The question of life or death was fully revealed at this moment.
Deep within the Silent Profundity Floating Ruins, that ancient and indifferent will no longer conceal itself. It is neither a sound nor a thought, but a kind of Order Adjudication directly written into the foundation of existence—all existences still bound by cause and effect will be automatically categorized, filtered, and erased.
The turbulent flow of spacetime suddenly froze, and the silver threads of cause and effect, like frozen lightning, hovered in the void. Each thread led to an ending, and these endings began to collapse rapidly, leaving only two possibilities: to continue or to be completely eliminated.
The losers will no longer "die".
Instead, they were directly erased from the spacetime turbulence, as if they had never set foot in this place, leaving not even the fact that they had "failed".
The moment the Order Adjudication was finalized, the Karma-Free State within Qin Yu's body suddenly trembled.
He had previously voluntarily stripped himself of all anchors for "continuing causality," but now he was facing the cruelest backlash—when the outside world determined that a "determinable object" was needed, the Karma-Free State itself became the greatest heresy. The spacetime turbulence began to squeeze the boundaries of his existence in reverse. It was not an attack, but the world trying to forcibly confirm: who you are, where you come from, and where you should go.
Qin Yu's soul trembled violently, and a tearing blank appeared at the edge of his consciousness, as if he would be forcibly "complete the cause and effect" and pulled back into the adjudicable sequence in the next instant.
But at that Threshold moment, he did not back down.
Within Qin Yu's body, the operation of the "Limitless Yuan Absorption Art" suddenly changed. It was no longer about absorbing external energy, but rather about drawing the soon-to-be-forming backlash directly into the deepest layer of his own structure.
Instead of resisting the Order Adjudication as "ownerless energy" in an extremely dangerous way, allowing it to be dismantled, diluted, and recombined along the path of the Limitless Yuan Absorption Art.
At that moment, his body seemed to transform into an invisible millstone.
The Order Adjudication attempted to confirm him, only to find that all the "labels" used for confirmation were being continuously absorbed and pulverized, eventually turning into an undefinable fluid state. The backlash did not disappear, but was forcibly introduced into a cycle, constantly being absorbed, dissolved, and absorbed again within his body, forming an extremely dangerous yet barely stable balance.
In that brief moment of delay in the Order Adjudication, the Spacetime Karma Remnant Soul stirred.
It no longer tried to suppress Qin Yu with turbulence and backlash, but instead chose a more ruthless and safer approach.
Countless threads of cause and effect suddenly converged, weaving into a closed and perfect structure—"The Spacetime Cage".
The cage was not a physical object, but an infinitely magnified "fragment of time and space." Qin Yu felt a sudden darkness before his eyes, and in the next instant, he was pulled into a fixed, looping scene.
That was a moment when he had failed.
The space was small, yet incredibly clear. A familiar yet heavy atmosphere lingered in the air. A collapse he couldn't stop, an ending he couldn't salvage, replayed before his eyes again and again. Each time, he would "timely" realize that it was an illusion, but no matter what he did or how he tried to change the process, the result was always the same—failure, collapse, and starting over.
Time here no longer moves forward, but turns back.
His will was forced to experience the same regrets and the same sense of powerlessness time and time again, as if to etch the conclusion that "you will eventually fail" into the depths of his being.
Outside the cage, the remnant soul of cause and effect coldly watched all of this. It knew that this was not killing, but a more effective form of disintegration than killing—when a cultivator's will is worn down to its Limit by the cycle, the self will spontaneously disintegrate and become the purest causal nourishment.
But Qin Yu did not continue to "participate" in this cycle.
As the scenario of failure unfolded for the umpteenth time, he suddenly stopped all movement.
He no longer tried to change the outcome, no longer took action, no longer mobilized any power, and even stopped "observing" the scene. He let his aura slowly sink, completely withdrawing his attention from the picture.
The Karma-Free State is where its true significance lies at this moment.
The prison exists because it is attached to "a specific fragment of the past". But when Qin Yu no longer acknowledges that this past belongs to "me", when he no longer regards failure, regret, and experience as part of himself, this fragment loses its binding object.
The cage began to show slight misalignment.
The scene continued to loop, but Qin Yu's presence gradually became blurred, like an observer no longer acknowledged by the plot. The "Limitless Yuan Absorption Art" within him began to operate again, this time absorbing not energy, but the "time debris" constantly overflowing from the cage itself.
After the residue was sucked away, the cycle began to break down.
The failed scene skipped frames, and the moment it restarted, there was a blank screen. The threads of cause and effect kept loosening and breaking at the edge of the cage. Qin Yu slowly raised his hand, without attacking, but simply took a step forward with himself as the center.
This step did not involve entering any specific scene.
Instead, it went directly out of the scope of "being repeatedly defined".
At this moment, the Spacetime Cage lost its core support, and the entire structure collapsed rapidly, like a net that had lost its weaving target. Countless threads of cause and effect burned out in the void, turning into dim ashes, which were then swallowed up again by the spacetime turbulence.
