Chapter 371 - 370: Both Realms Merging!

Massive entities at the Void Refinement realm stepped through the rifts, their colossal true forms shaking mountains and rivers with every movement.

Their auras spread across the landscape like natural disasters, forcing weaker cultivators to flee before the demons had even launched an attack. Some possessed bodies large enough to cover entire valleys, while others maintained humanoid forms whose movements were deceptively simple despite the terrifying power concealed within them.

A multi-headed serpent demon descended upon an orthodox sect in the eastern region. Its enormous coils wrapped around the mountains surrounding the sect, and the pressure of its body crushed the protective formations before the disciples could activate their strongest defenses.

The sect’s elders launched their most powerful techniques, sending blades of spiritual Qi and waves of elemental energy toward the serpent’s heads, but their attacks barely slowed its advance. Within moments, the entire sect had been reduced to shattered buildings and clouds of dust, its surviving disciples scattering into the surrounding wilderness.

Farther away, a winged terror composed of living shadow swept across a mortal empire. Its enormous wings blotted out the sunlight, and the darkness beneath them swallowed entire cities as the creature passed overhead. Millions of souls were harvested in a single breath, leaving behind streets filled with silent bodies and empty buildings whose inhabitants had vanished without leaving any trace of their final moments.

Other Demon Lords descended upon the great rivers and fertile plains, turning once prosperous regions into landscapes of corruption. Their arrival disrupted the natural laws of the world, causing storms to gather beneath clear skies and entire lakes to rise into the air before collapsing into clouds of poisonous rain.

Even the ancient spiritual veins beneath the continent began to tremble, their flow interrupted by the foreign principles invading the world from the Hollow Beyond.

Ku Ming gripped the golden scales of the Golden Immortal Beast, his eyes darting frantically between the place where the Sacred Grounds had vanished, the descending Demon Lords, and the collapsing spatial boundaries of the world itself.

He had seen the destruction of sects and the devastation caused by powerful cultivators, but the present catastrophe exceeded every calamity recorded in the scriptures of his lineage. The Nine Provinces were not simply losing a war. The very conditions that allowed the world to exist were beginning to unravel.

His eyes widened as a horrifying truth dawned upon him.

"Benefactor Lin..." Ku Ming gasped.

He coughed violently, and a mouthful of golden blood spilled from his lips as the ambient Dao laws around them began to fray. The Buddhist aura protecting his body flickered, struggling to maintain its integrity against the foreign principles spreading through the atmosphere. He wiped the blood from his mouth and pointed toward the distant horizon, where the purple abyss seemed to be descending closer to the land.

"Look at the horizon! The spatial fault lines are dissolving! The Demon realm and the Barrier Realm itself, is physically fusing with the lower world!"

Lin Yuan forced his gaze away from the Quasi Demon Emperor’s hand and studied the edges of the continent. At first, the destruction appeared to be a consequence of the shattered Nine Heavens Ward, but the longer he observed the landscape, the more clearly he recognized the abnormality.

The sky was not simply becoming purple, and the demonic miasma was not merely spreading through the atmosphere. The physical laws of the Demon Realm were beginning to overlap with those of the Nine Provinces.

Across the horizon, impossible landscapes had appeared.

A mountain range belonging to the Hollow Beyond emerged above an ordinary plain, its black peaks cutting through the clouds while the surrounding earth twisted to accommodate its presence. A river of dark red liquid flowed across a valley that had previously contained no waterway, its surface filled with faintly glowing symbols that did not belong to the lower world.

Entire sections of foreign terrain appeared between familiar mountains, and the boundaries between them flickered as though reality itself could no longer decide which landscape was supposed to occupy the same space.

Lin Yuan’s expression grew colder as he followed the changes. The merging of two realms was not a simple matter of placing one region beside another. Every world possessed its own foundational laws, and those laws determined how spiritual Qi circulated, how space behaved, and how living beings interacted with the Great Dao. When two realms with different foundations overlapped, their principles would inevitably come into conflict.

The consequences could be catastrophic.

"If the realms fuse completely, the sheer density of the demonic corruption will overwrite the orthodox laws," Ku Ming explained, his voice becoming increasingly frantic. His usual composure had finally begun to crack, and the sight of the world collapsing around them left him struggling to maintain his Buddhist state of mind.

"The foundation of the Nine Provinces will be destroyed entirely! The spiritual veins will be corrupted, the natural order will collapse, and every cultivator who depends upon the orthodox laws will suffer."

He swallowed before continuing, his gaze shifting toward the distant Floating Mountains that pierced the uppermost reaches of the world. "And if the lower world collapses, the conceptual anchor holding the Imperial Domain aloft will shatter. The ripple of this fusion will tear down the Golden Gates and drag the realm into the abyss!"

The words settled over them with terrible weight.

Lin Yuan’s mind raced as his comprehension attempted to organize the available information. The destruction of the Sacred Grounds, the appearance of the Quasi Demon Emperor, and the collapse of the Nine Heavens Ward were no longer separate incidents. They were parts of a much larger operation, one whose objective extended beyond conquering the Nine Provinces.

The Demon Realm was being fused with the lower world, and the resulting destruction threatened to destabilize the very foundation supporting the Imperial Domain.

"They are not simply conquering us," Lin Yuan concluded, his voice becoming a low, frigid whisper. "They are using the destruction of our world as a battering ram to break into the Imperial Domain."

Ku Ming turned toward him, startled by his word. Hearing Lin Yuan connect their actions to the destruction of the lower world made the monk’s expression change. The implications were far worse than a conventional invasion, because they suggested that the catastrophe was not an unfortunate consequence of war. It was a deliberate method of breaking through a barrier that ordinary demonic armies could not overcome.

Lin Yuan continued watching the distant sky, his expression calm despite the dread pressing against his consciousness.