As they returned to the Eternal Extreme Sacred Hall, the setting sun cast its rays across the sky, and the spirit array surrounding the Radiant Cosmos Star Hall trembled gently. Chi Ning looked slightly tired, but her spirits were high due to the awakening of her butterfly soul. Before bidding farewell to Qin Yu, she softly instructed, "Senior Brother Qin, get some rest. You've worked hard these past few days too."
Qin Yu smiled and nodded, watching her figure disappear into the distance.
However, as he turned and entered the inner hall of the Radiant Cosmos Star Hall, his eyes suddenly narrowed.
On his way back, his senses briefly caught a familiar yet unfamiliar scent.
That aura belonged to Lin Jiesheng.
Unlike his usual indifferent and cold demeanor, his aura now carried a gloomy and restless quality, even bearing traces of bloody karma. Qin Yu keenly sensed that this was not the kind of fluctuation left behind by ordinary cultivation.
He didn't tell Chi Ning.
She had just completed her martial soul awakening, and her state of mind was not yet fully stable; he did not want her to worry.
At this moment, Qin Yu sat quietly on the stone platform Radiant Cosmos Star Hall, his fingertips slowly stroking the scabbard of the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword.
The sword's edge seemed to hum softly in the darkness, as if it too sensed some hidden danger.
Qin Yu's eyes were deep, his thoughts cold:
"Lin Jiesheng, what are you hiding? If you are truly connected with the Chen Clan, I must find out the truth first."
Before he finished speaking, his figure transformed into a streak of light and vanished silently from the Radiant Cosmos Star Hall, disappearing into the void and returning to the area where the Lin Jiesheng force still lingered.
Night fell, and the starlight was cold and lonely.
Qin Yu stepped into the gloomy wasteland alone, his aura concealed to the Ultimate, with only the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword slowly trembling in his sea of consciousness, as if foreshadowing an unknown undercurrent that was about to be revealed.
Qin Yu stepped into that area.
This is a desolate Shi Lin, with jagged cliffs covered in ancient cracks. The wind howls, stirring up cold, damp dust, faintly carrying the smell of blood.
He completely concealed his presence, hiding behind a boulder, silent as a shadow.
A moment later, deep footsteps echoed from the depths of the void.
A figure slowly appeared; it was Lin Jiesheng.
At this moment, his face was gloomy and his eyes were cold, completely different from his usual gentle demeanor in the temple.
Opposite him, a thin crack suddenly appeared in the void, and a mysterious figure draped in black robes emerged from the rift. The figure seemed shrouded in mist, making it impossible to see the face clearly, except for a pair of cold, piercing eyes that seemed to see through all cause and effect.
The two stood facing each other, their voices extremely low, yet they carried clearly through the deathly silent Shi Lin.
Lin Jiesheng, "I've already gathered some of the information the Chen Clan wants. But Qin Yu is back, so you'd better not make any rash moves."
The mysterious figure chuckled, his voice like the grinding of sand. "Heh... the Nine-Wheel True Evolution Dharma Wheel are destined not to remain in the Holy Temple for long. If he lives, he will only be an obstacle. All you want is an opportunity, and we will clear it away for you."
Lin Jiesheng frowned, a glint of greed and ruthlessness flashing in his eyes. He said in a deep voice, "If we can really get rid of him, then that Butterfly Soul Woman will have no one to protect her. At that time, she..."
The mysterious figure waved his hand to interrupt, and a hand emerged from the black mist, with an ancient rune appearing in its palm.
The runes flowed with crimson light, their patterns seemingly writhing, like a lurking eye.
"This is a 'Blood Pact Talisman' personally bestowed by Chen Xintong. It can sense Qin Yu's whereabouts. Given the right opportunity, you will naturally obtain what you desire."
Lin Jiesheng's gaze was burning, his breathing rapid, and he finally reached out to take the rune. The crimson color instantly seeped into his palm, as if imprinting some kind of contract.
Amidst the Shi Lin, the atmosphere became chaotic, and a chilling killing intent filled the air.
Qin Yu, hidden in the shadows, lightly stroked the blade of his sword with his fingertips, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.
"Lin Jiesheng, you have indeed fallen."
After putting away the Blood Pact Talisman, Lin Jiesheng's face turned grim. With a flicker, he quickly disappeared into the darkness of the Shi Lin.
The mysterious man in black robes did not leave immediately. Instead, as if confirming something, his gaze slowly swept over the surroundings, then he murmured to himself:
"Nine-Wheel True Evolution... The Eternal Extreme Sacred Hall will eventually descend into chaos."
