Stainless Consciousness Codex, Annihilation, Star Soul Heart
After the two stepped through layers of radiant waterfalls, the scene before them slowly unfolded—a sacred realm suspended between a sea of stars and a cascading waterfall, like a lost world from mythology. Endless radiance descended from the sky, transforming into countless golden threads that intertwined with the water below to form a curtain of radiant light. The waterfall plunged straight down from the sky into a deep blue spiritual lake, on which an incredible giant tree was reflected.
The colossal tree soared into the sky, its roots penetrating deep beneath the sea of clouds, its branches piercing the starry sky, its golden leaves shimmering with a liquid-like light in the wind. The trunk, majestic as a mountain, was covered in ancient runes, each engraving shimmering with faint starlight, as if whispering ancient language from billions of years ago. At the heart of the tree, a sun-like light source pulsed slowly—the very "Star Soul Heart Meridian" of the Radiant Sacred Tree.
At the base of the giant tree, a sacred realm resembling a royal city was built on a floating island. The city walls were forged from silver-blue ore, flowing with a soft glow. The buildings within the city were layered and connected, like palaces formed from starlight. At the top of each tower hung a shimmering crystal ball, the "Light Record Stone" People of the Radiant Waterfall to record their history and prayers. The entire sacred land was tranquil and holy, yet it carried an indescribable sense of desolation.
Qin Yu before the cliff, gazing at the Radiant Sacred Tree before him, and murmured, "This... is your holy land?"
Yi Fuguang nodded, his voice trembling slightly. "Yes, the Radiant Sacred Tree —the root of my race, and the bridge connecting the People of the Radiant Waterfall to the Astral Plane. In the past, four trees shone together, illuminating the entire sky of the Annihilation Abyss Return Realm. Now, only this Radiant Sacred Tree remains, breathing weakly."
As his words fell, the wind blew down from the treetops, carrying stardust-like specks of light. Qin Yu looked up and saw starlight falling from the sky, scattering like rain, landing in the heart of the lake and turning into layers of ripples. Each drop of light that fell into the water would reveal a phantom face— the Soul Seal of the People of the Radiant Waterfall.
Qin Yu remained silent, his gaze slightly narrowed. He could clearly feel the strange pulse contained within this sacred land—a resonance of both life and death, where life cycled and teetered on the edge of Annihilation.
Yi Fuguang slowly walked to the giant tree, reached out and touched the trunk. In that instant, the entire Radiant Sacred Tree trembled slightly, and tens of thousands of golden leaves fell into the sky, turning into starlight and illuminating their figures.
"My benefactor, can you hear me?" Yi Fuguang whispered.
"This tree is breathing, it is weeping. It remembers the names of all its people, and it remembers their passing. It is waiting, waiting for a destined one to awaken the slumbering Radiant Waterfall Will."
The wind rustled through the leaves, like a whispered chorus. Qin Yu's gaze was deep; he could feel a certain power emanating from the heart of the tree—a vitality that was almost "No Definition," yet carried the aura of decay and impending doom.
"This tree... seems to be bound by some kind of 'time logic'," Qin Yu said slowly. "Its energy cycles, but it can never return to its initial state."
Yi Fuguang's expression was complicated. "You noticed? Yes. The time of the Radiant Sacred Tree has long been locked. From the moment of the 'Annihilation Abyss Light Erosion,' our race has been stripped of its future. All the radiance is repeating the same memory."
Qin Yu looked up and saw countless shards of light shimmering among the branches and leaves of the tree. Each ray of light seemed to be repeating the same fragment—growth, flourishing, withering, regeneration... an endless cycle.
He gripped the Silent Origin Stainless Sword tightly in his hand; the blade trembled slightly, seemingly resonating with the stillness of the world.
"To break this cycle, I'm afraid... we must break the 'definition lock' of this bound."
Yi Fuguang up. "You have a way?"
Qin Yu simply said in a low voice, "I can't guarantee it, but we can try."
The wind rose again, and the light from the leaves of the Radiant Sacred Tree spilled down, covering the lake and the palace like a silent shower of stars.
Above the distant sea of clouds, a dark energy is awakening, and black cracks are quietly extending across the sky, as if some being is watching the revival of the Radiant Sacred Tree.
Qin Yu's gaze sharpened, and his divine sense quietly spread out. In that instant, it seemed that he had captured the light of heaven and earth into his eyes—deep within the roots of the Radiant Sacred Tree, there was a strange energy pulse. That fluctuation was not natural, but rather a mixture of the dual logics of "corruption" and "self-destruction." It was not life breathing, but existence decaying.
"Yi Fuguang," Qin Yu said in a low voice, "What's hidden under this tree?"
