Outside.
Above Azure Heaven, in the Chaotic Emptiness.
Below, two figures were ascending through the heavens.
Beneath their feet, Great Dao Heavenly Pillars burst thunderously out of the void, like pillars supporting the sky, like stairs laid by heaven and earth, extending step by step toward the end of the boundless firmament. With each footfall, a pillar shuddered for a breath, its dao patterns flowing like an ancient heartbeat, deep and powerful.
Heaven and earth grew distant.
The end of the great dao drew near.
That was the Azure Heaven Forbidden Land, where the heavenly dao had fallen.
By all rights, this place should have lain in eternal deathly silence, a realm of utter annihilation where not even emptiness remained-yet an Immortal Tree stood here.
Vast, boundless; no words could measure its canopy, no gaze could encompass its roots.
It held firm like that, supporting a firmament that should have collapsed utterly, sustaining the last thread of life in a heavenly dao that should have perished billions of years ago.
Something ancient and warm flowed silently among its branches and leaves, transforming this deathland, which should have been cold beyond measure, into a frozen eternity.
Time stood still, neither advancing nor retreating.
Every horror, every manifestation, had frozen in the final instant before the heavenly dao's extinction, like a painted scroll abruptly pinned beneath some divine hand, cracked but not shattered, collapsing but not dispersed. It hung there, suspended for who knew how many eras.
And cracks riddled the Chaotic Emptiness.
It was as though billions of starry rivers had shattered with a thunderous crash, only to be forcibly nailed in place.
Those cracks crisscrossed one another, deep and dark, each like an old wound left when heaven and earth were first cleaved open, broad enough to swallow countless star