The three landed in the void, stopping high in the sky ten miles away from Soul Reflection Core City. Here, the wind was no longer wind, but layers of flowing will drawn by the city's power and dragged by cause and effect, as if the whole world was breathing slowly.
The outline of Soul Reflection Core City unfolded fully in front of them. It was not a "built" city, but rather a magnificent existence that had been repeatedly sculpted and layered by the origin of heaven and earth.
The outermost layer is a towering stone staircase extending from the depths of the earth. The staircase is wide enough to accommodate a military formation running side by side. Each step is engraved with dark golden soul patterns, like countless Fate Soul imprints compressed into the stone, which flicker slightly with the changes in the light from afar.
At the end of the stairs, the world seemed to have been forcibly cleaved open, and a colossal "Celestial Rift Gate" that could not be measured by any scale hung there. Starlight, clouds, golden particles, and deep blue void intertwined, like a slowly rotating cosmic eye, silently looking down upon those who came.
The true Soul Reflection Core City floats behind this cracked gate. The entire main city presents a vertically layered structure, with a base composed of countless floating islands and palaces below. Waterfall-like streams of light cascade down from above, but are broken and reassembled in mid-air by an invisible force, transforming into rivers of light flowing upstream.
Reinjected into the city's core. The architecture is not merely metal and stone, but is composed of soul light, causal flow lines, and physical structure. The surface of the city wall is like a mirror or water ripples, occasionally reflecting blurry human figures, only to shatter into unfamiliar fragments of fate in the next instant.
At the very top of the main city, an unmissable "Soul Reflection Core" stands suspended in mid-air. It is a huge rotating structure, with layers of halos resembling tree rings, gold, milky white and deep space colors intertwined and overlapping. With each rotation, the light and shadow and the aura of the entire city will subtly shift.
The sea of clouds was forcibly shaped around it, stacked into a spiral-shaped canopy, as if the entire city did not stand between heaven and earth, but was placed in a slowly turning gear of the world.
Tangyi breathed a soft sigh of relief beside Qin Yu, her gaze unconsciously drawn to the city; Jin Hanyan, on the other hand, looked solemn. She could clearly sense that the Soul Reflection Core City had not activated any wartime mode, yet it still exuded a sense of oppression that could "seal off cause and effect and cut off the path of origin at any time."
Qin Yu stood quietly at the forefront, his gaze sweeping over the towering stone steps, the layered city walls, and the suspended soul core. He had already made a judgment in his heart—this main city, though seemingly calm on the surface, could not possibly be as peaceful as it appeared, as the flow of Fate Soul and the logical fluctuations within it were.
Qin Yu simply nodded and whispered to Jin Hanyan, "Let's go, let's go into the city and take a look." As soon as he finished speaking, he took a step forward, and the void beneath his feet parted to the sides like water. The three figures slowly fell into the Soul Reflection Core City along the extended trajectory of the towering stone steps, as if tacitly approved and accepted by the city itself.
When they actually stepped into the city, the tension, ruins, and anxiety they had expected did not appear. What came into view was a near-perfect picture of order. The wide main street was paved with warm, jade-like soul stones, and towers and palaces unfolded layer by layer on both sides of the street. Soul patterns flowed slowly on the walls, like the city's own breathing.
Cultivators came and went, some sitting cross-legged on the floating platform breathing in their soul energy, others exchanging cultivation resources at street corners, talking in hushed tones, their smiles natural; further away, a patrol team marched in unison, their soul light on their armor concealed, without a trace of the sharp edge of wartime vigilance.
Above the sky, the suspended river of light continued to slowly swirl along its predetermined trajectory. The cascading light was drawn back into the air, transforming into a gentle rain of light that sprinkled throughout the city, landing on the cultivators' shoulders without touching their robes.
There were no broken array patterns, no chaotic echoes of Fate Soul, and no hollow echoes left after a great battle. It was as if this main city had never been touched by calamity, and time had been properly preserved here.
Tangyi stood beside Qin Yu, her gaze sweeping over the streets, palaces, and crowds, but her voice unconsciously lowered slightly. "Young Master... I feel this place is too peaceful." Her tone was not panicked, but rather an instinctive wariness—a peace so clean it was almost deliberate.
Jin Hanyan also frowned slightly. Her senses had quietly spread out, capturing the flow of cause and effect, the vibration of soul power, and the traces of Fate Soul, but she still couldn't find any trace of logic left after the battle. There was no tearing, no backtracking, no trace of being forcibly covered up. Everything was unbelievably smooth, like a scroll of destiny that had never been interrupted.
