Deep within the desolate wasteland, the core of the seal hangs silently in mid-air. It is a massive prism, its surface covered with runes and cracks left over from billions of years ago, emitting a chilling, iridescent light. It seems to breathe; with each pulse, it stirs the patterns of heaven and earth, causing the void to rumble.
Qin Yu slowly stepped out of the shadows, his Qingyi robes fluttering in the wind. Above the dilapidated altar, his gaze was fixed on the nuclear crystal.
Up close, he could clearly see scenes that did not belong to this world flowing within the crystal:
An ancient beast roared, but its form was torn to shreds;
Countless cultivators vanished in the afterimages of time and space;
There was also a pair of eyes, faintly visible, seemingly looking down coldly at everything through the crystal wall.
The Azure Ring vibrated gently in his sea of consciousness, its voice cold and stern. "Little Qinzi... the power here far surpasses the realms of the Only Book Realm and the Chaos Realm. That core crystal is the core of the seal; once it's triggered, the entire middle layer will be alerted."
Qin Yu stood rooted to the spot, his gaze solemn, the Azure Evolution Core shimmering slightly between his brows. He could sense a call emanating from the depths of the core crystal, like the whisper of a sealed being, or the sigh of time itself.
The air was so still that even a heartbeat seemed amplified infinitely.
When Qin Yu's fingertips gently touched the halo of the core crystal, the silent power of the Azure Ring naturally overflowed, creating a brief resonance with the ancient restriction. In an instant, his vision went black, followed by a deafening roar as he was swept into an unprecedented illusion.
This is the Source of Epochless · Middle Layer back hundreds of millions of years.
The entire sky cracked open, countless dimensions overlapped, and it tilted and collapsed like a shattered mirror. That was the "earliest era of turmoil in the middle layer," when all paths were unleashed and billions of races emerged together.
Mountains turned into seas of blood, stars fell like rain, and the figures of ancient Dao Ancestor, True Immortal Great Emperor, and Transdimensional Heavenly Emperor clashed continuously in the sky. Every strike was enough to destroy a realm, and every collision of laws shattered spacetime into countless fragments.
Colossal beasts roared, and hordes of dark creatures emerged, their backs Realm Splitting wings that ripped through dimensions; meanwhile, cultivators of the human, God Clan, and soul races activated their innate dharma forms, their enormous divine soul phantoms spanning heaven and earth, using flesh and blood to resist the calamity.
Qin Yu saw only powerful figures—
Someone wielded a galaxy spear, piercing through the void with a single strike, only to be instantly swallowed up by the chaotic black current.
Someone carried billions of books of light, their pages transforming into the heavens, inscribing the rules of the universe, only to be burned to ashes by Nameless flames.
Countless beings disappeared in the reverse flow of cause and effect before they even had a chance to utter their names, as if they had never existed.
The world was filled with tragic war songs and wails.
Most shockingly, at the heart of this chaos, appeared "that group of strange beings." Their bodies were a combination of metal and phantoms, their eyes devoid of emotion, only flashing with cold, logical symbols. Their appearance immediately threw the war between the various races into further disarray.
Qin Yu felt a tightness in his chest; those figures perfectly matched what Elder Meng Qing had described as the "sealed race" in his memory.
Deep within the illusion, a supreme being clad in a grey robe slowly made his move. His hands seemed to tear through the veil of time, forcibly suppressing the strange beings and dragging them into a prison woven from light and chaos.
The heavens and earth trembled, and the blood and tears of countless cultivators brought about a brief period of order in the middle levels.
This was the most devastating battle in the Source of Epochless · Middle Layer, and the lamentations and tears of all races converged into an epic that cannot be forgotten.
The illusion shattered with a crash, and Qin Yu abruptly opened his eyes, breathing rapidly, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
Azure Ring whispered in her mind, "What you saw was the origin of the seal. That battle was enough to bury countless eras."
Just before the illusion shattered, Qin Yu's eyes suddenly trembled.
In the center of the battlefield, where blood and fire had raged for billions of years, besides the gray-robed powerhouse, he saw an extremely blurry figure.
The figure stood in the spacetime rift, half-hidden in the gap between chaos and nothingness. He had no physical form, nor was he a mere phantom; rather, he was like the "primordial energy" before the separation of heaven and earth, his aura so blurred that no logic of existence could pinpoint him.
But in that one glance, Qin Yu felt a familiar sense of oppression rising in his heart.
"It's him..." Qin Yu murmured to himself.
