When Space Betrayed Them, Even Light Became a Prisoner

Darkness suddenly collapsed.

It's not the disappearance of light, but the concept of "darkness" itself being swallowed up.

As soon as Qin Yu, Extinguished Light, Ling Liangyan stepped inside, they heard an indescribable sound—like the breaths of millions of people stopping simultaneously, or like their own hearts being crushed inside their bodies.

Heaven and earth have no up or down, no near or far, no light or shadow, only a deep, mirror-like "Sea of Return to the Ruins".

The sea was not flowing, yet it kept sinking, plummeting towards some indescribable depth.

The sea surface shimmered faintly, but that "light" did not illuminate; rather, it swallowed everything.

Every ripple that reflects back is a reflection of the three of them.

But that's not a mirror image; it's the self that has been stripped away.

In every mirror reflection, there is a figure of them.

Qin Yu saw a thousand "selves" in the shimmering water:

Some were still disciples newly arrived at the Eternal Extreme Sacred Hall, while others stood on the battlefield wielding the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword.

Some have been obliterated, leaving only blank humanoid halos.

These shadows had no consciousness, yet they were slowly speaking—

"Who are you?" "What right do you have to still exist?"

"Are you sure this 'I' isn't a definition stolen from another narrative?"

The Extinguished Light surrounding Min Guang began to dim at this moment, and strands of her long, black hair fell loose.

"... This place is devouring our names."

Her voice was low and cold.

But with each word uttered, the void immediately "reclaimed" it.

Before she could finish speaking, the space automatically "erased" what she had said.

Even the echo of words is not allowed to exist.

Ling Liangyan's expression hardened. She raised her hand and plucked the strings with her fingertips, attempting to lock her Spiritual Sense with the "Playing Jiwu Without Strings".

Before the music even began, the string beneath his fingers snapped and turned to ash.

"Even 'speaking out' has become a mistake." She smiled bitterly.

"Even the intention to perform was interpreted as 'I am doing something,' and thus swallowed up by the Return to the Ruins."

Qin Yu closed his eyes at this moment, and the Azure Evolution Core within his body began to vibrate.

The Annihilation Devil Pupil between his brows slowly opened, and demonic flames silently spread out.

The black flames on this layer did not burn; they spread out beneath the feet in an "anti-existent" manner.

--The pure black Return to the Ruins sea finally showed signs of movement.

"I understand," Qin Yu murmured softly.

"This layer... is not meant to destroy us, but to erase our right to have a 'self'."

As the words fell, a massive shadow slowly rose from the center of the Return to the Ruins Sea.

It has no shape, and no boundaries.

It resembles a black cloud formed by countless forgotten "names".

Each black thread was flowing, like endless soul threads, yet entwined with countless shattered true names.

As the shadow fully rose, the sea surface rolled in the opposite direction.

The whole world was twisted into a bottomless vortex.

In the center of the shadows, an eye so enormous it defied description slowly opened—

That was an eye that "looked at everything about oneself".

The pupils contained not light, but a black vortex that devoured names.

My Abyssal Self Lord, Meta-Narrative: The Eternal Return to the Ruins of the Self-Level.

He has no voice, yet he makes all hearts whisper the same thing:

"All beings that are called 'I' should fall into the Return to the Ruins."

Because my very existence is the origin of chaos.

In an instant, Qin Yu's sea of consciousness began to collapse.

He felt his name, titles, and memories being stripped away.

The two characters "Qin Yu" vanished into shards of light in the air;

He tried to recall, but found that the thought of "who I am" had been absorbed by the Return to the Ruins.

Extinguished Light turned to look at him, her eyes gleaming.

She reached out, trying to call his name: "Qin--"

However, her lips moved but no sound came out; the word was lost to time.

The backlash from the radiance caused a trickle of blood to spill from her mouth.

She understood—even remembering each other was forbidden.

Ling Liangyan's body was also trembling slightly.

Her shadow shattered into countless fragments behind her, each one whispering, "I am her... and you..."

Then they devoured each other.

"Damn it, this power of the Return to the Ruins is erasing the 'differences in individual existence'..."

Qin Yu suddenly opened his eyes, Azure Evolution Core erupted.

"Qingyan—Return to Stillness!"

Within the demonic eye between his brows, a ring of pitch-black, Annihilation Demon Flame suddenly exploded.

Flameheart's pupils widened to their Limit once more, and a wisp of reversed light emanated from them.

The halo didn't illuminate anything; instead, it instantly locked the "No Definition" void into a concrete reality.

Extinguished Light reacted immediately, raising his palm and waving it.

"Annihilation Light Judging Lord the Sever and Establish Realm Causes!"

