243: Chapter 238 A Solution in Desperation!

His question voiced the innermost thoughts of everyone present.

However, what answered him was an even longer silence.

The crowd remained silent. Even the usually unruly Demon Emperor Ao Yuan, who viewed all things as mere straw dogs, now lowered his proud head, his golden dragon pupils filled with dimness and loss.

Even Wang Ming, the man with the highest cultivation and broadest experience, hailed as the number one person in Huangzhou, tightly knit his brows. Now, only an unbreakable gravity and bitterness remained. He lowered his head, sinking into deep thought and... powerlessness.

Chen Zhiwen looked at the dispirited crowd before him, completely crushed by the truth, and let out a long sigh in his heart.

Was he not the same?

However, he came from another world; his Soul did not belong to this cage. Thus, more than anyone else, he was able to maintain a sliver of clarity and indignation. He could accept dying in battle, but he would never accept being "harvested" like livestock without any resistance.

He knew that continuing to be consumed by despair here served no purpose.

Then, he slowly rose from his seat. The crisp sound of his sleeves brushing together broke the suffocating silence.

"Wasting time here won't yield any solutions. Everyone, please head back for now."

His voice wasn't loud, yet it reached everyone's ears clearly, like a pebble tossed into stagnant water.

"Pacify your sects and subjects. At the very least, before the final moment arrives, do not let panic spread prematurely and cause unnecessary internal strife."

"If... anyone thinks of a countermeasure and needs my assistance, feel free to come to the Great Xuan Dynasty to find me."

Hearing this, the Soul-shaken Great Grandmasters slowly raised their heads, looking at Chen Zhiwen with complex gazes. In those eyes were bewilderment, admiration, and a trace of imperceptible hope. When everyone else was struck down by despair, it seemed only this young man remained standing.

They also understood that staying here served no purpose other than amplifying the despair in each other's hearts.

"Grandmaster Chen... take care."

"Sigh... Heaven truly wishes to destroy my Huangzhou..."

After a series of heavy sighs, everyone left the hall one by one, filled with exhaustion and confusion, like the walking dead. They had arrived with the determination and hope to uncover the truth; they left burdened by a weight and despair heavy enough to crush the entire world.

When most of the crowd had departed, Wang Ming, who had been silent all along, suddenly walked up to Chen Zhiwen.

"Brother Chen."

"Senior Wang."

Wang Ming looked at Chen Zhiwen, a flicker of indignant madness and resolve shimmering in his deep eyes.

He lowered his voice, asking with a near-whispered urgency, "That Daoist Xuanji... is he still deep within that black mist right now?"

"If the two of us join forces, regardless of the cost—even if we must burn our Divine Souls and detonate our Dao Foundations—could we... have a chance to slay him?!"

Chen Zhiwen understood his meaning. This was the struggle of a cornered beast, a final resistance, a tragic act like a moth to a flame.

However, he could only shake his head, personally extinguishing the last flicker of fire in Wang Ming's heart.

"It's useless."

Chen Zhiwen's voice was soft, yet filled with unquestionable certainty.

"Before coming out just now, I searched that core region for a long time and found no trace of him. That Blood-colored Crystal seems capable of traversing the Void Realm at will. That is the core authority of this world; we have no way to track it."

"Furthermore..." Chen Zhiwen paused, stating an even more despairing conjecture, "I have a premonition that the Daoist Xuanji who stood before me just now wasn't his true body. It is very likely... just a Phantom Body he projected onto the world core, or perhaps merely a wisp of Divine Thought."

"Even if we truly managed to slay it, it would likely be trivial to his main body, perhaps even going unnoticed. It simply cannot stop the descent of the final catastrophe."

Boom!

Chen Zhiwen's words were like the final straw, completely crushing Wang Ming, the number one powerhouse of Huangzhou.

His entire being seemed instantly drained of all spirit; his posture, once as upright as a spear, appeared somewhat hunched at this moment. The color completely drained from his face, leaving him as deathly pale as Zheng Ming. The light in his eyes vanished entirely, losing all luster.

He spoke no more, merely cupping his hands toward Chen Zhiwen in dejection. Then he turned and walked out of the hall step by step, carrying the loneliness and desolation of a hero at his end. His back looked so heavy it seemed to carry the sorrow of the entire world.

Watching Wang Ming's desolate back, Chen Zhiwen also felt a mix of emotions.

