The four silver-black ancient rings suddenly retreated outwards. The first layer of runes closest to the box dissipated first, with ancient characters breaking away from their original paths; the second and third layers followed closely behind. Hundreds of mysterious runes floated in mid-air in the main hall, not scattering in chaos, but instead seemingly guided with extreme precision, each flying towards a different wall.
A rune landed between the brows of the sword-wielding remnant soul. The soul's body trembled slightly, and the blurry outline on its face gradually softened before turning into a wisp of grayish-white dust and disappearing silently.
The second rune landed on the chest of an ancient soul wielding a halberd. The remnant soul slowly lowered its head, glanced at the divine halberd it had held for countless years, and gradually loosened its grip. The divine halberd dissipated first, followed by the remnant soul fading away.
The third, the fourth, the tenth, the hundredth...
The runes that had been swirling around the ancient box for countless years had each precisely located an ancient remnant soul on the wall, without missing a single one; each remnant soul corresponded to a rune.
As the runes entered, the ancient figures that had been silently watching over the walls began to disappear one by one. Some remnant souls lowered their weapons at the last moment, some looked up at the dome of the ancient hall, some simply closed their eyes peacefully, and a very few ancient souls even slowly bowed towards the central ancient box before completely dissipating.
No one knows which era they came from, no one knows why they are stuck here forever. At this moment, with the return of the last wisp of the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon's protective essence, their immeasurably long wait has finally come to an end.
The walls of the main hall grew cleaner and cleaner until the last rune flew into the brow of the remnant soul holding the ancient seal deep within.
The ancient spirit slowly raised its head. Its features were still indistinct, but Chen Yong could feel that it glanced at him one last time before vanishing.
The entire main hall fell silent once more. All the remnants of souls on the walls vanished, all the runes swirling around the ancient box disappeared, and the four silver-black ancient rings gradually faded in mid-air, until only four extremely thin strands of silver light remained, all disappearing into the four corners of the box.
There were no more obstacles around the ancient box. It floated quietly above the empty circle in the center, without any pressure or radiance. Even the black sealing line that had been connecting the beginning and the end had disappeared. Chen Yong stood there for a long time and watched. The five people behind him did not urge him.
He finally sheathed the gray-black spear to his side, and slowly moved forward, one step, two steps, until he arrived in front of the ancient box. Chen Yong raised his hands, still extremely cautious, first placing his palms a few inches below the box.
There was no change, so he continued upwards, and finally his hands touched the ancient box.
Unexpectedly, there was no biting coldness, nor any heavy pressure. The box felt extremely light when it landed in my palm, yet it carried a tranquility that had not dissipated even after countless years.
Chen Yong held the ancient box steadily in both hands. The gray-blue box, which had been floating for countless epochs, left the center of the hall for the first time. He slowly brought it to his face, his eyes fixed on the ancient box that had now completely settled down.
There were no more afterimages or runes left in the entire Dark Ruins Return Hall. At this moment, the mysterious ancient box had fallen into Chen Yong's hands.
Chen Yong held the gray-blue ancient box in both hands and stood quietly in the center of the Dark Ruins Return Hall for a few breaths. His gaze swept over the thirty-six giant pillars that had fallen into complete silence and the empty four walls of the hall.
The True Annihilation remnants left by the Nine Nether Dark Ruins Demon Dragon have disappeared from the Primordial Mirror, and the ancient remnant souls that previously occupied the walls have also dispersed. After the end of that long vigil, the entire ancient palace has not changed at all.
He didn't linger there any longer. With a gentle flip of his palm, a dark brown storage bag at his waist opened on its own, a circle of dark ripples spreading from its opening, and the ancient box shrank back into it. Only after the storage bag closed again, and Chen Yong added a Fate Soul seal to the outer layer, did his brows, which had been tense for a long time, relax slightly.
He turned around, looked at the five companions who were already waiting behind him, and said in a deep voice, "Let's go. We've got the ancient box, our mission is complete, it's time to return to our clan."
The five of them had come into the Nine Nether Cold Pool under orders. Whether it was the demonic dragon or the ancient palace, they were just dangers standing in the way of their mission. They naturally knew that some things should not be left outside for long, let alone opened here without authorization. Therefore, none of them asked what was hidden in the box. They simply nodded, put away their divine weapons, and followed Chen Yong back out of the main hall.
