The billowing blue-green mist had condensed into a curtain, hanging between the sky and the entire Soul Cavern Dense Forest, like an impenetrable canopy of death. Tens of thousands of disciples, elders, and guards from the various temples of the Source of Epochless gathered here, densely blocking all possible entrances and exits.
The earth cracked, rocks collapsed, and the air was thick with the stench of blood and the scorching aftershocks of exploding spiritual energy. Barriers were repeatedly reconstructed amidst the intertwining and shattering, spiritual light and screams constantly overlapping, every moment a battlefield in hell.
High in the sky, a completely mutated soul beast roared and broke through the blockade. It could no longer be described as a "beast". Three pairs of fangs were coiled on the sides of its mouth, its limbs swelled up like iron towers, and "word crack patterns" appeared on its body, as if fragments of some language were engraved into its bones and blood. With a roar, more than ten disciples vomited blood and flew backward on the spot!
"Don't let it get near the core of the barrier!"
"The soul mist has already infiltrated the very core of the formation; any further retreat will mean total collapse!"
At the front of the battle line, an elder from the Eternal Evolution Realm Hall, his blood-red hair fluttering, roared and unleashed a ten-thousand-foot-long blade of light from a Soul-Slaying Blade, cleaving the monster in two at the waist. But immediately afterward, seven more similar "Soul Transformation Beasts" rushed out of the forest, the enormous impact and the tremors of the barrier like the thunder of heavenly drums, causing everyone's blood to surge!
At this moment, the edge of the Soul Cavern Dense Forest is no longer a defensive line, but a dam that is collapsing.
Thousands of feet above the sky, a figure in black stood frozen in the wind amidst a dark cloud.
That was Qin Yu in the form of Mo Chen.
He gazed at the battlefield, now a scene resembling hell, his eyes devoid of any emotion, only a calm and composed demeanor. In his mind's eye, Tong Ning's words of advice still echoed:
"Our identities must not be revealed. This journey is not to save the world, but to find the source and eradicate the root of the problem."
"No one... can recognize who you are."
His gaze fell on a corner in front of the Eternal Evolution Realm Hall's defensive line, where the familiar boundary ring mark was located—his fellow disciples were protecting this world for him. But at this moment, he could only watch coldly.
He muttered to himself, "I can't be Qin Yu right now."
The next instant, his robes billowed, and his entire body traced an almost imperceptible curve in the void, silently piercing through the mist and sinking into the depths of the blood-stained and twisted Soul Cavern Dense Forest through a sliver of light at the edge of the sky.
As his figure disappeared into the mist, he was immediately overwhelmed by an immense sense of oppression—it wasn't just the density of the space, but more like the "world significance" of the entire Soul Cavern Dense Forest was rejecting him, this "undefined person."
Within his sea of consciousness, the "Book of Fate Law - Realm Severing Origin Brush" floated slightly, autonomously emitting a faint blue light, constructing a "self-defined structure" within his soul, as if telling this strange realm:
"I exist."
"I am Mo Chen."
The mist deep within the Soul Cavern Dense Forest seemed to sense something, gently surging as if accepting this "observer" who had no identity, no script, and no apparent origin.
Qin Yu's gaze grew increasingly cold as he thought to himself:
"If what Tong Ning said is true, and this place hides more than just the madness of soul beasts and the alteration of destiny... then my 'Journey to Mo Chen' will become the fuse for a new chapter in the story of Source of Epochless."
Deep within the mist, strange light surged, and a wisp of soul mist, bearing traces of "narrative leaps," drifted out from the forest.
The temporal and spatial logic of this memory no longer belongs to this world.
Qin Yu —or rather, "Mo Chen"—has officially stepped into the land of miswritten destiny.
Qin Yu's figure moved like a feather, slowly descending from the sky into the dense forest.
The place he descended upon should have been a densely forested area, but in this "Soul Mist Alienation Zone," all the landforms had long been blurred. Mountains had collapsed, giant trees had fallen, and thick blue-green mist lingered in the air like liquid tides, flowing like water ripples and whispering like soul consciousness.
The instant Qin Yu's feet lightly touched the ground—
The seemingly invisible fog suddenly surged up like a tide, as if some kind of thought process had been triggered.
"Whoa--!!"
