Time Annihilation Absolute Thoughtlessness Formation

The mist churned within the ruined palace like a runaway tide, silently erasing figures from sight. Before anyone could even cry out, their shadows snapped, their bodies as if cut from the scene.

Fragments of light appeared at the edges, and then the person and their aura faded and dissipated; some tried to grab their companions, but only grasped an empty mist, their fingers passing through the shoulder where they should have been, only to see churning gray and white; many more did not even notice anything amiss, simply disappearing in the next instant, leaving no trace of their struggle or cries.

It was as if the entire ancient temple was undergoing an invisible "sifting," dismantling all the intruders and placing them into different narrative levels.

Qin Yu felt his Fate Soul being suddenly pulled by an irresistible force. The pull did not come from any direction, but from the turning point of the "dimensional structure". It was as if an invisible hand had gently touched the root of his existence, and the world suddenly flipped over.

His vision suddenly went dark, and in the next instant, he found himself in a completely unfamiliar space.

This space has no dome, no ground, only a void interwoven with pale silver and deep blue, as if one were in a folded layer of a starry sea. In the distance, fragmented remnants of palaces float, sometimes whole, sometimes broken, like different fragments of time superimposed on the same canvas.

There was no solid ground beneath his feet, but a thin layer of light patterns supported his existence. With each step he took, the light patterns would ripple outwards, as if he were stepping on the surface of a narrative.

There was no wind in the air, yet an extremely faint hum could be heard, like ancient gears slowly turning, maintaining the operation of this isolated space.

"Young Master Qin-- " A familiar voice suddenly rang out in the void.

Qin Yu turned around abruptly, and not far away, a figure emerged from the light blue mist. The outline was initially blurry, but gradually became clearer; it was Ju Wanning.

She almost staggered forward a few steps, rushing to Qin Yu's side, her expression grave. "Young Master Qin, where is this? How did we get here?"

Qin Yu glanced around and slowly shook his head. "I don't know, but I'm certain that we've all been separated."

As he spoke, his divine sense spread outwards, only to find that the spatial barrier was extremely solid. When his divine sense touched the edge, it was as if it had hit an invisible crystal wall and was instantly bounced back.

Ju Wanning took a deep breath, and the True Annihilation Realm · Peak within her body slowly unfolded. A profound and calm aura of annihilation flowed around her, as if it wanted to swallow the surrounding void into an indistinguishable realm. She attempted to use the indistinguishability of "True Annihilation" to penetrate the boundary and explore the external structure.

But the boundary wall only trembled slightly, rippling with layers of transparent waves, before returning to calm.

Her divine power could not penetrate it.

"This place... feels like a completely isolated spatial layer," she said in a low voice.

Qin Yu's gaze became even calmer. "The mist isn't simply engulfing us; it's 'dissecting the narrative,' placing us into different structures."

Meanwhile, in another space...

Shangguan Lingxiao also managed to regain his footing after the twisting motion.

The space he was in was even more oppressive than Qin Yu's. Broken stone pillars and remnants of half-collapsed palace walls floated around him. The ground was real, but it was covered with black cracks, as if it would collapse at any moment.

There were six cultivators beside him, three of whom were disciples of the Ju Lineage's Severed Thought Realm.

Before the three of them could recover from the shock of the spatial shift, they felt a cold gaze fall upon them.

Shangguan Lingxiao slowly turned his head, his gaze as cold as frost.

He also tried to extend his divine sense, but found that the boundary here was completely isolated from the outside world, and his perception was compressed to a limited range.

He didn't panic; he simply turned his attention slowly to the three Ju Lineage beside him.

The three men instantly sensed the impending danger and almost instinctively took a few steps back, their Fate Soul force surging as their faces paled.

They knew that if no outsiders were present, this space would be a hunting ground.

Meanwhile, in another, even darker space, Ju Anran suddenly steadied herself.

