The main Soul Master — Primordial Yuanshi —finally raised his true "gaze".
That was not a gaze, but a calibration of existence itself.
In an instant, the Severed Thought Realm · Pinnacle unfolded completely. Heaven and earth were no longer heaven and earth, chaos was no longer chaos, and all structures that could still be called "fields" collapsed into a gray-white void that could not be perceived or named. It was neither light nor darkness, but a state before existence was allowed to occur.
In the center of this domain, Yuanshi slowly extended a finger.
There was no energy convergence, no vibration of laws, and even the concept of "action" seemed superfluous. The instant that finger fell, divine power—
The Touch of Return to the Ruins descends.
There was no explosion, no impact, no sound. At the point of the fingertip, a Chaos Realm · Supreme cultivator who was performing a secret technique was directly removed from "reality" before even a look of shock could appear. Not turned to ashes, not had his soul erased, but simply— Does Not Exist.
Space left no empty space, time showed no break, and the river of cause and effect remained undisturbed. It was as if the cultivator had never existed; in the memories of his companions, only a vague sense of incongruity remained, yet they could not pinpoint "who was missing."
Yuanshi's voice then rang out within the Severed Thought Domain, neither too loud nor too soft, yet it seemed to be directly etched into the very foundation of all cognition:
"Your existence is nothing but an illusion in this realm." At this moment, the four patriarchs of the divine temples all changed color.
This wasn't the first time they had faced an existence at the Severed Thought Realm, but it was the first time they had directly confronted the complete Severed Thought Realm · Pinnacle. It wasn't a difference in power level, but a fundamental difference in whether or not they were allowed to exist.
The first to strike was Yun Qiusheng, the patriarch of the Chaos First Palace.
He took a step forward, his figure splitting and overlapping in the chaos, and a Primordial Heavenly Wheel suddenly appeared behind him, spanning the void. The celestial wheel had no axis or spokes, yet it encompassed the movement of all things, and each rotation of it rewrote the definition of "cause and effect can still be traced".
Yun Qiusheng let out a low shout, Primordial Heavenly Wheel suddenly reversed, dragging the entire area that was about to be covered by "Touch of Return to the Ruins" into an "uncertain moment in the past," forcibly avoiding the judgment of existence being removed in a state where time had not yet occurred. At that moment, the void seemed to be forcibly folded into an arc, Yuanshi's fingertips deviated for the first time.
At the same time, Feng Muheng, the patriarch of the Silent Nothingness Divine Hall, clasped his hands together.
Behind him emerged a boundless, Silent Nothingness Domain, devoid of light and shadow, devoid of energy fluctuations, possessing only a Space Silence that automatically brought one's mind to a state of tranquility. He was not blocking the "Touch of Return to the Ruins," but rather directly incorporating the "target concept" involved in that finger strike into the Silent Void Domain, temporarily stripping it of its "definable existence definition."
In short -- what are you rejecting?
If even the "point of existence" disappears, then rejection loses its object.
At this moment, the patriarch of the Fallen Dawn Divine Hall, Xi Weiyu, launched her most dazzling counterattack.
With a wave of her hand, countless rays of Fallen Dawn bloomed from the void, each ray a condensation of the final moment of a complete civilization. The rays did not attack the Yuanshi, but rather used the fact that they themselves had "been ended" to construct layers of final barriers that could no longer be denied.
You cannot deny the existence of something that has already ended. You can only acknowledge that it happened.
The one who made the final move was Qin Zhien, the patriarch of the Heavenly Emanation Limitless Hall.
He didn't manifest any unusual phenomena, he simply raised his eyes slightly. In that instant, the "computational logic" of the entire Severed Thought Domain was forcibly inserted with a variable that could not be simplified. The Limitless Emanation Calculation unfolded, and all paths in the world that could be rejected were re-branched into billions of undetermined branches.
In Yuanshi's "Touch of Return to the Ruins," the state of "needing to choose" appeared for the first time.
However, once a choice is required for the Severed Thought Realm · Pinnacle, it is no longer absolute.
Boom--
It wasn't an explosion, but a head-on collision of different levels. The four supreme systems—Chaos, Silent Void, Fallen Dawn, and Wuji— unfolded simultaneously, like four torrents traversing an era, fiercely clashing with the domain of Primordial Yuanshi.