Centered on Qin Yu, countless "mist lines" shot out from all directions, like numerous twisted tentacles of thought, so fast and dense that they even compressed the space into a resonant vibration.
These fog lines are not just ordinary erosion, but rather carry the rhythm of "Logic Reconstruction"!
On each wisp of mist, incomprehensible "altered text" and "causal chains of propositions" faintly emerged, attempting to forcibly inscribe themselves into Qin Yu's Fate Soul structure and the logic of his existence!
--It's like trying to completely rewrite and recast "who he is," "why he exists," and "what kind of destiny he is about to follow"!
His sea of consciousness trembled, Silent Origin Soul Meridian instantly sensed something amiss!
At this critical moment, Qin Yu closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, directing his thoughts to the ever-flowing, silent blue light in his sea of consciousness!
" --Azure Ring."
With a thought in response, the tranquil Azure Ring in his sea of consciousness, as still as Star Abyss, suddenly radiated divine light.
In the silence, Qin Yu's entire body was suddenly enveloped by a light curtain that resembled a "pure and silent star membrane." It was the light of the Azure Ring's origin, fused with the "absolute definition circuit" of his soul core!
In an instant--
"Sizzle--!!"
Countless blue-green mist lines that attempted to penetrate the "Azure Light Protective Domain" convulsed as if being burned upon touching it, and quickly shattered and disintegrated!
Those "logical sentences" and "causal chains" that were originally like programming symbols were exposed as "illegally written" under the light of the blue light, and were completely expelled and stripped away!
Even more bizarrely—
After their failure, these wisps of mist seemed to possess some kind of "self-awareness," quickly curling up into a cluster before scattering and retreating, never once approaching Qin Yu again!
The surrounding mist began to ripple, emitting a barely audible buzzing sound, as if the "source of mist" of the entire Soul Cavern Dense Forest had been disturbed by Qin Yu, silently observing him and trying to re-identify his "authority tag".
Qin Yu slowly opened his eyes, a look of surprise flashing in them.
"This is no ordinary soul mist... It possesses a certain degree of 'sensory' and 'writing logic,' and can even determine whether a target can be tampered with... If that kind of writing attempt had been made by someone below the No Consciousness Realm, their consciousness would have been reconstructed and rewritten long ago, turning them into Mist Slave."
He took a deep breath, stretched out his hand, and let the thin Azure Ring light on his fingertips flicker erratically, like a shield protecting his entire body.
"And they... the instant the Azure Ring of light appeared, actually took the initiative to avoid it... as if they were afraid... or rather—they couldn't read me."
A thought flashed through Qin Yu's mind:
"Within these mysteries lies a logical force that is 'not of the Source of Epochless '... and may even be some kind of 'unfiled world script rule'..."
This conclusion is gradually leading him to delve deeper into the root of the logical distortion within the entire fog of confusion—
A poisonous, emerald-green mist flowed through the forest, meandering and crawling like a living creature, emitting faint whispers and chewing sounds. Qin Yu in the center of a broken soul array ruin in the heart of the forest. The ground beneath was covered with ancient runes that were badly damaged, and faint traces of death soul energy emanated from the array patterns.
--roar!!!
A piercing roar, as if tearing apart the soul, exploded in the mist, accompanied by deafening sound waves that distorted the entire forest, instantly causing it to boil. Immediately afterward, a dark red shadow emerged vaguely from the mist.
It was a completely mutated soul beast, its original form possibly being the "Evolution Rock Prison-Splitting Tiger," but now its skin was already corroded and rotten by the mist, its body surface covered with blue-green cracks, like shattered glass reflecting distorted light. Its eyes had lost their pupils, leaving only scarlet blood light, and the fangs that grew from its mouth no longer belonged to beasts, but rather resembled a strange substance "born from folds," sharp enough to tear apart the rules.
Qin Yu's eyes sharpened.
--Arriving through the air!
The soul beast moved like an arrow released from a bow, its claws leaving dozens of sharp, tearing marks in mid-air, as if the void itself had been ripped apart. The air shattered like glass, and the fragments transformed into streams of soul energy that rushed towards Qin Yu!
Skill Release - Fate Ring - Linked-Stage Judgment
With a flick of his left hand, a Blue Ring unfolded before him, its chains of light intertwining to instantly construct a "Causal Judgment Chain" like gears in time.
