Qin and Jin Probe the Abyss, the Devouring Emperor Plays His Game

Qin Yu in the center of the northern wasteland, his divine sense slowly spreading out. However, it was no longer a simple extension of perception, but an extremely cautious, almost "reverse existence" pursuit. He did not search for the remnants of demonic energy, nor did he try to capture the lingering warmth of time. Instead, he compressed his own logical framework to the minimum, using the perspective of "never happened" to deduce the existence of that calamity that should have left something behind.

He raised his hand, his fingertips Empty Grasp, the power of Order Adjudication silently circulating within his body. The causal lines did not manifest as any visible traces, but rather seemed to have been completely erased by an invisible hand. The past was gone, the consequences were not apparent, as if the Glazed Dao-Extinguishing Zheng had not left this place, but had been erased from the very fact that it "once existed".

After a few breaths, Qin Yu slowly exhaled, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly.

"... Sigh... No." Not even a trace of it being erased."

This is more chilling than any cover-up or counter-tracking. Because it means that the other party is not merely circumventing cause and effect, but rather, in some higher-level way, directly circumventing the logical premise of "being traceable."

Just then, Jin Hanyan's gaze fell on Qin Yu's side, as if subconsciously confirming something, and then she asked softly, "Young Master Qin, where is the young lady who was with you just now?"

Qin Yu didn't hide anything, his tone calm. "She went back to the Chaos First Palace with two elders from my temple to report. Although the battle lines are temporarily stable, the eight Devil Beasts from the unknown world are still lurking in the shadows, so it's more appropriate for her to stay in the temple."

He paused, then turned his gaze to Jin Hanyan, his tone becoming more serious. "By the way, Miss Hanyan, you have already reached the Stainless Realm · Supreme. Could you try to penetrate cause and effect with the Light of Stainlessness, or... use your supreme treasure [Boundless Nothingness - Gate of Finality] to trace back to the place where the Glazed Dao-Extinguishing Zheng Zhen truly 'appeared' last?"

This time, Qin Yu didn't say "where he went," but deliberately used "he appeared."

Jin Hanyan naturally noticed the difference.

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded gently without refusing, "... Hmm, I'll give it a try."

The next moment, she took half a step forward. At that instant, the brightness of the world seemed to be subtly dimmed.

Jin Hanyan raised her hands, her fingertips not forming a seal, but slowly separating, and between her palms, an extremely pure light slowly emerged. It was not a dazzling white, but a soft glow that Does Not Exist almost "colorless," as if the original light remained after filtering out all the impurities in the world.

Light of Stainlessness.

The moment the light appeared, the remaining rules of the surrounding wasteland began to spontaneously dissipate. The causal lines no longer broke or extended, but were gently "lifted." Countless layers of logic that should have been entangled, overlapping, and chaotic appeared one by one under the illumination of the Light of Stainlessness, and then became transparent.

Jin Hanyan's eyes no longer reflected reality, but instead reflected layer upon layer of overlapping "illusory gate images."

She chanted softly, her voice not a spell, but more like a resonance with existence itself. As her voice faded, the space before her slowly unfolded, and the outline of an ancient and silent door emerged from the void.

It was a door that could not be measured by "size".

The door frame is composed of countless rules that disintegrate and recombine. Inside the door is not darkness, but an absolutely balanced void—neither born nor destroyed, neither existing nor nonexistent.

[Boundless and without end, the Gate of Finality].

The moment the door opened, time lost its direction, cause and effect lost their direction, and all concepts of "already happened" and "not yet happened" were simultaneously straightened and flattened.

Jin Hanyan's face paled noticeably at that moment.

She forcefully used her Stainless Realm · Supreme cultivation to pull the Gate of Finality toward the "last anchor point of past existence." It wasn't about rewinding time, but about searching for the one coordinate that was still allowed to "exist" amidst countless smoothed-out possibilities.

The light suddenly shone brightly.

From the blank space inside the door, a blurry yet incredibly real fragment of an image finally emerged—

Abyss-like rift collapsed inward from the edge of the Void Obliteration Domain, so dark that even light could not fall through; countless sealed soul shadows floated silently within, like echoes of eternal imprisonment; and in the deepest part of that abyss, a glass-like afterimage flashed by and then sank completely.