Qin Yu did not respond immediately. He stood in the middle of the street, his gaze passing through the cultivators and sweeping over the slowly rotating Soul Reflection Core in the sky. Yet, a feeling arose in his heart that was completely opposite to what he saw—this calm was not "safe," but rather more like a carefully maintained silence.
The four main cities he visited had also superficially restored order, but at least there was still a lingering warmth from the activation of the formations there; but here, Does Not Exist even a trace of "preparation".
Everything was too perfect, so perfect that it seemed nothing was allowed to happen.
Jin Hanyan suddenly stopped, her gaze falling on a cultivator at the Silent Mystery Realm who was walking slowly in the distance. The man's expression was serene, his steps steady, as if he were immersed in his own cultivation rhythm. She softly called out, "Fellow Daoist, please wait, may I ask—" Her voice was clear and near, yet it seemed to fall into a bottomless abyss, eliciting no response whatsoever. The cultivator didn't even flinch, continuing to walk in his predetermined direction.
Jin Hanyan's heart sank. In a flash, she appeared in front of the cultivator, blocking his path. She raised her hand to ask again, but the next moment, something chilling happened—the cultivator didn't slow down, didn't stop, and didn't even have any instinctive reaction to avoid her. He simply walked straight forward, his body passing right through Jin Hanyan's body as if skimming through a thin mist.
There was no touch, no collision of soul power, not even the slightest change in temperature. Jin Hanyan only felt a chill all over her body. The person had already walked away from behind her, his robes fluttering slightly, as if nothing had ever happened.
Tangyi's pupils contracted sharply, and she subconsciously took a half step back, taking a soft breath. Qin Yu's gaze instantly sharpened, and he spoke almost simultaneously, "Hanyan, come here quickly." His voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable decisiveness.
Jin Hanyan snapped out of her shock and quickly retreated to Qin Yu's side, her breathing slightly rapid, clearly indicating that the scene she had just witnessed had had a significant impact on her.
Qin Yu stopped looking at the "walking" cultivators. He closed his eyes, and the Chaos Realm Soul Reflection Core City manifested silently within his body. At that moment, his perception no longer lingered on the surface of light, shadow, buildings, and people, but instead sank directly into the deeper Fate Soul structure of the Soul Reflection Core City.
His chaotic and undifferentiated perceptions spread out like water, and he clearly sensed that the flow of Fate Soul here was too smooth. All fluctuations were forcibly smoothed out by some force, like a mirror that had been repeatedly polished and deliberately made free of flaws.
Even more bizarrely, these Fate Soul do not "exist," but rather seem like projected traces. They have no true causal origin, nor any possibility of future extension; each walking figure is merely repeating a predetermined "image."
At that moment, Qin Yu finally understood—the entire Soul Reflection Core City was not a living city, but a perfectly preserved reflection.
"I see..." Qin Yu said softly, opening his eyes, "What we saw was never the 'city' itself from the very beginning."
As soon as he finished speaking, he took Jin Hanyan and Tangyi into the air. The three figures rose from the ground like streaks of light and stopped a hundred meters above the city. Looking down, the magnificent and orderly Soul Reflection Core City still stretched out quietly, with flowing light rivers and towering palaces, showing no flaws whatsoever.
Qin Yu raised his hand, his palm surging with chaotic energy. He did not directly destroy this appearance, but instead used his own supernatural power to guide the "reflection logic" of the entire city. In an instant, the world seemed to be gently twisted, and the space emitted a low and uneasy hum. Cracks began to appear in that layer of warm light and shadow, as if a huge mirror was being slowly lifted.
The next instant, the entire city suddenly "flipped" before the three of them.
The bustling cityscape they witnessed was like a curtain being lifted, flipping upwards, and the true Soul Reflection Core City was finally revealed to them—a completely upside-down ruin.
The crumbling city walls seemed to have been torn apart by a tremendous force, and broken soul patterns hung in the air like severed blood vessels; countless buildings collapsed and crumbled, leaving only twisted skeletons of palaces, with layers of rubble and debris piled up. The lingering echoes of the Fate Soul floated in the air, but had long lost their master's response, like countless broken whispers echoing in the wind.
Deep within the city, an even more horrific scene unfolded. Streets, squares, and palace steps were strewn with countless corpses of mortals; some torn apart by the impact of their Fate Soul, some charred black by the backlash of the formations, and some even preserved in the postures they had adopted when fleeing.
But it was frozen in that moment of death forever. The air was filled with a sense of despair and impending doom, which sent chills down one's spine even from a hundred meters above.
This is the true Soul Reflection Core City —a main city that has long been completely Annihilation.
