like a painting unfolding.
Qin Yu followed the waiter to a seat by the window and gently raised his hand, saying, "Bring a few of your restaurant's signature dishes."
The waiter's eyes lit up immediately upon hearing this, knowing he had encountered a truly VIP customer.
The dishes at the Emanating Light Heavenly Pavilion are no ordinary food.
Each dish is cooked with a special energy flow, making it not only delicious but also subtly enhancing a cultivator's adaptability to their cultivation level and the stability of their fundamental structure.
Annihilation Dawn Spirit Blaze - Star Abyss Flower Bone: Refined with spiritual materials from the Annihilation Dawn Realm, it can enhance the mental stability of "non-propositional" cultivators in the Annihilation Dawn Realm. One portion costs 100,000 Annihilation Starlight Crystal.
True Soup of Void Evolution - Tracing the Fishless: Boiled with the Spring of Void Evolution, drinking it allows cultivators to briefly experience the Void Evolution trajectory of "neither existence nor non-existence," priced at 300,000 per serving.
Silent Profundity Profound Spirit and Bone - Deer Marrow Without Light: A secret material of the Silent Mystery Realm, which can allow cultivators to enter a state of tranquility "without cause and effect, without before and after," worth 1.2 million per piece.
Original Chaos Flavor: Primordial Mystic Meat: The most expensive dish, made with the meat of rare Chaos Realm beasts, requiring ten spirit chefs to cook together, starting at tens of millions of Annihilation Starlight Crystal.
But through years of scavenging, Qin Yu now possesses a staggering eight hundred Annihilation Starlight Crystal, three hundred top-grade energy crystals, one hundred thousand Limitless Resonance Crystal Fragment, and one thousand Divine Annihilation-Grade Resonance Crystal. Eating these is as free as drinking water for an ordinary person.
The waiter quickly brought out a table of dishes "comparable to a small town," with rising smoke and spiritual light refracting in the air to create three different energy flows: golden, blue, and ethereal, which was incredibly beautiful.
Upon seeing the light of inspiration shooting straight to the top of her head, Azure Ring immediately cupped her face in her hands and exclaimed, "Wow— Little Qinzi, you're so great! I'm going to dig in now!"
The next instant, she landed on the table with a "thump" like a small blue comet.
She sat gracefully beside a plate of Void Evolution Essence Soup, her little feet jingling. Holding a spirit spoon taller than herself, she easily scooped up a small spoonful, burying herself in the fragrant soup. Her eyes narrowed with beauty, and the azure flame in the plate flickered slightly in the steam.
Qin Yu also picked up his chopsticks with a graceful movement, and picked up a piece of Chaos Profound Meat. A faint chaotic pattern exploded from his fingertips with spiritual light.
He chuckled softly, "Azure Ring, eat slowly."
With her mouth stuffed full, Azure Ring made a muffled gesture. "Mmm--I know!"
Above the sky, the Milky Way shimmered and shifted, while inside the building, lights and spiritual smoke intertwined. Qin Yu and Xiaoqing Qinghuan, one big and one small, seemingly out of place, quietly and heartily devoured a table of exorbitantly priced spiritual food.
Qin Yu and Azure Ring were enjoying their meal to the fullest at a window seat on the third floor. The spiritual smoke on the table dissipated into a golden-blue patterned mist. Azure Ring was holding a Chaos Original Flavor Xuan Flesh Bone that was three times her size. Her face was covered in oil from eating, and her light blue ring eyes shone brightly, like two little soul stars dancing in the night sky.
Qin Yu was also relaxed for once, and he almost devoured the entire table of spiritual food worth tens of millions, even drinking every last drop of the most difficult-to-scoop Silent Profundity Bone Soup.
Half an hour later—the two were Ultimate stuffed.