The silent black glow blooms like a galaxy.

She forcibly anchored her fate and Qin Yu's fate on the same line.

At this moment, their existence became each other's definition.

Ling Liangyan followed closely behind, her hair spreading out like thousands of zither strings.

"The Source Guidance of Nothingness!"

The strings of the zither suddenly dropped from behind her, each one connecting to the bottomless sea of Return to the Ruins.

The moment the music began,

The entire space--

A soul-stirring tremor resounded.

That was a silent zither.

The only melody played in a world where "sound is forbidden".

Where the sound waves passed, the sea surface rose in the opposite direction.

Their shadows appeared in every wave— Qin Yu, Extinguished Light, Ling Liangyan—

The three "I"s are rewritten into the existing text.

My Abyssal Self Lord's pupils suddenly contracted.

The Sea of Form churned, and countless Nameless images collapsed together.

He reached out that invisible hand, attempting to erase their ego once again.

A fierce light suddenly surged in Qin Yu's eyes.

"I exist without a name."

"My existence is, in essence, a blank space outside of definition."

He whispered his last words:

"Since the Return to the Ruins denies 'me,' then let 'me' become the Return to the Ruins."

As soon as he finished speaking, the Azure Evolution Core was fully activated.

"Annihilation Refinement - Immeasurable Realm Devouring!"

The black void surged, and the entire Sea of Return to the Ruins was instantly pulled into his brow.

The entire world's self-concept was absorbed into the spiritual core.

The demonic flames swirled, refining the definitions of those infinite "selves" into "No Definition."

Extinguished Light stood beside him, his hands clasped together.

"The Final Radiance Void Law: Fate Image Destruction and Rewriting!"

A radiant glow enveloped the demonic flames, causing the destruction and rebirth of the Return to the Ruins to occur simultaneously.

All is emptiness; only these three remain as the surviving words on this page of the narrative.

Return to the Ruins Sea is still.

The Abyssal Self Lord slowly collapsed.

His last words echoed silently in the void:

"You... will even be questioned about the reason for your 'existence'..."

The world darkened again, but the darkness no longer swallowed everything.

Qin Yu closed his eyes, his breathing gradually stabilizing.

The Annihilation Devil Pupil between his brows slowly closed.

The last wisp of wind Return to the Ruins dissipated into dust.

Extinguished Light said softly, "The seventh level... has finally returned to silence."

Ling Liangyan gathered her disheveled hair and looked up at the gradually unfolding sky in the distance.

Above the sky, a new blank page slowly emerges—

That was the title page of the Eighth Heavenly Prison.

The ink mark on it has not yet been generated, but a blood-red word "Xu" can be faintly trembling.

The heavens and earth collapsed. It wasn't a collapse of mountains and rivers, but a tearing apart of dimensions.

An invisible hum echoed at the boundary of time and space, like a long sigh from the world.

Immediately afterwards, all concepts of "near and far," "up and down," and "front and back" were instantly deleted.

Silver fragments of light rolled up like a reversed galaxy, and billions of transparent walls emerged from the void.

They are without thickness or shadow, yet layer upon layer, locking heaven and earth into a giant cage.

Each layer of the wall shimmered with silvery-white "Void-Breaking Runes," the flashing frequency of which matched a heartbeat perfectly.

With each flicker, the world emitted a crisp sound like fine porcelain shattering.

Space is shrinking at an irreversible rate.

Qin Yu, Extinguished Light, Ling Liangyan stood suspended in the air.

The energy around them was compressed by the spatial walls, resembling ink-stained water droplets.

Each breath was accompanied by a heavy, tearing sensation.

It felt like the universe was rejecting their existence.

The entire space is repelling them.

Her long, Extinguished Light hair floated silently in the weightless void.

She raised her hand, and a beam of shimmering light condensed at her fingertips—

That radiance was like a condensed galaxy, originally capable of cleaving through countless realms.

However, at that moment, the beam of light was only half an inch away from the palm when it was compressed into a thin line by the space.

Violent distortion, fracture, and dissipation. "Space is swallowing itself... even light is collapsing."

Extinguished Light's voice was low and cold, like a breath in the dead silence.

She turned around, the radiance deep within her silver eyes flickering, only to be gradually swallowed up by the approaching transparent wall.

"This... is more than just a lockdown."

Ling Liangyan's voice was like something passing through shattered mirror, so faint it was almost inaudible.

Her hair transformed into ray-like light in the air.

An attempt was made to create a rift in one dimension using the frequency of "Playing Jiwu Without Strings".

But—as soon as the music began, the sound waves were compressed into light dust, and even the space in which they vibrated shattered.

