Beyond the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains, a low, mournful wind whistled, and the world was utterly silent. When the Chaos First Palace's forces were still ten miles from the tomb, Ling Liangyan suddenly raised her hand, her five fingers pressed together, the movement swift and calm. Everyone stopped instantly, without a sound. She stood at the forefront, her gaze passing over the churning gray mist, landing on the area that should have been engulfed in the roar of war, her brow furrowing silently and slowly. It was an extremely unnatural emptiness, as if a segment of "existence" had been forcibly ripped from the entire world.
Liu Xu followed her gaze, initially noticing nothing amiss. However, after a few moments, his expression changed. He asked in a deep voice, "What's wrong, Liangyan?" Ling Liangyan didn't answer immediately. She closed her eyes for a moment, the unique energy of the Chaos First Palace quietly circulating within her body, as if silently comparing herself to the logic at the very bottom of the universe. Then she opened her eyes, her voice extremely low, yet carrying a rare hint of doubt, "Something's wrong. We've already approached within ten miles of the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains. Logically, this place shouldn't be this clean. I can't sense any life force, not even a trace."
Liu Xu's expression hardened. He immediately raised his hand, his fingertip pointing out that the power of causality spread forward like invisible ripples on water. There was no light, no sound; it was simply a probing of the rules extending along a predetermined trajectory of existence. A few breaths later, his finger trembled slightly, and his face instantly darkened. "Something's wrong." His voice was low and grave. "Before we set off, the causal echoes of the battle still lingered in the direction of the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains. The traces of collision Logic Remnants Lord were still there, but now... it's all gone."
It wasn't covered up, nor was it interfered with; it was completely erased. Cause and effect extended forward, only to crash into a blank wall. All traces of "what was happening" were cut off, leaving only a chilling stillness.
Ling Liangyan's gaze sharpened. Without further hesitation, she lowered her voice and said, "Don't reveal your presence. The whole team must remain hidden and approach slowly. Observe carefully before deciding on the next step."
The people of the Chaos First Palace immediately dispersed, their auras compressed to almost blend into the heavens and earth, their footsteps silent, their figures moving between the gray-white wasteland and the undulating afterimages of the ancient tomb. The closer they got, the heavier the deathly silence became, as if even the wind had been swallowed up by something. The Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains, which should have been filled with the sounds of battle and the vibrations of laws, was now eerily quiet.
When they finally broke through the last barrier of terrain and could truly see the interior of the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains, everyone held their breath at the same moment.
The entire Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains was "filled".
These were not cultivators, nor corpses, but countless Logic Remnants Lords. They densely packed every inch of space in the ancient tomb, like an endless dark tide, layer upon layer, surging inward. Their forms varied: some resembled skeletal shadows formed from shattered laws, some looked like forcibly stitched-together remnants of divine souls, and others were merely a constantly reorganizing and collapsing shadow of logic. Each being slowly writhed, yet made no sound, as if an invisible hand had pressed the entire area into absolute silence.
What's even more chilling is that there isn't a single trace of a cultivator from the Void Obliteration Domain within the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains.
It wasn't the remnants of an escape, nor the lingering warmth of defeat, but utter emptiness. It was as if no cultivator had ever set foot here from the very beginning.
Liu Xu's throat tightened, and his voice was almost squeezed out from between his teeth, "What happened... There's not even the aura of a single cultivator left? This shouldn't be happening. Even if the entire army was wiped out, it's impossible for even the causal remnants to disappear so completely." He didn't finish his sentence, but everyone understood what he meant—this wasn't a massacre, this was annihilation.
Ling Liangyan frowned deeply, her gaze sweeping among the densely packed, suffocatingly Logic Remnants Lord. She could sense an extremely familiar yet colder aura slumbering deep within the ancient tomb. It wasn't the oppression of a single Master Soul Dominion, but rather more like a "purgatory" that had been prepared long ago, quietly awaiting the next instruction.
She spoke in a low voice, her tone more solemn than ever before, "The Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains is no longer a battlefield." She slowly raised her eyes, looking into the core area deeper within the tomb, shrouded in the shadows of logic, "This place has been transformed into some kind of... gathering point."
The gray mist outside the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains Chaos First Palace remained hidden behind the terrain fault line, observing from afar the dead zone filled with the Logic Remnants Lord. Liu Xu lowered his voice, his tone clearly restrained and cautious, "We only have a little over a thousand disciples present, the highest cultivation level being only at the Silent Mystery Realm · Supreme, and the rest are mostly at the Silent Mystery Realm · Middle Stage. With this scale, once exposed, it's impossible to fight head-on." His words were not out of cowardice, but an extremely calm assessment. On this battlefield that had been completely rewritten, numbers and courage were no longer the key to victory.
