Ju Anran, leading seven Ju Lineage at the Severed Thought Realm · Supreme, strode quickly from the afterglow of the shattered Fate Array. His robes still bore the scorch marks and fine silver-gray shavings from the burning threads of fate. When he landed beside Qin Yu and Ju Wanning, his gaze first swept over their auras before he suppressed the tension in his heart and asked in a low voice, "Senior Sister, are you alright?"
Ju Wanning stood at the edge of the cracks left by the collapse of the Time Array. The True Annihilation Realm · Peak essence around her still maintained a palpable pressure, ready to erupt at any moment. She looked at Ju Anran, her voice steady yet wary, "Yes, Young Master Qin and I broke the array together without injury. Are you both alright?" Ju Anran nodded, but her brow furrowed even deeper. "I'm fine."
"But we still have three disciples and Shangguan Lingxiao trapped inside the formation." Qin Yu's gaze remained unmoved, as if even his breathing hadn't faltered. He whispered to Ju Wanning with his divine sense, "Miss Ju, once the three disciples emerge, distance yourself from them."
Ju Wanning nodded imperceptibly, then used the same subtle divine sense to transmit a message to Ju Anran and the seven disciples. "Be prepared for battle at any time. I will support three disciples." The seven disciples at the Severed Thought Realm · Supreme slightly tightened their formation, back to back, the light of their Fate Soul trembling between their palms and weapons, as if ready to unleash a devastating attack at any moment. Ju Anran said no more.
His gaze was fixed firmly on the area still shrouded in the misty void, where Shangguan Lingxiao was located within the Void Array. At the same time, Shangguan Xuanchen, accompanied by five Realm Breaking Realm cultivators, stood amidst the ruins and broken pillars on the other side. He neither approached the Ju Lineage's camp nor rashly approached the hourglass; his gaze was fixed like a nail on the direction of the Void Array.
His lips pressed into a thin line, and he suddenly sent a cold message to the five Realm Breaking with his divine sense. "Don't make any rash moves. Wait for my senior brother to come out before making any plans." The five men's faces were gloomy, and the slave seal deep within their Fate Soul tightened slightly like cold chains. They dared not respond too much, and only silently placed their hands on their respective objects, like five ferocious beasts with their throats tied.
The scene within the Void Array suddenly distorted to the point of near distortion. The darkness was not a simple concealment, but a process of "erasure." The stone pillars were being erased until they were transparent, and the ground began to disappear from the edges into empty voids with nowhere to step. Even the sound of the wind seemed to have its throat cut off; all sounds automatically lost their ability to be heard once they reached the center of the array.
Only the Annihilation Realm Pearl hung in mid-air. Although it was formless and Formless, everyone felt that it was slowly rotating, like an eye that did not need pupils, judging the rationality of every breath.
Shangguan Lingxiao stood before the five, holding the Fate Soul Divine Spear horizontally in his hand. The spear did not emit any light; instead, it resembled a black line sinking into the deep sea, absorbing the remaining color around it. His voice was cold and hard, yet extremely clear. "Listen to me, don't use brute force to bombard it. Nothingness doesn't eat strength; it eats the fact that 'each of you exists independently.'"
Despite the combined pressure of his aura and the array formation, the three disciples of the Ju Lineage Severed Thought Realm · Supreme managed to maintain their composure. The other two cultivators were even paler, their figures showing subtle cracks at the edges, as if they would vanish like ink being wiped away in the next instant. Before they could hesitate, Shangguan Lingxiao lightly touched the void with the tip of his spear, creating an extremely fine "boundary mark" in the nothingness.
The boundary mark wasn't light, but a thin line forcibly marked as "this place is still recognized as existing." He said in a deep voice, "The Annihilation Realm Pearl devours isolated existences. The five of you must combine your Fate Soul Anchor Point into one, like five ropes twisted into one, giving it a reason for 'whole existence,' and it won't be able to devour you."
Having said that, he raised his hand and waved it, the butt of the spear tracing a semi-circle. The arc landed without a visible point; instead, five tiny black seals emerged from the void, like five silent star cores, each landing at the feet of one of the five people. Shangguan Lingxiao coldly commanded, "Press your Fate Soul essence onto the seals. Do not release it outwards, do not resist the void, follow its devouring influence."
