Even as the carnage outside the bronze gate was still in its most chaotic moment, the countless shimmering ancient runes had already completed their "selection." Qin Yu felt a sudden tightening deep within his Fate Soul, as an irresistible force directly locked onto his presence. This unrelated contest of power was, in fact, a judgment at a higher level.
The Salt Desert beneath his feet, the sky above his head, and the Demonic Bat and cultivators around him all lost their continuity at this moment. Space was as if it had been ripped from its original form, and he was "lifted" from reality. In the next instant, all sounds, light, and breath broke apart, and the whole world was suddenly replaced as if a page had been turned.
At the same time, outside the bronze gate of the Salt Desert, all was deathly silent.
The area, which was just moments ago teeming with billions of cultivators, is now Emptiness, without a trace of their presence. The frenzied Primordial Beast Dao Divine Venerable Demonic Bat that had been attacking so fiercely vanished without a trace the instant the runes flashed.
The dilapidated bronze gate stands alone at the edge of the Salt Desert. Inside, a scarlet ring slowly rotates, as if no living being has ever set foot here. Only deathly silence and that low, ancient echo remain between heaven and earth.
Meanwhile, in another part of Qin Yu's vision, the first thing he saw was an endless sea of clouds.
The clouds were no ordinary clouds, but a thick, sea-like spiritual mist, layer upon layer stretching to the horizon, a tapestry of gold and dark blue, with faint patterns of light flowing within them, like some ancient array breathing, above the sky.
Light poured down from the split clouds, forming huge pillars of light that illuminated the entire space as if it were a realm in a half-dream, half-awake state.
What truly awes the soul is—above, above this sea of clouds, countless enormous islands float.
The islands were not arranged in a regular pattern, but rather suspended in the void in layers, in an incomprehensible manner. Some resembled Inverted Mountains, their bases sharp as cones, dripping with dark golden light; others were as vast as continents, their surfaces covered with the ruins of ancient cities; still others were disc-shaped, their edges slowly rotating, creating ripples in space.
Some islands are half-hidden in the void, appearing and disappearing as if they do not fully exist in this dimension. Each island is connected to the others by an invisible force, forming a vast and immeasurable floating world.
Sunlight streamed through the gaps between the clouds and the islands, illuminating an Ultimate scene. The entire area resembled some abandoned ancient realm, or an unfinished creation of heaven and earth, with even the air carrying a deep and ancient pressure.
Qin Yu landed slowly on an island.
The island wasn't large, but it was big enough for one person to move around on. The ground was made of dark gold stone, with faintly engraved fine patterns. Those patterns weren't lit up, but one could still sense the dormant power within them. He looked up and could vaguely see the figures of other cultivators among the surrounding floating islands.
But everyone was scattered and assigned to different islands.
The powerful figures from the Lineage, the Rogue Cultivator, the disciples of the sects... all those who had just fought outside the Bronze Gate were now forcibly separated, one person per island. No two people landed in the same place, and no forces could gather together. They were separated by layers of void and sea of clouds, so that even if they could see each other, they could not touch each other.
The entire space was completely "isolated".
Qin Yu stood on his own island, his gaze slowly sweeping over his surroundings. His expression was Ultimate calm. He clearly sensed that this was not a random assignment, but a higher-level selection mechanism. Everyone who was brought here had become part of some kind of "trial".
And higher up among those countless floating islands, an even larger shadow was slowly rotating, as if... the true core had not yet been activated.
Before the oppressive atmosphere between the floating islands had completely dissipated, some cultivators could no longer endure the confinement of this space. A middle-aged cultivator clad in black robes suddenly stepped off the edge of an island, his Mystic Void power surging wildly within him. He transformed into a streak of light tearing through the air, hurtling towards a neighboring island at incredible speed.
His figure left a distorted spatial afterimage, but the instant he left the island's boundary, the entire world suddenly became heavy. An invisible yet absolute suppressive force descended from nothingness. It wasn't a suppression of power, but a determination of "position." His existence seemed to be forcibly ripped from spatial coordinates.
The next instant, his body stiffened abruptly, his Fate Soul trembled violently, and his Mystic Void power collapsed in an instant. Before he could even cry out, he plummeted like a plucked star into the endless sea of clouds below. The clouds split open beneath his feet, creating a deep abyss-like black hole. The darkness swallowed all light, and his figure rapidly disintegrated during his fall.
