The depths of the forbidden zone had long since collapsed beyond recognition. The entire ancient cave was shaking violently, with large amounts of gray-black rock falling wildly from above, and the shattered altar behind them still emanating destructive roars.
Qin Yu and Chi Ninghua passed through the crumbling corridor and quickly moved forward along the dark cave. The entire cave was covered with ancient gray and white patterns, which resembled some kind of primordial script that had been lost for countless eras and still emitted a faint glow.
The further they went, the stronger the aura of decay and Eternal Silence became in the air. Large transparent cracks even appeared on the ground beneath their feet. Through the cracks, they could see countless surging gray-white currents below, like some kind of primordial abyss that buried all the heavens and myriad worlds.
Qin Yu kept his hand firmly on the Silent Origin Stainless Sword, constantly probing ahead with his divine sense. Chi Ninghua also looked wary. Just as the two continued to venture deeper, a ray of light suddenly appeared in the darkness ahead. The light was not dazzling, but it carried an extremely ancient aura.
Chi Ninghua's eyes lit up slightly. "Young Master Qin, the exit should be just ahead." Qin Yu also looked up and nodded slowly. "Yes, we're almost out." The two of them increased their speed at the same time, their figures flying forward continuously.
As they drew closer, the light expanded, illuminating the entire cave in a pale gray hue, and the numerous ancient patterns began to emit a deep, resonant sound.
Meanwhile, in the center of the Crystal Mountain Range, the true final battle had entered a frenzied phase. There was no longer a single intact space in the entire world, and the river of time had broken into countless fragments suspended high in the sky.
Crimson end-of-days text and grayish-white corpse energy swept wildly across the heavens and earth. The Primordial King Corpse and the Stillness Book Imperial Dragon were both injured to their Limit. Half of the Primordial King Corpse's body completely collapsed, its grayish-white bones continued to explode, and even the corrupt void in its eye sockets began to dim rapidly.
The Stillness Book Imperial Dragon was in a similarly miserable state, with large patches of its scales broken and falling off. Only a few fragments of the Final Fate Book Sword remained. Its chest had completely collapsed, and dragon blood continued to gush from its body. Yet, even so, neither of them showed any sign of retreating.
Boom--!!!! The Primordial King Corpse roared fiercely, and the broken divine halberd smashed hard towards the head of the Stillness Book Imperial Dragon. The Stillness Book Imperial Dragon roared back and raised his sword to meet it. The two divine weapons collided again, and the heavens and earth exploded instantly. Large swathes of spacetime rifts spread wildly. Both were blasted away at the same time, but the next moment, they rushed towards each other again without stopping or panting.
Only the most primal and frenzied life-or-death struggle. The Primordial King Corpse pierced the shoulder of the Stillness Book Imperial Dragon with a halberd. The gray-white corpse energy frantically eroded its Fate Soul essence. However, the Stillness Book Imperial Dragon held on tightly to the halberd shaft and pierced the King Corpse's chest with a backhand sword. Boom--!!! Large numbers of end text exploded wildly, and half of the Primordial King Corpse's body collapsed directly.
But it still clung tightly to the Stillness Book Imperial Dragon, its corrupt pupils filled with madness. "Stillness Book... you occupied my mountain range... you destroyed my disciples... today, even if I am utterly Annihilation... I will drag you down with me!!!" The Stillness Book Imperial Dragon roared back, shaking the heavens. "Old thing!! You really think I'm afraid of you?! I was able to suppress you once back then!! Today I will make sure you never rise again!!!" Boom!!!! It suddenly opened its mouth.
A massive burst of Final Dragon Flame erupted, engulfing the entire upper body of the Primordial King Corpse. Yet, in the next instant, the Final Dragon Flame defiantly pushed through the sea of fire, slamming its fist into the head of the Stillness Book Imperial Dragon.
Bang!!!! Large swathes of dragon scales shattered instantly, and the gigantic body of the Stillness Book Imperial Dragon crashed into the entire mountain range. But before it could stop, it instantly soared into the air again and frantically pounced on the Primordial King Corpse.
