Mist Soul's First Lure · The Soul Tree Opens Its Door
The day after Annihilation Ranking quest No. 4319 at the Eternal Extreme Sacred Hall, Qin Yu and Chi Ning crossed the layers and arrived at the edge of the [Mist Soul Severed Realm].
The two descended slowly from the sky, bathed in the radiant light and breeze formed by the Limitless Evolving True Flow. As the clouds beneath their feet suddenly dissipated, the true full picture of the [Mist Soul Severed Realm] was finally revealed before their eyes.
That was a Heavenly Abyss Annihilation Origin Severed Realm ". Above the dome, scorching vines, like the sky splitting apart, intertwined and spread, as if billions of cosmic nerves collapsed inward, forming a "reverse root system". Streams of blazing white, golden flames and deep blue flashes flowed wildly within it, scorching the sky and burning out starlight fragments - as if the heavenly flames of the upper realm had never been extinguished.
The dark clouds on the horizon churned like Fate Soul, their depths etched with vortexes of spacetime, intertwined with silver light and crimson flames. These were not true clouds, but rather energy fissures formed by the "Surging Breath of the Annihilation Realm," layered in hundreds of layers, writhing like living beings, as if unseen eyes were watching the causal trajectory of those who stepped in.
The world below, however, is as calm yet eerie as a mirror-like lake.
Thousands upon thousands of lakes, large and small, are embedded in the earth like a sea of stars, each displaying a different color—some are like deep blue, surging with the phantom of stars; some are like molten gold, churning with silent, raging waves; and at the very center, a huge vortex-shaped lake lies still, its entire body like a dark blue crystal, rotating slightly, its bottom seemingly piercing through the void, reflecting an unknown galaxy.
That is the Annihilation Soul Core Abyss, where the Heart of the Broken Realm resides.
The entire edge of the area is a pitch-black rocky land Annihilation Structure by the annihilation wave. The towering, staggered fault ridges are covered with deep red patterns, and there are traces of spiritual pressure sprayed out when ancient soul beasts fought. There are even lingering soul energy from the annihilation wave, which forms a visible spiral twist in the air.
In the distance, a golden waterfall of light descends from the sky, connecting to the far reaches of the outer dimension, like the summoning light of some deity, or the lock of an eternal forbidden realm. On the ground, a sea of purple-gold flowers and a dense, dark forest intertwine, like the edge of a dreamlike realm where countless souls and dreams are woven together.
Chi Ning's gaze was filled with shock as she murmured, "This... is the [Mist Soul Severed Realm]? It's not an illusion at all, but a living Annihilation Origin Realm Splitting..."
Qin Yu stood in the void, his expression calm as still water, but his eyes shimmered with countless rays of light from the source seal's analysis. The Azure Ring on the back of his hand flickered with light, silently recording the logical structure of the entire broken realm and the flow of soul power annihilation.
At this moment, they have not yet stepped into the core of the Broken Realm—but the entire [Mist Soul Severed Realm] is like an Annihilation, silent behemoth, opening its world-devouring maw, quietly awaiting the next outbreak of the "Annihilation Origin Tide".
Chi Ning's gaze remained fixed on that vast, Realm Splitting, her expression filled with shock and disbelief. She suddenly exclaimed softly, "My God... this is enormous! How are we supposed to find the 'Heart of the Annihilation Origin Severed Realm'?"
Before her words had even finished, Qin Yu's gaze also fell deeply as he looked down at the crisscrossing landscape beneath his feet, a landscape that resembled a dreamlike expanse of time and space—mirror lakes dotted the landscape, fault lines stretched endlessly, mist souls surged like a tide, and countless Annihilation Realm rifts pierced through the clouds, as if the entire world was trembling and breathing. Even he couldn't help but sigh softly, "I thought it was just an ordinary secret Rending Domain... I never imagined that the middle-level [Mist Soul Severed Realm] would be this vast."
Chi Ning turned slightly to the side, looking at Qin Yu, her tone serious and solemn. "Junior Brother Qin, then... where should we start our search?"
Qin Yu pondered for a moment, his life seal swirling as his gaze swept across the various fault zones below, sensing the flow of Soul Annihilation energy. He slowly spoke, "We currently do not have the specific coordinates or diagram of the Heart of the Annihilation Origin Severed Realm. Judging from the energy flow structure of this area, the center of the fault seems to be constantly shifting, making it impossible to pinpoint its static location... In that case, let's employ a comprehensive search."
