Before the crimson-gold radiance of the Primordial Supreme Ultimate Myriad Paths Returning to the Venerable Array had fully sunk into the depths of the hall, an even deeper tremor came from the ground once more. The patterns that pressed down on the earth like imperial edicts gradually faded, replaced by a ring of gray-white arrays that silently unfolded. The array rings had no sharpness, no oppressive aura, and no killing intent, yet they made the entire space of the hall feel unfamiliar in an instant.
Qin Yu stood in the center of the hall, his aura, still calm despite having just broken through to the Mystic Void Realm · Middle Stage. He raised his gaze, and before him, a deep circular crack appeared in the earth. Seven crystal beads slowly rose from the crack, each reflecting a different scene within its own: what was seen, heard, touched, thought, cultivated, held, and what was. These seven foundations of perception circulated continuously within the beads. Then, countless fragments of the mirror surface emerged from the void and scattered in all directions.
Each mirror reflects a moment that Qin Yu has experienced or may have experienced. In some, he is fighting with a sword in hand; in others, he is lost in thought; in still others, he lies in a pool of blood; and in some, he has never even set foot in this place. Each mirror silently proclaims itself to be real, and everything outside the mirror to be false.
At the center of the formation, a black crystal slowly floated up. The crystal did not reflect light, but the surrounding space began to lose stability because of its appearance. It was as if all the "proof" was being pulled into it. Even whether the main hall itself still existed began to waver in Qin Yu's perception.
The Myriad Phenomena Return to Extinction Formation, and the lights come on.
The first layer of the Annihilation Gate - River of Forgetfulness Crossing unfolded, and countless clear scenes instantly overlapped in the hall before Qin Yu's eyes. Each scene had a slight deviation from his real experience. The patterns on the pillars turned into patterns he had never seen before, and the array patterns under his feet transformed into a battlefield that had long since passed. Familiar shouts came from the distant hall gate, but the person corresponding to that voice had never appeared there before.
Qin Yu did not immediately unleash a sword strike. He simply stood there, watching these details accumulate little by little. The records of the past in his sea of consciousness began to be compressed, several fragments of memories collided with each other, and gaps appeared in the cause and effect.
The second layer, Chaos of Cause and Effect, followed immediately. He raised his hand, but before the arm could complete the movement, the energy in his palm had already dissipated. He took a slight step, but the ground did not support him; instead, a piece of glass in the distance shattered silently. His Fate Soul circulated within him, but there was no corresponding result. All actions and feedback were cut off, and even the act of "using supernatural powers" lost its stable follow-up.
Under the third level of Name and Form Descending, the Silent Origin Stainless Sword trembled slightly in his hand. The sword's name began to fade from his sea of consciousness. The sword's shape remained, but its direction became blurred. Fire no longer pointed to fire, formation no longer pointed to formation, and even Qin Yu's perception of his own name began to waver.
The fourth layer, a temporal and spatial distortion, unfolds simultaneously. The past self, the future self, and the present self stand overlapping in the same space, each figure carrying a complete aura, each looking at him.
The fifth level, "Perception Collapse," tears open the sea of consciousness. What one sees and hears no longer correspond. One's palm touches a cold stone surface, but one's vision is filled with burning ash. Intuition points to the left, but the Fate Soul senses danger coming from behind. The clarity of the Dao heart is covered by layers of confusion, and all judgments begin to lose their anchor.
Qin Yu's brow furrowed slightly. He didn't release the Mystic Void · Middle Stage aura that he had just broken through into. He forcibly stopped all his instinctive reactions. If he swung his sword at this moment, the sword would become the basis for the formation to continue operating; if he deduced at this moment, the deduction itself would be dragged into the mirror; if he searched for flaws at this moment, the thought of "searching" would continue to feed the formation.
When the sixth level, "The Elimination of Self-Attachment," arrives, his figure begins to fade. Thoughts arise, but he cannot find their place, as if countless "Qin Yu" are standing behind different mirrors at the same time, denying each other at the same moment.
The seventh level, "Elimination of Truth and Falsehood," followed closely behind. All the images in the mirrors were completely mixed with reality, and truth and falsehood were no longer distinguished. Any confirmation became a new constraint. When the eighth level, "Silence of Existence and Non-existence," unfolded, the main hall, the array patterns, the mirrors, the black crystals, Qin Yu himself all sank into an unnamed gray-white silence.
Above the array gate, a proverb appeared. "True is not true, false is not false; discernment is entry, grasping is shackles." Qin Yu looked at the words and suddenly closed his eyes.
He stopped recording, stopped deducing, stopped locking onto the True Annihilation Stone, stopped observing the seven Memory Pearl, and stopped judging which level of Annihilation Gate was operating. He put the Silent Origin Stainless Sword into the depths of his palm, and the Core of the Fate Soul slowly sank into silence. The "nothingness" realm that he had just broken through to the Mystic Void Realm · Middle Stage naturally unfolded, without resistance, without pandering, without seeking truth, and without proving falsehood.
The seven Memory Pearl began to reverse at an accelerated pace, the mirror fragments vibrated wildly, and the black crystal released a deeper anchoring force of nothingness. However, Qin Yu had neither the thought of "breaking the formation" nor the thought of "letting the formation swallow him up." The formation lost its target for continued attraction.