Jin Hanyan let out a muffled groan, and the Gate of Finality slowly closed, the Light of Stainlessness receding back into her body like a tide.

She steadied herself, took a deep breath, and looked up at Qin Yu, her eyes filled with a rare seriousness.

"Found it." "The last place where the Glazed Dao-Extinguishing Zheng was allowed to 'exist'—"

She slowly uttered that name, each word seemingly carrying the weight of imprisonment and death.

"Void Obliteration Domain - Soul-Sealing Abyss." Above the wasteland, the wind suddenly stopped. The name itself was like a silent warning.

Jin Hanyan stood at the northern edge of the Shattered Luminary Wasteland Belt, the wind swirling gently around her clothes. Her gaze wasn't sharp, but it carried a natural soothing power. She looked at Qin Yu, her tone gentle yet solemn. "Young Master Qin, although the Soul-Sealing Abyss isn't officially listed as a forbidden zone in the Void Obliteration Domain, its danger level is no different from a true forbidden zone. Within the Abyss, Sealed Souls, Sever Thought, and Cause Annihilation coexist; even cultivators at the Chaos Realm dare not linger."

Qin Yu listened quietly, not responding immediately. His gaze swept across the shattered land in the distance and the lingering aftershocks of the battlefield, his thoughts quickly and meticulously weighing the options. After a moment, he spoke slowly, his voice steady and clear. "But there is no better way now. The Glazed Dao-Extinguishing Zheng is elusive, yet it carries tens of thousands of demon spirits and divine beasts. If it chooses to accumulate power in that place, even just one opportunity will plunge the entire Void Obliteration Domain into turmoil once more. I must return to the Divine Temple, report this matter to the elders, and then gather the strongest warriors to go to the Soul-Sealing Abyss to investigate."

Jin Hanyan gently shook her head at this moment, a cautious look of thought appearing between her brows, "Young Master Qin, precisely because the Soul-Sealing Abyss is only a place where it 'once appeared,' not its confirmed hiding place, if you rashly lead the elders of the Chaos First Palace there and find it Emptiness, you will not only waste time but also alert it. More importantly, if you misjudge, it might take the opportunity to move and completely disappear beyond the deeper layers of cause and effect."

She raised her head, meeting Qin Yu's gaze, her eyes clear and resolute. "I suggest that the two of us go first. If we confirm that the Glazed Dao-Extinguishing Zheng is indeed hiding in the Soul-Sealing Abyss, it won't be too late to notify the Temple to gather forces and wipe it out."

Qin Yu paused slightly, then revealed a faint smile, not one of relief, but rather an acknowledgment of the assessment. He nodded. "Miss Hanyan is absolutely right. If we truly discover its trace, I can directly resonate with Wan He my sea of consciousness, and then inform Wan He. She can mobilize elders and combat power to go to the Nether Abyss in the shortest possible time."

Jin Hanyan responded softly, her expression relaxing slightly. "Okay, let's go then."

As the words fell, their figures faded simultaneously. The space beneath their feet did not distort violently; it was merely as if gently moved by an invisible hand. In the next instant, only the echo of cold wind sweeping across the shattered ground remained on the northern edge of the Shattered Luminary Wasteland Belt.

However, the instant they completely departed, a barely perceptible, unusual fluctuation suddenly appeared deep within the seemingly Emptiness center of the battlefield. It was neither tearing nor folding, but rather a "displacement" of a higher level. It was as if reality itself had been quietly lifted to a higher level.

Above that fourth dimension, beyond conventional perception, a semi-transparent shadow quietly unfolded. The figures of tens of thousands of demons and divine beasts were compressed into a state of weightlessness and soundlessness; their roars were frozen in their throats, and their claws and fangs were suspended in half a movement, as if forgotten by the entire world.

Deeper still, the Glazed Dao-Extinguishing Zheng lay silently, its glazed body reflecting layers upon layers of illusory light and shadow. Its aura was completely obliterated, and even the concept of "existence" itself was artificially hidden in the shadows of a higher dimension.

An invisible will coldly watched all of this from the shadows, without any announcement or fluctuation, only a pre-arranged silence.

In the real world below, everything is as usual, as if the calamity has passed.

The moment Qin Yu and Jin Hanyan stepped into the Soul-Sealing Abyss, it was as if they had simultaneously crossed a boundary that the world had deliberately forgotten.

