Chapter 100 - 99: Re-planning

Chapter 100: Chapter 99: Re-planning

BOOM!

Another earth crushing pressure descended around him as Chen Yuan groaned in pain.

The next realm?

For a moment, Chen Yuan’s thoughts stalled.

He’s trying to get a glimpse to the next realm?

And as that realization settled in his mind, the corners of his mouth slowly began to rise.

At first, it was no more than a faint twitch beneath the cracked mask.

Then, despite the crushing force pinning him to the earth, a low laugh escaped his throat.

"Heh..."

His shoulders trembled.

The sound grew louder, becoming an increasingly unrestrained laugh that echoed through the ruined mountainside.

"Hahaahah!"

Chen Yuan laughed like a maniac, his voice resounding across the place.

The old voice fell silent.

At the same time, darkness began to emerge around Chen Yuan’s right hand.

The earth groaned.

Cracks appeared beneath his palm, and the darkness crept into them, swallowing the faint light that shone through the broken stones.

Chen Yuan raised his head with considerable difficulty. Blood ran down his chin, and his body continued to tremble beneath the pressure, yet his laughter did not cease.

"The next realm?"

His voice carried a strange mixture of mockery and pity.

"There’s no such thing as the next realm!"

For the first time, the old voice responded with something other than disdain.

"What did you say?"

Beneath the anger in those words lay something resembling fear, as though the old monster suspected that Chen Yuan’s words might be true, yet refused to acknowledge the possibility.

Chen Yuan’s smile widened as he noticed the faint shift in the old voice.

’The royal family knew!’

’No... This old monster himself knew it too!’

Then...

"The heavens are broken!" he declared, forcing the words out between strained breaths. "There is no room for you to grow!"

BOOM!

The pressure descended again.

The entire mountainside sank as though struck by an invisible hammer.

Rocks shattered into powder, and the crater beneath Chen Yuan’s body widened until its edges crumbled away. His vision blurred, and a fresh mouthful of blood spilled from his lips.

"Bold!"

The old voice thundered across the mountains.

Yet the darkness around Chen Yuan’s right hand continued to spread.

It crept over his wrist, then along his forearm, resisting the immense force pressing down upon him.

The surrounding space began to distort faintly, and the ground beneath his hand trembled.

Chen Yuan’s expression grew increasingly strained. Maintaining the darkness required an extraordinary amount of effort, and the pressure was rapidly pushing his body toward its limit.

Even so, he continued speaking.

"Only her... only that child can unlock the deepest part of that place..."

BOOM!

"Nonsense!"

The old voice had grown angrier, and the force bearing down upon Chen Yuan became almost unbearable.

His body sank another inch into the earth, his bones breaking apart, groaning under the strain as blood seeped from beneath his mask.

"You dare spout such nonsense before me? Do you think a few baseless words will save your life?"

"Hahahaha!"

Chen Yuan laughed again.

It was an ugly, strained sound, interrupted by the groans of the collapsing earth and the blood choking his throat.

Yet there was no longer any attempt to hide the mockery in his voice.

"You old fool! Do you know why we strayed from the light in the first place?"

The darkness surged around his right hand.

"Because the path had already been cut off!"

For a brief moment, the old voice said nothing.

Then—

"DIE!"

The pressure began to intensify once more.

Chen Yuan knew he could not withstand another direct increase.

His body was already approaching its limit, and if he waited until the force reached him, there would be nothing left to save.

So he acted.

With a roar, he forcibly raised his right hand.

Crack!

The sound came from his own body.

His arm trembled violently as he lifted it against the invisible force, and blood burst from the skin along his fingers.

Fine fractures spread across his wrist, while the bones within his forearm creaked as though they might splinter at any moment.

The pain was immense.

Chen Yuan felt as if his entire body were being pulled apart, every part of him resisting the movement while the pressure tried to force him back into the earth.

His vision darkened at the edges, and for a brief moment, he wondered whether his body would break before his hand reached its destination.

But he had not come this far to die here.

He burned through the remaining spiritual energy within his body, then reached deeper, sacrificing a portion of his lifespan to force the Nameless Hand beyond its limits.

His skin burst open,and blood began flowing out rapidly toward his right hand...

"I... Can’t die."

A heartbeat...

"I... "

"Will..."

His eyes snap opened under the cracked mask, ’Rewrite the world!’

The darkness erupted.

It spread across his fingers in a violent surge, swallowing the blood that dripped from his hand as the space directly before him began to fracture.

The old voice changed.

"What are you—"

Chen Yuan’s bloodshot eyes fixed on the thin crack forming in front of his fingertips.

It was small, barely wide enough for a finger to pass through.

It was enough.

He pressed his right hand against the fracture.

The crack widened.

