Deep within the Immortal Source, morning mist swirls.
A hazy, ethereal light enveloped the surrounding area. Silver-winged beasts swept through the jade-like forest, their cries sounding like celestial music. Qin Yu, Yan Yue, Zi Xue, Yunyi, and Extinguished Light walked slowly forward, their auras restrained due to their recent awakening and transformation. Each step they took seemed to tread on ripples of the source of destiny.
Reaching the top of a cliff where crystals shimmer, a magnificent waterfall appeared before us.
But this waterfall... did not flow downstream.
It is going against the current.
It was a bizarre sight that defied the logic of the world: a silvery waterfall soared from the bottom of the cliff, surging against the sky, like the Milky Way being reversed by heaven and earth, a stream reaching to the heavens, as brilliant as billions of stars tearing space from bottom to top.
The source of the waterfall is not the cliff top, but a mirror-like world suspended in the air, where many inexplicable illusions flow.
Qin Yu slowly stopped, his brows furrowing slightly. "The rules here... are reversing cause and effect and the order of time."
Extinguished Light's gaze sharpened, his starry eyes flickering slightly. "Every drop of water in this waterfall contains a reversed point in time, a past that has been swallowed up."
Yan Yue gazed at the surging waterfall, she sensed a profound pull from the dimensional structure within her heart, as if some unknown force was calling them to ascend to the summit of the waterfall.
Zi Xue gently raised her slender hand, a silver star dancing at her fingertips. "This might... be one of the true entrances to the Annihilation Heaven Overarching Realm."
Yunyi's eyes lit up as she gently patted Qin Yu's shoulder. "Brother Yu, I like this place... it's perfect for climbing up and enjoying the scenery."
Qin Yu smiled wryly, but his expression had turned solemn.
He knew that above the Reverse Waterfall—perhaps lay the true mystery of the Annihilation Abyss.
Several people stood beneath the cascading waterfall, surrounded by mist and starlight, with the thunderous roar of the falls filling their ears.
But the next moment—everything stopped.
There were no warning signs, no energy fluctuations, and no spatial tremors.
The entire waterfall was frozen in place.
The countless water lines flowing upstream, as if frozen in time, are suspended in the air, no longer moving. Every drop of water gleams with a crystalline silver light, frozen in the void, like stars solidified, as if time has stopped its march.
Yan Yue was the first to notice something amiss, her brow furrowing slightly. "... It's not that time has stopped, but rather that the waterfall itself has broken free from the logic of the world's movement."
Zi Xue stretched out her slender finger to touch a frozen line of water. The water did not ripple, not even a slight movement, as if her touch was not recognized by this "frozen" state.
Qin Yu said in a deep voice, "We... we've been chosen."
The Azure Ring in his sea of consciousness trembled slightly, and a whisper came:
"This is the gate to the [Silent Realm Waterfall Fate], one of the deepest gates of knowledge in the Annihilation Heaven Overarching Realm."
"Without breaking through this gate, one cannot reach the source of the 'First Cause of Realm Consciousness'."
As these words were spoken, a faint light suddenly shone through the water droplets from the previously still waterfall, and a door made of water slowly emerged, rotating like a celestial wheel. Dozens of ancient characters appeared on the door:
[Those who tread the waterfall stand at the abyss of their initial cause. Without clear understanding, they cannot proceed.]
Yunyi tilted her head, blinked, and pouted, "What kind of logic and knowledge test are we going to have to do again? These parts are so troublesome."
Extinguished Light chuckled softly, the image of the water gate reflected deep within his eyes. "No... this isn't a trial, it's a 'selection'."
"This waterfall is not an obstacle, but rather a search for someone who can bear the soul of the 'Annihilation Primordial Realm Breath'."
Qin Yu's gaze sharpened as he looked into the depths of the water gate.
He slowly uttered four words: "Then let's go inside."
The five of them walked side by side into the "Gate of Waterfall Fate," constructed of condensed water and shimmering with light.
