The four stood before the still-unhealed spatial rift, its aftershocks still reverberating deep within the void, as if the entire world had just experienced a "tearing apart of existence." The Eternal Annihilation Heavenly Emperor slowly withdrew the lingering aura of Annihilation from his palm, his gaze grave as he looked into the distance, and whispered, "Master... it escaped."
The voice was calm, yet it carried a hint of resentment and wariness. The Void Finality Saint Emperor and the Primordial Dao-Extinguishing True Emperor had now completely refined the power of the Supreme Transformation Source Crystal, their Fate Soul had been stabilized, and their auras had returned to their peak. They took a step forward, their gazes sharp, "Master, shall we pursue?" The air seemed to become even quieter at this moment, all the restless rules awaiting a decision.
Qin Yu did not respond immediately. His gaze was fixed on the direction where the object had disappeared. Countless causal threads and logical chains deep within his sea of consciousness were rapidly tracing back. The escape was not a simple flight, but rather a forced departure by some higher-level "traction."
This meant that pursuing them would not only fail to lock onto their target, but could also lead them directly into an unknown trap. He slowly withdrew his gaze, his tone calm yet carrying an undeniable determination. "Don't pursue them for now."
He turned his head slightly to look at the three emperors, "Take your inheritance first." As soon as he finished speaking, the tension on the battlefield suddenly shifted to a deeper solemnity.
The Eternal Annihilation Heavenly Emperor nodded, the coldness in his eyes fading, replaced by composure. "Understood, Master."
The Void Finality Saint Emperor grinned, his tone still warm and excited after the battle. "Hey, that guy won't escape sooner or later. The important thing is to secure this opportunity first."
The Primordial Dao-Extinguishing True Emperor said in a deep voice, "Back then, the Three Realms were destroyed, and now the three of us have returned to this place... This time, we will not let anyone else touch our inheritance."
The four did not linger. Qin Yu took a step forward, and the void beneath his feet rippled silently like water. The Three Emperors followed closely behind. The four figures were like four different levels of existence, constantly switching between reality and nothingness, and heading deeper into the Limitless Final Abyss.
After an unknown amount of time, the atmosphere of heaven and earth began to change.
The original space was still dilapidated, but there were still "lingering traces of order." However, the area they stepped into had completely lost the definition of "order."
The world resembled a battlefield that had been burned and rebuilt countless times. As far as the eye could see, there stretched an endless, desolate wasteland. The earth possessed a deep, dark red and blackish-gray texture, as if it had been repeatedly scorched and cooled by the flames of countless eras of war.
The earth's surface cracked open with crisscrossing abyssal fissures. Within these fissures flowed not ordinary magma, but nearly solidified "rule remnants"—ashes of laws after burning, slowly churning and emitting a low, oppressive light.
In the distance, towering, blade-like mountains rise abruptly from the ground. Their bodies are not intact, but rather appear to have been torn apart and forcibly fixed in place by some incomprehensible force. The cut surfaces still flow with molten red light patterns that have not yet cooled, as if those mountains themselves are "the severed structure of the world."
The sky hung low.
The thick clouds were not formed naturally, but rather resembled a remnant dimension that had been forcibly suppressed. Crimson and dark blue flashes of lightning occasionally streaked through the clouds; these were not thunder, but rather the residual "collapse logic" colliding on its own.
A huge crescent moon hung at the edge of the sky, its light an eerie, cold white, yet it could not illuminate the earth. Instead, it made the entire space seem even more empty, as if light had lost its meaning of "illumination" and was only left as "proof of existence."
There was no wind in the air, but there was a continuous low hum.
The low rumble came from all directions, from the depths of the earth, from the mountain faults, and even from the void itself—it was the "unresolved final echo" left over from the great war hundreds of epochs ago, as if the last will of countless powerful beings before their fall was forever sealed within this land.
The Void Finality Saint Emperor slowly stopped, his gaze sweeping over the surroundings, his voice low and deep. "This place... is even more bizarre than the area we just left."
The Primordial Dao-Extinguishing True Emperor exhaled softly. "The 'Dao' here is no longer shattered, but... the remnant shell after it has been completely burned away."