His gaze was fixed on the Far East, where the mountains and rivers were crisscrossed by fault lines, the mist was thin, and it seemed that several soul energy cracks were converging there.
"We'll start from the east and proceed northwards, advancing around the core of the entire broken boundary." As he spoke, the Annihilation Source Realm soul pressure on his body subtly activated, and a faint blue light rippled around his Azure Ring, transforming into a slowly rising, rotating pale blue halo.
Chi Ning was slightly taken aback, then smiled and nodded in response, "Alright, I'll listen to you, Junior Brother Qin. Since you can even Annihilation three Logic Realm Realm, I'm naturally relieved."
She waved her hand, summoning the faint, illusory image of the [Butterfly Soul Glazed Sound Mirror], which surrounded her shoulder, and then leaped into the air.
"Then let's go!"
Qin Yu nodded, his body trembled, and azure light unfolded. The two transformed into streams of light, breaking through the cloud barrier in the southeast direction and rushing into the dreamlike yet perilous [Mist Soul Severed Realm].
Behind them, deep in the sky, the intricately rooted Realm Splitting Soul Tree slowly rotated, seemingly silently observing a journey destined to reshape the course of cause and effect.
The two soared through the air, their azure light and butterfly-shaped light intertwining like starlight traversing through a myriad of misty landscapes.
However, just as they were flying over a place where two valleys met, Qin Yu frowned slightly and suddenly stopped in mid-air. Chi Ning, who was following closely behind, noticed the abnormality and quickly stopped beside Qin Yu.
"Did you sense it?" Qin Yu asked in a low voice, his gaze fixed on the terrain below. For a moment, his voice carried a hint of seriousness.
Chi Ning followed his gaze and saw that the area below the Mist Soul Severed Realm, which had been as quiet as ever, was slowly moving.
It was not an ordinary tectonic tremor, but a superdimensional distortion and flow. The entire landscape was slowly but irresistibly shifting and reorganizing as if stirred by an invisible hand. The canyons, misty ridges, and lakes that the two had already passed during their flight now appeared strangely in the lower left area ahead, as if the spatial structure had been forcibly folded and unfolded.
Qin Yu's pupils contracted slightly, and he sighed softly, "... This is bad."
Chi Ning's expression instantly turned serious, and she bit her red lips lightly. "How come all those places we flew here to are now here again? This... it's as if space itself has rearranged its order."
She looked up at the entire Mist Soul Severed Realm and saw that the cliffs that stretched across the sky and earth were slowly shifting. The Soul Rift Plains, which were originally located in the southeast, had drifted to the due north, while a certain Void Abyss Rift Valley in the west was being pushed towards the central axis like a rotating maze, drawing a semi-circular arc.
The entire boundary... is like a huge, invisible dimensional jigsaw puzzle, rearranging itself.
The fog thickened between heaven and earth, and golden-white Realm Splitting soul light slowly rose from the ground, crisscrossing the landscape like nerve veins. Each flash of light brought about a slight reconstruction of the terrain.
Qin Yu took a deep breath, the radiance of Annihilation Origin in his eyes dimming slightly. The Azure Ring hummed softly as it rotated gently. He slowly spoke, "The entire structure of the Mist Soul Severed Realm is slowly changing, and it's not a regular rotation, but an irregular, causal self-reorganization. For us... this means—the route is untraceable, and the location is unreliable."
Chi Ning frowned, gazing at the mountain spirit landscape below that was beginning to crumble and reform, her voice even softening slightly. "So... we might have already fallen into a fragmented labyrinth that's constantly changing its own structure?"
Qin Yu nodded slightly.
"That's right, this [Mist Soul Severed Realm] is probably more than just a spatial distortion; it... is alive."
His voice was deep and resonant, like thunder rumbling through the clouds. Beneath them, the dreamlike structure of the land was quietly changing—peaks shifted, celestial lakes folded, soul mist cracked and churned, and black ravines slowly unfolded into a completely new Soul Realm dome that seemed to have never existed before.
A search that is destined to defy conventional methods has only just begun.
Just as Qin Yu finished speaking, Chi Ning frowned and looked around at the churning mist. Suddenly, a faint ray of light appeared in the upper left sky.
The light initially appeared like fragments of mist, rippling gently in the void, like an illusion. However, in the next instant, accompanied by an extremely deep spatial tremor, an entire otherworldly scene shrouded in thick fog... slowly "revealed" from the void.
It was a... big tree.
No, it is a gigantic life form that resembles the "Tree of Souls".