Behind them, the waterfall remained silent, yet began to slowly rotate, as if the starry sky was beginning to peel away the boundaries of the world, and a true "dawn of the origin" was about to begin.
The moment Qin Yu, Yan Yue, Zi Xue, Yunyi, and Extinguished Light stepped into the "Gate of Waterfall Fate," the world spun and the water curtain tilted.
They fell into a "silent sea." But this sea was not a body of water.
Rather, it is—the seabed of the Milky Way.
Beneath their feet lay a vast abyss of ocean composed of billions of stars and fragments of nebulae. Astronomical structures formed the seabed, and the core light of stars was embedded within it like reefs. Every grain of sand was the core ash of a dead planet.
Above us lies the eternal "inverted starry sky," reflecting the early universe like a mirror, with star clusters hanging upside down, black holes flowing, and the trajectory of light constantly fissuring and recombinizing.
In the distance, a "school of planetary fish" swam slowly. Their bodies were broken star trails, and their tail fins trailed ripples of time, occasionally revealing the remnants of a World Extinguisher.
Deeper still, "star whales" appear and disappear, their backs bearing light-year-old floating islands from the old era. A whale's cry reverberates, causing all the starlight to tremble.
Yan Yue whispered, "... This is the projection of the Milky Way after it 'drown'..."
Extinguished Light gazed in all directions, murmuring, "The seabed is the original prison of thought in the universe... Stars are not burning matter, but rather the 'ashes of existence' left after annihilation."
Yunyi spread her arms, twirled in the starlight current, and laughed playfully, "This place... feels more dreamlike than a dream."
Just as everyone was engrossed in the moment, Qin Yu gazed intently at the end of the "underwater canyon" in the distance.
There stands a collapsed Star Sea Temple.
The temple is shattered, its radiance extinguished, only one pillar still sways—a star beacon formed by time diffraction, constantly projecting millions of overlapping world perspectives, each a potential future.
Azure Ring whispered, "This is one of the deepest [Primordial Epoch Annihilation Abyss] in the Annihilation Heaven Overarching Realm."
"Here you will see something that is 'Unborn'." The Milky Way sinks into the sea, and silent light Liu Yuan.
Every step they take is treading on the ashes of the dead universe; their goal is to reach the final destiny of all worlds that "were never born".
Just as Qin Yu and his companions were slowly approaching the ruins of the dilapidated Star Sea Temple, suddenly—
The entire ocean floor of the Milky Way was violently shaking!
At that moment, the starlight tides reversed, ripples of time converged from all directions, and space collapsed and was reshaped in visible "layers".
Then, under the shocked gaze of everyone—
The Starry Sea Temple, which had been broken into millions of pieces, slowly "rewrote" itself back to its complete form, as if reconstructing logic!
One by one, the pillars rose from the ground anew, each one inscribed with billions of cosmic runes, from the Milky Way, Annihilation, Cause, Fate Track to the End of Time, every inch containing ancient Origin Framework imbued with divine power and laws.
When the main hall's dome was reassembled, the entire Milky Way and deep sea seemed to fall into the eternal starlight. Thousands of starlight fell from all directions, folded in the center of the dome, and gathered into a "cause and effect mirror" - it slowly rotated, reflecting the order of all life.
The palace walls stretched for thousands of miles, and the palace pillars towered for hundreds of miles. Above the main steps of the temple, a throne made entirely of "stardust code" appeared. The throne had no physical form, yet it seemed to be able to crush the source of the laws of the entire universe.
Azure Ring slowly spoke within Qin Yu's sea of consciousness, her voice solemn. "This palace... is called the Star Annihilation Fate Palace."
"It is the only 'Return Temple' ever recorded in the Source of Epochless."
"Years ago, you fell into the desolate sea without a owner, but now you have been reborn... You have stepped into a point of return to a previously unrecorded theme."
Yan Yue took a deep breath of the starry sea, and the starlight in her eyes slowly rose. She whispered:
"For whom does this palace return... and who awakened its memories?"
Extinguished Light, his eyes blazing with light. "It's not that we awaken it... but that we enter its pre-set 'waiting'."