The void was torn into immeasurable fractures, and visible "logical cracks" appeared in the sky to the Void Obliteration Domain, as if the world itself was undergoing calculations beyond its design limits.
For the first time, Yuanshi's figure retreated slightly.
It's not that I'm injured, but that I'm forced to acknowledge that the other party still has the right to exist.
The Absolute Thoughtlessness battlefield was fully formed at this moment.
Primordial Chaos - Yuanshi did not continue forward. His figure slowly sank into the darkness, which resembled Return to the Ruins, as if merging with time itself. In the next instant, the entire Absolute Thoughtlessness- level battlefield suddenly lost the concept of "now".
There was no explosion, no energy dissipation, and not even a change in light and shadow, yet the world seemed to be brutally ripped off the timeline by an invisible hand.
The Eternal Tribulation Time Erosion has arrived.
It is neither time acceleration nor rewinding, but rather the direct removal of the "present." The battlefield is fragmented into countless tiny, immeasurable time gaps, each of which is independently decaying, collapsing, and weathering. Time no longer flows, but peels away layer by layer like a corpse, revealing the already necrotic dimensional skeleton inside.
All existence is forced to hover in the gap between "the past and the future," bearing the weight of time's own collapse with every breath. This is not aging, but being buried under the corpse of time, repeatedly crushed by the dying sequence of billions of years.
The mantra manifests in the void, but it is not a sound; rather, it is a thought that all beings simultaneously remember and simultaneously cannot recall.
"Even time has its corpses; you shall lie eternally among them."
The four patriarchs of the four temples made their moves simultaneously.
In the Heavenly Emanation Limitless Hall, the Evolutionary Array patterns beneath Qin Zhien's feet were forcibly "written" just before time decayed. His eyes were like star axes piercing through eras; with a wave of his hand, countless branches of time were compressed into an irreversible main sequence, forcefully nailing a "still acknowledged present" into the decaying eclipse of time.
That was the judgment of the Severed Thought Realm · Advanced Stage on the essence of time. The world around him returned to an extremely small but stable moment. He stood in it, his robes fluttering, but he did not take a single step back.
However, in other directions, the situation suddenly spiraled out of control.
Just as the divine power of Feng Muheng, the patriarch of the Silent Nothingness Divine Hall, was unleashed, the Annihilation Ripple was torn to pieces the instant it touched the time rift. His body was forcibly divided into hundreds of different "past remnants," each of which was being eroded by the decay of time in different eras.
Crimson light exploded around him, only to be dragged into a future rift that had not yet occurred in the next instant, even the spray losing its complete cause and effect. He groaned, his aura plummeted, and he fell heavily backward as if a page had been torn from history.
The situation was even more perilous for Yun Qiusheng, the Yun Qiusheng of the Chaos First Palace. He attempted to assimilate time with chaos, but was instead dragged into the "timeless" dead zone by the Eternal Tribulation Time Erosion. At that moment, his existence shattered simultaneously on multiple time planes, and his body developed misaligned cracks.
It was as if he, at different ages and in different states, was vying for position in the same body. The power of chaos leaked out uncontrollably, and he forcibly stabilized his body, but he was already severely injured, and even standing became difficult.
Within the Fallen Dawn Divine Hall, Xi Weiyu reacted with lightning speed. Fallen Light, like a feather, transformed into a halo of dim yet sharp twilight around her, forcefully severing a portion of the decaying temporal erosion. Even so, an invisible temporal rift still swept across her shoulder.
The blood of the Fallen Dawn condensed into grayish-white crystals in mid-air before falling silently. She took a half step back, her face slightly pale, but she still stood firmly, suffering only minor injuries.
The battlefield was completely divided at this moment.
Feng Muheng and Yun Qiusheng's auras clearly declined. The Severed Thought Realm · Initial Stage revealed unavoidable cracks for the first time in the face of true epoch-level temporal corruption. Xi Weiyu was still able to hold on, but had been forced into a passive position. Only the small piece of "acknowledged present" where Qin Zhien was located still firmly existed in the logic of heaven and earth.
Primordial Chaos - Yuanshi slowly raised his head, the decaying remnants of time piling up behind him into Endless Abyss, as if awaiting the next pronouncement.
The Primordial Chaos - Yuanshi has been unleashed once again.
