238: Chapter 233 Mystery

This time, it was unable to resurrect.

A Taboo-level unknown creature had completely fallen!

After slaying this monster, Chen Zhiwen slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air, his face slightly pale. That sword strike just now had drained nearly half of the Spiritual Qi in his body; the consumption was by no means small.

He landed where the monster had dissipated and carefully examined the area.

After confirming that this was a living creature possessing flesh, bones, and an independent life core, Chen Zhiwen became increasingly interested in the depths of this black mist.

It now seemed that the outside world's understanding of the black mist was far too superficial and one-sided. This place was not an absolute forbidden zone for life, but rather a home to a… bizarre ecosystem unknown to the Huangzhou World!

After resting briefly, Chen Zhiwen held the dao-slaying sword and, with a determined gaze, continued walking toward the ultimate core of the black mist.

After the thrilling battle just now, the journey ahead became unusually calm.

Chen Zhiwen walked alone for about another half an hour, encountering no further danger or obstacles during that time.

And the scene before his eyes finally underwent a fundamental change.

Ahead, the dense, impenetrable black mist began to thin.

A vast, boundless, and pitch-black independent space appeared before his eyes.

The moment he saw the full scope of this space, even with Chen Zhiwen's rock-solid state of mind, his pupils could not help but contract sharply!

Before him, beneath his feet, and everywhere his gaze could reach, were mountains of… bones!

Bleached bones stretched out in an endless expanse, like a vast sea of death!

Some of these bones remained in a cross-legged sitting posture, as if they were still struggling to resist something at the very last moment of their lives;

others held divine weapons, posed for battle as if fighting some invisible, terrifying enemy; and still others had shattered bodies, scattered across the ground…

These bones were of various forms; some were standard human skeletons, others were the massive, grotesque remains of the Yao Race, and Chen Zhiwen even saw the remains of ancient races recorded in many classics that had long been extinct in the Huangzhou World!

But without exception, even after endless years had passed, these bones still retained a faint yet terrifying pressure, powerful enough to make one's heart palpitate!

That was the aura unique to "Taboo" powerhouses!

Chen Zhiwen's heart sank to the bottom at this moment.

He understood instantly.

The owners of these bones before him were all the brilliant, talented supreme powerhouses throughout the history of the Huangzhou World who had eventually achieved a Breakthrough to the "Taboo" realm and stood at the pinnacle of the world!

After reaching the zenith of the world, they were not satisfied with resting in one corner and yearned to explore the wider world beyond the Huangzhou World. Thus, they all came to this forbidden zone in the Extreme Southern Land, attempting to pass through the black mist to reach a new world.

It was just unclear what unimaginable horror they had encountered here that caused this gathering of all the powerhouses of the "Taboo" realm from throughout the ages of the Huangzhou World to perish here!

Looking at the bones of gods and demons covering the ground, Chen Zhiwen's mind was filled with complex thoughts; an indescribable sorrow and shock surged into his heart.

He took a step and walked slowly past the bones of these predecessors who had once stirred up the world.

Finally, he arrived at the very center of this sea of bones.

A massive crystal, fully a hundred meters high and radiating an eerie blood-red light, appeared abruptly before him.

The material of this crystal was unknown; its entire body presented a deep red color, as if it had been solidified from the blood of billions of living beings. Inside the crystal, brilliant multicolored light flowed and flickered slowly, filled with an ancient, primordial, and sinister aura.

Wisps of energy, pure to the extreme, were continuously dissipating from this blood-colored crystal into the surrounding black mist, as if it were the energy source of this boundless black mist!

And when Chen Zhiwen raised his head to look directly above the crystal, his eyes froze completely!

He saw that at the top of the crystal, a Void Realm crack, only as thick as a strand of hair but radiating an endless aura of destruction, was silently suspended there.

This tiny crack, like a scar that would never heal, extended upward from the top of the crystal, piercing through the endless black mist and the barriers of space, finally connecting to the sky beyond the black mist—the sky he was so familiar with!

Seeing this tiny Void Realm crack, Chen Zhiwen realized everything in an instant!

