Above the emblem, the ancient circular mark suddenly burst forth with a ring of dark gold amidst the gray-white scales, like a star core forcibly ignited, with intricate runes spreading wildly outward from its core.
A three-dimensional causal network was formed by connecting the seams of the scales on the chests of the Epoch Being. In that instant, the world suddenly lost its color, the wind stopped, the dust ceased, and time was stretched into a taut bowstring, with the core of the string being the central circuit.
"Now!" Shangguan Lingxiao pointed his spear forward sharply. Shangguan Xuanchen roared almost simultaneously, "Fellow Daoists, unleash your full power and Annihilation it completely!"
At this moment, the nine cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm and the nine supreme treasures simultaneously reached their Limit. The Realm Mirror flipped violently, its surface shooting out countless beams of light Realm Splitting seemed to cleave together like dense, high-energy cutting beams from all directions. The Star Bone Spiked Wheel transformed into a violent whirlwind, its teeth rubbing against the air and exploding with blue-white arcs of electricity.
With a piercing shriek, it charged straight towards the central core of the emblem. The Return to the Ruins Hooked Moon locked that space, pinning the figures of the Epoch Being to the origin of the void. The chains of inscriptions shot up from the ground, the thick, regular characters burning with blood-red flames, wrapping around every extending rune along the edge of the emblem. The shadow of the Realm Breaking stele trembled, and shockwaves piled up layer by layer, like nine stars detonating at the same coordinate point.
The air was no longer air, but a transparent fluid compressed to the Ultimate. The shock wave spread outward in a visible ring. The ground was as if it had been smashed into the earth's core by a giant hammer, with cracks extending thousands of feet in a spider web pattern. A huge cross-shaped rift was torn open in the sky, with crimson-gold lightning burning at the edges of the rift.
The Epoch Being let out a deafening roar, finally realizing that the circuit had been locked onto as its only Achilles' heel. The runes on its chest flickered violently, and a gray-white aura surged like a storm. It suddenly swung its claws, tearing open the void behind it, creating a bottomless black rift in space.
The rift did not contain a starry sky, but rather a rolling, chaotic dark current. It was clear that it had given up fighting and was preparing to use the chaotic rift to force its way out.
Shangguan Lingxiao's pupils constricted sharply, and he roared in a hoarse voice, "It's trying to escape! Quickly lock onto its logic, space, causality, and existence! We absolutely cannot let it get away!"
Shangguan Xuanchen suddenly clasped his hands together, and the Mystic Void Seal above his head expanded dramatically. His divine power was no longer simply covering, but decomposing. He peeled away the layers of space surrounding the Epoch Being, as if revealing the layers of a transparent crystal. Each layer of space was marked with intricate Xuan rune coordinates.
The lines of cause and effect were visualized as silver threads of light, wrapping around the limbs and tail of the Epoch Being. Its coordinates were forcibly nailed to the spot. It took seven steps, and with each step, a circle of Silent Formation patterns appeared on the ground. The array patterns interlocked to form a sealing ring array. The sealing ring array was like a transparent lock around the edge of the crack, suppressing the Chaos Rift tightly. The rift trembled violently but could not expand even slightly.
Immediately afterwards, he suddenly raised his palm and struck the void. The palm print did not land on the Epoch Being, but instead struck the center of the expanding escape rift. When the palm print exploded, there was no light, but circles of transparent ripples collapsed inward, as if forcibly pressing the concept of the "exit" of the escape route into a flat plane. The rift emitted a piercing sound of spatial friction, instantly closed into a thin line, and then disappeared completely.
For the first time, fear appeared in the crimson eyes of the creatures of the Epoch Being.
In the next instant, the nine supreme divine powers precisely struck the core of the emblem circuit. The Realm Splitting beam pierced through the scales, the nail wheel embedded itself directly into the rune nodes, the chains burned with the flames of rules, coiling around the main vein of the circuit, and the shadow of the Realm Breaking shattered the protective barrier surrounding the circuit. The shockwave exploded inside the chest cavity.
Grayish-white scales flew off in patches, and blood and shattered runes scattered like meteors. Shangguan Lingxiao didn't give it a moment's respite.
He held his spear horizontally, and his demeanor suddenly changed.
If the previous Eternal Silence in One Thought was a return to absolute blackness, then at this moment a heart-stopping pure white appears in the world. That white is not light, but the original form of "existence" itself, like the blank draft of the universe before its birth.
He whispered the name of his ultimate supernatural power—"True Self: Creation from Nothingness."
The white Creation domain silently spread from the tip of the spear, forming an absolute Creation sphere with a radius of a thousand feet. All the formed matter and laws within the domain dissolved into the purest power of existence. The air turned into visible flowing particles, time lost its linearity, and space became a soft medium that could be kneaded.
In this realm, he is both nothingness and the mother of all things.