After everyone had left, Chen Zhiwen and Chen Heng also departed from the Great Yu capital and returned to Great Xuan.

Days passed, one by one.

In the blink of an eye, half a month slipped away.

The hideous void rift in the sky grew increasingly long and terrifying. After this half-month of expansion, it already spanned the entire sky above the Great Yu Dynasty and was continuously creeping toward Great Xuan.

Now, even Chen Zhiwen, situated in the capital of the Great Xuan Dynasty, could clearly see that ominous rift at the edge of the horizon—like a wound upon the world—whenever he looked up.

And as time flowed, that void rift was becoming closer and larger at a speed visible to the naked eye.

An invisible, oppressive aura of impending doom began to shroud the entire sky of the Huangzhou continent.

Chen Zhiwen and the group of Great Grandmasters had a tacit understanding not to make this cruel truth public. Thus, the ordinary Cultivators and Mortals of Huangzhou simply thought this was a rare celestial phenomenon. Aside from initial wonder and panic, life didn't seem too affected, and no large-scale riots occurred across Huangzhou.

However, those with high cultivation and keen perception could faintly feel that the Spiritual Qi between heaven and earth seemed to be growing thinner and increasingly... violent. It was as if the entire world was letting out a silent wail.

On this day, in a courtyard of the Great Xuan palace.

Chen Zhiwen sat quietly by a stone table as usual, calmly sipping tea, his gaze fixed on the rift drawing ever closer on the horizon.

His heart was far from as calm as it appeared on the surface.

Over the past half-month, he had tried every possible method and deduced countless possibilities, but the final result was always the same—zero chance of victory.

Could it be that they really had to sit and wait for death, waiting for that so-called "Creator God" to refine the entire world along with himself?

Just then, a hurried and messy set of footsteps interrupted his thoughts.

"Your Highness! Your Highness!"

Chen Zhiwen looked up and saw Chief Eunuch, whom he hadn't seen for many days, stumbling toward him.

At this moment, Chief Eunuch retained none of the elegance and composure of a Formation master. His clothes were disheveled, his long hair messy, and his face grimy. Those eyes, which should have been wise and clear, were now filled with a web of bloodshot veins, and his eye sockets were deeply sunken. He clearly hadn't closed his eyes to rest for a very long time. His spirit seemed to have reached an extreme state of excitement.

He ran excitedly to Chen Zhiwen, not even pausing for the proper etiquette between ruler and subject. He propped his hands on his knees, gasping for breath, and shouted in a voice that was raspy and even breaking from extreme excitement:

"Your Highness... I... I seem to have... thought of a way!"

"A way... that might... save us all!"

As soon as these words were spoken, it was like a world-shaking thunderclap exploding in the deathly silent courtyard!

The eternal calm on Chen Zhiwen's face was instantly shattered!

With a "clatter"!

He abruptly stood up from the stone chair, his movement so fast that the resulting wind even shattered the teacup on the table!

With a single stride, he instantly crossed several yards and rushed in front of Chief Eunuch.

He gripped Chief Eunuch's shoulders tightly, his strength so great he nearly crushed the man's bones!

Those deep eyes now erupted with an unprecedentedly brilliant light, like two stars suddenly lighting up in the dark night.

He stared fixedly at Chief Eunuch, his voice becoming incredibly low due to extreme seriousness and tension, asking word by word:

"Is what you say... true?!"

Within the courtyard, time seemed to freeze at this moment.

Chen Zhiwen's low question, born of extreme excitement, weighed on Chief Eunuch's heart like a giant boulder.

He could clearly feel the terrifying force from Chen Zhiwen's hands gripping his shoulders, nearly crushing his bones.

Even more, he could feel that within those star-bright eyes lay a hope strong enough to burn the whole world and... a resolve to stake everything on one throw.

He knew that his every subsequent word would determine the fate of all Huangzhou and the life or death of billions of living beings.

Meeting Chen Zhiwen's gaze, which was hot enough to melt a person, the disheveled Chief Eunuch did not retreat in the slightest. Instead, he straightened his somewhat hunched spine.

Within his bloodshot eyes, an equally burning light erupted—the unique confidence and fanaticism of a wise man who had seen through the ultimate puzzle!

He didn't speak, but instead used all his strength to give an incredibly certain, heavy nod!

