Annihilation Abyss Starlight · Galaxy Skeleton

The starlight of Annihilation Abyss slowly faded, but the light of the Azure Ring still lingered in the void. The four people's seas of consciousness were repaired, their souls were reconstructed, and even the coordinates of their shattered consciousness were re-anchored at that moment.

But the moment they opened their eyes, the scene before them completely changed.

The entire Annihilation Abyss Church is no longer the magnificent and solemn Star River Temple, but a dilapidated ruin like a relic of a divine war, a mirror image of a soul from which causal logic has been extracted. But the sense of desolation is even more profound and despairing, and even the passage of time itself seems to be frozen between the church's remains.

The sky was devoid of a dome, only a shattered galaxy slowly rotating, like a broken Milky Way hanging in the firmament. Strange runes were carved on the massive broken walls, and the broken pillars never touched the ground, hanging in mid-air, as if frozen in the process of "collapse," forever frozen in the moment of destruction.

The most chilling thing is the "Fragments of Annihilation Abyss" scattered all around.

Those were not rubble, not bricks, but fragments of flowing starlight—those fragments floated in the void, each one like a galaxy falling, a cosmic shattering. They emitted low murmurs, like the lamentation of the Annihilation Abyss's origin, radiating endless informational factors, yet they could not be deciphered.

Zi Xue watched a fragment fly by, her eyes wide with shock. "This isn't a building... it's a spacetime shell left behind when some ancient universe collapsed."

Yunyi remained silent. She had never seen such ruins before. They were unlike any ruins in any known dimension, not even comparable to the Time Palace of the Ancient Realm of the Illusory Dragon Clan.

Yan Yue stood before a fragment of a starry river, its starlight flowing from her fingertips, as if it could drag her consciousness into some lost era.

Qin Yu's gaze, however, was fixed on the dilapidated dome in the center of the church ahead—

There, there is a huge void, as if something was once "taken away" from there.

A sense of foreboding rose in his heart.

"This isn't destruction... it's an empty shell left behind after something was 'taken away' from it."

At this moment, the Azure Ring quietly appeared, spinning gently, as if it too had noticed some trace of "logical deficiency".

The entire Annihilation Abyss Church is no longer as glorious as it once was.

It is slowly transforming into a deeper "primordial relic" --

After the stars shattered, the true secrets of the Annihilation Abyss were only just beginning to emerge.

As they stepped out of the church ruins surrounded by fragments of starlight, the scene before them shifted and transformed in an instant, like a dream—

The embers of the Annihilation Abyss Temple, which were originally filled with oppression and the lingering power of the Realm Splitting, have now seamlessly merged into a vast and boundless immortal wilderness.

At that moment, Yan Yue, Yunyi, Zi Xue all stopped in their tracks.

What was reflected in their pupils was—

High in the sky, the clouds are like mirrors, and rainbow bridges span the void like serpents, encircling the floating giant island; at the end of the rainbow bridges, "Spirit Heart Flower Forest" grows in the air, transparent as if carved from crystal, and when the branches and leaves droop down, they scatter a snow-like rain of starlight petals.

All around, on the boundless plains, grew countless flowers and trees that "shouldn't exist in this world."

The golden lotus with phoenix patterns formed from flames, when in full bloom, causes the temperature of the surrounding world to rise sharply;

There is a "Star Abyss Flower Burial" whose roots are made of stardust; its stamens are like black holes, slowly absorbing the surrounding spiritual energy.

There are also those strange beasts flying between heaven and earth, resembling dragons, butterflies, phoenixes, and feathers, with wings composed of time patterns, which, when flapped, cause the entire landscape to rise and fall like the ebb and flow of the tide.

The waterfall cascades down from mid-air, not touching the ground, but freezing in the void. Each cascade of water hangs in the air like a mirror wall, reflecting another wondrous world behind each layer of light, as if a "parallel Nether Realm" folded out from the Annihilation Heaven Overarching Realm.

From the more distant horizon, the faint sounds of ancient beasts roaring and celestial music intertwined, like a divine symphony resonating deep within the soul.

Zi Xue stood frozen in place, murmuring softly, "This is the real... Dream of Annihilation Abyss?"

