After breaking through the first layer of chaotic restrictions, Qin Yu did not linger.
The Silent Origin Stainless Sword transformed into a restrained, silent line of light in his hand. Its sword intent did not emanate outwards, yet it maintained a minimum level of control over all Fate Soul fluctuations around him. He continued deeper into the swamp, following the faint "safe flow" within the Gloomy Mist Soul-Entangling Swamp. The swamp beneath his feet was no longer viscous and churning, but rather exhibited a strangely compliant state, as if silently making way for him.
Layers of eerie mist surrounded the area, their color shifting from gray to dark, then to a near-gloomy deep purple. Occasionally, extremely faint traces of souls would flash through the mist, the marks of beings who had once entered this place but could never leave, trapped in the swamp's breath. There was no wind in the air, yet a continuous "pulling sensation" could be felt, as if the entire space itself was slowly collapsing towards some unknown core.
Just as Qin Yu was about to step into a naturally formed corner ahead, he paused slightly.
It was an instinctive hesitation.
The fog on the right side of the corner was thinner than in other areas, even faintly revealing a "feasible path." The edges of the path bore extremely subtle logical breaks, like deliberately preserved clues. An ordinary cultivator would hardly notice the anomaly and would simply follow it.
Qin Yu lifted his foot and took half a step to the right. In that instant—
Boom!
There was no explosion, no energy surge, Does Not Exist even a spatial tremor. An irresistible force erupted from behind him without warning, as if the entire Gloomy Mist Soul-Entangling Swamp had "opened its eyes" at the same moment. It wasn't an attack, but an almost instinctive repulsion and attraction, directly affecting his very existence.
Qin Yu felt a sudden lightness around him, as if the space beneath his feet had suddenly lost its footing, and he was forcibly pulled backward. His vision shifted in an instant, the corner in front of him seemed to be rapidly pulled away, and the ghostly mist stretched into several blurry, ghostly streaks before his eyes. The next moment, he had been forcibly pulled back several feet away, landing once again in the center of the path where he had been safe.
The surface of the swamp rippled slightly before returning to stillness.
Qin Yu steadied himself, his pupils suddenly shrinking. It wasn't a backlash from the formation, nor was it a triggered restriction. That power... came from the Gloomy Mist Soul-Entangling Swamp itself.
He slowly raised his head and looked at the "right path" he had just seen. After his vision was pulled back, the seemingly safe passage had completely changed—dense logical tangents, almost integrated with the space itself, emerged from the depths of the fog. The tangents intersected to form an extremely complex array skeleton. If he took just half a step further, his Fate Soul would be instantly pulled, decomposed, and locked, leaving no room for reaction.
Qin Yu's heart skipped a beat, followed by a low, cold laugh. "Just as I expected."
He finally saw clearly the deliberately left traces—not a real path, but an extremely cleverly designed trap. The traces themselves were not lethal, but they would lure those who stepped into them into the subsequent deadly structure, making them a kind of "invitation grave" specifically designed for high-level beings.
Qin Yu slowly exhaled, shifting his gaze from the area of traps to the swamp beneath his feet. "... Thank goodness you pulled me back."
The words were spoken softly, without any deliberate attempt to lower the tone, yet without any emotional fluctuation; they were more like a gesture of equal respect.
There was no response from the Gloomy Mist Soul-Entangling Swamp.
But the moment Qin Yu finished speaking, the surrounding fog underwent an extremely subtle change. The originally slowly churning mist receded inward by an inch, and the fog at the edge of the danger zone subtly deepened, as if silently marking "Do Not Enter." At the same time, an almost imperceptible light ripple appeared on the surface of the swamp beneath Qin Yu's feet. The ripple did not spread but trembled slightly before dissipating.
That was a response.
It was neither a well-intentioned whisper nor a clear act of protection, but rather an extremely calm and ancient confirmation—it acknowledged Qin Yu's judgment and accepted his gratitude.
Qin Yu's lips curled into a slight smile as he turned away from the path marked "death" and resumed his journey along the most stable flow of the ghostly mist.
He was now certain of one thing: the Gloomy Mist Soul-Entangling Swamp was not merely a forbidden zone. It was observing him, and something else was trying to bypass it.
Qin Yu decisively chose the left side. However, he only took one step to the left.