This is no longer a downward fall in the sense of an "abyss," but a horizontally extending, boundless, dark realm. The concepts of heaven and earth completely fail here; beneath one's feet are not land, but layers of translucent, dark gray "soul mist crystals," like frozen waves, frozen in their broken forms. Within each crystal, vague human figures, beast figures, and even fragmented pieces of the world are faintly sealed. These are not corpses, but remnants of memories forcibly stripped of their "qualification to continue existing."

The sky—if it could still be called the sky—was in a state of being torn apart and upside down. Countless dark purple causal cracks, like withered nerve veins, stretched across the dome. From the depths of these cracks, low-frequency echoes reverberated intermittently; these were not sounds, but "echoes before thoughts were born," subtle yet instinctively unsettling. In the distance, a massive black seal slowly rotated like planetary debris. With each rotation, it caused a brief dislocation and double image in the surrounding space, as if several "unfinished presents" were simultaneously superimposed on the same area.

An indescribable sense of oppression permeated the air, not targeting the physical body, but rather reaching the depths of the soul. Qin Yu could clearly feel that his own logical framework was being continuously "thinned" here, as if an invisible hand was trying to smooth out the sharp edges of his thinking, bringing everything to a state of dullness and silence. Only when the original essence within his body flowed spontaneously, and the logical patterns in his sea of consciousness slowly lit up, was the erosion suppressed within a controllable range.

Jin Hanyan stood beside him, her Light of Stainlessness not radiating outwards, but forming a faint, transparent membrane around her. Her gaze swept over the sealed afterimages in the distance, her expression more solemn than ever before. "The sealing of the soul here is not simply sealing away the consciousness, but directly stripping away the qualification to 'continue to be a part of cause and effect.' Those trapped here are not dead, but rather rejected by the world from being remembered."

The two continued forward, their footsteps echoing without a sound. Only the soul mist crystal beneath their feet rippled slightly, but the ripples did not spread; instead, they were quickly swallowed up, as if they had never existed.

Meanwhile, at the same time they were venturing deeper into the Soul-Sealing Abyss, on the other side of the Void Obliteration Domain, above the Black Sea—

The sky that had been torn apart by the Divine Phoenix, the Calamity Beast, and the powerful beings of the heavens now appeared calm and peaceful. But beyond all dimensions of perception, in a level that had transcended the five dimensions and no longer existed in the form of "space," a silent "space domain" quietly unfolded.

There was no up, down, left, right, or far; there was only a state of being that seemed to be woven from absolute emptiness and extremely dark gray shadows. Any attempt to define it with thought would be erased before the thought could take shape.

The Thought Severance Devouring Emperor stood silently within.

Its form is unstable, sometimes appearing as a humanoid outline, and sometimes disintegrating into countless broken fragments of thought, only to reassemble in the next instant. With each change in form, the surrounding "space" collapses and reassembles, as if forced to adapt to its existence. Its gaze is not directed in any specific direction, but rather precisely "watches" everything that is happening in the Void Obliteration Domain.

To its left and right, two statues of the Three Nether Yin Puppets stood silently.

The Yin Puppet on the left has a body composed of layers of dark bone fragments. The joints are not connected, but rather suspended in tiny, void gaps, as if any attack would be displaced and swallowed up before it could even touch it. The Yin Puppet on the right, on the other hand, presents an almost melting form, its body outline constantly flowing and reshaping. Inside, countless soul shadows compressed to their Limit can be vaguely seen, struggling silently within.

The third Three Nether Yin Puppets is no longer there.

The empty space is not a void, but rather a "logical void" that has not completely dissipated, like a trace left after a fulcrum that should have existed was forcibly erased.

The Thought Severance Devouring Emperor slowly raised its hand, and wherever its fingertips passed, invisible structural lines appeared in the air, only to quickly rearrange themselves. It was an adjustment of the layout, a recalibration of the order of sacrifices, the hidden levels, and the "misleading the future." It did not reveal any emotion, but the calculations itself, performed with absolute calmness, were enough to plunge any observer into eternal fear.

Within its "field of vision," deep within the Soul-Sealing Abyss, two faint yet exceptionally clear variables are steadily approaching a deliberately concealed node.

It didn't stop it. It simply subtly shifted the weight of the next step.