The six of them walked through the ancient corridor lined with headless stone statues and emerged from the Dark Ruins Return Hall. At this moment, the towering, dark blue walls of water, thousands of feet high, on both sides of the Nine Nether Cold Pool still had not closed, and the life marks frozen for countless years in the depths of the icy water hung silently there.
Chen Yong led the five people up the gray stone steps quickly until the six of them had completely left the bottom of the pool and crossed the icy cliff. Only then did the water from the two pools behind them gradually converge back to the center.
A massive surge of dark blue, icy water converged, but the immense force only lasted a few breaths before calming down once more. The surface of the pool returned to its previous dark and still state, and the deep, Dark Ruins Return Hall was once again shrouded in the icy water.
Chen Yong glanced back, said nothing, simply tucked the storage bag at his waist into his robe, and then led the five men away from the Nine Nether Cold Pool.
The Fourth Multidimensional Universe is extremely vast. To return from the Nine Nether Cold Pool to the area where the Annihilation God Clan resides, they still need to traverse several ancient and dangerous places. All six of them were injured after the battle with the Demon Dragon, so they did not travel at full speed. Chen Yong always walked at the front, while the other five were only a few feet apart from each other, so they could immediately re-form their formation if they encountered any emergencies.
Along the way, they crossed the gray starry river frozen in the void, passed through a fault zone with floating broken ancient monuments, and when the sky in front of them gradually turned into a dazzling dark gold, a huge ruin stretching to the end of the field of vision finally lay between heaven and earth.
The Ten Thousand Swords Golden Ruins: Here, there are no ordinary mountains and rivers, only layers upon layers of dark golden metal continents. Broken military platforms, overturned sword-forging furnaces, and shattered sword racks stretching for hundreds of miles are piled on top of each other, and the earth's surface is covered with crisscrossing sword marks.
Some sword marks have solidified into deep valleys over the long years, while others still retain a faint trace of sharpness. But what truly makes the Ten Thousand Swords Golden Ruins famous in the Fourth Multidimensional Universe are the countless ancient divine swords stuck in the ruins.
Longswords, heavy swords, rapiers, greatswords, hiltless swords, edgeless swords... the list goes on and on.
A broken sword, over a thousand feet tall, was embedded diagonally in the distant, fractured earth; half of its blade was buried in the metal ruins, yet the exposed portion continued to slice through the surrounding space. A tiny, transparent sword, no more than an inch in size, floated in the void, with no tangible Sword Qi within a hundred feet of it.
However, any Fate Soul that approaches that area will automatically generate a "sharp" perception; even deeper there are several ancient weapons that have lost their blades, with only the lonely hilts stuck in the ground, yet that area still retains the complete essence of swords.
Their existence here has long transcended the weapons themselves; each surviving ancient sword carries an independent "concept of sword." Slash, thrust, cut, defend, sharp, blunt, kill, stop... Various different sword origins intertwine above the ruins, cutting the distant sky into dark gold areas of different sizes.
After the six entered, their pace naturally slowed down. Any ancient sword of unknown origin here might still retain the will of its former owner, and touching it rashly could easily invite danger. Chen Yong bypassed an area filled with black broken swords and had just passed between two collapsed sword furnaces when he suddenly stopped.
His eyes narrowed slightly. It was too quiet. After entering the Ten Thousand Swords Golden Ruins, there should have been subtle clanging sounds from the friction between various sword concepts. But in the area where they were now, those sounds were much less.
The five people behind him immediately noticed that Chen Yong had stopped. "Senior brother?" Chen Yong did not answer, his right hand already hanging naturally at his side. At that moment, a voice came from behind the six people.
"Stop." The voice wasn't loud, and all six people paused simultaneously.
A hint of gloom flashed across Chen Yong's eyes, and he slowly turned around. His five companions also turned around one after another, and when they truly saw the scene behind them, the expressions on their faces subtly changed.
A hundred feet away, beside a broken dark gold sword platform, three figures had appeared, standing in a staggered formation.