Ling Liangyan nodded slightly, her gaze never leaving the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains. "I know," she said in a low, steady voice. "Then send a disciple back to ask the Palace Master to send more men. At least we need a force that can truly restrain the existence of the Main Order; otherwise, entering rashly will only result in being swallowed up without even a trace of cause and effect." As soon as she finished speaking, a Primordial Envoys had already quietly retreated into the void, speeding away along the most concealed causal path.
However, just as the Chaos First Palace was preparing to continue its concealment and await reinforcements, a violent torrent of energy suddenly tore open the heavens and earth on the other side of the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains. Without any probing or concealment, an almost suicidal killing intent, carrying chaotic Dao rhythms and roars, directly crashed into the core area of Logic Remnants Lord.
"Kill--!"
A hoarse and frantic scream suddenly exploded in the deathly silence, like a rusty iron nail driven into the emptiness of the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains.
Liu Xu and Ling Liangyan were both startled and almost instinctively looked up. They saw more than a thousand cultivators rushing out from the edge of the ancient tomb like a flood bursting its banks. Their robes fluttered, their Dharma forms were beginning to appear, and they charged towards the center covered by the shadow of logic without hesitation. At that moment, even the gray mist in the air was torn apart and churned by their aura.
Ling Liangyan was the first to recognize the aura. Her pupils contracted slightly, and she whispered, "It's people from the Azure Nether Immortal Sect... How did they manage to rush in like that?"
Liu Xu's face instantly turned extremely ugly, and for the first time, he couldn't suppress his anger, "Nonsense! More than a thousand Silent Mystery Realm · Middle Stage, plus dozens of Silent Mystery Realm · Supreme, dare to venture into a place like this? The weakest of these Logic Remnants Lord is at the Silent Mystery Realm · Middle Stage; they're sending themselves into the abyss!"
Before the words were even finished, the Azure Nether Immortal Sect's formation had already completely penetrated into the heart of the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains. The leading dozens of elders simultaneously unleashed their Dharma forms, with Qingming Dao patterns spreading out behind them like a surging azure sky. Some raised their hands and unleashed a myriad of talismanic light, while others unleashed a sword strike, their sword intent transforming into a long rainbow piercing through the ancient tomb. Still others directly burned their source energy, summoning enormous Dao image phantoms, attempting to tear a bloody path in the most violent way.
However, the moment they stepped into the dense area of Logic Remnants Lord, the entire Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains seemed to be "awakened" by something.
The original, still, wriggling, and dormant shadowy Logic Remnants Lord raised its "head" almost simultaneously. It had no eyes, but countless logical perceptions locked onto the intruder in an instant. The air suddenly collapsed, the laws began to shift, and a cold and indifferent killing intent, like an invisible tsunami, pressed down from all directions at the same time.
The next moment, a fierce battle erupted.
Before the first batch of the Azure Nether Immortal Sect disciples could fully deploy their formation, they were simultaneously pierced by dozens of distorted beams of logical light. It was not a simple energy attack, but a tearing that directly affected the level of existence. Some disciples' protective divine abilities were still in operation, but their physical bodies were already blurring and disintegrating on the spot, and their souls were stretched into thin threads of light, instantly swallowed up by the Logic Remnants Lord around them.
"Stabilize the formation--!" an elder of the Azure Nether Immortal Sect roared, his hands forming a seal. The Azure Nether Dharma Form crashed to the ground, forcefully suppressing the logical turbulence in the surrounding area. Dozens of disciples seized the opportunity to counterattack, unleashing a torrential downpour of various supernatural powers. Thunder, sword light, and talisman fire intertwined and exploded above the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains, briefly tearing open a clear space.
However, this clarity lasted for less than a moment.
More Logic Remnants Lord surged from the shadows, their forms rapidly reconstructing themselves in the battle. Some directly withstood the supernatural powers without retreating, allowing their physical bodies to be shattered before piecing themselves back together as logical fragments; others opened logical rifts like abysses, dragging the incoming spells and their casters into their bodies, swallowing even the echoes of the explosions.
The Azure Nether Immortal Sect's lines began to falter violently. The elders' angry shouts and the disciples' screams echoed across the ancient tomb. The light from the clash of supernatural powers illuminated the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains intermittently, yet it could not dispel the ever-thickening shadow.