Indeed, the aura of that mysterious figure from the Chaos Realm who was severely injured by the backlash before the seal was sealed and then disappeared into the void was almost completely identical.
In the illusion, the blurry figure did not engage in battle with other races, but coldly watched the battlefield. A ruthless light flashed in his eyes, like an observer, quietly waiting for all living beings to be slaughtered.
Only when the gray-robed powerhouse unleashed the suppression and sealing technique did the figure move slightly, a cold smile seemingly curling at the corner of its mouth. Then, it stepped into the depths of nothingness and vanished without a trace.
This scene was deeply imprinted in Qin Yu's mind.
The illusion dissipated, and the world returned to deathly silence. Qin Yu stood alone before the sealed core crystal, his heart feeling as if a massive boulder was pressing down on it.
Azure Ring whispered a reminder: "He might not be the one sealed away, but a witness. If it is truly the same person, then... he already existed in the battlefield billions of years ago, yet he still walks the earth today."
Qin Yu frowned and uttered four words: "Undying and indestructible?"
In that instant, he understood—this exploration of the sealed land was not merely about uncovering ancient history, but about unearthing a terrifying being that had existed for billions of years and was still alive.
Qin Yu took a deep breath, his gaze falling once more on the sealed core crystal, his mind filled with countless questions.
But Azure Ring's aura trembled slightly in my sea of consciousness, carrying a hint of coldness as a warning:
"If we touch it any further, it will completely lock onto us. It has already responded to you. If we forcefully probe deeper, not only will the sealing power be affected, but even the surviving figure will likely sense it."
A resolute glint flashed in Qin Yu's eyes, but he ultimately suppressed the urge to continue exploring.
He concealed his aura, lightly flicked his sleeve, and turned to leave.
When he stepped out of the sealed wasteland, the desolate world seemed to return to its original silence, as if he had never set foot there before.
A moment later, Qin Yu's figure flashed, disappearing into the void and arriving at another region.
This is the second forbidden zone extending from the outer edge of the seal—a pitch-black bone plain.
Billions of skeletons piled up, forming mountains that exuded a chilling aura. Most of the skeletons were incomplete; some had six wings on their backs, suggesting Ancient God Clan; some were as large as mountains, radiating the pressure of ferocious beasts; and others had remnants of runes on their heads, suggesting they were once powerful beings who wrote destiny.
The energy of heaven and earth here is no longer the deathly stillness of the wasteland, but is filled with distortion and howling. It seems that in every piece of white bone, there is still the obsession of its owner.
When Qin Yu stepped onto this place, the bones beneath his feet trembled slightly, as if invisible eyes were watching him.
Qin Yu felt a chill run down his spine and continued deeper into the Bone Plains.
The bone plains stretched endlessly, with layers of white bones piled up to the sky, like a world paved with death.
Qin Yu walked deeper into the area, surrounded by Silent Void, broken only by the cracking sound of bones beneath his feet. But as he continued forward, the sounds from the bones began to change—
Even though it was just a light step, it produced a dull echo like a heartbeat, "Thump... thump... thump..." as if the entire Bone Plains shared a common heart.
Suddenly, a cold wind swept by.
The wind carried a low murmur, not language, but the pain and obsession left behind by countless fragmented souls Time Splitting, countless fragmented consciousnesses overlapping into a terrifying chorus:
"Give me back... my Dao Foundation..."
"Give me back... my destiny..."
"Wei Ji... shouldn't have..."
The sound came in layers, seemingly from both Qin Yu's ears and the depths of his consciousness, making it impossible to distinguish whether it was an external object or a demon within his heart.
The next instant, the white bones beneath their feet trembled violently.
Those stark white skeletons twisted and pieced together before Qin Yu's eyes, forming "Bone Spirit." They had no flesh or blood, no soul, only empty eye sockets filled with burning gray-black flames.
Even more bizarrely, their forms were all fragmented:
Some were missing half a skull, and their bones cracked and popped when they walked;
Some arms were misaligned, with elbows bent backwards, yet they could still lift broken weapons;
Some Bone Spirit even have their entire lower body made of animal bones, while their upper body is made of human bones, a bizarre combination.
They all turned towards Qin Yu in silence, as if driven by some irresistible obsession.
The air suddenly turned cold, and Qin Yu's chest sank. The Azure Ring trembled slightly. "Be careful—these are not ordinary remnant souls; they are projections of obsessions trapped here by seals and restrictions. Each Bone Spirit once corresponded to an existence at the Annihilation Dawn Realm or higher."