With a thought, he conjured a "poison of law" from nothingness, specifically designed for the emblem circuits of Epoch Being. The poison was in the form of a slender white blade, which directly entered the core of the circuit through the crack torn open by the Realm God, rewriting every causal line into "self-rupture". After the emblem runes flashed wildly, they began to collapse in the opposite direction.
With another thought, he created an absolute shield of Creation, enveloping all the cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm, preventing the aftershocks of the exploding circuits from reaching them.
Finally, his gaze turned icy as he delivered his Ultimate verdict. "Erasure by Definition."
The white domain suddenly contracted, enveloping the remnants of the Epoch Being. He no longer destroyed them with attacks, but directly rewrote their existence. "Your existence never happened."
When the sound subsided, there was no thunder, no roar. Only the pure white domain seemed to have a stroke of ink gently wiped away. The bodies, blood, runes, roars, and aura fluctuations of the Epoch Being faded layer by layer; their scales turned into particles of light, and their beastly eyes turned into white mist.
After its last flash, the emblem on its chest shattered completely, its gray-white afterimage resembling dust blown away by the wind, utterly dissolving into pure white.
There were no corpses, no lingering souls. Even the spatial rift it had once torn apart was rewritten as "never existed."
Only a vast, lifeless void remained between heaven and earth, which was slowly filled by chaotic energy after a long time.
Shangguan Lingxiao sheathed his gun and stood there. The white domain gradually dissipated, and the sky returned to its original color, as if the clash between World Creation and annihilation just now was merely an indescribable dream. The Epoch Being were utterly Annihilation.
After the pure white domain of Creation completely dissipated, the world regained its color, and the chaotic energy slowly filled the space that had been erased, as if the final act of World Creation and definition had never happened. Only the chests of the nine cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm heaved violently.
They witnessed firsthand the entire process of the Epoch Being "Erasure by Definition." The shock of being wiped out directly from the level of existence was far more terrifying than any bombing. The emotions that had been suppressed to the Limit suddenly erupted in the next instant.
"Truly Annihilation! Truly erased!" "Not even a remnant soul remained!" "Such divine power... such a power to rewrite existence!"
"Lord Shangguan is simply a god of logic! A god of definition!" "If it weren't for Lord Shangguan, we would all be dead today!"
Some even knelt on one knee, clasped their hands in a fist, their eyes burning with an almost pious intensity, their breath trembling. They had just been pulled back from the brink of death and had witnessed such an ultimate Ultimate power beyond their comprehension. At this moment, their awe of Shangguan Lingxiao had reached its peak.
Shangguan Lingxiao's expression returned to calm. He slowly sheathed his gun, "Silent Void" retracting behind his back, as if he himself had not been the one who had just rewritten reality. His gaze swept over the nine people, his tone indifferent yet carrying an inherent pressure. "Alright, now you can tell me, what were you doing here with that group of cultivators at the Severed Thought Realm?"
The nine people paused for a moment, and one of them, a cultivator at the Realm Breaking Realm with the most stable aura, quickly stepped forward and respectfully replied, "Lord Shangguan, we came here because we sensed the divine essence of a supreme treasure leaking out."
Upon arrival, we saw the group of cultivators at the Severed Thought Realm battling the group of Devil Beast. We guessed that if there truly was a supreme treasure, it would be guarded by powerful beasts, so we joined forces with them to surround and kill it.
The others nodded in agreement, their expressions calm.
Shangguan Lingxiao nodded slightly, not responding immediately. He closed his eyes for a moment, True Annihilation Realm · Supreme, spread out like an invisible wave. Wherever his divine sense passed, every broken brick of the ruins was meticulously analyzed, and the undercurrents deep within the ground were gradually revealed.
The traces of cause and effect remaining in the air were gradually extracted. His consciousness penetrated hundreds of feet underground, piercing through the broken array base and the collapsed spatial layers. Suddenly, beneath the ruins of a collapsed palace deep within the ruins, he detected an extremely subtle yet exceptionally pure fluctuation. The fluctuation was not violent, but rather restrained and profound, like a core that had been sealed for a long time slowly breathing.
He opened his eyes, a glint of shrewdness flashing within them. "You're right," he said slowly, "Deep within this place, there truly is a priceless treasure."
The nine cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm instantly perked up, as if their previous fatigue and injuries had been completely forgotten, their eyes gleaming with undisguised greed and excitement.
Shangguan Xuanchen stepped forward, his tone urgent. "Senior brother, is it true?"
Shangguan Lingxiao nodded, his gaze steady. "Yes, there must be a mechanism or array below, or a sealing array to open the underground space. That fluctuation was not a random leak, but rather it was loosened by the shock of the battle just now."
As he spoke, his gaze swept back to the center of the ruins. In the center of the ground torn apart by the shockwave, faint traces of array patterns appeared. The array patterns were incomplete, but they resonated subtly with the fluctuations underground.