So, this was the source of that massive Void Realm crack that spanned the sky above the Extreme Southern Land in the outside world, signaling the doomsday catastrophe!

A deathly silence, as if even time had been frozen, enveloped this sea of bones that had buried the Taboo powerhouses of the Huangzhou World throughout the ages.

Chen Zhiwen stood quietly on this land of death that made one's Soul tremble, his gaze locked firmly on the massive, hundred-meter-tall crystal ahead that radiated an eerie blood-red light.

The closer he got, the more clearly an indescribable, nameless sense of palpitation surged from the deepest part of his Divine Soul like a burst dam.

It was a sense of insignificance and awe stemming from the deepest part of life's instinct; it was a natural suppression that a lower life form could not resist when facing a higher existence.

He felt his Soul trembling slightly.

It was as if what he was facing at this moment was not a cold, lifeless crystal, but a heart that was slowly beating—an immensely huge heart containing the power of the entire world!

Or perhaps, it was the… will of this entire Huangzhou World, which had been sleeping for billions of years, the most Origin, the most core will!

In the face of this supreme will, as vast as the sea of stars and as boundless as the Heavenly Dao, Chen Zhiwen's "Taboo" cultivation, which was enough to look down upon the Universe and despise all living beings, and his sword heart, which had long been tempered to be indestructible and peerless, appeared so insignificant, so ridiculous.

He was like a lonely boat in a raging sea, a speck of dust at the foot of a towering divine mountain, an ant in the boundless Universe, at any moment likely to be crushed into smithereens at the most fundamental level of existence by this irresistible, great power.

This was an absolute suppression at the level of life, unrelated to the level of cultivation; it was a deterrent that was close to the "Dao"!

Chen Zhiwen forcibly suppressed the surging waves of shock in his heart and channeled the golden Spiritual Qi within his body with all his might. The brilliant spiritual light formed a barrier as thick as a mountain on the surface of his body, struggling, inch by inch, to resist that invisible yet omnipresent terrifying pressure. Fine beads of cold sweat had already oozed from his forehead; this was a level of wretchedness and difficulty he had never experienced since stepping into the Taboo realm.

His gaze therefore became even more solemn and sharp, carefully observing this bizarre crystal.

The surface of the crystal was as smooth as a mirror, clearly reflecting the sorrowful scene of this sea of bones, and also reflecting Chen Zhiwen's small but determined figure. Inside it, the ceaselessly flowing, brilliant multicolored light seemed to contain the deepest Law and mysteries between heaven and earth; every flicker seemed to be evolving the birth and death of stars, the Reincarnation of worlds.

It was the core of this Taboo black mist!

It was the source of that doomsday crack in the outside world!

It was even more the culprit that had buried all the Taboo powerhouses of the Huangzhou World since ancient times!

Just as Chen Zhiwen was concentrating fully, trying to glean more secrets from this crystal, an unexpected change occurred without warning!

"Wum—!"

A distant humming sound, as if coming from the primordial era, rang out without warning!

The entire blood-colored crystal suddenly began to vibrate violently! The multicolored light flowing within it, at this moment, seemed to have received some ancient summons from another dimension, suddenly erupting into an incomparably eerie, blindingly dazzling blood-red light!

This light was filled with magic and strangeness, as if it did not belong to any color in the human world. It became brighter and brighter, more and more intense, and finally, under the gaze of Chen Zhiwen's suddenly contracting pupils, with a loud "Boom," it broke through the crystal's indestructible restraints, turning into a thick stream of blood-red light that shot out like a blood Dragon!

The blood light swirled and condensed crazily in the Void Realm a few feet in front of the crystal, with countless mysterious runes flickering in and out of existence within it. Finally, it slowly outlined a hunched, gaunt human silhouette.

As the light gradually dissipated, an old man filled with decay and Death Qi, as if having crawled out of a grave, appeared silently before Chen Zhiwen.

This old man's figure was so hunched that he was almost bent in two, as if his spine had long been crushed by endless years.

His shriveled skin was like the dead bark of an old tree, presenting a morbid, grayish color, tightly wrapped around his skeleton, filled with deep ravines eroded by time.