Qin Yu stood once more amidst the turbulent currents, his aura erratic yet steadfast.
The Spacetime Karma Remnant Soul opposite it showed genuine hesitation for the first time. It realized that the cultivator before it could no longer be locked by the "past".
The remnant soul of cause and effect slowly raised its "head" amidst the ashes of the collapsing Spacetime Cage. Its form began its final transformation.
The causal threads that entwined around it were no longer external, but flowed back and merged into the remnant soul's body like blood vessels. The silvery-white lines disappeared one by one into the phantom, making its outline increasingly blurred, yet increasingly real. The turbulent currents no longer surged violently, but slowly rotated around it, as if the entire spacetime was making way for it.
At this moment, it is no longer a "guardian," but the embodiment of the turbulence itself.
The next instant, its third supernatural power was fully revealed: "Remnant Soul Assimilation"—without light or sound.
Qin Yu suddenly felt an extremely dangerous illusion—not that he was being attacked, but that he was being "invited." The existence logic of the causal remnant soul was fully revealed at this moment. It no longer blocked Qin Yu's progress, but instead unfolded an invisible assimilation network with itself at its core.
As long as Qin Yu continues to operate his power in the way of the Void Emanation Realm, as long as he tries to act with the idea of "penetrating space and time" and "breaking free from the turbulence", his supernatural powers, his will, and even his definition of "moving forward" will be captured, absorbed, and rewritten by the causal remnant soul, and eventually transformed into new causal fragments, which will remain in this turbulence forever and become a part of it.
This is a more thorough erasure than a simple killing.
It's not about destroying you, but about letting you "continue to exist," but no longer belonging to yourself.
The remnant soul of cause and effect slowly stretched out its hand, which was woven from countless threads of cause and effect. Wherever it passed, the turbulent currents automatically calmed down, time yielded, and space subsided, as if all the losers throughout the ages were heading towards the same end at this moment.
But Qin Yu did not retreat. He did not even continue to maintain the Void Emanation Realm state.
The moment the "Assimilation Hand" approached, the power within Qin Yu suddenly shifted—not expanding outward, but collapsing inward. He no longer tried to traverse time and space, nor did he try to Sever Karma; instead, he did something more dangerous and more thorough.
He proactively "disconnected" himself from all connections with the turbulent currents.
It wasn't about hiding or avoiding; rather, it was about using [Three Forms of Fate Construction: Cause and Effect Deconstruction] as a starting point to directly dismantle the fact that "I am connected to this place" within one's own existence. In that instant, it was as if a blank space had been forcibly carved out of Qin Yu from the turbulent narrative.
The assimilation network of the causal remnant suddenly paused. It realized that it was reaching out to an "object no longer marked by causality."
Immediately afterwards, Qin Yu did not give it a chance to re-weave.
He raised his hand; the Silent Origin Stainless Sword did not fully materialize, only casting an extremely pure, serene outline in his palm. As his will subsided,
[The Void Evolution Jiwu] unfolds quietly—not covering the entire world, but limited to the extremely short distance between him and the remnant soul of cause and effect.
Within this line of distance, everything "in the process of evolution" was forcibly dragged into a standstill.
The remnant soul of cause and effect attempted to transform itself into rules, but Qin Yu prevented these rules from being completed in time. The logic of assimilation was severed before it was generated, and the causal thread lost its window of opportunity to continue weaving.
The next instant, [Three Forms of Fate Construction - Existence Erasure] was silently activated.
There was no slashing, no explosive power.
A strange void began to appear in the figure of the causal remnant soul—not torn apart, but structurally "missing a piece." The missing piece was not conspicuous, yet it could not be repaired, because what was erased was not the form, but the qualification to "exist as a causal node."
The turbulence began to backfire on itself.
The causal lines, having lost their core anchor, receded wildly, and the remnant soul's form rapidly collapsed, transforming into countless fragments of time that had lost their home. It attempted to assimilate again, but found that it could no longer find any object to connect with.
Finally, in a silent annihilation, the remnant soul of cause and effect completely dissipated.
There were no last words, no struggles. The turbulent flow of time and space suddenly calmed down, the silver threads extinguished one by one, and the entire space seemed to have taken a deep breath.
Qin Yu stood in the center of the turbulent flow, his aura fluctuating slightly, but he no longer felt any sense of suppression.
At that very moment, a brand new passage slowly opened up from the depths of the turbulent currents.
There were no mirror images, no causal lines, and no traces for deduction; there was only an extremely pure, almost blank level of existence—deeper than reality and illusion, farther than cause and effect.
In the void, the embers from the first two trials had not yet completely disappeared. The shattered images, the broken causal lines, and the traces of remnant souls that had sunk into the turbulent currents seemed to still echo silently. In this silence that was about to return to nothingness, light and shadow suddenly coalesced again.
The illusory old man who had first appeared reappeared from the void.