At this moment, they were no longer supreme beings, but rather two truly bloodthirsty primordial beasts. Their Fate Soul essence was constantly crumbling, and their foundation of the Great Dao was constantly collapsing, but their Ultimate tenacious will still forcefully supported them to continue fighting.
The entire world was being destroyed in their frenzied battle. Countless remaining spaces were torn apart, the earth collapsed completely, and the sky crumbled wildly. The scene was truly close to the end of the world.
Inside the cave, Qin Yu and Chi Ninghua were getting closer and closer to the light of the exit. But just as they were about to burst out of the cave, a very ancient, deep breathing sound suddenly came from the depths of the gray-white light ahead. Boom... The entire cave instantly fell silent.
The grayish-white light deep within the cave grew clearer. The entire ancient corridor began to tremble slightly, and the ancient patterns on the surrounding rock walls flowed continuously, with wisps of extremely faint primordial energy seeping out from the cracks. Qin Yu and Chi Ninghua simultaneously slowed their pace, their Fate Soul perception fully activated. Just as they were about to approach the exit, a sudden distorted light appeared ahead.
A vast expanse of hazy gray mist began to emerge at the end of the cave. The mist slowly churned, like a dream that had slumbered for countless eons gradually unfolding. In the next instant, an ancient divine flower slowly appeared in the center of the sea of mist.
It was entirely grayish-white, with petals unfolding layer by layer, each petal adorned with faint Fate Soul patterns. At the heart of the flower, a single, transparent dewdrop floated silently. Within the dewdrop, the phantoms of countless beings' cycles of life and death were reflected. Even more bizarrely, although the flower was clearly rooted in the void, it caused the entire world to begin to experience the illusion of "fate flowing backward."
The petals swayed gently, time around them began to slowly reverse, shattered rocks were restored, collapsed space was healed, and even the blood left on Chi Ninghua's clothes began to flow back into her wounds.
The entire world seemed to be dragged back to a moment before the "injury." Chi Ninghua's pupils suddenly contracted.
"Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum..." The voice had barely faded when Qin Yu's eyes turned completely cold. Without the slightest hesitation, he stepped forward and the Silent Origin Stainless Sword was unsheathed with a bang.
Boom! A jet-black sword beam pierced through the gray mist in an instant, tearing through the void.
Just as the "Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum" reached its Ultimate bloom, the entire illusion suddenly shattered, with large swaths of gray-white petals disintegrating into a shower of light, and the surrounding reversed time also crumbling at the same time. All the illusions began to collapse madly.
The next instant, the entire cave returned to deathly silence, leaving only a large expanse of slowly dissipating gray mist. Qin Yu slowly sheathed his sword, frowning as he looked ahead.
"Senior, that illusion just now... why does it look so much like the Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum?" Chi Ninghua stared intently at the dissipating gray mist, her expression gradually becoming solemn.
"You're right." "That's the Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum." "To be precise... it should be the primordial projection of the Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum that remains here."
She slowly raised her head and looked outside the cave. "It seems the real Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum is just outside the cave." Qin Yu nodded, and then the two continued forward.
As they passed through the last section of the corridor, the grayish-white light ahead grew stronger and stronger until, after a few breaths, the two finally reached the edge of the cave exit.
But the moment they truly saw the outside world, their gazes simultaneously sharpened; before them lay a world utterly Ultimate.
There was no life, no grass or trees, no river, not even wind.
Only vast gray-black wastelands stretched between heaven and earth, the land seemed to have been eroded by countless years, filled with huge rifts, the sky was gloomy and oppressive, thick gray clouds hung low in the sky as if they would collapse at any moment, and in the distance, a large number of broken mountain ranges stretched between heaven and earth, like the skeletons of countless dead giant beasts.
At this moment, Qin Yu and Chi Ninghua were standing on a sheer cliff, with the cave exit hidden in the center of the cliff.