First, flesh and blood were stripped away into light dust, then bones turned into nothingness and debris, and finally even the fluctuations of Fate Soul completely dissipated, as if they had never existed, leaving only an empty space echoing with the sense of that moment of rupture.
This scene sent a chill down the spines of all the cultivators on the floating islands. Those who had been eager to cross the islands froze in place, their pupils contracting and their minds reeling. They clearly realized...
This realm does not allow "leaving" at all; any attempt to cross the island will be directly eliminated by the rules, without even the need for the enemy to intervene.
As deathly silence and fear swept across the land, a deep, tearing sound suddenly erupted from the sky, as if the entire space had been forcibly ripped apart from the inside out.
The next moment, the void above a certain island suddenly shattered, and a huge rift stretched across the sky like a hideous wound. There was no darkness deep inside the rift, only chaotic light surging and destructive lightning patterns intertwining, reaching straight to the origin of the realm.
Immediately afterwards, a colossal shadow slowly emerged from within. Its body was covered in scales interwoven with jet black and dark red, each scale shimmering with lightning patterns, like countless compressed bolts of lightning locked onto its surface. The dragon's body was long and enormous, almost obscuring the entire sky above the island as it coiled. Its wings spread, and the membranes of its wings flowed with a shimmering light that was both crimson and eerie blue.
As if tearing apart the curtain of the world, its head was ferocious and majestic, its horns curved like the arc of a broken sky, and its eyes burned with blazing crimson-gold flames. Wherever its gaze fell, fine cracks appeared in space. A dark blue core pulsated slowly in its chest.
The core was like a thunderous star compressed to its Ultimate. With each pulsation, the surrounding space shattered like glass, and its tail trailed a long trail of lightning, tearing scorching cracks in the air.
The Primordial Beast Dao Divine Venerable did not roar. It simply looked down at the cultivators on the island. The moment that glance fell, the air on the entire island instantly became as heavy as a mountain. Dozens of cultivators groaned at the same time, their Fate Soul suppressed to the point of near stagnation. Some even collapsed to their knees, their eyes filled with despair.
However, this was only the beginning. After that first crack, above the floating islands in the distance, space began to collapse one after another. Cracks spread across the sky like wounds, and one terrifying being after another descended from them. Some were covered in bone wings, with ghostly blue soul fire burning between their bones. With each flap of their wings, large areas of space collapsed.
Some are composed entirely of shadows and energy flows, their outlines constantly changing, as if they do not belong to any definite form at all; others are formed from lightning and radiance, each flash accompanied by the vibration of rules; and some even cannot be fully captured by the naked eye, one can only see space constantly distorting where they pass, but cannot see their true form.
On each island, different Primordial Chaos level beings descended, some in number and some in number, their auras sometimes violent and sometimes strange, but without exception, they all locked onto the cultivators on their respective islands.
The entire floating realm was transformed into a hunting ground at that moment.
The sea of clouds surged, and cracks appeared all over the sky. Tens of thousands of cultivators were separated on isolated islands, unable to support each other or escape, and could only face the terrifying existence that was descending upon them.
Some began to retreat frantically, some gritted their teeth and circulated their internal energy, some collapsed and roared in despair, while many more stared intently at the figures in the sky, realizing for the first time that there was no way out here.
The moment the floating realm completely transformed into a blood-red battlefield, every island trembled. Isolated spaces erupted into life-or-death battles completely cut off from support. Someone roared and struck first; a cultivator at the Realm Breaking Realm · Supreme swiftly clasped his hands together, his Xuan Mystic Void power exploding, forcibly compressing the void into a massive energy blade beneath his palms.
He roared and unleashed a devastating slash, the blade's light cleaving the entire island, splitting the air in two. However, the Primordial Beast Dao Divine Venerable opposite him merely raised a claw covered in lightning patterns. The moment the claw clashed with the blade's light, there was no explosion; instead, the entire space collapsed inward, the blade's light compressed into a thin line, and the next instant, it shattered and disintegrated.
The cultivator was blasted away by the recoil, his chest bones shattering inch by inch, blood mist exploding in the air. But he gritted his teeth and forced himself to stop, gathering his divine power again. A phantom battle array appeared behind him, thousands of runes burning into a golden sea of fire, turning the entire island into the core of the killing array. He stepped into the array, each step causing spiderweb-like cracks to appear on the ground. He thrust his hands forward, and countless spears of light within the array burst forth simultaneously.