Qin Yu and Jin Hanyan exchanged a glance in the air, and both saw the same judgment in each other's eyes: this was not a simple annihilation, but a carefully "hidden" massacre of the city.
The flipped-over Soul Reflection Core City resembled a corpse that had been forcibly inverted and dissected again.
Qin Yu, Jin Hanyan, and Tangyi sank side by side. The deeper they went, the more stagnant the air became, as if time itself was being peeled away layer by layer, leaving only the lingering warmth of death.
Beneath their feet were no longer intact streets, but broken city foundations and twisted remnants of soul veins. The Fate Soul hub that once ran through the entire main city was now reduced to dark veins that had been forcibly broken, suspended in the air, occasionally revealing fragmented images—people were fleeing, formations were going out of control, and light was being completely swallowed up in an instant.
Qin Yu's gaze followed the remaining traces of souls forward. He wasn't simply "looking," but rather piecing together time in reverse, following the flow of cause and effect. Under the true nature of the Chaos Realm, the "past" that had already died was forced to surface, only to collapse at the moment it was about to take shape, leaving only a clear and cold conclusion—
Soul Reflection Core City did not experience a direct confrontation, but at the same moment, it was directly severed from the "root of Fate Soul" by a force that transcended the city's defenses and array domain. The cultivators in the entire city did not even have time to truly enter the battle.
Just as the three arrived at the deepest part of the main city, the airspace that should have been the location of the Soul Reflection Core, the ruins suddenly trembled slightly. The next instant, two blurry figures suddenly emerged from behind the broken city foundation. Without any aura leaking out, they were so fast that they were almost out of sync with perception, and they sped off in two opposite directions.
Jin Hanyan's pupils contracted; her reaction was almost instinctive. She moved to give chase, coldly demanding, "Who goes there—"
However, before she could take a complete step, her wrist was firmly gripped. Qin Yu's voice was low and restrained. "Hanyan, don't be impulsive."
Jin Hanyan paused, abruptly stopping in her tracks, her eyes still sharp and wary.
Qin Yu released her, but did not immediately look away. Instead, he glanced around at the desolate core airspace and said in a calm, almost ruthless tone, "We cannot rashly pursue them now. Someone deliberately reversed the dead city and projected its former prosperity into it, which is a way to lure us into a trap."
I don't believe they've left—more likely, they're watching us from the shadows. Those two shadowy figures were probably just bait, trying to separate you from me."
As he spoke, he suddenly took a step forward, his voice rising abruptly to echo through the empty ruins, filled with undisguised mockery and provocation. "I say, you bunch of lackeys of the Thought Severance Devouring Emperor, are you too afraid to even show your faces now? Hiding like this, is it interesting? Or are you only capable of launching sneak attacks?"
The moment the words fell, the entire Soul Reflection Core City suddenly emitted a deep and continuous rumble.
Rumble-- Rumble--
It wasn't a single point of collapse, but rather the entire ruins responding simultaneously. The broken city walls began to collapse inward, the shattered palaces were dragged by an invisible force, the ground rolled up, the city foundations crumbled, and all the remaining buildings, corpses, and fragments of soul veins were forcibly pulled towards the same center point at the same time.
Space was like a piece of paper being squeezed, slowly and irreversibly folding inward. Everything in the field of vision was rapidly compressed, overlapped, and distorted, emitting a teeth-grinding tearing sound.
Tangyi subconsciously took a half step back, her breathing slightly tight. Jin Hanyan no longer hesitated, her internal energy fully activated, her gaze fixed on the forming center. Qin Yu, however, stood at the very front, motionless, simply watching coldly as the entire main city was "contracted" into an ever-expanding outline.
Finally, when the last piece of rubble was swallowed into the core, the world fell silent.
The Soul Reflection Core City has completely vanished.
Instead, a terrifying monster blotted out the sky.
Its body was as if it were cast from obsidian and molten gold, with exaggerated and ferocious muscle contours, cracks all over its body, and dark golden flames flowing from each crack, as if the rage of the earth's core was surging within it.
At the center of the monster's chest, a dazzling core of light pulsed, like a star forcibly embedded within it. Its head was held high, its eyes burning with purplish-black flames, and the space around it distorted slightly.
Behind it, several crescent-shaped shadows slowly rotated, their phases constantly changing, radiating a chilling sense of oppression. One of its giant arms hung down, holding a heavy axe that seemed to be formed from fragments of starlight, its blade gleaming with a cold and eerie light.
This is no ordinary monster. It's more like an entity forcibly formed from the "death results" of an entire main city.
The air froze completely at that moment. Qin Yu, Jin Hanyan, and Tangyi stood in mid-air, staring intently at the demonic beast.