In the ruins of the Thoughtless Burial Domain, the wind howled, and dust drifted slowly among the broken stone pillars, like the last breath of this remnant of an era.
Blue Ring Xiao Yue gently landed on Qin Yu's shoulder, her long, star-blue hair shimmering faintly in the dim light. She glanced down at the purple gourd, her tone less excited and more rational. "Little Qinzi, this gourd is basically useless now. The Paradox Source Water has been used up, and it will be difficult to gather another drop next time..."
Qin Yu's gaze was calm; he understood, of course.
The "Logic Chain Severance Simulation" inside the Cause-Trapping and Effect-Locking Gourd requires a long time to condense the source water again; the more stable the external causal law is, the longer it takes to condense.
Now that this single drop has become Xiao Yue, Qin Yu showed no regret whatsoever, simply nodding calmly.
"Hmm." He raised his hand and gently lifted the purple gourd. The next instant, a dark and profound light slowly unfolded from his palm.
The storage space of the Annihilation Devil Pupil - Final Spirit Core has been opened.
It was an inner realm resembling a collapsed star field, with faint glimmers of light dotting the darkness, like the last stars before the end.
The purple gourd slowly disappeared into it, and the space gently closed. Everything fell silent, Qin Yu stood up.
Amidst the ruins, the broken stone walls cast long, slanted shadows. The Thoughtless Burial Domain was no longer trembling.
After the illusion shattered, the entire space seemed to have been drained of its soul, leaving only an ancient stone path leading deeper into the space.
The stone path was deep and long, with a faint grayish-white sheen emanating from it in the distance.
Qin Yu's gaze sharpened slightly. "Let's go." His voice wasn't loud, but it carried a resolute tone. "We should go find the true main hall."
Xiao Yue swung her legs on his shoulder, her star-blue eyes sparkling.
"Hehe, Little Qinzi, I'm different now." Qin Yu's lips curled slightly. He knew. Blue Ring, Second Form - Logic Chain Severance.
Already awakened. This journey through the Thoughtless Burial Domain. The illusion shattered, the ancient divine beasts Annihilation, and the Rubik's Cube collapsed.
Shangguan Xuanchen perished. Shangguan Lingxiao departed. Ju Wanning and Ju Anran returned to their clan.
He obtained the Cause-Trapping and Effect-Locking Gourd. More importantly, the Blue Ring completed its second leap, and deep within the ruins, the wind rose again.
Deep within the Thoughtless Burial Domain, space seemed to have been repeatedly crushed by time, leaving only a cracked and silent desolation between heaven and earth. Qin Yu slowly walked along the collapsed stone steps, surrounded by an extremely eerie ruin, not the dilapidated remains of ordinary relics.
It's like the remnants of a once Ultimate palace, erased from the "level of existence" by some unseen will. Broken stone pillars float in mid-air, neither falling nor supported, like fragments forgotten on the edge of logic; the walls are covered with twisted cracks, which do not spread outwards.
Instead, it collapsed inward, as if the entire space was slowly shrinking towards some invisible center. There was no wind, no sound, and even the dust seemed to stand still in mid-air, as if time was being forcibly suppressed by some rule, leaving only deathly silence and stagnation.
As Qin Yu stepped through the ground, faint ripples appeared beneath his feet, as if each step he took was treading on a thin, translucent membrane, beneath which lay an unknowable abyss.
In the center of the ruins stands an ancient tree.
The ancient tree was so tall it was almost absurd, its trunk as thick as a mountain, its bark a mixture of dark gray and burnt brown, its surface cracked like parched earth, yet a pale, cold light emanated from the depths of the cracks, as if it had once borne the thunder and destruction of countless eras, and now only a skeleton emptied by time remained.
The branches stretched out in all directions, twisting and coiling like the ribs of a dead behemoth spread out beneath the sky. Each branch appeared withered and sharp, as if it might pierce the very fabric of space at any moment. Most unsettling of all were the leaves covering the tips of the branches.
All the leaves on the tree had withered and died, without a trace of green or life. The color was not simply black, but a faded color left after being repeatedly washed away by the years, as if time had stopped on them countless times, peeling away all possible futures layer by layer, leaving only dryness and fragility.
The leaves were extremely thin, almost transparent, with veins as clear as unfolded ancient maps. There was no flow of spiritual energy or regular fluctuations within the texture, only an indescribable "emptiness".
They hung silently on the branches, without wind, yet occasionally trembling slightly. The trembling didn't come from the outside, but rather seemed like some lingering will struggling within. The ground was covered with layers upon layers of withered leaves, as thick as a dark brown ocean. When Qin Yu stepped into it, the leaves didn't make the expected cracking sound, but instead sank slightly like shadows, only to return to their original shape in the next instant, as if they both existed and didn't truly exist.
Qin Yu looked up at the withered tree, his gaze deep and calm. He had long known that the true main hall was not beneath the ruins, nor deep within the space, but sealed within a leaf of this ancient tree.
This is no ordinary concealment formation, but a higher-level seal, compressing the massive main hall into the logical structure of a leaf, reversing the concepts of "huge" and "tiny." The problem, however, lies in the fact that on the withered branch before them...
Thousands upon thousands of leaves hung densely, each one withered and black as ever, each one devoid of any ripples, spiritual light, or unusual phenomena, and not even a trace of causal connection could be sensed.
Which section truly houses the main temple?
Qin Yu slowly stretched out his hand, his fingertips brushing against a fallen withered leaf in the air. The leaf turned into a phantom the moment he touched it, slipping through his fingers and returning to the branch, as if mocking his judgment.