Before he could finish speaking, the Bone Spirit let out a hollow roar. The sound did not come from their throats, but from the grating sound of bones grinding together, yet it pierced straight into Qin Yu's mind, causing countless fragmented images to flash before his eyes.
The entire Bone Plains seemed to come alive instantly, with billions of white bones twisting and surging towards Qin Yu like a tide, forcing him into a desperate situation woven from death.
Countless Bone Spirit surged forth from the desolate bone plain, like a white ocean, their howls piercing the sea of consciousness.
Qin Yu stood in the center, his eyes cold and sharp. The Azure Evolution Core between his brows flashed slightly, and the Azure Ring hummed in his sea of consciousness.
He slowly raised his right hand, and a deep, dark light condensed at his fingertips.
"--Silent Origin · Boundless Ashes!"
Boom!!!
In an instant, the world suddenly lost its color.
The colors of the entire Bone Plains seemed to have been forcibly stripped away, leaving only black and white. Then, a black flame of annihilation spread out from Qin Yu's body, transforming into an endless sea of fire that swept across the entire field of vision.
Amidst the black flames, countless grayish-white fragments of light, like shattered pieces of spacetime, spun rapidly, as if trying to incinerate existence itself.
The Bone Spirit froze in the sea of fire.
The gray-black flames in their eye sockets were instantly extinguished, and their bones crumbled piece by piece, first cracking all over, then shattering with a "crack" into white dust, which was then swallowed by the black flames.
At this moment, the entire Bone Plains resembled a burning sand painting.
The screams of countless skeletons merged into a single shriek, then abruptly ceased. Countless Bone Spirit turned to ashes in the black flames, the void trembled, and the ripples of Annihilation completely silenced the clamor of heaven and earth.
From a distance, Qin Yu stood in the center of the sea of fire, surrounded by an endless sea of Annihilation. The flames surged like a galaxy, reflecting his proud figure, his silhouette resembling a deity of Annihilation who had traversed the ages.
As the final echo of bones shattering faded, silence returned to the heavens and earth. The Bone Plains were devoid of any life, with only black ash slowly drifting down, like the Ultimate curtain falling on a tragic song that had lasted for billions of years.
Qin Yu narrowed his eyes slightly, withdrew the Annihilation Black Flame, but his heart grew even more solemn.
If this is merely Illusory Spirits remnant of the outer seal, then what kind of terror lies truly deep within?
The scattering of ashes gradually subsided, but as Qin Yu continued forward, a low rumbling sound suddenly came from afar. It was neither thunder nor a landslide, but the heavy footsteps of some enormous thing dragging iron chains and crushing the earth.
Qin Yu's gaze sharpened, and he saw two figures appear under the sky in front of him.
Those were two giants, each a hundred feet tall!
Their bodies were completely twisted, their flesh long since rotting, their skin displaying a bizarre texture of charred black and grayish-white, with exposed veins that seemed ready to burst at any moment. Their heads had no complete faces, only empty black holes that emitted a deathly, eerie light.
They walked side by side, their arms as thick as mountains, each hand gripping a heavy chain.
At the other end of the chain, a black, ancient coffin-like chariot was being dragged along. The chariot's surface was covered with runic cracks, from which dark red light constantly seeped out, as if some extremely dangerous being was imprisoned inside, ready to break free of its restraints at any moment.
As they moved forward, the earth trembled violently, and the ancient stone path crumbled inch by inch. Every step was accompanied by a deep rumble from the earth's veins, as if announcing the world's lament.
What is most unsettling is that their seemingly slow steps contain an irresistible, rhythmic pattern. That rhythm subtly resonates with the pulse of heaven and earth, as if they are not merely walking, but rather rewriting the "rhythm" of the earth and the void with their very existence.
Qin Yu's heart sank suddenly.
Azure Ring's cold voice emerged. "Those are not ordinary giants; they must be one of the strange races sealed away back then. They are not living beings, but 'Epoch Sin Soldiers.' Each one bears the Mieyin of countless realms, their bodies forged from flesh and blood, forever driven to guard and suppress the seal."
In Qin Yu's vision, the two giants slowly raised their empty eye sockets, a dim light flashing as if they sensed his presence.
The air suddenly turned cold, the wind stopped, and the world fell silent instantly.
The giant abruptly stopped, the chains rattling as if from an abyss, making Qin Yu's heart clench.
It was as if this desolate world was about to embark on a terrifying new chapter because of him.