Chi Ninghua's chest heaved violently. The Chi Lineage's divine pill she had just ingested was slowly dissolving deep within her Fate Soul's structure. Wisps of warm, Limitless Evolving True Flow flowed along the cracks in her Fate Soul. Standing on the edge of the mountain peak, her long hair billowed in the turbulent air above, her eyes, which had been red with worry, finally regained some clarity. She slowly raised her head and gazed into the depths of the cave.
Her fingertips unconsciously tightened around the hilt of the Divine Sword of Silent Void, her voice trembling slightly. "Senior Sister... Qin Yu has been breaking through for quite some time now, and he hasn't come out yet... Could it be..." She didn't want to continue speaking, her eyelashes trembling slightly, her eyes filled with undisguised unease and fear.
Chi Xiyue stood quietly, her silver-white robes fluttering gently in the mountain breeze. Her deep, icy eyes remained fixed on the direction of the cave. After a long while, she finally spoke softly, "No." Her voice was soft, yet it carried an undeniable composure. She raised her hand, and a pale golden Fate Soul pattern slowly rotated in her palm.
The boundary rules of the entire mountain range trembled slightly within her perception. "Although the fluctuations of Fate Soul within are fading, they haven't disappeared. On the contrary..." Her gaze sharpened slightly, and for the first time, an indescribable strangeness appeared in her eyes, "... more and more like a kind of... imperceptible 'blank space'."
Chi Ninghua paused for a moment. Chi Xiyue slowly turned her head to look at her, her gaze softening slightly. "You should go back to the clan with the two elders to heal your injuries. I'll protect you here." Chi Ninghua's lips moved slightly, clearly wanting to say something more, but when she met Chi Xiyue's calm yet unwavering gaze, she finally lowered her head.
"... Okay, Senior Sister." As her voice fell, her eyes still held a deep reluctance. She even turned back to look at the direction of the cave one last time. That glance contained too many emotions: worry, concern, lingering fear, and a kind of attachment that she herself was unwilling to admit.
Elder Chi Hong slowly stepped forward and said in a deep voice, "Xiyue, although Hua Yanyang has retreated, the Hua Lineage will not give up easily. You must be careful." Chi Xiyue nodded slightly, her long hair gently brushing against her shoulder. "Don't worry, Elder, I'm here."
Her tone was calm, but the moment her voice fell, the fundamental logic of the surrounding hundred-mile mountain range was slightly distorted. A faint golden boundary pattern quietly covered the four directions, and even the causal structure of heaven and earth began to give way on its own.
Chi Hong and Chi Xiao exchanged a glance, a hint of relief flashing in their eyes. Then, they took Chi Ninghua and transformed into streaks of light, disappearing into the distance, and the world returned to silence.
Chi Xiyue stood alone on the mountaintop, the wind billowing her robes. She slowly raised her head to look at the cave, and for the first time, genuine doubt appeared in her eyes.
"Qin Yu..." she murmured the name, her brows slowly furrowing. She had seen countless prodigies since childhood, countless beings who claimed to have astonished an era, but never had anyone triggered such a terrifying dimensional change upon breaking through to the True Annihilation Realm. It wasn't just a "breakthrough," it was more like some kind of... "reconstruction of existence" that transcended realms.
She slowly closed her eyes, recalling the scene of her divine sense being instantly backfired when it probed into the mountains. At that moment, she even had an extremely absurd illusion—as if her divine sense had not crashed into a defensive array, but rather into a blank space where "nothing had ever existed."
That feeling sent a chill down her spine for the first time. "Who exactly are you..." she murmured softly as the mountain wind swept by, her expression growing increasingly complex.
At the same time, the entire space deep inside the cave has completely lost the concept of a "cave". The stone walls are gone, the space is gone, and time, direction, light, temperature... all the Origin Framework that make up the world are slowly receding.
Qin Yu sat cross-legged in the center of that indescribable "blank space," his figure constantly blurring, his Fate Soul structure completely sinking into an indescribable state of Annihilation. The Primordial Profound Nothingness True Annihilation Tribulation Disc had long since shattered into invisible dust, which floated between heaven and earth, and then completely disappeared in the next instant, even the "disappearance" itself no longer held true.