Without warning, without transition, Does Not Exist even the strange sound of space being torn apart—the world before my eyes seemed to be gently "twisted" by an invisible hand, and my vision was completely displaced in the blink of an eye. The boundaries of the ghostly mist, the swamp, and the dark soul mist disappeared at the same time, replaced by an immense and heart-palpitating sense of vertical oppression.
Boom--
The sound of water didn't suddenly erupt; it had been there all along, but only now was Qin Yu "allowed to hear it."
He was standing beneath a waterfall.
It was neither a mountain stream waterfall nor a celestial river flowing backwards. It was a water curtain that seemed to hang down from "the undefined heavens." The water flow was not rapid, but it was incredibly thick, as if the entire world had been repeatedly folded and then poured down layer by layer in liquid form.
The width of the waterfall was impossible to estimate, as its boundaries receded into view; its height was even more indeterminate— Qin Yu looked up, his vision obscured by layers of cascading water, and even with his perception stretched to its Limit, he could only see endless water shadows continuing to fall from higher places, as if the "source" Does Not Exist at all.
This place is like an inverted dome of the sky.
There is no deep pool beneath the waterfall. The water naturally disperses as it approaches the ground, turning into a shower of water droplets, but it does not splash and scatter. Instead, it falls slowly in a way that defies common sense. Each droplet seems to have its trajectory calculated individually, precise, quiet, and indifferent.
As soon as Qin Yu stood firm, the first splashes of water landed on his robes.
It wasn't a splash. It was a "plop." Clear, visible, and perfectly accurate water droplets landed on the shoulder line, cuffs, and chest of the outer robe.
The waterfall "recognized" him at this moment. (Breath 0 to 3)
The water droplets did not seep into the fabric.
They seemed to fall onto a solid, frigid mirror, instantly spreading out and transforming into a thin, almost Does Not Exist film of water. Instead of sliding down the fabric's folds, the water film clung firmly to the surface, gleaming with a cold light that seemed out of place in reality.
Qin Yu looked down. His face was not reflected in the water film.
Instead, it was an undifferentiated outline—a mixture of flesh and gray mist, with blurred boundaries, like a "human embryo" forcibly dragged out from a more primitive stage. It had no facial features, only a rough torso and head proportion, resembling both an embryo and a person pieced together after being broken apart.
That's not a reflection. That's "the possibility that has not yet become anything."
Between the fourth and ninth breaths, the blurry outline began to move.
It rotates extremely slowly in the water film, as if searching for a suitable direction. The rotation process involves no joint changes, no muscle traction, only the overall shape gently rotating in the gray water shadows.
The moment it turned to face him, Qin Yu's soul instinctively tensed. It had no eyes, but it was "looking at him."
The outline of the head is slightly concave, forming a very shallow vortex. The vortex does not absorb light, but it is so captivating that it is impossible to look away, as if all definitions of "gaze" have lost their meaning here.
At the same time, extremely subtle water ripples began to appear on Qin Yu's robes.
Those weren't cracks; they resembled incompletely formed blood vessels on a fetal membrane. The water flowed against the flow of the fabric, not downwards, but upwards, returning to the direction of the waterfall, as if the robe were being used as some kind of "return channel."
Between the 10th and 13th breaths, the water film broke. Not shattered, but torn apart by what was inside—itself.
The water reflection split apart to the sides, revealing not flesh and bones, but a uniform, nauseatingly chaotic gray.
That gray had no gradations, no shades, and no attributes that could be named. To the naked eye, it seemed as if a small patch of the world had been smoothed out; but when the senses touched it even slightly, a strong sense of repulsion and dizziness would crash over it like waves, as if reason itself was being ordered to "retreat."
In that gray expanse, very slowly, a line of words emerged.
It is neither carved nor manifested, but rather pieced together by countless tiny water droplets. The characters seem to be dragged out stroke by stroke in the water by some Does Not Exist finger, with the edges constantly melting and recombining.
The words "You didn't have to be 'you'" trembled slightly. The next line appeared, almost touching the previous one. "Is it too late to back out now?"
After the 14th breath, the robes began to "breathe".
That was no illusion. The fabric undulated with an extremely slight movement, a slow and steady rhythm, like lungs attempting to expand for the first time in a still-developing chest cavity. Beneath the water film, a barely audible pulsation could be heard, creating a disjointed rhythm that sent chills down one's spine.