Just as the ninth level, True Annihilation, was about to completely descend, the entire Myriad Phenomena Return to Extinction Formation suddenly stopped.
The countless Qin Yu reflected in the mirror fell silent simultaneously. The scenes within the seven Memory Pearl faded one by one, and the space around the black crystal first contracted, then ceased functioning. The formation relied on the user's ability to discern truth from falsehood, confirm existence from non-existence, and maintain their own convictions.
At this moment, all the thoughts that could be attached to sank into the silent void. The array pattern lost its support, the gray-white array ring began to dissipate from the edges, the mirror shattered into fine dust, the Memory Pearl sank back to the ground, and the black crystal slowly cracked, eventually turning into a Wuhen gray smoke without a trace.
Qin Yu opened his eyes. The main hall reappeared, the air resumed its flow, and the heavy sound of doors in the deeper areas of the distance opening echoed. The Myriad Phenomena Return to Extinction Formation had not been shattered or suppressed; it dissolved on its own. Qin Yu took a step forward, his gaze calmly fixed on the deeper areas where new life was beginning to awaken.
After the Myriad Phenomena Return to Extinction Formation dissipated, the depths of the main hall fell silent for a moment. In that moment, there was no wind, no sound, and even the expansion of space stopped in place. Then, an extremely heavy aura slowly rose from the depths of the earth's veins, and the entire main hall began to collapse inward and expand outward, as if a higher structure was covering it.
Before Qin Yu could even land properly, the stone beneath his feet had already transformed, turning into layers of slowly flowing patterns. These patterns were unlike ordinary array patterns; they were entirely the natural flow of the Great Dao's origin.
One after another, streaks of light converged from all directions into the array, then instantly spread out into the vast distance, forming an endless, self-generating, and self-destructing eternal cycle.
The hidden formation of the Great Dao is revealed at this moment; its name is not yet shown, but its essence arrives first.
The "Tao" between heaven and earth was brought to the forefront.
Above the void, countless enormous Dao runes appeared. Each rune was not static; they were like living tracks, slowly moving and converging at certain points. Within each track, the flow of time was contained.
Within a single trajectory lies the extension of space, and within it operate countless unspeakable origins. All trajectories ultimately converge at the center of the main hall, where a single, extremely pure "source" is condensing.
Qin Yu stood in the center of the formation, his Core of the Fate Soul, which Mystic Void Realm · Middle Stage, trembled slightly. He did not move forward immediately, nor did he try to break the formation with his supernatural powers. For the first time, his gaze was completely empty as he looked at the trajectories themselves.
These are not array patterns, but manifestations of the Great Dao.
He slowly raised his hand, the power of his Fate Soul in his palm did not extend outward, but simply touched the air. In that instant, he felt a trajectory pass through his palm. The trajectory did not touch his physical body, but left a mark in his sea of consciousness. He directly touched an extremely primal "flow of time".
Qin Yu's breathing paused slightly, allowing the primordial energy to flow freely through his body, without deliberately trying to capture its trajectory or forcefully analyze its internal structure.
The next moment, a second trajectory swept past him. It was an extension of space, without direction or boundaries, yet it unfolded in his mind's sea of consciousness with an essence that "could bear everything".
The third, the fourth... more and more paths intertwined around him.
Qin Yu's sea of consciousness began to slowly change. The structure that originally belonged to a cultivator was gradually unfolded. He no longer tried to understand the Great Dao with his own body, but instead made himself the bearer of these trajectories.
"If we look at things from my own perspective, then the Dao will forever remain an external thing." The thought flashed through his mind, and he moved forward lightly.
This step did not land on the ground, but instead directly entered a trajectory that was being generated. The entire person was carried forward by the flow of the Great Dao, and his figure moved slowly within the hall, no longer relying on space for support.
His consciousness began to undergo a new change.
All the battles, supernatural powers, and deduction methods of the past receded to the very edge at this moment. The trajectory of the Great Dao gradually formed a complete structure in his sea of consciousness, where time and space intertwined, cause and effect flowed within it, and all things manifested within it. Everything was not under his control, but rather presented naturally.
He continued forward, and the closer he got to the center, the clearer the existence of that "source" became.
That is not power, not law, nor something that can be used; it is the primordial state before all the Great Daos differentiated.
Qin Yu's gaze became fixed on it.
The Core of the Fate Soul began to rotate slowly, at an extremely slow speed, yet it caused the entire sea of consciousness to resonate. The originally scattered Dao trajectories began to actively converge towards him, each trajectory approaching the Core of the Fate Soul and then moving away on its own, as if testing or filtering.
His steps did not stop. Just as he was about to step into the center of the formation, the void suddenly cracked slightly, and all the trajectories of the Great Dao paused for a moment at the same time.
Before that point of primordial origin, a figure slowly appeared, with white hair hanging down and ancient robes. There was no aura emanating from him, yet all the trajectories in the entire array field simultaneously gave way.
It was an old man who stood there motionless, yet seemed to have always been there. Qin Yu stopped in his tracks.
His gaze met that of the white-haired old man. The formation stopped changing, and the Great Dao began to stand still.