An invisible force pressed down from all directions, crushing her figure inch by inch.

Like a painting that has been folded repeatedly, until only a thin thread remains suspended in the air.

"Space... is folding us in reverse." Qin Yu raised his eyes, his expression cold and stern.

His breathing was extremely slow, and his body was almost squeezed into zero volume.

A flash of demonic flame appeared between his brows, and a pitch-black demonic eye slowly opened.

Moment--

The brightness of the entire world suddenly dropped. Demonic flames rose silently, like a photographic negative of reality burning.

Each wisp of black flame was devouring a layer of spatial barrier.

Every ray of light is being Entering Stillness.

Just then, the heavens and earth trembled violently. A colossal figure composed of billions of spatial mirrors slowly solidified above their heads.

The figure had no physical form; it seemed to be pieced together from "reflections of space."

Each layer of His body is transparent and without thickness, yet infinitely expansive.

Each flash causes the surrounding spatial barriers to collapse and then reform.

He opened his eyes—two pupils composed of countless fragments of dimensions.

Each rotation caused the surrounding reality to resonate with a "hum--" sound.

--Boundless Realm Severed Space Barrier, Realm-Shrinking Lord. Its appearance caused the entire world to collapse silently.

Heaven and earth merged into one, and all energy, laws, sound waves, and particles were forced to stand still.

It made no sound, but Qin Yu and the other two simultaneously heard a thought roaring in their minds:

Space is invariable. Existence does not presume to possess volume.

The next second--

Boom!!! Billions of layers of transparent walls suddenly pressed down, as if the entire world had been plunged into a glass dome of a black hole.

Each squeeze produced a deafening sound of metal cracking.

The sound was like trillions of mountains collapsing simultaneously.

The air turned into fragments, the light turned into fragments, and they themselves turned into fragments.

Qin Yu roared, "The Book of Fate Law - Abyss Explosion Ring Activation - The Fate Resolution Singularity!"

The Book of Fate Law unfolded from his palm, its pages spinning like star rings.

Energy chains are formed between the rings, locking the center of space.

The Azure Evolution Core ignited simultaneously, and the Demon Eye emitted a beam of jet-black light.

A beam of light pierced through the walls of the space.

The light didn't explode, but it melted the walls of space like a solvent.

The transparent world was torn apart layer by layer, revealing deep cracks.

"Extinguished Light —now!" Extinguished Light raised his hand, and the Final Radiance Giant Wheel suddenly appeared.

That is the judgment of light over all realms.

Countless black and gold halos spread out from behind her, like a falling galaxy.

She whispered, "The Final Radiance Extinguishes Evolution, the Silent Light Wheel Opening!" The silent wheel of light unfolded.

Amidst the interplay of the silvery-white spatial walls and the black light of demonic flames,

It burst forth with a third color—a radiance that even the word "color" cannot describe.

Wherever the annihilating light passed, all the transparent walls turned into dust, and the entire prison space collapsed with a deafening roar.

Countless shattered dimensional fragments fell like a meteor shower.

Ling Liangyan closed her eyes and plucked the strings with both hands. "Jiwu String - Realm-Tuning Reverse Melody!" Her music pierced through the shattered space.

Each vibration brings forth visible energy ripples.

The sound waves stabilized the impact between the demonic flames and the light wheel at a resonant frequency.

The three forces finally merged at this moment.

At the boundary between the sonic boom and the flame,

A new space core is slowly taking shape.

Boom! The world trembled violently, the heavens and earth were torn into billions of fragments, and the transparent cage shattered completely.

The Realm-Shrinking Lord let out a piercing roar; its body split, collapsed, and imploded like a mirror.

Each shard of mirror transformed into a spatial rift, scattering around them.

Qin Yu reached out, and the demonic flames surged like a reversed river, completely engulfing the cracks.

Annihilation wind swept across the land, turning the sky into a vast black curtain, erasing light and silencing sound.

Only a deep rumble echoed in the endless void.

When everything returned to calm, the wind billowed up the hem of Extinguished Light robes.

Her long, jet-black hair shimmered slightly in the starlight. "Space... has finally yielded."

Qin Yu slowly put away the Book of Fate Law, his expression calm.

The demonic flames between his brows gradually died down. "Space is not a cage; it simply hasn't learned how to contain 'us' yet."

Ling Liangyan smiled slightly, her black hair cascading down. "It seems you can even rewrite the Boundless Realm."

The three people stood with their backs to the collapsed space, and the fragments beneath their feet slowly healed into a new horizon.

Yet in the distance, at the edge of the sky, a blood-red "Narrative Fragment" slowly unfolds.