"Let's search first." His tone was calm, yet authoritative. "The mechanisms here are not simple; they may be related to the Epoch Being."
The nine cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm immediately dispersed, each releasing their divine sense and laws to probe the corners of the ruins. Ground rubble was blown away, broken pillars were moved aside, and array patterns were gradually peeled away.
Beneath the ruins, the aura of that supreme treasure grew ever clearer.
The ruins lay silent like a crouching beast, broken pillars and beams scattered about, dust drifting slowly in the dim light. Nine cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm searched separately, their footsteps barely audible as they crunched on the stones, as if even the slightest breath would awaken something deep within these ruins.
One of the Realm Breaking Realm, walked along the base of a collapsed wall and suddenly stopped in an inconspicuous corner. There was no light from array patterns, no radiance of precious energy, only a withered blade of grass leaning obliquely in the cracks of the rubble. But precisely because it was so out of place, it was like a deliberately left nail piercing his eyes.
The withered grass was as thin as an old bone needle, but its color was not the usual grayish-yellow; rather, it was a dark brown, somewhere between rust and dark ink. Extremely fine cracks grew on its stems, within which faint silver lines could be seen, like dried veins still weakly pulsating. Its leaf tips curled, but into an extremely unnatural arc.
The curves resemble the strokes of runes, and a thin layer of "frost" has condensed on the leaf surface. The frost is not cold air, but a kind of solidified silence. When you get close, it makes your heart feel heavy, and even your thoughts feel like they are being gently pressed down.
The cultivator squinted, surveying his surroundings. The ruins were devoid of life, only decay and death. This withered blade of grass, however, seemed like a mark inserted from another world, growing increasingly strange with each glance. His Adam's apple bobbed, he lowered his breath, and slowly reached out to touch it. Just as his fingertip was about to touch the stem, the withered grass suddenly seemed to come alive for a moment.
The dark brown leaf trembled almost imperceptibly, and a tiny ripple appeared at the curled tip. That ripple wasn't wind; it was the breath of some suppressed primal will. Immediately afterward, a divine force, hard to the point of cruelty, suddenly exploded from the withered grass. There was no radiance, no dramatic build-up; only a close-range "collapse of reality."
The cultivator's wrist felt as if it had been struck by an invisible giant hammer, sending him flying through the air. His body trailed in a path resembling a tearing mist, and he only managed to let out a scream, "Ah--," before crashing heavily onto a pile of rubble on the other side of the ruins. The rubble exploded, dust billowed, and his protective aura shattered instantly. His chest sank, and he coughed up a mouthful of blood mist, his body convulsing as if nailed to the ground.
All eyes turned at that scream, and in the next instant, the eight Realm Breaking Realm cultivators and Shangguan Xuanchen teleported almost simultaneously, leaving several short afterimages in the air. Shangguan Lingxiao's figure seemed to emerge directly from nothingness.
He landed silently, his gaze as cold as a spearhead. The cultivator who had been thrown back clutched his chest, pointed to the corner, his fingertips trembling violently, his voice hoarse yet filled with fear. "That withered grass... that withered grass!"
Shangguan Lingxiao followed his gaze and saw the withered grass still quietly nestled in the crack of the rubble, as if nothing had happened. However, a subtle hint of caution flashed in his eyes. He raised his hand to signal everyone to stop, his voice low but enough to make everyone instinctively take a half-step back. "You stay here and be on guard. I'll go check it out. Don't come any closer."
He approached step by step, each step feeling as if he were stepping on an invisible boundary. The surrounding dust slowly sank as he drew nearer, as if even the floating matter was being suppressed by the aura of "True Annihilation." When he was three feet away from the withered grass, he raised his right palm, and a very faint grayish-white halo appeared in his palm. The halo was not dazzling, but it seemed to smooth out the sharp edges of reality.
The air at the edge of the halo exhibited a subtle, almost imperceptible distortion, as if reality and illusion were forcibly fused together at that moment. He pressed down with the power of the True Annihilation Realm's origin, and the grayish-white halo adhered to the withered grass like mercury. The next instant, the dark brown "withered skin" on the surface of the grass peeled off like a thin film. What was peeled off was not the grass skin, but a layer of disguise.
Once illuminated by the "indiscernible" True Annihilation, all illusions lose their foothold and instantly disintegrate into silent dust, which is swallowed up into nothingness before it even touches the ground.
The outline of the withered grass suddenly changed. The silver threads that had been moving within its stem suddenly lit up, as if countless extremely Ultimate causal lines had been straightened. Then, the silver threads intertwined into a ring, and within the ring emerged an extremely complete array core structure—it wasn't an array pattern carved into the ground, but rather the array core "suspended in the withered grass," like shrinking the entire sealed heart to an inch.