Yunyi looked up at the luminous spirit birds floating in mid-air. The birds were dotted with starlight, and each feather seemed to contain some kind of secret technique. She blinked gently, and her pupils reflected hundreds of layers of laws flowing, as if she had glimpsed the way of the cycle of all laws.

Yan Yue, on the other hand, was more composed. Her gaze was fixed on the "Flowing Space Divine Tree" standing silently in the air in the distance—the entire tree was composed of fluids of time, its branches spanning thirty miles, its roots hanging down to the earth, flowing with the breath of souls from millions of years ago. She seemed to sense that in this immortal realm, there was some ancient being silently observing them.

Qin Yu walked at the front, but didn't look back. He could feel the beauty of this fairyland, but he was also more vigilant.

Such a beautiful place could never be just a "paradise for rest".

The deeper you go, the calmer it becomes.

The quieter the silence, the more likely it is to conceal the true "source crisis" of the Annihilation Heaven Overarching Realm.

They continued their journey deeper into the Immortal Plains.

The spiritual herbs in the wilderness gradually thinned out, and the surrounding colors slowly shifted from vibrant and colorful to a cold, desolate silver glow. Just as Yan Yue and Zi Xue were still immersed in the strange phenomenon refracted by the Flowing Space Divine Tree—

Qin Yu stopped in his tracks.

Before him lay a tranquil and vast star-filled lake.

But it was not a lake. It was a sea of solidified Milky Way.

The silver lake surface resembles fragments of an endless universe, frozen in time, with billions of stars floating and sinking on it, as if some kind of natural swirling vortex had formed here in the ancient universe. The light does not reflect from the water, but is "born" from it, swirling in circles like galaxies, radiating gentle and unfathomable waves.

And in the middle of that Star Lake—

There was a ship made of the Milky Way, quietly floating there.

It is not a physical boat, but rather something that rose from a section of the Milky Way on the lake and solidified on its own. The hull gleams with a dreamlike luster, as if woven from flowing starlight. It has no oars or wooden frame, yet it steadily carries a figure.

An old man was sitting on the boat.

The old man was draped in a tattered star-patterned robe, covered with countless spatial cracks and burn marks from the rules of spacetime, as if he had survived a cosmic battle. His robe trailed on the Milky Way boat, seemingly blending into the entire lake.

He was hunched over, yet in his hand he held a seemingly decaying but still faintly glowing starlight staff, slowly paddling across the surface of the Milky Way lake—

There was no sound of water, only the sound of stardust breaking apart and then closing up again beneath his boatman's staff.

His eyes were tightly closed; his breath was almost imperceptible; yet at that moment, Qin Yu suddenly had the illusion that the entire Immortal Realm revolved around this person.

"... This lake... it's not a lake..." Zi Xue whispered, "... is it a folded star map...?"

"No." Yunyi frowned, but her tone calmed down. "That's not a folded star map, but some kind of—stellar orbit memory."

Yan Yue's gaze sharpened; she saw it beneath the old man's cane:

The fragments of time's rules are quietly reshaped with each stroke of his pen.

Her heart tightened suddenly. "This is... the Star Lake Ferryman who uses a 'boat' method to guide the entire 'Chronology' of the Annihilation Heaven Overarching Realm?"

Qin Yu's brows were already furrowed. Deep within his sea of consciousness, the Azure Ring was slowly rotating, emitting a slight vibration unlike anything he had ever heard before, as if responding to the presence of this "Starship Person".

He looked at the man, and a single thought flashed through his mind, "This old man... is not alive."

He is a tangible manifestation of some kind of lingering logic, or a fragment of ancient memory "preserved" by the world.

And this starry lake is the coordinate of his eternal wandering destiny.

But why did they meet him at this moment? For whom is this boat moored? And where does this Milky Way lake lead?

While the group still stood on the lakeshore, pondering the true origin of the Milky Way boat—

For a moment, the entire space seemed to freeze.

On the Milky Way boat in the center of Star Lake, the tattered old man, who had been drooping and half-dead, suddenly moved.

No one saw clearly how he opened his eyes or got up. They couldn't even be sure if he actually stood up.

In the next instant, he was already standing at the bow of the boat.