In the distance, Ling Liangyan stared intently at the scene, her knuckles clenching silently. She could see that this was not a battle that could be won, but a sacrifice that was being rapidly devoured.
The battlefield of the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains spiraled out of control in an extremely short time. The Azure Nether Immortal Sect's formation, which had been barely holding on, collapsed layer by layer from the center, like a dam being crushed by an invisible giant hand. The disciples at the Silent Mystery Realm · Middle Stage were the first to give in. Their protective divine abilities emitted ear-piercing cracking sounds under the erosion of logic. Before their Dao patterns had completely extinguished, their physical bodies were torn apart, blown away, and flattened in the distorted causal force field, disappearing one after another on the gray surface of the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains.
The elders at the Silent Mystery Realm · Supreme roared as they burned their source energy, their Azure Nether Dharma Form forcefully suppressing all directions. Runes and sword intent exploded in the air into blinding seas of light, but that light lasted only for a fleeting moment before being swallowed up by hordes of Logic Remnants Lord surging in. These beings were devoid of emotion and hesitation, advancing, encircling, and dividing with cold efficiency, as if the entire battlefield itself were part of them.
Just as the disciples of the Azure Nether Immortal Sect were being "killed" one after another, their numbers decreasing at a visible rate, Ling Liangyan's pupils suddenly contracted, her breathing became rapid and disordered in an instant, and her voice was almost squeezed out from deep in her throat.
Something's not right...
She stared intently at the center of the battlefield, her face almost pale in the gray mist. "Elder Liu, look... those Logic Remnants Lords."
Liu Xu followed her gaze, and his originally solemn expression froze completely after seeing what was happening.
The disciples of the Azure Nether Immortal Sect were indeed "dying," but they did not truly disappear. Every time a disciple was pierced, torn apart, and crushed by the Logic Remnants Lord, that body, which had not yet completely lost its warmth, would be enveloped by a strange Logic Fate Soul. It was not possession, nor was it possession in the conventional sense, but a deeper and more thorough invasion.
The fallen cultivators shuddered violently, their limbs convulsing and contorting at angles completely contrary to their physiological structure. The broken bones creaked beneath their skin, their flesh and blood not scattering, but rather seemingly forcibly "fixed" in place by some invisible force. In the next instant, dark and cold logical patterns rapidly spread from their chests, necks, and faces, crawling all over their bodies like parasitic runes.
The aura that originally belonged to the cultivator was being brutally stripped away and covered up.
Their eyes were the first to change; their pupils were torn open into irregular holes, and the whites of their eyes were stained with a murky dark color, revealing indifferent patterns in their depths identical to those of the other Logic Remnants Lord. Their mouths opened, but no longer emitted human voices; instead, they uttered low, overlapping sounds, like the buzzing of countless logics operating simultaneously.
But amidst that buzzing sound, you could faintly hear something else.
It was a broken and desperate scream, forcibly suppressed at the deepest level.
The sound was unclear, yet undeniably real, like cries and pleas for help echoing through a thick layer of water, reverberating within the bodies of those Logic Remnants Lords. The invaded bodies stood up with stiff, strange movements, their shoulders trembling slightly, as if another consciousness was still struggling frantically within them, but was completely sealed off in an abyss from which they could not reach the outside world.
They bear the karmic traces of the Azure Nether Immortal Sect disciples, the remnants of the Yin Soul circuits formed during cultivation, and even retain some familiar physical outlines. However, all "self" has been erased, crushed, and covered. They are no longer living people, nor simply newborn monsters, but rather Logic Remnants Lord have forcibly occupied the original vessel of the cultivator.
It's equivalent to continuing to "live" using their bodies.
More "newborn" Logic Remnants Lord slowly rose from the pile of corpses, their numbers increasing at a suffocating rate. The disciples of the Azure Nether Immortal Sect who had been killed had now become part of the enemy, joining the siege of their surviving fellow disciples. Familiar auras and unfamiliar killing intent intertwined within the same body, creating a scene that was almost nightmarish.
Liu Xu's throat bobbed, his voice low, hoarse, and strained, "They... aren't killing people."
Ling Liangyan's hands trembled slightly, and for the first time, shock and chilling intent, almost beyond control, appeared in her eyes. "They are expanding themselves... using living cultivators as vessels."
The gray mist in the Ancient Mausoleum of Shadowy Remains surged even more violently, as if the entire region resonated with this desecration of existence itself. The remaining resistance of the Azure Nether Immortal Sect was quickly drowned out, leaving only an increasingly dense and unified hum of logic echoing endlessly in the dead zone.