305: Chapter 305 Passage Drifting

The moment they stepped into the passage, it felt like falling into a "tunnel" woven from pure starlight and absolute nothingness—cold, silent, infinitely stretching, yet paradoxically, extremely narrow.

There was no up or down, no left or right, no forward or backward. There was only a sense of disorientation, an indescribable feeling of weightlessness and vertigo, as an invisible, immense, and cold force forcibly wrapped around them, pulling and dragging them toward a certain, yet seemingly infinitely distant direction, hurtling forward at a speed beyond comprehension.

There was no solid ground beneath their feet; all around them was a torrent of starlight and shadow, constantly flowing, twisting, shattering, and reforming—countless fine, brilliant, yet cold and dead fragments, as if from different times, spaces, and dimensions.

This starlight and shadow was not a static background but possessed a life of its own, at times coalescing into massive, fleeting, and indescribable patterns of celestial movements or phantom doors, and at other times exploding into billions of cold, fine particles of light and dark that felt as if they could pierce the Soul, whistling, spinning, and washing over them.

Even the beating of his heart, the flow of his blood, and the rise and fall of his breath seemed to be swallowed and absorbed by this endless, icy Void Realm, dissolving into a maddening, nihilistic silence.

Only the "the key" mark deep within his Soul remained, like the sole, stable lighthouse in the darkness, emitting a warm, steady light interwoven with pale gold and dark blue, maintaining an intermittent but unbroken traction and resonance with a distant, faint, and homologous Order fluctuation deep within the passage, guiding the way forward.

Time had completely lost its meaning here. Perhaps it had been an instant, or perhaps a thousand years had passed. Ling Ye felt as though he had been drifting in this torrent of starlight and shadow for endless eons, his body and mind enduring unimaginable, continuous pressure.

The constantly shifting, fragmented scenes from different times and spaces around him were like the most maddening and direct form of mental pollution, continuously assaulting his consciousness, attempting to force countless chaotic fragments of memories and perceptions that did not belong to him into his mind.

He saw the glorious scene of the "Star Gate" when it was intact—a massive, exquisite silhouette of a door spanning the starry sky, composed of pure Order energy, resembling a work of art, surrounded by countless busy maintenance units and starships radiating the light of Order.

He saw the terrifying moment when the "abyssal eye" pollution erupted—a black tide of pure malice and chaos, as if from the deepest, darkest corner of the Universe, bursting forth from the depths of the "Star Gate," instantly swallowing, twisting, and polluting everything.

He saw fragmented, tragic, and miserable images of countless warriors, scholars, and maintainers of the "Court of World Purification" and the "Monument Guardian" fighting wave after wave against the pollution, only to be assimilated, corrupted, or to self-destruct in despair.

He even… extremely vaguely, as if through an infinitely distant space-time and a distorted barrier, "glimpsed" two blurry figures, a man and a woman, standing in the core control area of the "Star Gate," with their backs to the endless, oncoming tide of dark pollution, performing some final, resolute operation, as if initiating some forbidden protocol… Then, there was an endless, blinding, pale golden light that purified everything, followed by complete, dark, dead silence…

These broken, chaotic fragments of information, filled with intense emotion and energy impact, were like the sharpest blades, slicing at Ling Ye's consciousness, trying to drag him into that endless, desperate abyss of memory and history.

But he clung tightly to the last shred of clarity in his mind, using an iron will to forcibly suppress and isolate these chaotic information fragments on the periphery of his consciousness, refusing to delve into them or resonate with them.

He just stared fixedly and focused solely on the only clear guiding direction coming from "the key" mark, and used all his strength to maintain the pale golden and dark blue interwoven energy shield around himself and Old Shi—a shield that had become extremely thin due to the Transmigration through the passage but still stubbornly existed—resisting the pervasive impact of the spatial turbulence and mental pollution around them.

Old Shi remained unconscious, held tightly by him and fixed at its side with energy. Its breathing, in this chaotic passage, became weaker and more rapid, and the light of the composite isolation layer flickered and dimmed due to the continuous spatial pressure and mental pollution impact, as if it could collapse again at any moment. Ling Ye had to divert a considerable amount of energy to continuously replenish the isolation layer to maintain its stability.

Just as he felt his strength and spirit were reaching their limit, and the guidance of "the key" mark seemed to start becoming blurry and erratic—

The endless torrent of starlight and shadow ahead suddenly, like a lake surface into which a giant boulder had been thrown, violently twisted, churned, and spun! A massive, irregular, vortex-like exit appeared without warning, not far ahead of them, its edges flickering with dangerous purple-black spatial rifts and blinding pale golden sparks of Order, as if it had been forcibly torn open by two distinct and powerful energies!

It was the passage exit!

But before joy could even rise, Ling Ye's heart sank abruptly!