Then, a sound appeared. Not from inside the ear.
Instead, a bubble burst with a very soft "pop" in the air very close to Qin Yu's ear.
Then came a moist, sticky gurgling sound, similar to fetal movement. But these weren't the most dangerous parts.
Instead, when Qin Yu's mind instinctively flashed the thought of "getting rid of this garment"—
A voice rang clearly in his mind. It wasn't an unfamiliar whisper.
It was a sound from an extremely distant memory, almost buried by time.
It carried the unique scent of childhood, light yet urgent, tinged with unease and pleading.
"Don't touch it..." "I'm inside... I haven't fully grown yet..."
A brief pause. As if struggling to organize his thoughts.
"You've shattered me... I don't know what I'll grow into next time..."
The waterfall continued to cascade. The world was eerily silent. The Unborn Abyssal Curtain, but it was already fully unfurled.
This is merely the first cognitive trap prepared by the Logic Remnants Lord for those who truly touch the clues of chaos.
The Chaos-Hidden Inverted Waterfall – also known as the Unborn Abyssal Curtain.
Qin Yu beneath the waterfall; the roaring water seemed to have lost its "meaning," leaving only a more terrifying silence in the entire world.
It wasn't silence, but rather, "All phenomena were happening, yet no longer allowed to exist." The thin, almost Does Not Exist film of water on his robes continued to cling, like a undried amniotic sac, gently undulating as if breathing. The undifferentiated humanoid outline within the film turned to face forward, its head concave into a vortex, the center of which, though lacking pupils, seemed to pin his soul to its center. The "pop" of the bubble bursting behind his ear sounded again, followed by a gurgling sound like fetal movement crawling along the side of his neck.
It felt like something cold, wet, and boneless was slowly turning over under his skin, and the voice of his childhood whispered close to his consciousness, "Don't touch... I'm not fully grown inside yet..." This was not a hallucination; the formation had directly inscribed the question "Who are you?" into the very core of his Fate Soul, forcing him to answer with every breath: Do you want to become yourself?
The waterfall's spray grew denser and its landing points more precise, like countless deliberate taps striking the same piece of fabric, the same inch of the crack in the Fate Soul, propelling that irreversible, bizarre process forward—if it dragged on any longer, the robe's "breath" would become his "breath," and he would be instantly forced to return to "Before the Unnamed," becoming a blank space that couldn't even be named after annihilation.
Qin Yu did not hesitate any longer. He chose the high-risk, high-reward reverse contamination formation itself because he had already passed the shallow window. The words had taken shape and the embryonic movement had begun. If he tried to resist with any thought of "getting rid of it", the thought itself would be fuel. The more he struggled, the tighter he would be wrapped up. What he needed to do was not to "cleanse" it, but to make the formation start to doubt itself first.
So he held the Silent Origin Stainless Sword horizontally in front of his chest. The dark silver luster of the sword was swallowed by the grayness of the waterfall, leaving only a very thin outline like an unwritten sentence. He closed his eyes, and the first step was the most difficult—to return his mind to absolute emptiness. It wasn't about being calm or composed, but about pressing the words "I want to break through" along with all his survival instincts deeper and deeper, until he couldn't even notice it himself. At that moment, his chest felt empty, his heartbeat was silenced, and his breathing became a silent rise and fall, as if he had truly retreated to the edge of "not yet deciding what he wanted to become."
The second step was that he didn't reject the statement "You didn't have to be you," but instead treated it as a seed of a new Dao heart, letting it fall into the center of his consciousness, and even actively admitting—yes, perhaps I didn't have to be me. He let this question sprout within him, but only sprout, without crossing over, without letting it bear the fruit of "Who am I?", because once he crossed over, he would truly slip into that chaotic grayness;
In the third step, at this moment of Ultimate selflessness yet still maintaining self-control, he raised his right hand, two fingers together. There was no light or flame at the fingertips, only a numbing sense of "negation" slowly gathering. With his Sole Finger Technique, "Unnamed Initial Silence," he gently touched the "breathing" water film on his robe—not to kill, not to erase, but to use the "root of negation of existence and nothingness" to touch the core question of the formation, allowing the formation's question to backfire on the formation itself: Why do you make me doubt myself? What makes you worthy of being "something that makes me doubt"?
