Wh… what was happening?

Liao Kong was standing right beside Jian Chou, with almost all his attention focused on Qu Zhengfeng and the Treasure Seal Dharma King who had begun fierce combat again in mid-air. How could he have expected her to suddenly vanish without a trace?

For a moment, fierce wind swept past, and the original spot was already empty.

The Sacred Hall had completely disappeared, and the sacred mountain that could almost reach the sky had been split in half by Qu Zhengfeng’s single sword stroke, shaking endlessly.

The huge deep pit was like a gaping bloody mouth in the night.

It gaped wide, extremely deep and extremely ferocious, with uneven edges retaining traces left by Zen Master Xuelang and Dakini Yang Jin’s combined strike just now. The cliff-like walls dropped vertically downward, terrifying and precipitous.

That thick black qi emanated from the bottom of the deep pit.

Jian Chou leaped out from the void, swiftly gliding past most of the deep pit, almost brushing against this black qi as she descended.

The deeper she went, the denser the black qi became.

She remembered that the Extreme Region and the Nineteen Continents were like two sides of a mirror facing each other, sharing the same earth. So the Nineteen Continents’ sky was above, while the Extreme Region’s sky was below; the Nineteen Continents’ sky had the sun and moon alternating, while the Extreme Region’s sky was eternally a dull yellow expanse where day and night couldn’t be distinguished.

When the Treasure Seal Dharma King had just manipulated the Houtu Seal to crack the entire snow region’s ground, what surged from the earth’s cracks was clearly the Earth Force Yin Essence that existed only beneath the Extreme Region’s ten thousand li of evil soil!

It was simply using the power of one seal to forcibly connect the two realms!

And this deep pit that appeared in the center of the original Sacred Hall’s position was continuously providing the Treasure Seal Dharma King with a power completely different from Earth Force Yin Essence…

Then, what mysteries did this deep pit, or rather the array beneath this deep pit, hold? And where did it connect to?

Normally thinking, it should also connect to the Extreme Region.

But in Jian Chou’s mind, there was a strange and intense voice continuously echoing, continuously striking her reason, screaming at her: No, absolutely not! What this deep pit connected to was definitely not as simple as the Extreme Region!

It was a unique sensation that couldn’t be shaken off, driving her, even making her decisively abandon the intense battle raging overhead and recklessly break in here despite all dangers!

It was like diving headfirst into a fog.

Before her was a deep, pitch-black darkness where she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She could only vaguely sense that black qi swimming upward from the pit bottom like a black dragon, yet it didn’t stir up even half an inch of wind, and she couldn’t hear the slightest sound of wind, as if this mighty force was merely a phantom.

Earlier, the distance between Jian Chou and the Treasure Seal Dharma King wasn’t very far. With his cultivation reaching the Bounded Realm, even while simultaneously facing Qu Zhengfeng, Zen Master Xuelang, and Yang Jin, he should have been able to notice changes in the overall situation. It was impossible for him not to notice Jian Chou’s disappearance.

Yet he made no response.

This could only prove one thing: it wasn’t that he couldn’t respond in time, but that he was confident her actions wouldn’t cause him any harm. He didn’t think she had the ability to cause any damage, like a fierce beast looking at an ant—no need to pay any attention!

This realization clearly surfaced in Jian Chou’s mind, and her brows immediately furrowed slightly.

Riding the wind freely, following her heart’s desire.

How astonishing was her stealth speed? In an instant, she had descended several hundred zhang! The ascending black qi became increasingly dense, and combined with this seemingly bottomless deep pit, it faintly revealed an oppressive feeling that made her involuntarily hold her breath.

She didn’t know how long she had been racing downward. It wasn’t until even the earth-shaking sounds of battle outside the deep pit became blurred that this seemingly endless deep pit finally showed a strand of dark golden light.

Dim and faint.

It seemed to flow, yet also seemed to have life, gently breathing and flickering…

The moment this strand of light entered her pupils, Jian Chou was momentarily dazed and couldn’t help but gasp in shock!

How was this just a strand of golden light?