The place he was in was like an upside-down corridor, with stone pillars inverted, sky and earth overlapping each other, and the fog in the distance so thick that it almost solidified.

A chilling aura suddenly came from behind.

It wasn't the wind, but a gaze; he suddenly turned around.

As the mist slowly dissipated in the distance, Shangguan Xuanchen emerged from the shadows, followed by five Realm Breaking Realm cultivators who appeared one after another, their expressions indifferent, as if they had been waiting for him.

"Deacon Anran-- " came an urgent shout from the other side.

Seven Ju Lineage emerged from the mist one after another and quickly approached Ju Anran.

Ju Anran's gaze darkened, and he whispered, "Be careful, the Shangguan Lineage is here too." The seven people instantly formed a defensive formation, protecting him in the center.

A cold smile slowly curved Shangguan Xuanchen's lips.

This palace has been divided into dozens of independent spaces by the mist. Each space is like a fragmented chapter, and intruders are randomly assigned to one of them. Some confront their enemies, some are alone, and some face unknown fears.

Suddenly, all the independent spaces trembled simultaneously.

The tremor was not a simple shaking, but rather as if the entire structure was being recalibrated by some enormous force, with the void emitting a low and muffled resonance, as if countless gears were meshing simultaneously in different dimensions.

Fine cracks began to appear in the pale silver void where Qin Yu was, and the light patterns under Ju Wanning's feet fluctuated violently; the ruins where Shangguan Lingxiao was also suddenly trembled, and a dark aura overflowed from the black cracks; Ju Anran's upside-down corridor flipped up and down, and the boundaries of space were violently distorted.

Immediately afterwards

The fog began to dissipate.

It wasn't that it was blown away, but rather that it was "withdrawn".

The mist, a blend of gray and dark blue, seemed to be drawn away little by little by an invisible hand, gathering upwards and retreating outwards, peeling away layer by layer.

When the last layer of mist completely dissipated, everyone was almost simultaneously shocked to discover...

They weren't truly separated by distant places; they weren't far apart from each other, only—

Each person is within a huge, independent array halo.

The arrays were arranged in a circle, suspended in the core area of a vast, empty hall. Each array was only a few dozen feet apart, yet they were separated by a transparent and sturdy boundary wall.

The entire space is like a precisely cut chessboard, and each array represents an Ultimate authority.

Qin Yu's gaze swept across the area and saw that the nearest array was filled with blazing flames. Five streams of energy of different colors intertwined within it, with the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth cycling endlessly. The ground inside the array sometimes turned into lava, sometimes into a forest, and sometimes into a glacier. The five elements rotated, and all things changed. That was the Five Elements Formation.

Further away, within an array, things were upside down, black and white energies intertwined and swirled, and the phantom of the Yin-Yang fish floated slowly. Light and darkness devoured each other and coexisted—that was the Yin- Yin-Yang Formation.

In another formation, lines of cause and effect floated in mid-air like a spider web, each line connecting to different afterimages. The lines broke and reformed, intersected and traced back—that was the Cause and Effect Formation.

Further away, within an array, mountains of corpses and seas of blood alternated with vibrant life; withered bones and seas of flowers appeared together; life and death overlapped in the same instant—that was the Life and Death Formation.

There are also swirling stars within the formation, and space folding, compressing, and reconstructing like a mirror—that is the Space Formation.

Furthermore, countless narrative symbols floated in the air within the formation, ancient characters, symbols, and fragments of language piecing together, disintegrating, and rewriting each other, as if an entire history book was being constantly edited. That was the Narrative and Language Formation.

Within a certain array, a throne, a banner, and the light and shadow of will emerged, and an invisible authority pressed down on everything around it like a tidal wave—that was the Power and Ideology Formation.

Furthermore, within the formation, the timeline pierces through heaven and earth like a pillar of light, with remnants of history repeating themselves and collapsing one after another—that is the Time and History Formation.