Like a torrential downpour, the light spears rained down on the colossal beast. The moment they pierced its scales, they exploded into waves of light, causing the entire island to tremble violently. The sea of clouds churned like raging waves, and the Primordial Beast Dao Divine Venerable finally let out a deep roar, its chest core suddenly bursting into brilliant light.
A beam of blue and white lightning pierced through its body, sweeping across the entire battle formation. All the light spears shattered, and the cultivator was engulfed by the lightning. His body was torn into countless pieces in the lightning, and even his Fate Soul did not have time to break free before it was completely crushed into nothingness.
On another island, a female cultivator stood with flowing hair and bloodshot eyes. Standing at the island's center, she pointed a finger, forcibly drawing upon the island's ley line energy. Huge fissures opened in the ground, and countless sharp blades of rock shot into the sky, forming a swirling storm of stone blades around her. The Devil Beast opposite her resembled a giant serpent formed from shadows.
Her body had no fixed shape; every movement distorted space. With a furious roar, the entire storm of stone blades compressed into a gigantic black-gold spear, carrying the weight of the entire island as it thrust forward. The moment the spear tip pierced the shadowy serpent, space was torn open in a narrow rift, and shadows surged violently. However, the next instant, the serpent abruptly opened its boundless maw, swallowing the entire black-gold spear whole.
Then, her body suddenly contracted, turning into an extremely thin black line that flashed across the woman's brow. Her body froze instantly, and the next moment, it split cleanly from head to toe, turning into two falling afterimages. Her Fate Soul was completely devoured in the instant of splitting, leaving not even a trace of disturbance.
Further away, on an island, an old man covered in blood was locked in a desperate battle with a colossal beast with fiery wings. His breathing was erratic, his Fate Soul nearly exhausted, but his eyes burned with an indomitable light. He suddenly bit his tongue, spitting his blood into his palm, and an extremely compressed talisman took shape in his hand.
He roared and charged at the behemoth. Just as he was about to be torn apart by its claws, he slammed the talisman into the beast's chest. The next moment, the entire space collapsed with a deafening roar, and a blazing white energy core exploded in the center of the island. The light devoured everything, even evaporating the sea of clouds into a huge void.
As the light faded, the giant beast was completely shattered into countless fragments, and the old man knelt on the ground, a bloody hole piercing his chest, his breath coming in short gasps. He did not stand up again, but simply looked up into the distance, slowly exhaled, and his Fate Soul extinguished.
At that very moment, the island he was on suddenly changed. The entire floating landmass began to tremble slowly, the clouds at its edges were stretched into vortexes, and a pillar of light appeared below the island, stretching downwards like a tunnel, dragging the entire island bit by bit towards the unknown ground below, accompanied by a deep rumbling sound.
The island slowly sank, not fast, but unstoppable, until it finally disappeared completely beneath the sea of clouds before everyone's eyes. The instant it touched the "ground," the entire island crumbled and vanished, leaving no remains, no fragments, as if it had never existed. And on that empty ground, thousands of miles away...
An extremely ancient palace slowly emerged. The palace was entirely gray and white, its surface covered with traces of the erosion of time. The huge palace doors were tightly closed, and the doors were engraved with unrecognizable ancient patterns, exuding a heavy and ancient aura.
Meanwhile, on dozens of other islands, cultivators fought desperately to kill their opponents. As the final blows landed, and the giant beasts were completely torn apart or annihilated, the islands beneath their feet also began to sink, eventually all falling into the world below.
The survivors, upon landing, barely paused, all rushing towards the ancient palace in the distance. Their figures appeared tiny on the vast ground, yet they carried a sense of urgency, as if drawn by fate.
Those islands that failed to prevail faced a different fate. After the cultivators perished in the fierce battle, torn apart, devoured, or completely annihilated by the giant beasts, those islands did not sink. Instead, they rapidly disintegrated from the edges, with the rocks first turning into dust.
Then the outline of the entire island gradually became transparent, and finally even space itself was erased, leaving only an Emptiness void, as if everything had never existed, and even the traces of the battle were completely wiped away.
At this moment, the entire floating realm formed a cruel and clear boundary: the victors fell to the ancient palace, while the losers were annihilated, their very existence no longer acknowledged.