Below, in the abyss, a vast expanse of greyish-white mist slowly churned, its depths unfathomable. Occasionally, enormous black shadows could be seen moving slowly within the mist's depths.
Qin Yu and Chi Ninghua slowly floated out of the cave exit. As soon as they stepped out of the dark corridor, the ancient cave behind them began to rumble again. Large amounts of gray-white gravel rolled down the cliff, and the misty sea below surged endlessly.
Chi Ninghua landed gently in mid-air, her long hair swaying slowly against the gloomy sky. Qin Yu also stopped and slowly turned to look at the cave exit hidden in the center of the cliff.
At that very moment, both of their gazes were slightly startled, because not far to the left of the cave exit, on that cold, dark cliff face, a flower was quietly blooming.
It has no roots, no leaves; the whole flower floats suspended on the edge of the cliff, like a lingering shadow of a dream that doesn't belong to reality.
Transparent throughout, its flower-like form seems to be a fusion of "embers of nothingness" and "reverberations of existence." Its outline is sometimes clear and sometimes blurred, like a dream that has not yet completely solidified. The surrounding space even ripples with its gentle swaying.
The flower resembles the epiphyllum, but it blooms upside down, with the sepals pointing upwards and the nine petals drooping downwards, like the moon's reflection on the surface of a deep abyss.
Each petal is as thin as a cicada's wing, its edges shimmering with a faint, ethereal blue light, gradually transitioning towards the center of the flower into a chaotic hue of pale white and pale gold. That color is impossible to truly describe; it is more like the remnant born from the entanglement of "existence and nothingness."
What's most breathtaking is its flower center, where there are no stamens but only a tiny black vortex. The vortex rotates slowly, and occasionally a faint star appears inside.
Like the last glimmer of light before a star goes out, every twinkle of starlight inexplicably brings to mind long-forgotten memories—figures, voices, and scenes of people desperately trying to protect. But as soon as those scenes appear, they are quickly swallowed up by the black vortex.
Within a three-foot radius around the entire flower, all light was completely swallowed up, forming an absolute dark zone.
Yet, at the edge of that dark zone, a kind of "aura of existence" that could not be truly seen with the naked eye kept seeping out. That aura was somewhere between gold and nothingness, and could only be vaguely perceived through Spiritual Sense, like the remnants left when countless broken Fate Soul threads were re-welded.
The petals were slowly opening and closing, their rhythm perfectly synchronized with Qin Yu and Chi Ninghua's heartbeats. With each breath, as they unfolded, tiny "memory threads" would slowly drift out from the flower's center. These threads would gently swirl around the entire flower before merging back into the petals.
On the surface of the petals, countless fragments of memories are flowing wildly: human faces, battlefields, shattered landscapes, ancient scripts, and fallen lives.
The images flashed by incredibly fast; with each flicker, the flower's transparency increased, as if it were devouring and digesting countless memories.
Chi Ninghua slowly held her breath. Her Spiritual Sense had only just touched the vortex of the flower's heart when countless images instantly appeared in her mind. She even saw one of her most cherished memories being burned to ashes little by little by black flames.
That wasn't an illusion; it was more like a "preview of the price," as if anyone who truly touched the Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum would have to pay some kind of price for their destiny. Qin Yu stared intently at the flower as well.
At this moment, in his True Annihilation level perception, the true appearance of that flower had completely changed; it was burning wildly, with black flames constantly devouring its petals.
But in the next instant, those petals will grow again, disintegrate, recombine, disintegrate again, and recombine again, as if the whole flower is constantly struggling between "existence" and "destruction".
This is no ordinary elixir; it is a true paradox of existence—a forbidden flower, devoured step by step by nothingness, yet stubbornly resisting complete annihilation. Chi Ninghua spoke slowly, her voice unconsciously softening. "The Fate-Reversing Epiphyllum Flower..." Qin Yu breathed a sigh of relief, his gaze suddenly fixing. "Finally... found it."