Within the formation, countless shadows of the self overlapped, the main body and the clones staring at each other, their identities and perceptions constantly collapsing and being reconstructed—that was the Subject and Self Formation.

The Void Array is the most bizarre; within the array where Shangguan Lingxiao is located, there is no scene whatsoever.

It was complete darkness.

There was no light, no shadow, no sound, and even existence itself seemed to have been erased. Occasionally, a faint white line would flash in the darkness, as if the edge of reality was cracking and nothingness was devouring all definitions.

The formation where Shangguan Xuanchen was located was enveloped by countless fine rays of light.

The rays of light, like threads of fate, wove a vast net around him, each line extending into the unseen distance. With each breath he took, several threads trembled—it was the Fate Array.

As for the formation where Qin Yu and Ju Wanning were located, it was Time Array.

Countless transparent clock faces and sand grains of light and shadow floated inside the entire formation. The past, present, and future intertwined and overlapped in the same space. Qin Yu could even see several afterimages of himself and Ju Wanning in different time planes, some a step ahead and some a moment behind.

Time here doesn't flow, but rather layered; every breath feels like stepping into a different "present moment."

At the very center of all the formations, something slowly emerged.

It was an hourglass, but it was no ordinary object.

The hourglass was over a hundred feet tall, suspended in the air. Its crystalline structure was a translucent, dark golden color. The upper part was not ordinary sand, but countless tiny points of light, each one like a period of time, a cause and effect, a narrative, or a consciousness.

The lower half is also filled with flowing matter, but it is not sand; instead, it is a condensed liquid of nothingness and fragments of rules.

Between the two ends of the hourglass, there is not a tiny gap, but a rotating black and white vortex, as if connecting the core of all the formations.

Even more bizarrely, from the energy flow of each formation, a wisp of extremely thin light extends out and connects to the hourglass.

The flowing light of the Time Array, the dark edge of the Void Array, the threads of the Fate Array, the cyclical energy of the Five Elements, the black and white energies of Yin and Yang, the lines of cause and effect, fragments of narrative text...

Everything flows into that hourglass, as if all power is under its control.

The hourglass slowly turned inverted, and the first grain of sand began to fall, causing the entire hall to tremble.

Within the Time Array, countless transparent clock faces and lingering shadows of time slowly overlapped. The past and the future converged like two rivers beneath Qin Yu and Ju Wanning's feet. As the first grain of sand in the center of the hourglass fell, the entire time ring suddenly trembled slightly, and a circle of pale silver ripples rippled out from the edge of the array.

Just then, a star-blue light suddenly appeared deep within Qin Yu's sea of consciousness, and a petite and Kong Ling figure emerged from his sea of consciousness.

Her long, star-blue hair cascaded down, a crescent-shaped silver ornament swayed gently on her forehead, and her sapphire-like eyes gleamed with calmness and scrutiny.

Blue Ring Xiao Yue. Her voice was clear, yet it carried an unprecedented solemnity.

"Little Qinzi, be careful, the formation you are in now is not an ordinary formation."

She raised her hand and drew a diagram in the air, and a structural diagram unfolded in Qin Yu's sea of consciousness—double rings nested together, spiraling outwards, with time swirling like the tides.

"This is the Time Annihilation Absolute Thoughtlessness Formation."

Suddenly, a faintly visible spiral track appeared on the outer ring of the Time Array. The track was forged from dark Fallen Star Profound Iron and was inlaid with tiny, sand-like particles of light. These particles were the "Time Sand," each one seemingly sealing away a moment.

The track was covered with countless runes of Thought-Severing Runes, which glowed and dimmed slightly as time passed, as if thoughts were being peeled away one by one.

"The outer ring Time Flow Ring, based on Fallen Star Profound Iron, inlaid with Time Sand, and Thought-Severing Runes, specifically designed to cut off thoughts."

Xiao Yue's voice echoed in Qin Yu's mind.