The next moment, an anomaly occurred— the Great Annihilation Tide. Boom—there was no sound, yet the rules of countless realms across the myriad worlds simultaneously trembled violently. Above the cave, the ancient bells of Fate Soul in ancient temples shattered on their own. In the distant depths of the Supreme Transformation Primordial Domain, the primordial star sea, which had been suspended in the void for billions of years, suddenly stopped rotating. In the deepest part of the Supreme Stillness Domain, those ancient beings that had slumbered for countless epochs simultaneously opened their eyes.
Heaven and earth are like a huge ancient mirror. Countless cracks spread silently on the surface without explosion or collapse. The "underlying color of existence" of the entire universe is being slowly extracted. Mountains and rivers begin to lose their definition, and oceans begin to lose their meaning of "flow." Time and space no longer extend, cause and effect are no longer connected, and the Dao collapses on its own. Even "nothingness" itself is being slowly smoothed out like a sand painting after the tide recedes.
Without light, without darkness, without movement, without stillness, without past or future, without beginning or end, Qin Yu sat cross-legged within, and countless gray-white cracks slowly appeared on the surface of his body. These cracks were not wounds, but traces of the "existence structure" annihilating itself. Risk descended simultaneously: false stillness, true dissipation, and reversed fall. Countless distorted illusions began to emerge in the depths of the cave.
Before Qin Yu's eyes, countless "selves" appeared in an instant: one trapped in chaos forever after failure, one who forcibly stabilized himself but whose Fate Soul ultimately collapsed, and one who tried to observe the process of True Annihilation but was ultimately swallowed by the Reverse Order timeline. Billions of illusions appeared at the same time, and billions of timelines collapsed at the same time. Each illusion was frantically trying to induce him to "reaffirm himself".
Just as those illusions were about to completely engulf his Fate Soul structure, Qin Yu slowly closed his eyes, offering no resistance, no thought. Even the thought of "I must successfully break through" began to vanish on its own. His Fate Soul structure slowly sank into a deeper state of Annihilation, without seeing, remembering, or thinking. He let go of all his obsession with "returning."
And so— the Great Annihilation Tide truly descended, Boom!!! An indescribable gray-white tide suddenly appeared throughout the entire Crystal Mountain Range. The tide had no form, no color, and could not even be truly "seen." Yet, wherever it passed, all exploration, all perception, and all Fate Soul locking all became ineffective. Countless cultivators who were in seclusion simultaneously vomited blood.
A large number of divine sense probes shattered instantly. Some Eternal Silence Realm beings who forcibly observed the strange phenomenon even had gray-white cracks appear in their pupils. They retreated in fear, only to find that they could no longer describe what they had just seen, because the "description" itself had been annihilated. In the center of the cave, Qin Yu slowly opened his eyes. There was no light or emotion in those eyes.
There was no fluctuation, but the moment he opened his eyes, the entire world suddenly turned into a complete "blank". All the divine senses that came from all the heavens and myriad realms vanished the moment they touched that blank space. They were not destroyed, but rather "never explored". This True Annihilation Realm · Advanced Stage.
The sky surrounding the mountains had turned completely gray-white, the entire world seemingly being slowly smoothed out by some indescribable force. The wind had ceased to blow, the clouds had stopped churning, and even the loose rocks floating high in the sky were eerily still, as if the concept of "movement" was being gradually ripped away from the rules of this realm. Chi Xiyue stood alone atop the mountain peak.
Her previously calm expression finally underwent a dramatic change. Her pale golden eyes trembled incessantly, and her long hair was whipped wildly by the invisible turbulence stirred up by the Great Annihilation Tide. She could clearly sense that the Fate Soul aura deep within the cave had truly stepped into the True Annihilation Realm · Advanced Stage.
What truly chilled her to the bone was not the depth of cultivation, but the fact that this aura completely broke away from the inherent form of a cultivator. When her divine sense probed its depths, there were no barriers to obstruct it, no backlash from its power, and no crushing force. In her perception, the place where the cave was located had become an absolute void that had never existed.
She even began to doubt whether she had just "scouted" the area. Chi Xiyue slowly took half a step back, her breathing becoming erratic for the first time. She gazed at the mountain and murmured softly, her voice trembling without her realizing it. "Who... are you...?"