Just then, the main gate of the temple slowly opened, and a divine path of starlight flowed out from the temple, extending to the feet of everyone.
A whisper as ancient as the first voice of the primordial era echoed through the void, "The five have arrived; the order of destiny returns." "Please enter the hall."
The Starry Sea Temple has returned, its myriad radiance gazing down upon the abyss; this place has long awaited countless epochs.
And they are the chosen "executors of the proposition".
The group slowly stepped into the magnificent, rebuilt temple. The seawater seemed to be pushed aside by some invisible force, and the entire space was clear and quiet. Unlike the previous Immortal Source realm woven by the Milky Way, this temple, named [Star Annihilation Fate Palace], did not seem to be anything that originally existed in the Annihilation Abyss World.
It is more like a relic from another era that has been "transplanted".
The temple was not constructed from stars or formed from fragments of time; rather, it resembled the ancient imperial palaces described in many classical dimensional worlds: majestic and imposing, with brick and stone walls and towering pavilions. However, unlike other temples, these jade bricks and tiles were not ordinary objects. Each brick was engraved with extremely complex golden soul patterns, which seemed to have been peeled from some kind of cosmological source, intertwining with each other, sometimes burning like flames, sometimes flowing like water.
Above the dome, hundreds of fragmented images of gods are carved, some standing in the sun, others kneeling outside the sea of stars, but none are intact, all broken and shattered, as if witnessing a great collapse of faith that was annihilated.
The ground was covered with interlocking golden runes, like chains of fate recording the laws of destiny. At the intersections, there was even a faint aura of "proposition rejecters". The entire temple was like a warehouse of eternally sealed components, or a high-dimensional altar, which had been silent on the seabed for billions of years.
A ripple from the seabed passed through the temple's entrance, and the golden soul runes suddenly glowed faintly, as if sensing the presence of outsiders, gradually activating a portion of their structure.
Qin Yu narrowed his eyes. "This... doesn't seem like a place we should be."
Both Yan Yue and Zi Xue's expressions turned slightly serious.
Yunyi simply gazed leisurely at the distant main hall gate, a cryptic smile playing on her lips:
"The less a place seems like a place you should be in, the more interesting it becomes, isn't it?"
Extinguished Light, however, became much quieter, merely gazing at the cross-sectioned statue on the dome, murmuring softly:
"This place... was once the burial place of God."
Just as Qin Yu, Yan Yue, Zi Xue, Yunyi, and Extinguished Light Guang stepped into the temple, outside the temple, in the depths of a Silent Void abyss, a pair of eyes quietly opened.
Those are not ordinary eyes, not the eyes of living beings.
Those were eyes that had been abandoned by the world to observe.
In the chaos, darkness and annihilation resonate. There are no pupils in the eyes, only endless fragments of reincarnation slowly rotating. With each rotation, billions of ideas are destroyed and restarted at the edge of the sea of consciousness.
Those eyes seemed to be looking down at the lower world from a "higher dimension of observation".
It stared intently at the five people inside the temple.
It saw the Azure Ring inside Qin Yu's body tremble slightly, but did not respond.
It saw that the tattered corner of Yan Yue's battle skirt was still unhealed, and the afterglow of the dawn's flames still shone brightly.
It saw that Zi Xue's soul faintly carried the imprint of the karmic entanglement of her destiny star.
It saw Extinguished Light standing at the end of the line, his face Leng Jue, with the shimmering light of the Milky Way faintly visible behind him.
When it saw Yunyi, its eyes narrowed sharply, and the once lifeless seabed rippled almost imperceptibly for a moment.
"... The beast of incomprehensible propositions... has actually appeared."
The sound was extremely distant, as if it came from beyond the 130,000th depths of the ocean floor, or from some ancient logical cross-section of the universe.
It murmured, but not with fear, but with anticipation.
A moment later, the eyes slowly closed, leaving only a very faint crack that rippled gently in the deep abyss of the sea.
"... Wait a little longer... until they... enter the deepest hall."
"Then I can... reveal myself."