His entire being seemed to emerge from the hazy starlight, his face still hidden beneath the hood of flowing starlight, his features obscured, expressionless, and devoid of even a trace of spiritual energy.

He slowly raised the oar in his hand, which resembled a crystallized Milky Way.

With a gentle swipe, "-- Buzz!!!"

The Milky Way and its surrounding lakes suddenly trembled!

The galaxy surged up like a raging tide, as if an entire star field had collapsed and been reconstructed. That slash did not cleave the surface of water, but rather the entire spacetime barrier of the "Annihilation Heaven Overarching Realm".

In the lake, the previously flowing stars suddenly converged rapidly in one spot!

From the depths of the lake, an incredibly terrifying power began to emerge, as if the world beneath the Ming Yuan was awakening.

The next moment, "BOOM!!!"

The entire Milky Way Lake suddenly exploded, and a roar that shook the heavens and earth seemed to surge from the deepest abyss. A colossal skeletal body, composed of fragments of the Milky Way, starlight and dust, the logic of reincarnation, and the melting flow of time, rose up from the bottom of the lake with a thunderous roar!

It was an indescribable star-skull body.

It is not a "skull," but it has a skull-like shape:

The spine is like a galaxy of bones stretching across a sea of stars.

The ribs are like solidified spatial cracks.

The head has no eyes or teeth, yet billions of stars revolve around its outline, as if emitting a "wailing of light."

It has no physical form, yet it weighs as much as billions of stars stacked together;

It had no soul consciousness, yet its oppressive power caused Yunyi, Zi Xue, Yan Yue to suddenly change color!

"... What is that...?" Zi Xue murmured softly, a chill running down her spine.

"Not a living being," Yan Yue whispered, her bright eyes narrowing slightly, "It's a 'star remnant' that survives in the cycle of cause and effect, forgotten by time..."

Yunyi stared intently at the old man in front of her, her voice low and deep:

"He was the one who awakened him. Perhaps he is... the Star Lake Dead Ferryman."

At this moment, Qin Yu had quietly appeared at the top of Qin Yu's sea of consciousness, an Azure Ring of green light descending from above his head. He whispered:

"That thing... only exists within the galaxy of time."

The starry lake Ji Ran. The skeletal beast roared, seemingly waiting for a response.

The old man on the boat remained silent, gently tapping his cane as he slowly steered towards them.

Wherever the Milky Way's ship passes, the lake surface seems to rotate like stars, and space itself subtly twists and turns.

On the shore of the Milky Way Lake, all was silent, except for the enormous skull formed from starlight in the center of the lake, which slowly raised its head, its empty eye sockets reflecting a strange light as if time itself were collapsing. It seemed not to belong to this world, yet it stood there in reality, oppressing the four people's consciousness and causing the surrounding space to distort and ripple like a mirror on the verge of shattering.

Qin Yu stood still with a deep voice, his right hand rising slightly. The Azure Ring slowly emerged in his sea of consciousness, its patterns rotating endlessly. Before the spiritual blade was drawn, it had already locked onto the logic of myriad causes ahead.

Yunyi's eyes flashed with a cold light. The Three-Polarity Illusory Dragon Soul Core floated like a ring, with purple lightning, black flames, and Golden Radiance power swirling around her. Her star-scale robes fluttered in the wind. She raised her right hand, and the Illusory Dragon's Breath quietly condensed.

Yan Yue stood slightly to the side, and the radiant flames slowly rose from her feet. The edges of her Radiant Starfrost Robe swirled like starlight, reflecting an endless galaxy. She lightly touched the star-like satin on the side of her dress with her fingers, and a rainbow of light appeared, her aura rising silently.

Zi Xue's expression was focused. The Star-Commanding Mystic Phoenix spread its nine wings, as if a star resonated behind it. Purple-gold starlight swirled in her palms, and wisps of her soul energy had quietly begun to draw in with the stars in the heavens.

The four remained motionless, yet they had already locked onto the aura.

The Galaxy Skeleton slowly raised its bony arm, causing the lake's surface to tremble like a myriad of starbursts, as if to restart a primordial trial of tearing apart the universe...

Qin Yu's voice was deep and firm:

"Be prepared, this thing—is not simple."