It was clearly an entire expanse! The radiance of an entire array!

Although she had speculated earlier and knew that the array originally beneath the deep pit should still be operating, she had never expected this array to be preserved so perfectly, completely undamaged despite attacks of such intensity from Zen Master Xuelang and Yang Jin!

Dragon-like black qi surged from the very center of the array, and substantial shadows seemed to have devouring power, making the array’s radiance dim.

That array previously carved in the Sacred Hall was now carved at the pit bottom.

The Sacred Hall had already turned to dust, but it still maintained its original appearance: a ten-zhang diameter array that, in this deep pit where external light couldn’t penetrate, emitted its own brightness; every line forming the array was like a small river with flickering dark gold flowing within; at first glance it seemed no different from ordinary arrays, but once one concentrated and gazed inward, it felt as if one’s entire consciousness would sink into this river…

When the gentle breeze arrived and Jian Chou’s figure separated from the wind, what her feet touched was actually solid ground. She didn’t know how deep underground she had entered. The pit walls were all hard rock, and as the array’s light flowed and illuminated them, she could vaguely see some broken, luminous crystals.

Standing here, she suddenly didn’t feel like she was in a narrow, cramped underground pit, but rather standing in the vast, boundless starry river!

Looking up, she saw a brilliant starry sky.

This was an extremely strange illusion that made no sense at all. The moment it appeared, it gave Jian Chou a spine-tingling sense of dread.

The same feeling had only appeared twice in all her years of cultivation: once when she climbed the Single Person Platform at the Left Three Thousand Small Assembly, where a palm strike caused day and night to reverse, as if she had seen the entire star region; once when she escaped from the eighteen layers of hell in the Extreme Region, when she comprehended the Heaven-Flipping Seal at the limit through that stone that wanted to become a star, as if she had glimpsed a corner of the vast universe’s iceberg…

And at this moment, it was even more intense than those two previous times!

She stood beside this array as if standing before a mysterious door, as if pushing open this door would allow her to reach an unknown, completely new, magnificent world!

Who among all cultivators in the world could refuse such temptation?

Jian Chou had originally come because of that flash of inspiration and sensation when she looked at this deep pit earlier. It was both to break this array and strike at the root, and also to verify the guess that had suddenly emerged in her heart and could not be suppressed no matter what!

So at this moment, she had almost no hesitation.

It was an intuition so strong it couldn’t be described in words, as if some higher existence in the unseen was guiding her, making her reach out toward this array at the pit bottom.

“Hum!”

The moment her fingertip touched that golden river, the entire array suddenly trembled, actually emitting a clear humming sound in this deep pit that was dead silent except for that black qi!

The flowing golden radiance suddenly stopped.

The next moment, it suddenly surged turbulently! Like a rising tide, like swelling blood vessels, like rushing rapids!

Endless dark golden light, after a moment of stillness, fiercely flowed along the entire array’s trajectory.

Jian Chou suddenly felt she had become a stone.

A stone in the river, a stone being washed and scoured by torrents, by endless waves!

Even her clear eyes were dyed dark gold at this moment!

Thus all surrounding sounds vanished, and even this tangible deep pit seemed to become a void. Only the starry sky lit by the scattered crystal lights on the pit walls suddenly expanded infinitely, exploding into a brilliant nebula, rotating in the endless vast universe!

How was this still a river!

How was this still an array!

Every line carved at the pit bottom, every point of scattered light flowing in the lines, had now transformed into countless archaic symbols, carried by that flowing tide, madly surging through Jian Chou’s fingertip into her spiritual platform and sea of consciousness, deconstructing into a mass of complex information, as if spreading out a boundless vast sandy sea in her consciousness…

This was what truly constituted the array!

Only they appeared so obscure, so ancient, that even recognizing their forms was difficult, let alone analyzing and calculating them?

Almost the moment these endless symbols surged in, several traces of pain appeared between Jian Chou’s brows, as if her entire skull was about to burst!

Yet her consciousness remained floating and awake.