It wasn't a forward step, nor a raised hand, but rather the collapse of the time corpses behind him in the same instant. Those long-rotten fragments of time suddenly rolled inward, transforming into an invisible yet inescapable "epochal breakpoint." "Eternal Tribulation Time Erosion" entered its second phase—no longer just causing all things to lose their present, but directly denying the very fact that "the present is allowed to exist."
The acknowledged present is now torn apart.
The main sequence time point forcibly nailed to Qin Zhien's feet emitted a piercing cracking sound, as if the universe was biting its own spine. Time no longer tried to rot it, but chose to bypass, cover, and erase it—in that instant, all "nows" were cut into non-parallel fragments, each dying rapidly on a different time scale. Qin Zhien's figure began to appear delayed and doubled, not because of speed, but because his existence was being split into multiple presents that did not recognize each other.
The truth was revealed a second time, more detached than the first, and also closer to the truth itself.
"Even when permitted, it is nothing more than something waiting to rot."
Time focused on Qin Zhien at this moment.
It didn't flow towards him, but rather began to collapse with him as the center of decay. The death time of billions of epochs pressed down from both the future and the past, attempting to cram his existence into an eternally unfinished moment, causing him to be infinitely delayed and infinitely obliterated in the "unfinished present."
This is the ultimate technique capable of obliterating even Severed Thought Realm · Middle Stage.
For the first time, Qin Zhien truly looked up and stared directly at the Primordial Chaos - Yuanshi.
His gaze was no longer one of deduction, judgment, or observation, but of decision.
The next instant, all the causal patterns around him extinguished. Not destroyed, but actively revoked by him. He abandoned the "sequential writing" of time, and instead forcibly extracted his own existence from all established temporal frameworks—the true Severed Thought Realm · Advanced Stage was revealed at this moment.
Qin Zhien retaliated.
Without a declaration, without a divine name, he simply raised his hand, palm facing the decaying present, and then—denied that it had ever been allowed to exist.
At that moment, an extremely bizarre phenomenon occurred in the universe: the present, Eternal Tribulation Time Erosion, did not continue to decay, but was forcibly "folded" by a higher-level ruling force. It was not repair, but rather the countless fragmented present moments were compressed into a single epochal confrontation surface for the sole existence of both sides.
Time stopped abruptly. Not across the entire area, but rather time in this battlefield was locked into a state where "only combat is allowed."
Qin Zhien took a step forward, and Timelessness beneath his feet, he forcefully created an echo of existence. His figure became exceptionally clear at this moment, as if all the future and the past were giving way to him. What he used was not a time-manipulating technique, but rather—the direct power to intervene in the corruption of time.
The two forces collided head-on.
There was no light, no explosion, only a deep, muffled thud that made the era tremble. It wasn't a sound, but an "echo of existence" emitted when the structure of time was forcibly rewritten. The decaying sequence of time and the judged present devoured, tore, and overlapped each other, finally exploding in the void into a meaningless pile of time debris.
The impact swept across the entire battlefield.
Feng Muheng, the patriarch of the Silent Nothingness Divine Hall, was the first to be hit. He was already severely injured and had not yet recovered. His remaining Annihilation Domain was directly shattered in this clash. He was thrown into a disordered past image, his body was bleeding profusely, his aura dropped sharply again, and he almost lost his ability to fight.
Yun Qiusheng of the Chaos First Palace, forcibly erected a Chaos Protection Body, but was still hit by the aftershocks of the clash. The time dislocation within his body, which was not yet stable, completely lost its balance. He spat out a mouthful of Chaos Essence Blood, staggered backward, and the Chaos Power was so disordered that it almost backfired on him.
The ancestor of the Fallen Dawn Divine Hall, Xi Weiyu, was forcibly protected by the Fallen Light, but was still forced back several steps by the shock. The Fallen Dawn Feather Light shattered, and the old wound on her shoulder reopened. The Fallen Dawn Blood was shaken into gray-white mist in the air. She barely managed to stand firm, but was no longer able to get close to the core battle circle.
Only in the center of the battlefield, Primordial Chaos - Yuanshi and Qin Zhien stood separated by space.
The decaying time surged behind Yuanshi, while the judged present was reshaped beneath Qin Zhien's feet. For the first time, two completely opposite epochal wills truly confronted each other head-on, and the entire world seemed to be sandwiched between two history books that were closing, threatening to be crushed into blankness at any moment.