The strange phenomenon erupted in the same instant, yet eerily, there was no explosion. The water curtain, from top to bottom, was frozen in mid-air, with billions of water droplets suspended, forming a gray, solidified jelly-like canopy. Then, fine "reverse patterns" began to appear on the solidified water above Qin Yu's head, as if the hands of time had been forcibly turned back. Each water droplet was pulled away from its original trajectory, first slowly, then faster and faster, until the entire waterfall began to flow backward from bottom to top. This backward flow wasn't a reversal, but rather as if an invisible hand was "drawing silk" from the water curtain.
Extracting the bizarre logic carried in every drop of water; the water film on Qin Yu's robes contracted violently, the undifferentiated outline struggling and spinning within it, the vortex of its head suddenly collapsing in the opposite direction, like an eye trying to open being pushed back in from the inside, the two lines of words on the surface of the water film, "You didn't have to be you" and "Is it too late to regret it now?" began to dissolve themselves, the words not disappearing, but being forced to answer an even more absurd question: If I want you to doubt, then why can you feed me with doubt—the logic of the formation was biting itself.
The voice from my childhood behind my ear stretched out and became distorted, like a cassette tape being played in reverse, "Don't touch... I'm inside... I'm not fully grown yet..." The next moment it turned into a series of meaningless, damp bubbles, popping and bursting, and the gurgling sound of the fetal movement also suddenly disappeared as if the carrier had been removed, leaving only a layer of tooth-grinding vacuum stillness.
In an instant, the waterfall's reverse flow surged to its Ultimate!
The thousands of water lines that were originally crashing down with a roar seemed to be suddenly grabbed by an invisible giant hand, and surged upwards against the current. The entire water curtain twisted and collapsed violently, as if all vitality and order had been sucked out, turning into a long, gray and chaotic river that swept back into the depths of the mountain wall.
The speed increased rapidly, becoming so fast that the naked eye could barely perceive its trajectory, leaving only a blurry gray mist churning violently.
Finally, all the water flowed abruptly to a stop in front of an inconspicuous crevice in the mountain wall.
That was no ordinary cave entrance, but an "undefined point"—a chaotic black hole the size of an infant's fist, suspended above the cliff face, with a very faint gray-white halo around its edge.
The halo resembled the remnants of an ancient restriction, or a wound torn open and then barely stitched up by the hand of the Heavenly Dao. Occasionally, a trace of almost nonexistent chaotic texture would flash within it, only to be swallowed up by the black hole as if it had never existed.
The world fell into a deathly silence in an instant.
The inverted waterfall that had roared for millennia shrank back into this "point of undetermined judgment" in the blink of an eye.
Qin Yu lowered his head.
The area on the robe that had been splashed with water was now completely dry and collapsed. The water film, as if drained of its last bit of vitality, peeled off piece by piece, turning into fine dust and dissipating.
The area that was originally stained now only has a very faint, almost transparent gray mark – let's call it the "chaotic scar".
When the fingertips touched it, it was not the usual feel of cloth, but rather emptiness and nothingness, as if the piece of cloth had already been removed from "existence" itself.
No matter what kind of spiritual fire is used to burn it, what kind of immortal patterns are used to reshape it, what kind of supreme treasure is used to reforge it, or even if the entire robe is reduced to its original state of primordial chaos, that gray scar remains unchanged, refusing to be interfered with by any acquired means.
It was no longer part of the fabric. It became the sole proof of defeat left by this ancient restriction, before heaven and earth, before the Qin Yu.
It failed to truly make him "Unborn".
Qin Yu opened his eyes, his gaze deepening in coldness, yet also revealing a rare solemnity. He felt no relief, for he knew he hadn't truly "won," but rather had been using selflessness to pry open the self-consistency of the formation at the edge of a precipice. The slightest overreach would have turned him into the next splash of water in this waterfall, a source of contamination for those who followed. He withdrew his hand gestures, the Silent Origin Stainless Sword gently twirling in his palm, its blade slicing through the air.
A thin, dark silver line appeared, as if marking a new boundary for this deathly silence. He looked up at the chaotic black hole, then at the mountain wall textures revealed after the waterfall disappeared—the textures were not rock, but rather like some deliberately hidden network of paths leading to a deeper, more southern layout. He knew that the true destination of the Logic Remnants Lord was probably hidden behind these "filtered paths."