This gesture was better than a thousand words, like a bolt of lightning splitting the clouds of despair that had shrouded Chen Zhiwen's heart for half a month!

"Boom!"

In Chen Zhiwen's mind, it was as if a long-suppressed volcano had erupted! In an instant, hope surged from a tiny flame into a sky-burning blaze capable of boiling the seas!

Realizing he had lost his composure, he took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the churning waves in his heart, and slowly released his grip on Chief Eunuch's shoulders.

He patted the other man's shoulder, gesturing for him to sit, though his voice still carried a hint of uncontrollable trembling:

"Sit down and speak slowly. Tell me your idea, word by word, clearly!"

"Yes, Your Highness."

Chief Eunuch sat on the stone stool as instructed. He first coughed violently; clearly, this half-month of tireless research had pushed his body to its limit.

He picked up the hot tea Chen Heng had freshly brewed and drank it in one go. The scalding tea slid down his throat into his stomach, finally calming his extremely heightened spirit slightly.

He didn't speak immediately, instead quickly organizing his words in his mind, refining the complex conclusions that had cost him countless efforts into the clearest and sharpest logic.

The entire courtyard fell into silence again, but this time, it was no longer a deathly silence of despair. It was the quiet before dawn, filled with anticipation and tension.

Both Chen Zhiwen and Chen Heng held their breath, waiting for the answer that might change everything.

A moment later, Chief Eunuch raised his head, looking at Chen Zhiwen with burning eyes, and slowly began to speak.

"Your Highness, over this half-month, I have scrutinized every conversation, every word, and every detail you mentioned regarding your meeting with Daoist Xuanji in the depths of the black mist, more than ten thousand times."

"Ultimately, I saw a crucial clue within it, a... massive flaw that might allow us to make a comeback from a desperate situation!"

"What flaw?" Chen Zhiwen immediately pressed, his heart rate involuntarily accelerating.

With the light of wisdom flashing in his eyes, Chief Eunuch asked a question in return: "Your Highness, have you ever thought about it? If Daoist Xuanji..."

"...truly possessed the supreme power he spoke of—the power to create worlds and refine all living beings at will—then why would he choose his current method to harvest our Huangzhou?"

As soon as these words were spoken, Chen Zhiwen's pupils suddenly constricted, as if a flash of inspiration had crossed his mind!

Chief Eunuch continued, his speaking speed not fast, but every word was filled with the power of logic, like the sharpest blade, peeling away the enemy's seemingly indestructible disguise layer by layer.

"He is using the void rift in the sky to slowly erode and dismantle the Laws of heaven and earth in our world. This is a relatively slow, even clumsy process."

"What does this indicate? It precisely indicates that his current state is not as powerful or composed as he portrays!"

"I have a bold conjecture!" Chief Eunuch's voice suddenly rose, his eyes flashing with near-insane confidence. "

The current Daoist Xuanji is in an extremely weakened state! He might be severely injured—so severely that he doesn't even have the power to personally deal with the Cultivators on our Huangzhou!"

"He doesn't have absolute certainty that he can instantly wipe us all out with overwhelming force!"

This conclusion was like a bolt of lightning from the heavens, cutting through the thickest gloom in Chen Zhiwen's heart!

He had previously been intimidated by the opponent's status as a 'Creator God' and 'Soul Transformation Realm' expert, falling into a mental dead end. Subconsciously, he believed the opponent was invincible and had never considered the problem from this perspective.

"This isn't baseless speculation; there is sufficient evidence to prove it." Seeing Chen Zhiwen's shock, Chief Eunuch immediately presented his core argument.

"Your Highness, you yourself are the greatest evidence!"

He looked directly at Chen Zhiwen, his gaze sharp as an eagle's, as if trying to see through his Soul.

"Take that meeting in the depths of the black mist for example. Daoist Xuanji saw at a glance that you weren't an original inhabitant of Huangzhou, but an 'Outworlder' from another world."

"To him, and to this world he personally created and controlled for countless years, you are the greatest variable, completely beyond all his expectations!"

"If that's the case, according to the logic of an all-controlling 'God', shouldn't his first priority be to strike on the spot and, regardless of the cost, completely eliminate you—the variable that could subvert his entire plan?"

"But did he? He did not!" Chief Eunuch's voice grew impassioned, like an orator presenting a final argument in court.