"Let it think you're being erased, but in reality, we'll use its erasure trajectory to carve a 'coexistence' loop." The five gritted their teeth and did as instructed. Three Ju Lineage forcibly suppressed their hatred for Shangguan Lingxiao, transforming their Fate Soul light into the most restrained threads that sank into the black imprint beneath their feet. The two cultivators even pushed their Fate Soul to the brink of collapse. In an instant...
As if it had smelled its prey, the Annihilation Realm Pearl suddenly contracted, pressing down on them as if the sky were collapsing. All five of them experienced a blackout, a strange illusion creeping into their minds—they were being erased from the world, their names becoming unfamiliar, their memories empty as if pages had been ripped out. But at this most dangerous moment, Shangguan Lingxiao suddenly stepped forward, his Fate Soul Divine Spear held horizontally before his chest.
Suddenly, a thin "wall of Emptiness" rose from the gun. The wall was as transparent as gauze, yet it caused the approaching nothingness to hesitate for an extremely brief moment upon contact, like a giant beast biting into a toothless iron plate. It was a miniature form of his second supernatural power, "Maintaining the Constant - All Laws Void," just to gain that half-breath of "acknowledgment." He hissed, "Now, gather your thoughts, don't think about yourself, think about 'us'."
The five were jolted to their very core by the sound. The three Ju Lineage disciples almost instinctively pulled their Fate Soul threads towards each other's feet, while the two cultivators seized the only glimmer of hope in their desperate situation. The five primal energies instantly connected within the black seal to form a pentagonal circuit. Once the circuit was complete, the Void Devouring suddenly experienced a momentary "judgment pause," as if it could no longer accurately determine whether these five beings were five separate targets or a single entity.
Shangguan Lingxiao seized this moment, his spear tip piercing the void, not into space itself, but into the thinnest "zero line" in the trajectory of the Annihilation Realm Pearl's devouring power. He flicked the spear upwards, as if using a black line to lift an entire sky, creating a rift in the void. Within the rift, there was no light, but a more primal, grayish-white clarity surged forth.
Shangguan Lingxiao shouted, "Go! Take three steps along the circuit, no more, no less!" The five of them practically teetered on the edge of their Fate Soul shattering as they did. The first step caused the five-pointed circuit to suddenly glow, but not with light; instead, it emitted a sense of oppressive force, a feeling of "existence being collectively acknowledged." The second step caused the Annihilation Realm Pearl seemed to be forced to swallow a thorn.
Fine, rippled waves began to appear. With the third step, the black imprints beneath the five figures shattered simultaneously. The shattering wasn't into powder, but rather transformed into Annihilation Realm Pearl circles of swirling, ethereal ripples that flowed back into the Annihilation Bead. At the moment of this backflow, the Annihilation Realm Pearl suddenly became Ultimate transparent, as if its weakness—"it too needs definition"—was forcibly revealed. Shangguan Lingxiao's eyes turned cold, and the tip of his spear suddenly pointed...
Strike directly at that transparent weakness, the entire Void Array trembled violently as if its core had been ripped out. The edge of the vanished ground began to recede, the outlines of the stone pillars were spat back into reality from the transparency, and a gigantic exit split open in the dark sky. Beyond the exit lay the ruins where the central hourglass and the various arrays converged. But just as they were about to escape, the Annihilation Realm Pearl suddenly backfired.
An invisible "Nullification Arm" stretched out from the void, grabbing directly at the back of one of the cultivators. The cultivator didn't even have time to scream before half his body was wiped clean in an instant; not even his blood had a chance to become "existence." The three Ju Lineage, their eyes wide with horror, instinctively tried to rush back to save him, but were silenced by Shangguan Lingxiao's roar, "Don't turn around! Turning around means six isolated existences, all reduced to zero!"
Without further hesitation, he unleashed a fierce sweep of his Fate Soul Divine Spear. The spear's power wasn't a slash, but rather a forceful severing of the "reason for zeroing" of the Zeroing Arm. The Void Arm, suddenly losing its target in mid-air, crumbled into silent dust as if unable to find a landing point. The aftershocks completely engulfed the cultivator's remains, leaving not even a trace of his existence. The five people's minds were shaken to the point of near collapse.
But this also made them even more hesitant to disobey Shangguan Lingxiao's rhythm. They stepped out from the edge of the exit, and the next instant, the Void Array collapsed behind them with a deafening roar. The Annihilation Realm Pearl, having lost its array base support, shattered like a drop of transparent dew into countless invisible, empty points, dissipating in the wind. Shangguan Lingxiao, along with three disciples of the Ju Lineage at the Severed Thought Realm · Supreme and the surviving cultivator, stepped out of the array.