The Eternal Annihilation Heavenly Emperor remained silent, his Eye of Annihilation shifting slightly as he gazed into the deepest, most profound core of the molten plains in the distance. His voice slowly faded. "This place... was once the 'core lifeline' of a realm."
Qin Yu stood at the forefront, his gaze piercing through the desolate wasteland before him. The broken walls and ruins beneath his feet were no ordinary ruins; every crack was etched with the vicissitudes of changing eras.
Every broken tile holds the slumbering spirit of a battle that has traversed countless ages. This place is the Ultimate end of an epoch-making war, concealing the secrets of the birth and death of heaven and earth.
He spoke softly, "Keep going." His voice wasn't loud, but it sounded exceptionally clear on this desolate land. The four figures stepped deeper into the area once more.
The four traversed the desolate wasteland, repeatedly forged by the flames of epochal wars. The earth beneath their feet seemed to breathe softly like a sleeping behemoth, and within the fissures where crimson and dark intertwined, flowed the still-warm "remnants of the laws."
Each step they took stirred up an extremely subtle ripple of vibration, as if even "existence itself" was repelling their entry. As they went deeper, the pressure between heaven and earth grew heavier and heavier. This pressure was not a forceful oppression, but a deeper "echo of the end"—everything here seemed to be repeating a war that had long ended but had never truly dissipated.
A hundred miles later, the world suddenly changed.
The once discernible outline of the molten plain began to distort, revealing an extremely bizarre area ahead—a half-destroyed ancient city. The city walls were broken, the palaces collapsed, and the ruined pavilions floated in mid-air, as if "frozen" by some force at the moment of their collapse.
Yet it continued to collapse inward, sometimes existing, sometimes dissipating. The entire area was permeated with an eerie, dark golden glow, which was unstable, as if pieced together from countless broken "fragments of existence." Each flicker caused a slight misalignment in the structure of space.
Even more bizarrely, faint "battle afterimages" can be seen amidst these ruins.
That was not an illusion, but a "final moment" that was forcibly preserved: the phantoms of ancient powerhouses were frozen in the instant of collapse. Their divine powers had not yet fallen, their weapons had not yet been swung, and even their roars were stuck in their throats, yet their bodies had already begun to collapse, as if their very foundation of existence had been directly erased by some irresistible force.
A low, tearing sound could be faintly heard in the air; it wasn't a sound, but the lingering echo of a "narrative being torn apart."
Qin Yu's gaze sharpened slightly. He could clearly sense that this was not just a battlefield remnant, but more like the core eruption point of some kind of "end rule." This rule was Source Extremity of the Void Finality Saint Emperor, yet it was even more chaotic and out of control.
The four of them stopped in their tracks at the same time, and at that moment, the aura of the Void Finality Saint Emperor showed an extremely subtle disturbance.
He slowly scanned his surroundings, his brow furrowed, and for the first time, a clear unease crept into his voice. "Something's not right here... something's not right."
The Primordial Dao-Extinguishing True Emperor glanced at him, his voice low and deep. "Third brother, why do I feel... the aura of your former Fate Soul here as well???"
The moment the words left his mouth, the pupils of the Void Finality Saint Emperor suddenly contracted.
The Eternal Annihilation Heavenly Emperor also spoke slowly, his voice extremely solemn. "Yes, this aura... could not possibly be here. Your realm and your second brother's are separated by tens of millions of miles, unless..."
He stopped abruptly halfway through his sentence, and the surrounding space seemed to freeze for a moment.
Immediately afterwards, Boom!!! Boom!!! Boom!!! The center of that devastated city in the distance suddenly exploded!
There was no earth-shattering explosion, no earth-shattering sound, only a dull tremor as if the spatial structure had been forcibly torn apart.
A void rift that stretched across the heavens and earth quietly spread, swallowing even light within it. It remained undisturbed, yet exuded a chilling power of collapsing rules.
An Ultimate flame erupted from the torn core. This flame was not merely a simple source of heat, but rather contained an extremely ancient "Hongmeng Origin aura." Wherever the flame passed, the remaining ruins were instantly reduced to ashes, without even a chance to be destroyed.
The next moment, a colossal shadow slowly emerged from the fiery crack.
Its appearance came without any warning, yet it instantly made the entire world feel Ultimate oppressive.
It was a terrifying being, as if it had been born from the primordial flames of the universe.