He wore a tattered gray Daoist robe of an unknown era, its original color long gone, and leaned on a cane made of unknown dead wood with both hands, just standing there quietly, perfectly integrated with the surrounding environment, as if he himself were a part of this world of death.

A bizarre aura that made Chen Zhiwen frown deeply permeated from the old man.

That aura was older, more sinister, and… a hundred times, ten thousand times more powerful than the one-eyed monster he had slain earlier!

The old man slowly raised his lowered head with an extremely difficult posture, as if every movement would cause his body to fall apart.

A pair of turbid, dim eyes, as if covered with a thick layer of dust, devoid of any luster of life, fell upon Chen Zhiwen.

However, the moment he saw Chen Zhiwen clearly, from those turbid eyes that should have been on the verge of death and lifeless, two brilliant rays of light, as sharp and peerless as a Nine Heavens eagle, suddenly erupted!

That gaze seemed capable of piercing through time and space, seeing through falsehoods, ignoring the barriers of the Physical Body and Spiritual Qi, and stabbing directly into the Origin of the Soul!

At this moment, Chen Zhiwen felt as if he had been completely seen through in front of the other party; from body to Soul, there were no more secrets to speak of!

"Hmm?"

A hoarse, ancient sound of surprise, as if he had not spoken for ten thousand years, issued from the depths of the old man's cracked throat.

His sharp eyes stared fixedly at Chen Zhiwen, and his old face, like tree bark, was filled with undisguised surprise and confusion, breaking his eternal, lifeless expression.

"Strange… really strange…"

The old man spoke with extreme surprise, word by word, as if every word exhausted all his strength: "Why… is there no brand of this world's Heavenly Dao imprinted on your Spiritual Origin?"

He paused, as if confirming his judgment, and then said in a decisive tone, full of unquestionable certainty:

"You… are not a person of this world!"

The old man said this last sentence with resounding force, every syllable like a heavy hammer, smashing fiercely into Chen Zhiwen's heart!

He immediately followed up with questions, his voice carrying a hint of tension and eagerness that even he himself had not noticed: "Who exactly are you?! How did you come to this world of mine?!"

Boom!

The old man's questioning was like a doomsday thunderclap descending from the Nine Heavens, exploding with a roar in Chen Zhiwen's mind!

In his heart, monstrous waves instantly surged, and he was shocked beyond measure, even more terrified than when he faced that world will just now!

Spiritual Origin? brand of this world?

Although he did not know exactly what these terms the old man mentioned referred to, he understood the meaning of that sentence with absolute clarity—You are not a person of this world!

This was the biggest secret of his two lifetimes, buried in the deepest part of his heart, which he had never mentioned to anyone!

Strictly speaking, he did not completely belong to this world. His Soul, carrying the complete memories and brand of another technological civilization world called "Earth," had been reborn into this body named "Chen Zhiwen."

But…

How exactly did this mysterious old man before him manage to do this? He didn't even use any Divine Sense to investigate; with just one glance, he had seen through the most fundamental quality of his Soul and uncovered his deepest secret?!

In an instant, Chen Zhiwen felt a bone-chilling cold rush from the soles of his feet to his crown, making him shudder all over, as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.

The level of terror of this old man before him had already far exceeded the scope of his cognition!

Forcibly suppressing the shock in his heart, which was like a raging storm, Chen Zhiwen did not reveal the slightest abnormality on his face.

His equally sharp eyes collided in mid-air with the old man's all-piercing gaze, not giving an inch, and he asked back in a steady voice: "Before asking others, shouldn't you first state your own name?"

"Who are you?"

Facing Chen Zhiwen's questioning, the sharp light in the old man's eyes slowly receded, returning to that turbid, calm appearance. He seemed not to care about Chen Zhiwen's attitude, his expression extremely indifferent, as if stating an insignificant fact, he spoke slowly, revealing his identity.

"My name is Xuanji."

"As for my identity…" The old man paused, and with a voice as hoarse as dry leaves rubbing together, uttered a sentence that was enough to overturn the entire Huangzhou World and cause the faith of all living beings to collapse.

"I am the… creator of this Huangzhou World."