Yi Fuguang's expression changed, his face turning ashen. After a long silence, he slowly said, "It is... the Fallen Radiance Spirit."
His voice trembled, as if uttering the name itself was a desecration.
"In the past, Annihilation Abyss Light Erosion erupted, the four souls of the Sacred Tree were corrupted by darkness. One of them transformed into the 'Fallen Radiance Spirit,' which devoured the will of its own kind and fed on radiance. Our people did everything in their power to seal it beneath the tree's roots... That is a taboo for the People of the Radiant Waterfall."
Qin Yu's eyes flickered slightly, and the Silent Origin Stainless Sword trembled gently in his hand, as if sensing some kind of dangerous aura. His tone was calm, yet carried a hint of cold sharpness. "If I'm not mistaken, it has begun to awaken."
Before the words were even finished, the entire world suddenly went dark.
The golden radiance flowing across the Radiant Sacred Tree began to fade little by little; the cascading light flowed upwards, like a reversed galaxy. Qin Yu and Yi Fuguang exchanged a glance, and almost simultaneously leaped into the air, heading straight for the center of the Radiant Sacred Tree.
They passed through layers of light roots, which stretched out in all directions like galaxy streams, soft to the touch yet full of divine power. Each ray of light conveyed a memory, and Qin Yu even saw phantoms flickering between the roots—the birth of the People of the Radiant Waterfall, their prayers, and their demise.
"This tree... is using its own soul to suppress the Fallen Radiance Spirit," Qin Yu murmured, feeling the tearing pain.
"That's right," Yi Fuguang replied softly, "The Radiant Sacred Tree has long since lost its consciousness; it's relying on 'remnants of memory' to maintain the seal. But the other end of the seal... is the Dark Will of the Annihilation Abyss, and it's closing in."
As he spoke, a chilling aura spread upwards from the depths of his veins. That darkness was extraordinary; it was neither demonic energy nor death energy, but a complete "anti-definition energy"—a pure logic that denies life, consciousness, and existence.
A golden light flashed between Qin Yu's brows as he raised his sword and pointed it towards the ground.
The Silent Origin Stainless Sword vibrated, and thousands of runes appeared in the air, like the trajectory of shattered stars.
In the next instant, the sword light pierced through layers of roots and walls, illuminating the abyss.
They saw it—the sealed "Fallen Radiance Spirit".
It was a black, condensed body of light, resembling a flowing liquid nebula, yet filled with countless fragmented, radiant souls struggling within. Countless phantoms of the People of the Radiant Waterfall cried out, burned, and dissipated within it, transforming into jet-black ripples that swirled around it. Its eyes—or rather, those two void-like holes of light—slowly opened, their depths shimmering with a despair that seemed to originate from the very beginning of the universe's demise.
"Radiance... will eventually fade... all star souls will be sacrificed." The voice, like the whispers of millions of dead souls, echoed in Qin Yu and Yi Fuguang's sea of consciousness.
The heavens and earth began to tremble.
Cracks spread across the tree trunk like a spiderweb, and starlight poured down, transforming into a rain of shattered light. Qin Yu's divine sense suddenly expanded, capturing a black, mist-like will slowly approaching from the distant sky at an incredibly fast speed. It was the "Dark Will" he had sensed at the entrance to the Annihilation Abyss.
"They're here," Qin Yu murmured.
Yi Fuguang's face turned deathly pale. "It's searching for the Fallen Radiance Spirit! This will... is an avatar of the Annihilation Abyss Abyssal Overlord!"
Qin Yu raised his hand, spread his five fingers, and the Silent Origin Stainless Sword transformed into Formless Edge at his fingertips.
Since it's here, let it stay completely.
His voice was calm, yet it carried a chilling aura that seemed to pierce the starry sky. The sword trembled slightly, and a wave of Annihilation spread out, suppressing all the surrounding black energy several feet away. The remnants of the Radiant Sacred Tree gathered behind him, like billions of stars flowing into his body, fighting alongside him against the impending darkness.
The distant sky cracked open, and a giant eye made of pure black will slowly opened, spanning the entire sky of the Holy Domain.
At that moment, the leaves of the Radiant Sacred Tree began to fall in droves, like a shower of burning stars; the air of the Annihilation Abyss was torn apart, and space curled and collapsed like paper.
Qin Yu slowly raised his sword.
The pristine brilliance of the Stainless and the abyss of darkness converged in the sky, as if the laws of two universes were colliding head-on at the same moment—light and darkness, existence and negation, life and Annihilation.