Space resisted him, and the pressure bearing down upon his body surged in response. The surrounding mountains began to collapse, their peaks crumbling as an invisible force swept across the landscape.

Chen Yuan’s arm shook violently. Blood poured from his fingers, and the fractures spreading across his body grew deeper.

He could no longer feel his right hand properly, yet he continued forcing it forward, using everything he had left to tear open a path that should not have existed.

His body was about to break.

His remaining lifespan was burning away.

Still, he gritted his teeth and raised his head.

"I will come back!"

The words escaped him in a hoarse roar, carrying across the mountains as the crack expanded around his hand.

Chen Yuan stared toward the unseen existence pressing him into the earth, his bloodshot eyes burning.

"And I will return with my master!"

The final word had barely left his mouth when the crack swallowed his hand, followed by his arm and the rest of his body.

For one brief instant, the darkness around him flared, and the outline of his figure flickered within the fractured space.

Then he disappeared.

The final pressure descended.

BOOOOOOM!

The mountainside collapsed in an instant.

Rock, soil, and shattered stone were flattened into dust, while the surrounding peaks crumbled beneath the overwhelming force.

The enormous crater was buried beneath the destruction, leaving no trace of the masked man who had been pinned there moments earlier.

The sky gradually returned to silence.

Only the ruined mountains remained, their broken surfaces buried beneath layers of dust.

Eventually, high above the mountains, the surrounding space suddenly twisted.

An enormous amount of spiritual energy gathered in the air, distorting the clouds as a gigantic golden eye slowly materialized above the ruins.

Its translucent outline stretched across the sky, and its enormous pupil shifted from side to side, searching the mountains below for any trace of the masked man.

Then, the old voice finally sounded.

"He... disappeared?"

Disbelief colored his tone and the enormous eye narrowed as an invisible wave of divine sense swept across the land.

Ten kilometers.

Thirty kilometers.

Fifty kilometers.

The wave continued expanding, passing through mountains, forests, and rivers as the old monster searched for any fluctuation that might reveal the masked man’s whereabouts.

Yet no matter how far his divine sense reached, he found nothing.

Not even a trace.

"The broken path..."

The old voice murmured, and the enormous pupil shifted slightly. For a long moment, he remained silent, recalling the words the masked man had shouted before disappearing.

The heavens are broken. There is no room for you to grow.

The Zhao Royal Family possessed ancient records that had been preserved through countless generations.

Buried deep within those records were accounts of a distant past.

Among them was a mention of the broken path.

A path that had once existed, yet had supposedly been severed, leaving those who came after it unable to advance beyond a certain boundary.

When he had first encountered those records, he had dismissed them as little more than ancient speculation.

The passage of countless years had distorted history, and he had never believed that something as fundamental as the path of cultivation could truly be severed.

After all, he himself had continued pursuing a higher realm.

He had spent countless years in seclusion, searching for the next step, convinced that the answer lay somewhere beyond his current understanding.

But the masked man’s words had shaken that conviction.

The broken path...

His enormous pupil contracted.

"They knows about it too?"

"Then... The Chen family must know this aswell?"

The question lingered in the air.

The old monster was the only person within the Zhao Royal Family who knew of those ancient records and had seriously considered their meaning.

He had never disclosed their contents to anyone else, not even Zhao Tianqiong.

Do you know why I strayed from the light in the first place? Because the path had already been cut off!

The enormous eye remained motionless.

"Strayed from the light..."

The old monster repeated the words under his breath.

Could the so-called Children who had abandoned the righteous path have discovered something that the orthodox cultivators had failed to understand?

Had they truly turned away from the established path because they believed it had already reached its end?

To struggle against the broken heaven and seek a new way out?

He did not know. And that uncertainty irritated him more than the masked man’s escape.

He didn’t dare to continue his words.

Instead...

His gaze crossed the distance toward the Imperial City, passing over the shattered palace walls and the collapsed towers.

Below, wounded cultivators lay scattered among the ruins.

Some struggled to rise, while others searched desperately for their injured companions.

The enormous eye paid them little attention.

Its gaze continued through the ruined courtyards until it finally settled upon a young woman.

Zhao Linger.

She stood beside Zhao Lianyu, who remained close to her despite her exhaustion.

The enormous pupil lingered upon her.

"The one who possesses the blood of an Ancient One..."

The old voice became quieter, its tone shifting from uncertainty to contemplation.

Only her... only that child can unlock the deepest part of that place.

The masked man’s words resounded again inside his mind. The enormous pupil narrowed as it studied Zhao Linger.

"That... Place?"

And seemingly to connect the dots.

"Could it be the tomb in the eastern region? The suspected tomb of a... Golden Core Cultivator."

He repeated the words, his voice barely audible.