Azure Ring's small body slumped down, collapsing onto Qin Yu's shoulder like a Xiaoqing. Her legs swayed gently, and her tattered, soul-light dress fell and regenerated in a flurry. She let out an adorable burp, her voice soft and sweet. "Little Qinzi... I can't eat anymore... I'm going to burst..."
Qin Yu leaned back in his chair, glanced at her sideways, and chuckled, "You're taller than me on one plate, and you still ate eight or nine."
Azure Ring clutched her tummy, her voice incredibly sweet and childlike. "It's been so long since I've had such delicious food, I have to have a good feast..."
The view outside the window right now is so beautiful, it's like a painting touched by divine light.
As night fell over the Enxi Shadow Main City, the lights of countless homes intertwined with the Spiritual Qi mist, and the planetary rings in the distant sky cast streaks of rainbow light, illuminating the cloud bridge, the immortal tower, the flying boats, and the patrolling Void Emanation Realm guards.
Qin Yu and Azure Ring quietly admired the bustling yet tranquil night scene.
However, this tranquility lasted only a dozen breaths.
Boom--!! Boom--!! Boom--!! Zheng!!!!
A ring of golden and black interwoven array patterns suddenly exploded in the sky above the entire main city!
A massive protective array instantly illuminated the night, like the eye of an ancient god opening, covering the entire city area.
Everyone in the restaurant was alarmed.
A deafening roar of array patterns echoed from the outside world, and a series of "crackling" sounds of spatial chains reassembling even broke out in the sky.
Qin Yu's brow furrowed slightly. -- This was the main city's grand formation being forced to activate itself.
This indicates that an extremely dangerous outsider has appeared in the city.
Immediately afterwards, a piercing low moan came from somewhere in the distance.
It wasn't human. It was... the sound waves of a demonic beast.
But these weren't ordinary monsters; they possessed an oppressive aura imbued with "Calamity Factor."
The sound was low, deep, and broken, like a monster crawling out from the bottom of an abyss, distorted by the stretching of space.
Then, an indescribable stench of decay wafted into the city on the wind.
The spirit lamps on both sides of the street flickered erratically for a moment, and some weak cultivators clutched their chests, their faces pale, almost fainting on the spot.
On the celestial array, fragments of golden patterns cracked, releasing tiny threads of light that actively pointed towards a certain street area on the east side of the main city.
It's quite obvious—traces of a demonic beast have been discovered over there.
The restaurant erupted in discussion.
"What? The city's defensive formation has been triggered! This monster is definitely not simple!"
"Could it be that those mutated demonic spirits that escaped from the Deep Root Lower Layers have come here?"
"I've heard... there might even be monstrous beasts infiltrating the major cities!"
"Let's go! This is serious!"
Many cultivators immediately paid their bills and left their seats, rushing hurriedly towards the east side of the main city.
Qin Yu remained seated, tapping his fingers lightly on the table, then gave Azure Ring a wink.
Azure Ring immediately understood, gave a "received" sign with her little hand, and the next second she transformed into a ray of light blue light, "whoosh" falling into the depths of Qin Yu's sea of consciousness.
Qin Yu stood up, dusted off his clothes, his expression calm yet laced with hidden sharpness. "Let's go, I'll join in the fun."
The void beneath his feet slightly collapsed, and he took a step forward, disappearing into the night like the wind, heading towards the unusual place to the east.
Meanwhile, the entire atmosphere of the Enxi Shadow Main City was being quietly infected by some unknown dark factor.
The main city was torn open by the golden and black light of the formation. The moment Qin Yu stepped into the eastern street area, the blood and decaying aura that permeated the air almost solidified into a tangible substance, like the filth overflowing from the Realm of the Unborn, causing even the souls of ordinary cultivators to tremble.
Ahead, in a street littered with flying rubble, a dozen twisted and mutated demonic spirits were being heavily surrounded by dozens of patrolling cultivators.
Their appearance--
Unlike any common monsters in the Void Obliteration Domain, it seemed to have been forcibly reconstructed by the calamity power Deep Root Lower Layers.