Having said that, he raised his hand and tore open a crack in the void. Blood-red mist flowed through the crack, resembling another alien realm.
He flashed into the crevice and vanished without a trace.
Qin Yu's gaze sharpened. Within his sea of consciousness, the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword and the Book of Fate Law trembled slightly, as if reminding him: the path this person had taken was not an ordinary spatial rift, but some kind of ancient forbidden path.
"Trying to escape? Not so easy."
Qin Yu's expression was cold and stern. His figure transformed into a wisp of annihilating light and quietly followed him in.
The moment they stepped into the crevice, the world changed drastically.
He entered a pitch-black world of blood mist, with fragments of a shattered continent beneath his feet, floating on an endless river of blood. Every drop of blood seemed to carry the whispers of countless souls, making one's mind tremble with oppression.
Ahead, the mysterious figure in black was moving slowly forward, seemingly completely unaware that someone was following him.
His robes swayed with the blood mist, and with each step he took, a crimson ripple spread across the river of blood.
Qin Yu followed silently hundreds of feet away, his aura extremely concealed, even the causal fluctuations in the void were shielded by the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword.
After walking for an unknown amount of time, the man in black finally stopped.
He raised his hands and chanted softly, and an ancient, blood-red altar slowly emerged in the center of the blood river. The altar was clearly engraved with the secret runes of the Chen Clan!
At the heart of the altar, a blood-red shadow pierced by chains slowly raised its head, its eyes empty and cold, as if an ancient, slumbering being was being awakened.
Qin Yu's eyes narrowed sharply, his mind racing:
"The Chen Clan... is actually secretly colluding with such a being?"
The crimson altar trembled violently, and the chains binding it shook incessantly in the black mist. The blood-red figure pierced by the chains finally raised its head slowly at the mysterious figure's summons.
A deep, Ultimate roar emanated from its chest, like an ancient echo spanning billions of years, shaking the entire river of blood to its core.
"... I... am not dead yet..."
The sound roared like thunder, each word carrying a bloodthirsty madness that caused cracks to appear in the void. Around the altar, the sea of blood-red mist suddenly churned, and faintly, the phantom of a divine beast that blotted out the sky emerged from the blood mist.
Its shape resembles a dragon but is not a dragon, resembles a Kun but is not a Kun, and its body is covered with countless scarlet cracks, each crack oozing an endless fountain of blood.
When his eyes opened, they resembled two blood-red stars, illuminating the heavens and earth while bringing with them Ultimate destruction and madness.
Even from hundreds of feet away, Qin Yu's heart involuntarily tightened. It wasn't a simple illusion, but rather an "instinctive reflection" of the divine beast's true form after it was suppressed by the restriction.
The mysterious man in black knelt before the Blood River Altar and respectfully said:
"Ancient God - Bloodthirsty Aohuang Great Sovereign. The Chen Clan hereby swears a supreme blood oath, offering the blood and souls of all races as sacrifice, only praying that the Sovereign awakens and returns to the mortal realm!"
As he shouted, the Chen Clan's secret runes on the altar instantly lit up, transforming into billions of streaks of blood-red light that frantically flowed into the body of the phantom of the Aohuang.
The divine beast, bound by chains, gradually brightened its eyes, its blood-red pupils shooting straight into the void as if gazing upon countless beings. It let out a low roar, and the blood mist world instantly trembled violently, as if the entire Source of Epochless · Middle Layer was about to shake.
"Very good... Chen Clan... you haven't forgotten me after all..."
At that moment, Qin Yu understood completely.
The Chen Clan is not only greedy for power, but also wants to unseal the Aohuang Divine Beast, the Aohuang, and use its bloodthirsty power to wreak havoc on the human world, thereby overturning the order of the entire Source of Epochless · Middle Layer!
He slowly pressed his fingers onto the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword, his eyes cold, and thought to himself:
"If it were truly released, it would surely cause a mid-level catastrophe."
The Blood River Altar roared to its peak as the black-robed mystery man lifted the crystal core that Lin Jiesheng had handed over and forcefully pressed it into the center of the altar.
In an instant, all the Chen Clan secret patterns on the altar seemed to come alive, burning into countless scarlet blood chains that frantically tore through space, ripping apart the restrictions that had been suppressed for billions of years.
"Boom--!"
With a final, deafening roar, the river of blood exploded into a raging torrent, and the altar collapsed completely.