The interior of the Sacred Tree was like a universe torn apart by light and darkness. Billions of radiant veins collapsed, roots transformed into rivers of light and fell, and the starlight in the tree's heart seemed to be swallowed up bit by bit by an invisible giant hand. The avatar of the Annihilation Abyss Abyssal Overlord fully manifested, its form defying definition—it resembled both a flowing dark sea and a void that devoured logic. Tens of thousands of faceless figures swirled and wailed around it, each face reflecting annihilated galaxies and deathly silent spacetime.
The moment that aura was released, the entire defensive barrier of the Radiant Sacred Tree shattered instantly. Qin Yu and Yi Fuguang were almost thrown hundreds of feet away, and the space around them collapsed like a shattered mirror. Qin Yu touched the void with his toes, Silent Origin Stainless Sword completely appeared in his hand. The sword was invisible and colorless, yet it caused the vibrations of all the light to resonate.
"The ruler of the Annihilation Abyss... so you've been watching from here all along."
The Dark Will did not respond; its "gaze" fell upon Qin Yu. It was not a gaze, but a kind of "existential rejection," as if refusing to acknowledge Qin Yu as a member of "existence" by the universe. An invisible wave spread out, and the entire space was transformed into a "non-logical domain," where time, causality, narrative, and observation all collapsed into meaningless black mist.
Yi Fuguang almost knelt on the ground, his voice trembling. "This... this is the power of the Annihilation Abyss Abyssal Overlord... it even devoured the very definition of existence...!"
Qin Yu's expression remained unchanged. His robes fluttered in the invisible storm, and the blade of the Silent Origin Stainless Sword suddenly shone with a white light. That white light was not light, but "the negation of light".
"The Causeless Disillusionment Sword —Activate."
Boom--!
In an instant, all worlds fell silent.
Qin Yu raised his sword and slashed down, the blade cleaving the boundary between "existence and Non-Existence." With that single strike, all the causal threads of heaven and earth ignited, the river of time flowed backward into a phantom, and all rules turned to dust, forming an "absolutely No Definition illusory ruin" around him. The sword light pierced through the chest cavity of the Annihilation Abyss Overlord's avatar, shattering the ever-writhing darkness and unleashing annihilation waves of billions.
The Dark Will let out a non-human wail, and the entire internal space of the Holy Tree was instantly swept up by countless collapsing dimensional storms. Each storm carried the power of "existence denial," and even the veins of the Radiant Sacred Tree's leaves were torn into a rain of light. Qin Yu was forced back three steps, his chest heaving, and his sea of consciousness felt as if it had been cleaved by a knife, but his gaze remained as cold and sharp as a sword.
The Annihilation Abyss Overlord's avatar was torn open by this sword, leaving a huge wound. The pitch-black "Anti-Existence Liquid" flowed out of the crack, like the blood of time flowing backward and dissolving into the earth's veins. It did not fall, but instead reformed with a low roar. Thousands of shadowy runes flickered on its body, constructing a new shell.
"Only Book Realm cultivator... actually managed to break through one of my outer shells." The voice seemed to come from millions of dead souls simultaneously, deep, cold, and devoid of emotion.
The veins on Qin Yu's sword-wielding hand bulged, and his aura continued to tremble violently. Although that sword strike had injured his enemy, it had also caused a brief resonance between the Annihilation True Source within him and the Annihilation Abyss Black Qi, as if he were on the verge of collapse.
Yi Fuguang stared in horror at the scene before him, his face illuminated by lightning that mingled with brilliance and darkness. His lips trembled, his throat was dry. "That thing... it's not human, it's not even an object... it doesn't even belong to this realm..."
The Dark Will stretched out once more, its galaxy-like phantom hand tearing open the core space of the Radiant Sacred Tree. Billions of souls wailed, light rained down, and the phantoms of the People of the Radiant Waterfall cried out as they fell through the sky.
Qin Yu looked up, his eyes showing no fear, only a calm, deep light.
"It seems... we'll have to resort to methods other than the sword," he murmured.
As the winds of the Annihilation Abyss swept by, Qin Yu stepped into the collapsing light domain, merging his entire being with the radiant veins of the Sacred Tree. His figure was enveloped in countless golden lights, as if he had transformed into a divine shadow of light. The Silent Origin Stainless Sword was raised once more, and the space around the sword was completely silent, even the sound of the wind was swallowed up by "Absolute No Definition".
Meanwhile, Yi Fuguang could only stand in the distance, trembling, kneeling on the ground, his pupils filled only with that one scene—
Qin Yu alone upheld the boundaries between light and darkness, silence and life, existence and nothingness.
The sacred tree is burning, its radiance is falling, and darkness is spreading.
Qin Yu's figure stood alone and unyielding amidst the billions of starlight and the Annihilation Abyss.