They have a semi-liquid, sticky outer skin, and their color is a dull bluish-black, as if they have been soaked in corpse water;
The limbs were stretched into bizarre geometric angles, and the bones turned outwards when walking, accompanied by cracking sounds.
The face had no features, only a hollow that kept cracking and healing;
Embedded within his chest cavity was a floating purplish-black dot of light—the "source core" of the Calamity Factor;
Each spirit cast a long shadow that did not change with the light, as if the shadow itself had its own consciousness and was moving.
The besieging cultivators were all at the Annihilation Dawn Realm · Supreme. Their military-style spiritual weapons swept across the sky, repeatedly repelling the demonic spirits' attacks.
"Spread out! Don't let them get close!"
"These beasts are getting more and more infected!"
"Quickly, destroy the source of the contamination, or they won't die!"
Amidst the chaos, the city guards arrived.
A hundred Void Emanation Realm · Supreme Guardians descended from the sky, clad in heavy armor and exuding an aura like thunder. Upon arrival, they immediately activated the "City Guard Obliteration Matrix."
Boom!!!
A hundred people landed simultaneously, and the spiritual patterns beneath their feet exploded, forming a giant Annihilation array, with pillars of light shooting into the sky like thousands of fire serpents.
Those dozen or so twisted demonic spirits vanished in the instant the array of light swept past—
The body began to collapse as if emptied from its very core, limbs twisted, and the shadow burned in reverse.
The source of the contamination trembled and shattered continuously, finally emitting silent death ripples within the array.
The Annihilation came swiftly and completely.
In less than three breaths, all the demon spirits turned into eerie black ash and were swallowed up by the array plate.
The street finally regained a moment of tranquility.
But Qin Yu noticed:
The direction in which the black ash dissipated... seemed to be drawn towards some unknown darkness, as if an unseen "source of disaster" was quietly devouring them.
As he was pondering this, a very slight spatial tremor came from high above.
Qin Yu glanced sideways. In the night breeze, a figure quietly slipped into the crowd.
He was a young man in white, whose aura was unfathomable. Despite the shock of the massive city guard formation, he remained as pure as snow standing in the wind, untouched by dust.
His fingers were casually tucked behind his back, his expression serene yet exceptionally refined. When his gaze fell upon Qin Yu, it seemed to carry a feeling of... "a long-awaited reunion".
The moment Qin Yu felt that gaze, his heart skipped a beat.
It wasn't murderous intent, nor hostility—but rather a profound sense of... exploration and curiosity.
But Qin Yu didn't know who he was. He only keenly deduced:
This person is no ordinary cultivator; their cultivation level is at least... Chaos Realm.
Others couldn't even notice his presence, but Qin Yu could inexplicably sense it.
Qin Yu's heart skipped a beat. "Heh... Could it be that even with this disguise, the Nine Alliances Gang can still recognize me?"
He slightly concealed his aura, shifted his gaze away from the young man, and paid him no further attention.
The mysterious figure simply watched Qin Yu calmly, a faint hint of interest flashing in his eyes. "... This person is definitely not simple. With his help, my sister will surely recover completely."
But he didn't step forward or say anything. He simply brushed past Qin Yu in the crowd and disappeared like a wisp of wind into the light and shadow of the main city.
Meanwhile, the chaos in the neighborhood completely subsided.
After checking the surrounding area and confirming that there were no further sources of pollution, the hundred guards removed the array and resumed their patrols.
The surrounding cultivators gradually dispersed, and the discussions slowly subsided.
The city's glorious lights once again covered the night sky, and everything returned to normal... at least on the surface.
Standing in the middle of the street, Qin Yu gazed in the direction where the demon spirit had vanished, but a growing sense of unease rose within him:
--The calamity-inducing forces that have Deep Root Lower Layers have begun to gradually infiltrate the various main cities of the Void Obliteration Domain.