Buzz--!
With a push of Qin Yu's right palm, the entire causal light chain of the "Linked-Stage Judgment" descended like a celestial rule, its rings reinforcing the alien beast's body.
The beast's lunging motion was frozen in an instant.
One lap.
Two laps.
Three laps.
Each link locks not the physical body, but the "logic of its actions." The first link locks the "cause of its intention," the second link locks the "root of its outburst," and the third link directly determines the "outcome of its killing."
"Break."
Qin Yu uttered a single word.
The "Linked-Stage Judgment" collapsed suddenly, as if countless dimensional causal flows exploded at once. Before the beast even reached him, its entire chain of actions was completely annihilated.
Bang!!
The soul beast instantly disintegrated in mid-air, its flesh and blood not exploding, but rather collapsing like pixels of light into segments of dark "undefined code," as if flawed logic had been forcibly erased in reality.
The ground trembled slightly, the wind blew through the forest, and the mist stirred gently, as if the evil spirit still lingered.
Qin Yu's eyes were icy cold, his mind still reeling.
No sooner had the first mutated beast been eliminated than a low-frequency wailing, like the "wail of all spirits," echoed from the misty sea deep within the Soul Cavern Dense Forest.
In the forest, eerie mist condensed, revealing countless grotesque faces that resembled neither humans nor animals. They opened their phantom mouths and emitted mournful howls that shook the very core of one's being. Immediately afterward, a strange "crackling" sound of bones dislocating came from afar, as if something was rapidly approaching in a manner inconsistent with the structure of any living being.
--Bang!!!
The mist exploded, and a mutated soul body nearly five zhang tall suddenly tore through the mist from Qin Yu's left front.
It was a "Soul-Devouring Heavy Mastiff" that had been completely mutated, but at this moment its body had expanded out of control, its muscles were intertwined like thousands of strands of spiritual silk, and dozens of faces that were constantly twisting and turning inside its chest were uttering whispers like infants. Its limbs were bent outwards, and with each step it took, the ground twisted and created spatial vortexes, as if it was not stepping on soil and stone, but the dimension of soul itself.
This is not a beast; it is a living "constructivist chaos."
Qin Yu frowned slightly, and the "Realm Severing Origin Brush" in his sea of consciousness trembled slightly.
--[Skill Release: Fate Trajectory Profiling]
With a slight lift of his fingers, the phantom of the Book of Fate Law appeared before him, and inscriptions of fate unfolded in the void, like a swirling galaxy. A beam of light slowly emerged from the void, its ink lines flowing like a stream.
"--Why are you here, and why have you gone berserk?"
Qin Yu did not make a move, but instead used the act of writing to reverse-read the enemy's existence trajectory from the "Fate Trajectory Profiling".
Suddenly, a terrifying scene appeared in the air:
In the scene, what was originally a peaceful forest guardian spirit beast was forcibly rewritten after being eroded by the mist. Its logical chain was broken, its "goodness" was stripped away, and its "identification chain" was rewritten as a "devouring chain". From the origin of its soul, it was tampered with into a "mad demon killing weapon"!
"... I see."
Qin Yu's gaze sharpened, and his brushstrokes suddenly shifted.
--[Destiny Seal - Abyss-Turning Star Platform]!
He touched the void with his light pen, and the fate trajectory of the beast reversed at his tip, like a whirlpool flowing backward, rewriting the logic of life and death in an instant. The Star Platform appeared, and the light of the fate seal fell to the ground.
Bang!!!
The soul-devouring beast was about to pounce, but in mid-air, Qin Yu forcibly altered its destiny back to "Forest Guardian State." Its massive body paused, and a violent struggle and tremor flashed through its sea of consciousness. Then, the "Construction Mutual Repulsion" mechanism erupted within its body!
--boom!!!
In its struggle and internal conflict, the strange beast exploded!
It wasn't flesh and blood exploding, but rather "the annihilation of existence caused by causal contradictions." It transformed into countless "remnants of the setting" in the air, scattering down and turning into tiny specks of grayish-white dust, like fragments of a soul returning to the void.
The ground fell silent once more, and the fog moved even more violently.
However, Qin Yu showed no fear, his divine sense was sharp, and he calmly looked down ahead.
"It seems... I've only just entered its soul-guiding stage."