She could clearly “see” that this enormous, flowing array before her eyes kept enlarging, kept enlarging, becoming a huge river that swallowed her in an instant!

For a moment, she couldn’t tell at all whether this array had transformed into boundless waves that surged up to submerge her, or whether she had become a tiny speck of dust that fell into this rushing river…

Only that moment of fusion.

Her consciousness was carried and devoured by these eerie and archaic symbols in the array, even merging with them, suddenly breaking through some boundary in that vast rushing!

Like a formless, shapeless thought that in a flash passed through some solemn and majestic door through a strange method!

That completely new magnificent world immediately unfolded like a scroll!

Like bold ink splashing and sweeping, outlining billions upon billions of stars, scattering into stardust, condensing into nebulae, spreading starlight everywhere!

Yingzhou rose majestically, immortal palaces rode the clouds.

The azure void was vast, sun and moon shone brightly!

Consciousness had already passed through endless void in an instant, falling into a rotating star, thus “seeing,” realizing, sensing—

On azure cliffs, with white deer as companions, a jade-robed handsome man sat beside a stone-carved chess board, holding a piece in deep thought.

On floating pagodas over the sea, in Buddha kingdoms in the sky, a black-robed youth with a cold expression and pursed lips sat cross-legged on a giant lamp, with a thin flame-shaped vertical mark between his brows faintly flickering.

A crane cried once in the long sky, rising through the clouds.

At the end of the steps of the cloud-top immortal palace stood a female cultivator in splendid robes, with deep and shallow greens coiling in her embroidered patterns, making her brows and eyes appear even more coldly aloof, with a kind of invincible strength in her contemptuous gaze!

The moment Jian Chou’s consciousness glimpsed her through this mysterious and ancient array, she also suddenly raised her head, gazing at her across this endless void, this ancient array, even this vast universe.

Those features, that posture…

Shockingly familiar! Clearly identical to that statue in Xinghai Plaza!

Jian Chou had no time to react, and in this state of being carried by the array and those endless symbols, she really couldn’t make any reaction. Just this startling glimpse, and her consciousness was pulled without the slightest pause into the collapsing ground, into the deeper parts of the universe!

Chaotic currents of time and space, the shell of a giant!

He floated in terrifying spatial rifts, passing through magnificently rotating nebulae like a great ship passing through leaves. No matter how brilliant or massive the stars, they could at most reach His cold fingertips.

This was a slumbering giant!

This was a dead deity!

His tightly closed eyes would never open again, His eyelashes had condensed into towering osmanthus trees over eternal years, His exposed skin had spread into vast earth, His still blood vessels had become dry riverbeds…

One person was an entire world!

Jian Chou couldn’t describe the shock of this moment.

She only felt her entire consciousness flowing with those symbols suddenly felt a pressure from some power in her bloodline at this moment, involuntarily giving rise to an impulse to submit and bow before Him.

As if before Him, all things in this world were descendants and subjects!

Yet at this moment, there was a strange power that destroyed this feeling. It was the power belonging to the deity that Jian Chou had sensed in the deep pit…

From this enormous shell, from the center of this ancient corpse’s brow!

A giant eye that had neither whites nor pupils, not even a trace of light, quietly appeared!

It looked exactly like the third eye that had appeared between the Treasure Seal Dharma King’s brows!

Carrying a natural, dangerous malice.

The moment Jian Chou’s consciousness “saw” it, it actually moved slightly at the ancient corpse’s brow center, like a person’s eye suddenly turning. Though it clearly had no pupils, it seemed to turn its gaze to see her!

With a “boom,” her consciousness, powerful enough to reach Void Refining, actually collapsed at this moment, like an originally rushing river passing through dangerous rapids, scattering into endless smoke-like fragments!

All human perception instantly returned.

All illusions collapsed along with her consciousness. Jian Chou’s pupils were stained with blood, actually becoming completely black, unable to see anything. She could only feel a hand on her shoulder, and beside her ear was Liao Kong’s worried and anxious voice: “Senior Sister Jian Chou! Senior Sister Jian Chou!”