The deeper one ventures into the Shi Lin, the more eerie the atmosphere becomes. The originally jagged black pillars gradually twist and turn, some resembling broken giant spears piercing the sky, while others seem to protrude from the ground like the ribs of ancient beasts, forming a deep and mysterious natural maze.
Qin Yu and Shen Qingchen moved swiftly along the gaps in the Shi Lin, both deliberately lowering their auras to leave only extremely subtle fluctuations of their origin, like two shadowy figures moving between the stone pillars. The further they went, the more obvious the strange fluctuations in the air became, as if some extremely ancient power was slowly awakening ahead.
After an unknown amount of time, the two stopped simultaneously. The sight before them left them speechless for a moment.
The core area of Shi Lin suddenly collapsed, creating a huge open space. Thousands of black stone pillars formed a natural circular high wall around it, like an ancient altar sleeping in an abyss.
The center of the open space was already crowded with people, at least several hundred cultivators, each with a strong aura, many of whom were at the Realm Breaking Realm · Supreme. They were scattered in different areas, wary of each other, yet all looking towards the very center of the open space.
What's truly awe-inspiring is the tree at the center; it's no ordinary ancient tree, but one that's almost unbelievably huge.
The thick trunk resembles an ancient divine pillar growing from the earth, its bark displaying a deep, dark gold texture, as if countless years have deposited layers of historical traces on its surface. The branches extend in all directions, each one like a river spanning the void, slowly unfurling in mid-air.
What's most breathtaking is the flowers on the tree; the entire tree seems to embody the concept of the whole world, with countless flowers blooming at the same time.
Each flower is completely different; some resemble burning golden flames, some like frozen Time Sand, some like transparent spatial folds, and others like a star being born.
These flowers are not ordinary plants, but rather seem to be the embodiment of a certain concept.
One of the pale purple petals swirls slightly, and within its stamen, ripples of thought constantly appear and disappear—that is the Flower of Thought.
Further up, a silver flower slowly bloomed, its petals as sharp as blades, each containing a different spell trajectory—it was the Flower of Skills.
Not far away, a pale blue flower swayed gently, and within its petals, countless interwoven lines of cause and effect faintly appeared—it was the Flower of Karma.
On another branch, a transparent flower seemed to be a condensation of a soul, with countless afterimages of life consciousness faintly reflected in its center—it was the Flower of Souls.
Above that is a flower as deep as the universe, its stamen resembling a swirling nebula of energy— the Flower of Spiritual Origin.
Deep within the branches, even more mysterious flowers are blooming.
There is a flower that presents a layered, folded spatial structure, with each layer of petals resembling an overlap of different dimensions; it is the Flower of Dimensions.
There is another flower that resembles the pages of a book being written, with narrative traces constantly appearing and disappearing on its petals—that is the Flower of Narrative.
Higher up, a flower, like an invisible eye, gazes into the void; it is the Flower of Observation.
Further up, countless images of the flowing river of history emerge from among the petals—these are the Flower of History.
The flowers closest to the tree crown are even more breathtaking.
There is a flower that looks like it's made up of countless symbols, each of which is constantly changing shape; that is the Flower of Names.
There was another flower that emitted a profound aura of existence; that was the Flower of the Root of Existence.
On the outermost branches hang flowers symbolizing different world laws; the Flower of Time rotate slowly, like a clock running backward.
The Flower of Space is like an ever-expanding universe; the Flower of Life and Death is half pure white and half pitch black; and the Flower of Karma is constantly growing new threads.
The Flower of the Five Elements flow among metal, wood, water, fire, and earth; the Flower of Yin and Yang present the image of black and white tai chi; Flower of Fate resemble countless intersecting trajectories.
The Flower of Reincarnation is a series of closed circles; there are also the Flower of Nothingness, the Flower of Rules, the Flower of Logic, the Flower of Narrative...
Even concepts such as symbols, language, power, ideology, subject, self, space, and place are transformed into flowers of different forms on this tree.
The entire tree seemed like a conceptual tree encompassing all aspects of the world, and everyone was stunned by this sight.