Its body was as massive as a burning mountain, with exposed bones. Its entire body was composed of molten black gold rock layers interwoven with raging flames, and countless broken rock armor pieces floated and spun on its back, like fragments of a world that had been stripped away.
It circulates slowly with its breath. Its head is ferocious like an ancient evil god, and its eyes burn with pure golden flames, which are not light, but the "will to destroy" itself.
With each breath it takes, the temperature of the world fluctuates violently, and the remnants of laws in the cracks of the ground are forcibly ignited, transforming into long rivers of flame flowing backward.
Its presence there is like an unending epochal calamity.
The voice of the Void Finality Saint Emperor became extremely low and deep for the first time. "This is... the Primordial Chaos Source Beast..."
The Primordial Dao-Extinguishing True Emperor gritted his teeth. "Moreover... it's not at the ordinary level." The Eternal Annihilation Heavenly Emperor slowly raised his head, and the Eye of Annihilation slightly cracked:
"This is—someone who participated in that great battle." Qin Yu stood at the forefront.
Without retreating, his gaze remained fixed on the burning behemoth, and deep within his mind, all logic began to rearrange itself.
On that final battlefield, burning with the embers of an era, the air seemed to be held firmly by an invisible hand, even the flow of time became sluggish and heavy. Qin Yu stood at the forefront, his gaze as sharp as a knife, locked onto the Primordial Chaos Source Beast that emerged from the rift.
The deep yet clear voice reached the Three Emperors' minds. "Be prepared—what follows may be a tough battle."
The instant these words were spoken, the auras of the four simultaneously receded and then suddenly coalesced. Extremely fine rays of annihilation began to appear around the Void Finality Saint Emperor, like countless dying star trails swirling around him. The ground beneath the feet of the Primordial Dao-Extinguishing True Emperor quietly cracked.
Ripples of the Wudao spread through the void yet did not spread further, as if even the act of "spreading" was suppressed by him. The Abyss of Annihilation between the brows of the Eternal Annihilation Heavenly Emperor opened and closed slightly, and a wisp of extremely weak yet suffocating "aura of the end of time" spread through the air.
However, just as the four were about to unleash their full power, the world suddenly froze—no pressure descended, no force restrained them.
Rather, it was a higher-level existence that transcended the laws of all things, forcefully inserting itself into this spacetime and instantly freezing the surging energy in place.
The flames that had been surging on the shoulders of the Primordial Chaos Source Beast suddenly parted to the sides, as if gently pushed aside by an invisible hand, and a figure slowly emerged from the center of the flames.
There was no energy fluctuation, yet it caused a momentary disruption to the logic of the entire battlefield. That figure was none other than the True Annihilation Being who had just fled.
It hovered above the giant beast's shoulder, its form restored, but its primal aura was even deeper and colder than before. It no longer displayed any ferocity, but simply stood there quietly, like a "narrative fragment" that should not appear here, coldly looking down at Qin Yu and the other three.
Its gaze was calm and undisturbed, without the slightest emotional fluctuation, yet it seemed to carry an invisible power, silently recording everything before it, carefully confirming every detail, and secretly deducing and calculating at lightning speed, as if it wanted to bring all the laws and trajectories around it under its control.
The entire space, superimposed on the Primordial Chaos Source Beast, exhibited an extremely bizarre "layer misalignment." A colossal beast representing the pure source of destruction, and an existence representing the logic of True Annihilation, combined to form what seemed to constitute a "battlefield-level Ultimate structure."
The Primordial Dao-Extinguishing True Emperor was the first to react. He snorted coldly, his tone filled with fierce battle intent. "Damn it, it actually escaped here... It seems this giant beast is its companion."
A fierce battle ignited in the eyes of the Void Finality Saint Emperor. He licked his lips, a hint of madness in his smile, "Who cares—it's a contest of size, isn't it?"
He suddenly took a step forward. "Then let's see... whose is bigger!" Boom!!!
The power of the end within him surged instantly, and countless trails of light from the end intersected and overlapped in the void, as if a collapsing galaxy was unfolding behind him.
The Eternal Annihilation Heavenly Emperor's gaze was calm. He looked at Qin Yu, his voice low and steady. "Master, let us also reveal our true forms." Qin Yu did not hesitate. He nodded slightly. "Mm."