Blue Ring Xiao Yue stood quietly at his shoulder, her long, star-blue hair cascading down, her eyes sparkling with starlight. She said softly, "Little Qinzi, this tree itself is like an existence stripped of cause and effect. All the leaves exist in the same 'logical blank,' without reference, without difference."
Qin Yu did not respond, but simply gazed at the boundless sea of withered yellow leaves. He knew that the true main hall was right here, among these withered leaves, but searching for the single entrance among tens of thousands of indistinguishable withered yellow leaves was no different from searching for a chain that had not yet been broken in a world where rules had been erased.
The ruins are silent, the ancient trees stand withered, and the fallen leaves are like a sea. The true main hall is hidden in this endless "sameness," waiting to be identified.
Qin Yu before the sea of withered, black, and yellow leaves, his gaze slowly shifting among the countless identical leaves. After a moment of silence, he turned his head and asked, "Xiao Yue, do you have any way to find it?"
Blue Ring Xiao Yue stood on his shoulder, her long, star-blue hair swaying slightly in the deathly still air. She gazed at the ancient tree for a long time, the starlight in her eyes slowly rotating, as if calculating the logical structure of an entire space. After a moment, she suddenly revealed a sharp smile, "I've got it... I'll try what I just comprehended— the Logic Chain Severance."
As soon as she finished speaking, she lightly leaped up from Qin Yu's shoulder and hovered in mid-air. The Blue Ring energy around her began to slowly spread, initially just a soft star-blue glow, then suddenly accelerated its rotation, like a logic core that had been ignited.
In the next instant, countless fine blue light chains bloomed from behind her, like an arc storm extending from the depths of the void. Tens of thousands of blue light chains intertwined in the air to form a huge net structure, instantly covering the entire withered tree. The air was cut with a subtle "crackling" sound, as if reality itself was being scanned segment by segment.
Blue Ring · Two-Form Logic Chain Severance.
At that moment, the entire space suddenly changed. Qin Yu's vision was enveloped in blue light; the ruins were no longer ruins, the ancient trees were no longer just withered wood, and everything revealed the "chain of logic" hidden beneath the surface.
The trunk of that ancient tree transformed into a dense network of transparent support points. Each branch extended into countless chains of cause and effect, rules, and fate, like a massive structural tower. Each withered leaf was connected to almost the same supporting logic, seemingly indistinguishable, yet hiding extremely subtle fluctuations in its deep structure.
Xiao Yue's eyes were deep, and she slowly opened her hands. Blue chains of light swirled around her like a storm. She did not blindly sever them, but precisely locked onto each logical node and compared them one by one. Her consciousness seemed to transform into an extremely precise probe, searching for the only abnormal fulcrum among countless chains.
Blue light swept across the branches, and transparent symbols appeared around the leaves: arrows, rings, and shattered infinity symbols appeared one by one, only to collapse and dissipate in the next instant, making a series of slight cracking sounds like dominoes being pushed over.
As the scan deepened, the entire ancient tree began to tremble violently, its withered leaves churning like a sea, and a deep rumble echoed through the air, as if some slumbering will had been forcibly awakened. Suddenly, Xiao Yue's gaze sharpened, and she gently pointed her finger towards a branch high above.
A thin, yet extremely sharp, blue light blade shot through the air, landing precisely on the seemingly identical logical node of the withered leaf.
"Chain broken--"
The moment the blue light struck, the logical support around the leaf collapsed abruptly, the internal structure of the entire ancient tree instantly became unbalanced, and space seemed to be torn open by a crack. A gust of Wind of Realm Breaking roared out from the crack, blowing away all stable forms.
Above the ruins, countless transparent chains snapped, dimensions shattered like a mirror, and the colors of heaven and earth were instantly stripped away, leaving only a storm vortex of black and blue.
At the heart of this logical collapse, a black figure slowly appeared.
The figure was tall and heavy, as if it had stepped out from the depths of a shattered dimension. He was draped in a long, jet-black robe, the surface of which gleamed with a damp, cold light. The texture seemed to be formed from thick nothingness. His hood hung low, completely obscuring his face, which was an unfathomable darkness, so deep that even his outline could not be discerned.
With his arms crossed over his chest, he held a longsword, its blade pointing straight down. The sword was ancient and heavy, its metal surface engraved with fine patterns, gleaming with a cold, eerie light under the shattered light. The sword seemed to pierce through the void, as if it had pierced through a dimensional pivot that had not yet completely collapsed.
His very existence is "breaking through". Realm Breaking Realm · Supreme.
Boundary Collapse, dimensions shattered, and all tangible rules and intangible laws were destroyed. This realm was boundless, without height or depth, only the Wind of Realm Breaking scattering all fixed forms. As he appeared, the surrounding space seemed to be forcibly torn apart, emitting a heavy tearing sound.
The Ruin Wheel distorted, and the ancient tree branches were cracked inch by inch, only to be fixed in place by an invisible force in the next instant, as if trapped on the edge of "broken and unbroken".
He slowly raised his head; the area under his hood remained completely dark, devoid of eyes, yet it seemed as if he were watching Qin Yu and Xiao Yue.
The longsword trembled slightly, and countless fine cracks spread out from the void beneath its blade, echoing in the air with a low, mournful sound, like the lament of a dimension being dragged apart.
The remnant soul of the Leaf Guardian, the true guardian of the main hall. But at this moment, he has been forcibly forced out of his seal by the Blue Ring - Logic Chain Severance.