Hundreds of cultivators stood silently around, but no one dared to make a move rashly, and an indescribable sense of oppression filled the air.
Qin Yu and Shen Qingchen stood at the edge of the Shi Lin, both gazing at the ancient tree. Shen Qingchen murmured softly, "What... exactly is this...?"
Qin Yu's gaze was deeper than anyone else's; he could clearly sense that the tree's roots seemed to have penetrated into some deeper principle of law.
It seemed to be the core node of the entire Endless Abyss, and might even be related to the Mystic Void Non-Stillness Seal, a moment later.
Qin Yu let out a soft breath. He didn't linger any longer. "Let's go down and take a look." Shen Qingchen nodded.
The two walked out from the edge of the Shi Lin without making a sound, slowly approaching the crowd of hundreds of cultivators.
Their appearance did not attract much attention.
After all, the open space was now filled with cultivators from all sides, each of them staring intently at the ancient tree that was covered with flowers of world concepts.
And deep within the canopy, a faint light shone, as if something was being nurtured there.
Qin Yu and Shen Qingchen blended into the crowd without making a sound.
Qin Yu's appearance had long since changed. At this moment, he looked like an ordinary young cultivator, with a slightly thin face. His aura was also deliberately suppressed within the normal fluctuation range of the Realm Breaking Realm Initial Stage, without any abnormality.
Such cultivation level was not conspicuous among the crowd—because there were simply too many cultivators gathered here, with dozens of auras at the Realm Breaking Realm Initial Stage alone, and a large portion of them being at the Realm Breaking Realm · Supreme.
If someone were to deliberately search for Qin Yu's original face, they would definitely not recognize him standing in the crowd right now.
Even the cultivators for whom Hua Jingmeng had placed a bounty were completely unaware that Qin Yu, whom they were searching for, was standing right among them.
Shen Qingchen stood beside Qin Yu, his expression equally calm, but a hint of vigilance remained in his eyes as he Severed Observation the movements of the cultivators around them.
Around them, whispers and murmurs rose and fell. A cultivator in a gray robe gazed at the enormous ancient tree and couldn't help but mutter, "What on earth is that?"
A tall, burly man standing nearby frowned and said, "Could it be... the Ancient Tree of the Origin of All Things?"
Someone immediately shook their head in rebuttal. "It doesn't seem like it. I once saw a similar description in an ancient book, but the ancient tree in that record is completely different from the one in front of us."
Someone sighed impatiently, "Never mind what kind of tree it is, I just want to know—is the Mystic Void Non-Stillness Seal really here?"
Another young cultivator smiled wryly, "Who knows? This Endless Abyss is so vast, I really don't know what the Chi Lineage was thinking. Four Mystic Void Non-Stillness Seal... and they sent tens of thousands of people to search for them?"
A kind-looking middle-aged cultivator beside him smiled, shook his head, and said, "Alas, fellow Daoist, you are mistaken."
He pointed to the crowd around him, then looked at the ancient tree and slowly said, "Look at the competitions held by the three major Lineage in previous years. They always had arena battles, fighting one after another. Some died, some were injured, and they fought one by one. In the end, only four people were selected."
"But this time is different." "This is the Endless Abyss." His tone gradually became excited.
"This place is brimming with opportunities." "Firstly, we can search for the Mystic Void Non-Stillness Seal, and secondly, we can seek out various supreme treasures and opportunities."
He laughed heartily, "Even if we don't manage to snatch the Mystic Void Non-Stillness Seal in the end, we might still be able to bring back quite a few treasures when we leave the Endless Abyss. Wouldn't that be wonderful?"
Many people around immediately nodded in agreement. "Yes, yes, yes!" "This fellow Daoist is right." "That's what I think too!" "Opportunity is the key!"
Qin Yu stood in the crowd, listening to the discussions, but he didn't say anything. His gaze remained fixed on the huge ancient tree.
The tree stood quietly in the center of the open space, its branches swaying gently and its flowers blooming slowly, as if it were breathing.