The exit was not stable or calm. It was spinning, expanding, contracting, and twisting crazily, its edge's spatial rifts acting like countless greedy, purple-black maws, constantly opening, closing, and swallowing everything around them! From within the exit, two distinct, violently clashing, and incompatible torrents of terrifying energy surged forth—one was pure, cold, pale golden Order energy attempting to initiate Purification on everything; the other was viscous, dark, purple-black pollution energy filled with endless malice and chaos! The two energies frantically clashed, annihilated, and erupted at the exit, forming an extremely chaotic, dangerous, and deathly area with suffocatingly high energy density and extremely unstable spatial structure!

Forcing their way through might very well lead to being torn apart by the violent energy clash or swallowed by the spatial rifts! But not rushing through would also mean death, as the passage itself was beginning to violently tremble, twist, and even suffer partial disintegration due to the instability of the exit! Remaining in the passage was equally a dead end!

It was a critical moment!

A cold light flashed in Ling Ye's eyes! He had no time to hesitate, nor could he retreat!

He violently poured all the remaining strength within his body, including the last reserve energy stored in "the key" mark for handling sudden crises, without reservation—like lighting the final powder magazine—frantically into the shield around him!

At the same time, he used his entire will to forcibly adjust and twist the invisible traction and propulsion forces within the passage. No longer attempting to pass through the exit "smoothly," he acted like the craziest surfer aiming for the only possible, fleeting, calm gap in the eye of a storm, maneuvering himself and Old Shi like two small, yet incredibly stubborn meteors burning with their final pale golden light, and slammed recklessly and with all his might toward the area at the exit where the two energies clashed most violently, where they were most unstable, but where a fleeting "gap" or "weak point" might exist!

"Boom—!!!"

It felt as if the entire world had completely shattered at this moment!

Before his eyes was a blinding, destructive light interwoven with pale gold and purple-black! In his ears (or rather, deep within his Soul) was a silent yet Soul-tearing roar of the most violent, chaotic, and thorough annihilation and eruption of energy! His body and Soul felt as if they had been thrown into the most violent energy blender in the Universe, being frantically torn, squeezed, twisted, burned, and frozen by countless distinct and terrifying forces!

The moment the shield made contact, it emitted a sharp, overwhelmed groan, as if it were about to completely shatter in the next second! The light flickered violently, and its thickness rapidly diminished! Ling Ye felt as if his internal organs had been struck simultaneously by a cold iron hammer and a searing hot branding iron; his vision went black, a sweet taste rose in his throat, and mouthfuls of hot blood, mixed with the pale golden energy light, gushed out uncontrollably!

But he gritted his teeth, using every last shred of remaining, clear will to maintain the final structure of the shield, while clutching Old Shi tightly at his side, preventing it from being washed away by the violent energy turbulence!

Just at the final instant, when the shield was about to shatter completely and they were about to be utterly swallowed by that destructive energy—

"Pfft—!"

It felt as if they had pierced through an invisible, extremely viscous, and tough "membrane" of energy and space that was finally forcibly broken through!

The surrounding frenzied, destructive energy clash and spatial turbulence disappeared without a trace, as if a pause button had been pressed!

In its place was a relative, incredible silence. And, an environment that, while still heavy, oppressive, and filled with the lingering scent of smoke and destruction following the intense conflict between chaos and Order, was at least relatively "stable," no longer the core of an energy storm that purely sought to destroy everything.

Beneath his feet, he stepped onto solid ground again—though the ground was covered in fine, cobweb-like cracks, presenting a rugged texture of charred, crystallized, shattered, dark silver metal mixed with rock, as if it had been scorched by high heat, frozen by extreme cold, and repeatedly ravaged by immense force.

The air was thick with the pungent, acrid smell of ozone, sulfur, burning metal, and some indescribable, strange odor that seemed to come from the vacuum of the Universe, a mixture of cold and deathly silence. The light was dim, carrying an ominous, dark red hue, like congealed blood.

All around was a vast space that had been completely reduced to ruins, as if it had experienced countless cataclysmic wars. Collapsed, twisted, massive, dark silver metal structures, like the skeletons of ancient beasts, were scattered across the charred, crystallized ground. In some places, extremely faint, unstable sparks of pale golden Order energy remained, intertwined, opposing, and eroding with more dense, active, and writhing purple-black traces of pollution energy that moved like living things.

In the center of these ruins, the most eye-catching feature was a massive, dark silver metal structure, resembling an altar or console. Although it was severely damaged, collapsed in many places, and covered and eroded by large amounts of purple-black pollution crystals and dark red flesh-like tissue, its basic outline could still reveal its former magnificence, precision, and the huge, geometric beauty filled with Order.

At the very top of the building, beneath a dome that was the most severely eroded by pollution and nearly on the verge of complete collapse, one could vaguely see a tiny, extremely faint, yet exceptionally stable and pure, pale golden light of Order—like a candle in the wind, yet seeming as if it would never be extinguished—flickering quietly and lonely.

That light resonated and responded with the "the key" mark on Ling Ye's chest, creating an unprecedented, intense connection, as if a wanderer had finally returned home!

"Anchor-α"… they had arrived.

But the scene before him was even more dilapidated, even more… despair-inducing than he had imagined.