It hovered at the edge of the Mist Soul Severed Realm, its entire form appearing and disappearing, as if Non-Existence in the same dimension, but was a projection of a soul image forcibly mapped into this interface. Its trunk was as large as a mountain range, with ancient and winding patterns extending from bottom to top, and its branches as dense as life veins flowing, slowly stretching towards the top of the severance.
Along each main trunk, houses and covered bridges are arranged in a staggered pattern, with lights twinkling like stars, and hanging spirit lanterns swaying in the wind, emitting a faint golden glow. It seems that someone once lived here, or perhaps... it is a [Soul Tree Ruins] Annihilation Origin deep in the annals of time.
"That is..." Chi Ning exclaimed in surprise, her eyes filled with shock.
"The Soul-Constructed Tree?" Qin Yu's eyes narrowed slightly. What he saw was not just a tree, but an extremely large construct—it was not just a natural tree, but an entire secondary "Soul Dwelling Realm" independent of the Mist Soul Severed Realm, which was gradually being revealed through the constantly changing spatial rifts.
Soul mist swirled around the great tree, whispering and echoing around it like the tides. The tree's roots stretched deep into the boundary soil, seemingly connecting to the unknown source of the Soul Realm. And deep within the trunk, extremely ancient soul patterns faintly shone, as if conveying some kind of sealed signal.
"It... it definitely wasn't generated naturally," Qin Yu said in a low voice, "It's more like... some kind of 'induced structure' actively released by spatial logic."
Chi Ning nodded, his expression complex. "This place was originally a 'Broken Boundary,' and with the entire area constantly migrating and piecing itself together... the appearance of this tree might be... some kind of [outer guidance] from the Heart of the Annihilation Origin Severed Realm."
The light of the Soul Tree dimmed slightly in the next instant, then was once again covered by thick fog, as if it had disappeared again.
Qin Yu's eyes were deep and unfathomable. "It seems we have no choice but to go there."
Chi Ning's eyes shone brightly, and he gripped the Soul Mirror Blade tightly in one hand. "That's exactly what I was thinking too."
Behind them, the spatial structure of the Mist Soul Severed Realm was quietly undergoing a full-domain displacement and reconstruction, while the ancient tree, resembling a "dream of the Soul Realm," slowly awaited the moment it would be truly touched in the deep misty sky.
Amidst the swirling mist, Qin Yu and Chi Ning slowly flew towards the ancient soul tree suspended in the rift space.
As the distance closed, the originally dreamlike tree shadows gradually materialized, and the houses built layer upon layer on the branches gradually revealed their clear outlines. The eaves were engraved with pale golden soul patterns, like some kind of ancient Soul Pact array, attached to the branches, and their light flowed with the trembling of the leaves.
These houses emitted a faint, warm light, seemingly quiet, yet devoid of any human presence. Only dimly lit lamps hung in mid-air, swaying in the wind, reflecting the eerie, ever-flowing mist around them.
Qin Yu narrowed his eyes, his palm subtly gripping the "Book of Fate Law - Realm Severing Origin Brush," and said in a low voice, "These houses... don't seem like abandoned structures; they're more like some kind of slumbering entity."
Chi Ning nodded, and the aura of Annihilation Origin slowly condensed around him, following closely behind.
When the two were only a hundred feet away from the main trunk of the Soul Tree, suddenly—
Click--!
A soft sound, seemingly suppressed by the passage of time for millennia, echoed eerily from an ancient wooden house in the middle of the Soul Tree.
The sound wasn't loud, but it struck like a blow to the heartstrings, instantly making both of them tense.
Then, in the still, windless silence, the main door of the wooden house slowly opened—
It was as if some long-dormant being had sensed their approach.
The door was not fully open, but only half-closed. A strange, pale silver radiance flowed out from it, spreading like a stream along the branches into the air, outlining an extremely obscure rune circuit in the mist.
The radiance of the soul carried neither oppression nor hostility, yet it was like a pair of watching eyes, silently observing their approach.
"Junior Brother Qin..." Chi Ning's voice was low as his fingertips slowly brushed against the edge of the Soul Blade.
Qin Yu's eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the half-closed wooden door, a thought stirring within him.
This scene wasn't a warning, nor a rejection; it was more like... an invitation.
He said in a low voice, "Is it waiting for us?"
Chi Ning's expression shifted slightly, but she didn't say anything more, simply following closely behind him.
The Soul Tree swayed gently, and the mist billowed like a curtain. The door of the ancient house quietly opened half an inch, as if in the next instant, they would step into another realm... the Soul Dream Realm, which did not belong to this world.