Just as everyone was discussing this, suddenly, a very light breeze blew by.
As light as a breath, the branches of the ancient tree swayed gently, and the next moment, a flower drifted down from the canopy.
It was an extremely beautiful flower, its petals displaying an indescribable pale silver luster, as if formed from some kind of condensed concept.
It slowly drifted down from the sky; no one knew what it represented, but almost everyone's attention was drawn to it.
The flower drifted down with the wind and landed on the shoulder of a cultivator at the Realm Breaking Realm Initial Stage. The cultivator was staring at the ancient tree when he suddenly felt his shoulder lighten. He looked down and saw...
"Huh?" He was slightly taken aback. The flower had passed right through his clothes as if it had no physical form. The next moment, the flower slowly disappeared into his body.
To be precise, it was something that had entered his Fate Soul. The cultivator stood there motionless, and no one around him immediately noticed anything unusual.
A few breaths later, someone suddenly frowned. "Wait..." "What's wrong with this person?" The cultivator was still standing there.
His eyes were wide open, his expression frozen, as if time had stopped, and just then, his cultivation aura began to change.
The aura of the Realm Breaking Realm Initial Stage suddenly trembled slightly and then slowly decreased. Realm Breaking Realm Initial Stage. Realm Breaking Realm... the Severed Thought Realm. Someone's pupils suddenly contracted.
"His cultivation is regressing!" His aura continues to decline, from the Severed Thought Realm, the Stainless Realm, the Chaos Realm...
His body also began to change; his face, which was originally in his thirties, gradually became younger, and his beard slowly disappeared.
His face began to look childlike, and the surrounding cultivators stared wide-eyed, no one daring to approach because the scene was too bizarre.
His cultivation level continued to decline. Chaos Realm... Silent Mystery Realm... Void Emanation Realm... His figure was also constantly shrinking.
His robes began to grow loose, his shoulders narrowed, and his face changed from youth to boy, and then from boy to child.
The cultivator's aura continued to recede, yet he stood there without struggling or experiencing pain.
It was like a period of time being played in reverse; he was moving along the trajectory of his own life—
They retreated little by little. Someone said in a trembling voice, "He... he's going back in time..."
His cultivation continued to disappear, his realm returned to zero, and his body had transformed into that of a two- or three-year-old child.
His robes slipped off his body, and he stood there blankly, surrounded by deathly silence.
The child's body continued to shrink until it became an infant, which hung silently in place.
After a few breaths without crying or making a sound, the baby's body suddenly became transparent.
It wasn't death, but rather—never having existed; his body slowly dissipated.
Like a piece of history that has been completely erased, it eventually disappeared into the crowd.
Not a single trace was left on the ground, and hundreds of cultivators around them gasped in astonishment.
The air was deathly silent; no one spoke. All eyes turned upward once more.
Looking at that ancient tree, that ancient tree blooming with flowers of the world's concept, it seemed as if it had just casually dropped a petal.
Yet, with a casual stroke, he erased a person's entire existence; the moment the cultivator vanished completely, the air seemed to freeze.
There was no corpse, no lingering trace of Fate Soul, and not even the process of "death" was left behind, as if this person had never existed in the first place.
A few breaths later, someone in the crowd suddenly snapped back to reality, their voice almost screaming in terror—
"Run!!" Contact with these flowers will result in being instantly devoured and eliminated!
This shout was like a spark igniting gunpowder, and the hundreds of cultivators who had been maintaining a wary standoff instantly erupted into chaos.
"Back off!! Back off now!!" "Don't touch those flowers!!" "Don't get touched by the flowers!!!" "Stay away from the ancient tree!!"
Some people retreated by leaping through the air, some used their movement techniques to run wildly through the Shi Lin, and some, in a panic, tore through space to escape.
The scene instantly descended into chaos, with the sounds of weapons being drawn, spiritual energy erupting, air being torn apart, and roars all mingling together.
In the chaos, some were knocked down, some tried to grab a safer spot, and some were driven by fear to frantically unleash their defensive abilities.