At that moment, the world fell into utter silence. The roots of the Radiant Sacred Tree had been Annihilation Abyss to pieces by the Breath of Annihilation, and starlight floated in the void like ashes from a burnt-out fire. Qin Yu's robes danced without wind, Silent Origin Stainless Sword hung in his palm. The space around the sword was like a shattered mirror, with layers of dimensions folding, collapsing, and folding again. The logic of the entire world was twisted under the edge of his sword.
"Undefined Destruction Sword - Annihilation Form."
He whispered, his voice like cold metal shattering the sky.
In an instant, a rift tore open the entire Annihilation Abyss Sacred Domain. Invisible sword light burst forth from Qin Yu's body, light was not light, shadow was not shadow, the boundaries of heaven and earth, the definition of language, and the connection of cause and effect were all erased. The Milky Way shattered, and spacetime burned into a white storm; even the avatar of the Annihilation Abyss Ruler was blasted back a hundred feet under that light, and a deep, bone-revealing crack was cut into his chest.
Amidst the roar, the crown of the Radiant Sacred Tree collapsed by half an inch, and billions of rays of light rained down, like the tears of the universe.
Qin Yu's steps faltered slightly, and the light of the Silent Origin Stainless Sword began to dim. From the wound of that Dark Will, a despairing energy was flowing out, roaring like a bottomless dead sea.
"This... is not enough."
A golden thread flowed from Qin Yu's brow, reaching the deepest layer of his consciousness. In that instant, he heard the echo of the Wordless Heavenly Book —the will left behind by the Stainless One gently calling from the depths of his soul.
'Silence is knowledge; stillness is the Way.'
Qin Yu's eyes suddenly turned into golden-white empty pupils, his divine sense violently trembled, and a golden flame-like spiritual light rose from between his brows, transforming into the phantom of a Wordless Heavenly Book, which slowly unfurled behind him. Each page was a texture of the origin of the universe, and the words on it burned, disintegrated, and were reborn, and the entire space was covered by the radiance of the heavenly book.
Stainless Consciousness Codex -- Enlightenment.
At this moment, the sounds of heaven and earth were erased, leaving only the "echo of existence."
Qin Yu raised his hand, and the sword and the Heavenly Book merged into one. The Stainless Consciousness flowed around him, like a torrent of stars exploding and breaking through the barrier of cause and effect, condensing into a beam of pure "Undefined Primal Energy light". The sword tip pointed at the core of the Annihilation Abyss Overlord's avatar, and the light pierced through layers of void, peeling away all the dark logic layer by layer.
The colossal dark shadow roared and struggled, its body torn apart by countless cracks, runes flowing backward, dimensions collapsing, and countless fragments of "Non-Existence" falling like stardust. In that instant, the world seemed to turn upside down—darkness and light flashed alternately, like billions of movie shots playing over and over, creating an epic visual spectacle.
Every page of the Stainless Heavenly Book spun rapidly, forming a halo around Qin Yu, while layers upon layers of ancient incantations converged into the sword's edge; the sword light pierced through the chest of the Annihilation Abyss Overlord's avatar, pinning it to the center of the void.
"Annihilation—beyond definition."
As Qin Yu coldly uttered those words, the sounds of the myriad realms suddenly froze. The avatar of the Annihilation Abyss Ruler let out a final roar like the collapse of a starry sea, its body completely exploding into countless fragments. It was not the shattering of flesh and blood, but the end of existence—all the "logical fragments" that constituted it were absorbed, purified, and Annihilation by the Stainless Consciousness Codex, even the possibility of being "recorded" was deleted.
Boom--!
A golden beam of light shot into the sky from the base of the Radiant Sacred Tree, tearing through the darkness of the Annihilation Abyss. At that moment, the tree reignited, countless leaves revived, waterfalls of light cascaded from its branches, and starlight flowed into the heart of the lake, so dazzling that it was impossible to look directly at it.
Qin Yu stood quietly before the tree roots, his sword sheathed, the golden flame between his brows gradually extinguished. The Stainless Heavenly Book slowly closed and returned to his body.
At the base of the sacred tree, a transparent crystal slowly emerged. It was a star core beating like a heart, with endless radiance flowing within it—the "Star Soul Heart Meridian" of the Radiant Sacred Tree had finally awakened.
Yi Fuguang knelt on the ground, tears mingling with his radiance as they streamed down his face. He murmured, "... You really... brought it back to life..."
Qin Yu looked up at the sacred tree, his gaze profound, his voice as calm as the night sky. "No, you brought me here to save it, and I merely... allowed it to breathe again."
In the distance, the dark cracks in the sky were slowly healing, while the light rain from the Radiant Sacred Tree fell like stars, sprinkling the entire Annihilation Abyss Return Realm.