His robes fluttered, and the ethereal traces had not yet completely dissipated. Shangguan Lingxiao stepped out of the formation, and the invisible "return to zero" still lingered on the tip of his spear, slowly dissipating in the air like unseen ash, leaving extremely subtle ripples in the space. The light sand in the central hourglass continued to fall, the light points dragging long silver-white trails in the air, as if each grain was counting some irreversible judgment of time.
However, before he could even speak, the situation had already changed dramatically.
Almost at the same instant the exit of the Void Array completely closed, a cold glint flashed in Ju Wanning's eyes, and the True Annihilation Realm · Peak suddenly spread out. Without hesitation or testing, with a slight movement of her ten fingers, an extremely thin line of cause and effect spread out from her palm, as thin as a spider's thread, yet it made an extremely crisp "clang" sound in the air.
That's not ordinary cause and effect.
That is the source pull that uses the meaning of True Annihilation as an anchor to directly lock the Fate Soul relationship of "same clan and same lineage".
The three Ju Lineage, who had just stepped out of the Void Array Severed Thought Realm · Supreme, had not even fully regained their footing when they felt a sudden tremor deep within their Fate Soul. A gentle yet irresistible pulling force erupted from within their bodies, and in the next instant, their figures were forcibly dragged sideways by the causal threads, landing almost instantly beside Ju Wanning.
"Step back." Ju Wanning's voice was low and calm.
Before the three disciples could fully recover from the aftershocks of the void, they instinctively formed a battle formation behind her. Their Fate Soul light stabilized again, and the formation instantly returned to the Ju Lineage's side.
All of this happened extremely quickly.
Shangguan Lingxiao's gaze darkened slightly, but he did not pursue.
At the very same moment, the space beneath Shangguan Xuanchen's feet suddenly distorted.
The five cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm had already received a secret signal and locked onto Shangguan Lingxiao's location the moment the Void Array collapsed.
"Let's go," Shangguan Xuanchen said in a low voice.
Six figures flashed simultaneously, causing a brief folding in space. In the next instant, they appeared beside Shangguan Lingxiao.
Five cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm quickly took their positions, protecting Shangguan Lingxiao in the center, while Shangguan Xuanchen stood to the side, his gaze coldly confronting Ju Wanning and Qin Yu.
The camps were clearly divided in an instant.
As for the sole survivor, who did not belong to either of the two major factions...
The moment he stepped out of the Void Array, he had already grasped the situation.
The hourglass continued, the formation remained in place, and the two camps faced off.
He was nothing more than a pawn that could be crushed at any moment.
Without any hesitation, his face turned pale, and almost instinctively he turned and fled.
"I won't fight anymore... I won't fight anymore!" The voice cracked with fear.
He disregarded even the lingering effects of the array and sprinted towards the exit of the ruined palace.
His figure stumbled and staggered among the broken stone pillars, his Fate Soul force almost entirely focused on speed.
The ultimate treasure? The judgment? The hourglass core? At this moment, none of them mattered to him.
Living is more important than anything else; only two opposing camps remain on the field.
Ju Wanning stood at the forefront, her aura of the True Annihilation Realm · Peak slowly gathering like a cloud pressing down on the city. The causal lines beside her had not yet completely dissipated when three disciples of the Severed Thought Realm · Supreme and seven disciples who had broken the formation earlier quickly approached. Ju Anran also stood to the side and behind, her Space Silence of the Mystic Void Realm · Supreme faintly visible.
On the other side, Shangguan Lingxiao's spear tip was slightly lowered, his robes fluttering in the aftershocks. Shangguan Xuanchen and five cultivators at the Realm Breaking Realm had completed their formation, their auras intertwining subtly, like a giant beast about to unleash its fangs.
The hourglass in the center stood still, while the light sand continued to fall.
The air still held the complex aftereffects of the collapse of the three arrays of time, fate, and nothingness, as if some higher-level judgment was brewing.
Qin Yu remained motionless, standing half a step to Ju Wanning's side, his expression calm, but his gaze fixed on the hourglass.
It was as if what he was truly concerned about was never Shangguan Lingxiao on the other side.
Rather, it is the core essence of the formation that has not yet revealed its full form.