The entire open space was thrown into turmoil within moments. Just then, the ancient tree suddenly trembled.
First came a very slight tremor, as if some dormant will deep within the earth had turned over.
Immediately afterwards, the entire tree began to shake violently. "Boom--!" A deep sound, like ancient thunder, suddenly came from within the tree trunk.
In that instant when the tree canopy suddenly trembled, time seemed to slow down, and then thousands upon thousands of flowers simultaneously detached from the branches.
The entire sky was instantly covered by a sea of flowers, Flower of Thought bloomed in the air, creating countless ripples of thought.
The Flower of Skills spun like countless blades, Flower of Karma trailed silken chains of light.
The Flower of Souls emitted a ghostly blue light, while the Flower of Dimensions folded in the air, creating layers of space.
Flower of Narrative are like the pages of an open book, while Flower of Observation are like countless eyes gazing upon all living beings.
The Flower of History trails the image of time like a long river, while the Flower of the Root of Existence emits a suffocating primal fluctuation.
Further away, the Flower of Time spun in the air like fragments of a broken clock, while the Flower of Space folded into countless cubic structures.
The Flower of Life and Death, one black and one white, devour each other; the Flower of Fate leaves behind countless lines of fate.
The Flower of Reincarnation form closed loops, while the Flower of Nothingness constantly disappear and are reborn as they fall.
Tens of thousands of conceptual flowers fell simultaneously, covering the sky as if it were a magnificent yet terrifying sea of flowers.
The scene was so grand it was breathtaking, as if the entire concept of the world was collapsing from the sky.
A Flower of Karma on a cultivator's shoulder, and the man was about to raise his hand to slap it away.
The next instant, his body suddenly split into countless time fragments, with the past, present, and future appearing simultaneously.
Then they all rolled back and dissipated. Another Flower of Dimensions touched a cultivator, who was instantly compressed into a two-dimensional shadow.
Then even the shadow was smoothed out, and a Flower of Narrative fell in the distance, just as the cultivator raised his sword.
The sword strike suddenly stopped, and then the whole person disappeared from the world word by word, like a deleted story.
Screams, gasps of alarm, and the sounds of spiritual energy exploding rang out continuously. "Ah!!!"
"Don't touch the flowers!!!" "Get out of here quickly!!!" The rain of flowers from the sky resembled a scene of World Extinguisher.
The entire Shi Lin area seemed to have transformed into a collapsing world, and Qin Yu's pupils suddenly contracted.
He immediately understood that this place had become a conceptual disaster zone.
Any flower could represent a certain rule of the world, and once touched, its existence will be directly rewritten.
Qin Yu suddenly turned his head. "Not good—" he said in a low, urgent voice, "Brother Shen, hurry!"
Before Shen Qingchen could even react, Qin Yu had already made his move, his right hand suddenly grabbing forward.
The void folded instantly in his palm, and an extremely thin spatial rift suddenly unfolded—it was no ordinary spatial passage.
Instead, it was a high-dimensional fold that caused Qin Yu's Fate Soul to suddenly erupt, and his spatial supernatural powers to unfold instantly.
The surrounding reality seemed to be torn open by a thin film. Then, Qin Yu grabbed Shen Qingchen's shoulder.
"Go!" In the next instant, the two figures were pulled into that folded space, and the real world was instantly far away.
They entered a Transcendent Five-Dimensional Space rift, where the real world resembled a giant, unfolded scroll.
The rain of petals continued to fall as hundreds of cultivators fled in terror, and the Shi Lin continued to collapse.
But all of this was as if separated by a transparent dimensional wall; those conceptual flowers swept past the reality beneath their feet, yet could not reach them in the crevices of higher dimensions.
Shen Qingchen finally came to his senses. Looking at the apocalyptic scene of falling flowers below, his expression changed completely.
"What... what kind of place is this...?" Qin Yu didn't answer, his gaze fixed on the ancient tree.
Because deep within the flower rain, at the center of the tree canopy, an extremely ancient aura is slowly emerging.