Deep within the core of the array, a tiny black dot was rotating. With each rotation, the surrounding space seemed to be gently twisted, emitting an almost inaudible cracking sound. Shangguan Lingxiao's gaze turned completely cold at this moment. He slowly exhaled, his tone low but resolute. "This is not some withered grass at all; this is the core of the sealing array."
He turned around, his gaze sweeping over the crowd, his voice as cold as iron striking the ground. "Stand back. I'll break this sealing formation."
No one dared to be negligent. They all retreated from the ruins, maintaining a great distance, and set up their own protective barriers and vigilance behind the broken walls and pillars, observing from afar. Shangguan Lingxiao stood alone before the "withered grass array core." The pressure of his True Annihilation Realm · Supreme power slowly pushed out like an invisible tide, compressing a huge hole in the dust and mist above the ruins.
It was as if he had created a silent dome around the sky. He raised his spear, "Silent Void," held horizontally before him. The spear was jet black, devouring light, like a spine pulled from nothingness. The moment the spear tip lightly touched the ground, the hidden array patterns suddenly appeared on the entire ground.
Countless silver-gray lines spread outwards from the withered grass, crawling across the ruins like a spider web. Wherever the lines passed, the shadows of the rubble were stretched into thin lines, as if "reality" was being recalibrated by the array.
Shangguan Lingxiao was not in a hurry to launch a direct attack. He slowly covered the array with the essence of the True Annihilation Realm. The gray-white "indiscernible" energy was like a tide covering the array patterns. The array patterns immediately emitted a piercing but inaudible tremor, as if some ancient will was resisting being seen through. He made a hand seal with his left hand, and his fingertips pointed out several extremely fine points of light. These points of light were not magical sparks.
Rather, they were the nails of "causal positioning." With each nail that fell, a section of the array pattern was fixed within his controlled logic. Then, with a light flick of his spear tip, he lifted not earth and stone, but lines of "cause" and "effect" hidden by the array.
Once those causal lines were lifted, they appeared translucent silver-gray, like countless thin strings suspended in the air, with extremely faint black mist hanging on them. The black mist was the "rejection" of the seal, the sharp edge that the formation used to retaliate against the spy.
His gaze turned cold, the tip of his spear trembled, and the "Realm Devouring" of the True Annihilation Realm suddenly descended. The black mist dissipated silently like ink being wiped away, and the causal strings were cleared into pure lines. He suddenly took a step forward, and the entire ruined ground seemed to be pressed down by some unseen giant hand. All the array patterns lit up and dimmed at the same time; the lighting was a counterattack, and the dimming was suppression.
In that instant, from afar, everyone felt as if an endless gray-white sea had unfolded beneath Shangguan Lingxiao's feet, with countless fragments of "truth" and "falsehood" floating on its surface. Each fragment was a remnant of a world that the array had once disguised.
He slowly rotated the spear as an axis, the trajectory of the spear leaving extremely thin arcs in the air. Wherever those arcs touched, the "true foundation" of the formation was gradually disintegrated, and the formation patterns began to show broken blanks, like ancient inscriptions being scraped away.
Finally, he aimed his spear tip directly at the rotating black dot deep within the core of the withered grass array. The gray-white aura in his palm suddenly contracted into a single line, like a needle piercing through illusion and reality, stabbing into the black dot. The black dot abruptly paused, and in the next instant, the entire sealing array convulsed silently, like a giant beast being choked, its silver-gray array patterns flashing wildly.
Deep trenches cracked open in the ruins, from which a dark aura emanated. This aura was not Spiritual Qi, but rather the sealed "remnants of the old world," heavy, cold, and corroded by the passage of time. The rubble began to float, and the remaining pillars began to rotate slightly, as if some giant gear underground had been turned anew.
Shangguan Lingxiao's eyes were like iron, and the tip of his spear suddenly pressed down, as if nailing a final judgment into the core of the array. The gray-white tide around him expanded dramatically, and all the array patterns were "swallowed" into meaningless blankness in the same instant. Then, the seemingly ordinary ground in the center of the ruins suddenly rolled up like paper.
Concentric folds of space unfolded from bottom to top, revealing the entrance to a bottomless cave. The edge of the entrance was not a stone wall, but a "boundary" formed by broken array patterns. Silver-gray light threads still flickered in the boundary, struggling. Inside the cave, a cold wind swirled, carrying a low echo, as if something sleeping deep inside had been awakened and was slowly turning over.
Dust waves were swirled into vortexes by the suction of the cave entrance, and pebbles fell like raindrops only to be bounced away by an invisible force. The darkness of the cave was like an open mouth, quietly waiting for new prey or new opportunities.
Shangguan Lingxiao sheathed his gun and stood there, the grayish-white aura slowly gathering around him. With his back to the crowd, his voice was low and calm. "The entrance is open."