He did not arrive from thin air, nor did he manifest at any coordinate; rather, he seemed to have existed before the concept of "appearance." His form was between reality and illusion, his beard and hair appearing as if repeatedly erased and rewritten by the passage of time. Deep within his eyes, there were no pupils, only layers of inward-collapsed, desolate halos. His voice did not travel through the air, but resounded directly in the depths of Qin Yu's consciousness, deep, expansive, and carrying an ancient and irresistible echo, like the first response from the bottom of an abyss after billions of years.
"The key to the Silent Profundity opens the Ming You, the three tribulations temper the immortal eyes. The mirror shatters, the void is entangled with obsession, the shadows are born, the true and the false are in chaos."
Time and space are crushed without result; birth and death dissolve, and even thoughts cease. All things return to nowhere, revealing the Way; the abyss is boundless, so linger there.
With each word spoken, the "space" beneath Qin Yu's feet would slightly collapse, only to be erased before it could fully dissolve, as if even the medium carrying the poem was not allowed to exist. It was neither a warning nor a prophecy, but rather an echo of cause and effect that had already occurred and was now being allowed to be recounted.
The old man's gaze slowly fell on Qin Yu. In that instant, Qin Yu seemed to be completely seen through, yet nothing was actually seen.
"The first two levels have been passed." The old man's voice was devoid of emotion, yet naturally carried a sense of judgment. "The final level—do you still wish to step into it?"
After a brief pause, the voice continued, its tone calm yet chillingly colder than any threat. "This is the test of the 'Abyss of Causelessness.' If you fail, your soul will be Eternal Silence Devouring, becoming nourishment for the Key of Silent Profundity. The cause and effect of the world will be reversed and corrected; there will never have been a 'Qin Yu,' nor will there be any trace of you ever setting foot here."
As soon as the words were spoken, even the silence itself seemed to vanish, leaving only an inescapable choice.
Qin Yu stood there, neither hesitating nor weighing the options.
He simply raised his head, his tone almost casually blunt. "Of course I'll continue. If I pass the first two levels and don't make it to the last one, wouldn't all my previous efforts have been for nothing? Besides, I must obtain your so-called Key of Silent Profundity."
This is not a boastful statement, nor is it reckless ignorance of the consequences; rather, it is an extremely pure certainty—having come this far, there is no way back, nor is there any need for one.
The illusory old man seemed to pause for a very slight moment, not out of surprise, but more like some ancient procedure being reaffirmed. He slowly raised his hand, his five fingers spread, but he did not touch anything.
In the next instant, the entire "space" was directly negated.
Without a falling process or a teleportation transition, Qin Yu didn't even have time to sense the change in direction before discovering that all his senses simultaneously failed—not because they were blocked, but because he lost the reference point for the concept of "perception".
When everything was "allowed to exist" again, he was already standing in another place.
This is the Abyss of Causelessness.
There is no sky, no earth, and no distinction between "up" and "down" or "before" and "after". Does Not Exist passage of time, Does Not Exist extension of space, and even the state of "nothingness" itself seems superfluous. This place is more like the origin before all possibilities are allowed to occur—the source of Unborn possibilities.
The surroundings were utterly silent, yet not dark. It was a blankness that defied description, as if all colors had been negated before they even appeared. Qin Yu's presence was extremely compressed here; he was still "present," but no longer recognized by any rules.
And in the deepest part of this Abyss of Causelessness, a faint, mysterious light floats silently.
That was the Key of Silent Profundity.
It is neither a divine artifact, nor a magical treasure, nor any object that can be defined; it is merely a core existing between "a form about to appear" and "not yet permitted to exist." Its mystical light is faint, yet so stable as to be unsettling, as if no matter how the outside world changes, it remains in the same moment of "not yet begun."
But Qin Yu's attention was quickly drawn to the "existence" on the other side of the abyss.
Something is slowly taking shape there.
Without a fixed outline or a clear form, it was like a shadow that was being constantly rewritten. Sometimes it transformed into the outline of Qin Yu himself, his face blurry yet familiar; other times it transformed into the final scene after the destruction of heaven and earth, where stars cooled, all worlds collapsed, and everything returned to silent death.
That was neither an illusion nor a projection.
That is "The Silent Profundity Origin Heart Demon".
It is the core backlash of the Key of Silent Profundity, the Ultimate product of the intertwining of the "Origin of Silent Profundity" with the intruder's deepest fear, resistance, understanding, and misunderstanding of "Annihilation". It will not attack proactively, nor will it release any power that can be called "supernatural power".
It embodies only one thing—silence.
It is not death, nor destruction, but the Ultimate state in which all things return to the indistinguishable, unnameable, and indivisible. There is no birth, no death, no Pre-Nonbeing after; all struggles here seem superfluous.
In the Abyss of Causelessness, Qin Yu realized for the first time that this trial might not be a "battle."
Rather, it is a judgment that forces us to confront the very meaning of our own existence.