"The inner ring is the Realm Silent Ring, forged from Void Nether Jade, its surface covered with True Annihilation Patterns. Once touched, even one's own existence will be blurred."

Sure enough, a second layer of transparent jade-like light appeared inside the formation, as clear as nothing, yet emanating an extremely cold aura.

At the center of the circle, a gray-black crystal slowly floated up.

The crystal was devoid of light and brilliance, yet it exuded a suffocating sense of oppression. "That's the Lifeless Core — the Still Time Crystal."

Qin Yu felt a slight tremor in his heart.

He sensed that a completely still moment of time was sealed inside the crystal.

It's not slow; it's absolute stillness.

"The activation condition for the magic array is the essence and blood of a person who has given up Thought Severance, but it has clearly been activated ahead of schedule."

As Xiao Yue finished speaking, the twelve array eyes lit up one after another, and the twelve Time Wheel Beads floated at the intersection of the two rings. The incantations inside the beads rotated, as if chanting the silent Time Annihilation Absolute Thoughtlessness Incantation.

The outer ring suddenly rotated clockwise. The three thousand Thought-Severing Runes glowed simultaneously. The first realm— the Absolute Thoughtlessness Circulation.

Qin Yu suddenly felt ripples in his sea of consciousness, and fragments of the past suddenly surfaced: his lonely figure as a boy, and the shock he felt when he first touched his Fate Soul.

The determination I had when I stood shoulder to shoulder with Jin Hanyan... Every thought seemed to be captured by runes, each strand of my mind being drawn away, stretched, and peeled away.

As if time itself were judging one's thoughts, Ju Wanning also let out a muffled groan. Her gaze flickered slightly, and she clearly felt some kind of force eroding her self-awareness.

"This is the Thought-Severing Domain," Xiao Yue's voice grew even colder. "It doesn't sever the physical body, but rather sever 'thoughts'."

The internal Realm Silent Ring has not yet rotated, but the transparent texture of the Void Nether Jade has already begun to amplify the effect of breaking thoughts.

Qin Yu's gaze darkened. "Second Realm, True Annihilation Returns to Nothingness."

Xiao Yue continued, "When the Absolute Thoughtlessness is achieved, the inner ring reverses, the True Annihilation Pattern resonates with the Thought-Severing Runes, and all truth and illusion will lose their boundaries."

Time seemed to begin to discontinuate, in the distance, within the Void Array where Shangguan Lingxiao was.

The darkness suddenly expanded, as if the edges of space had been erased by an eraser.

The ground beneath his feet began to thin, the outlines of reality blurred, and nothingness was eroding the definition of existence.

Meanwhile, the Fate Array within the Fate Array where Shangguan Xuanchen was located suddenly tightened.

Several thick beams of light wrapped around his limbs, as if forcibly correcting his trajectory.

Among the other formations, the Five Elements Formation saw its flames surge, Yin-Yang Formation reversed its black and white colors.

The lines of the Cause and Effect Formation began to break and recombine, and the text of the Narrative Formation was rewritten frantically.

Within the Subject Formation, countless self-images tore each other apart. All the arrays were in operation.

Meanwhile, the enormous hourglass in the center was slowly rotating, and the upper part of the "Time Sand" began to fall.

Each grain of sand, upon falling, causes a tremor in the corresponding formation, and what's even stranger is that...

The vortex between the two ends of the hourglass is absorbing the power released by the various formations.

The silvery glow of time, the void of darkness, the threads of fate, the lines of cause and effect, all converge into the hourglass.

It does not exist alone; it governs, it records, it counts.

Xiao Yue's voice was low and deep, "This hourglass is the central hub of all formations."

"When the Time Sand run dry—" she didn't finish her sentence, but Qin Yu already understood.

Every magic array is the same, except that he and Ju Wanning are now facing the final judgment of the Annihilation Absolute Thoughtlessness Formation.