From the deepest part of the Blood River, an enormous figure slowly emerged.
That was an Aohuang Divine Beast —an ancient being suppressed in the Blood Mist Abyss millions of years ago.
Its form transcends the logic of all living beings:
Its body was so enormous that it seemed to be pieced together from the bones of countless stars, with shimmering light that was both real and illusory shimmering between its flesh and blood.
Its entire body was covered in cracks, each crack seeping out a scarlet mist, as if it were formed from the millions of dead souls accumulated on an endless battlefield.
Its limbs dragged shattered chains of cause and effect, still bearing traces of the seals left by the ancient suppressing power, but the chains were broken, turning into nothingness iron filings that drifted into the river of blood.
When its eyes open, the pupils are deep and cold, not gazing, but devouring. It's as if anything it stares at will be "deleted" from the inevitable universe.
When it exhaled its first breath, the entire world of blood mist twisted and contorted.
Space fractured, reality and illusion alternated, and the fragments of the continent beneath their feet instantly dissolved into nothingness, only to solidify into bloodstone in the next moment.
Time seemed to be torn apart. In Qin Yu's vision, the blood waves moved at different speeds, some even completely still, while others disintegrated rapidly as if they had been fast-forwarded a million times.
The laws collapsed on their own, and all things lost their cause and effect. Even Qin Yu's sea of consciousness experienced a moment of blankness, as if his definition of existence had been removed for a moment.
This is an aura approaching that of the [Void Emanation Realm].
The Void Emanation Realm – neither existence nor non-existence, where the real and the illusory blend, and the flow of existence ceases at the formless.
The aura of the Aohuang Divine Beast was a manifestation of this terror. It wasn't standing there, but rather "both present and absent." Its form was sometimes as vast as an endless galaxy, and sometimes as faint as a phantom in the wind, making it impossible for Qin Yu to pinpoint its unique shape.
When its roar resounded, the entire Blood River world collapsed:
"I... have finally... returned!"
The sound wasn't just deafening; it blasted directly into his consciousness, shattering his thoughts. Qin Yu felt as if all his ideas had been cut off, as if he had fallen into an abyss of despair.
At that moment, he truly understood for the first time—
The Aohuang is not merely a divine beast, but the embodiment of "Void Evolution," a bloodthirsty ancient god approaching the Void Emanation Realm. Boom--!
As the Aohuang Divine Beast broke free of its seal, it roared to the sky, its voice booming like a million war drums, causing the blood river to boil instantly. It was not a simple roar, but the echo of the Flow of Void Emanation —the interplay of reality and illusion caused time, space, cause and effect, and existence to completely lose their balance in an instant.
Its massive body suddenly stretched out, its wings spreading out like a blood-red continent, spanning the heavens and the earth. In the blink of an eye, the remaining altar, the collapsed fragments of the continent, and even the spatial barrier of the entire Blood River World were directly torn into fragments of illusion and reality, as if the universe had never constructed these substances and rules.
That strike seemed to erase the very definition of the world's existence.
Qin Yu watched from afar, and his chest tightened. Even though he held the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword and was circulating the Nine-Wheel True Evolution Dharma Wheel, he felt an almost suffocating pressure for the first time.
This is an existence approaching the [Void Emanation Realm], the source of terror in the middle level of chaos.
Blood surged and the earth shook.
However, amidst the chaos, the mysterious man in black robes suddenly collapsed to the ground, his hands plunging deep into the muddy river of blood, his forehead slamming against the broken bloodstone.
His voice was hoarse, yet full of fervor:
"Bloodthirsty and Aohuang Great Lord, you have finally returned! The blood of the Chen Clan will forever burn for you! Take us as your vessel, and once again rule the Source of Epochless!"
As he shouted, the shadows of the dead in the surrounding blood river turned into blood light and willingly plunged into the cracks in the scales of the Aohuang Divine Beast, where they were devoured.
The Aohuang Divine Beast lowered its head, its eyes sweeping over the mysterious figure worshipping on the ground, its gaze like a blood-red judgment. It did not speak, only a low, sneer echoed among the blood mist, as if it were both indifferent to these "worshippers" and bloodthirstyly satisfied.
Qin Yu stood holding his breath, his mind racing:
"The Chen Clan... actually willingly released this ancient monster to wreak havoc in the middle ranks."
The oppressive aura of the Aohuang Divine Beast had already shaken the entire void outside the Blood River World, as if it would Time Splitting barrier and return to the Source of Epochless · Middle Layer with its next move!