447: Chapter 447 Unable

This was not numbness.

Numbness, at least, would prove there was still something capable of being numb.

But the silence before him was deeper—a state where everything inside—hope, memories, emotions, and even the Soul itself—seemed to have been completely crushed and hollowed out, leaving behind absolute nothingness.

It was as if, within this still-moving shell, the part called "human" had long since been extinguished, leaving only a wisp of obsession—originating from nowhere, existing for no reason—like a candle flickering in the wind, driving this broken instinct to stubbornly press forward in a direction it had long forgotten why it was important.

The aura on his body...

It was as faint as a candle in a gale, flickering on and off, intermittent, and utterly chaotic.

This was by no means the orderly energy fluctuation produced when a Cultivator operated a Cultivation Technique.

Rather, it was the final ripples of unwillingness escaping from the ruins of chaotic energy left behind after Meridians had snapped inch by inch and the Dao foundation had completely collapsed—it was the last wisp of smoke drifting above the ruins.

Its intensity did not even match that of a Qi Refining Early Stage Cultivator who had just drawn Qi into their body and stepped across the threshold of cultivation.

It was closer to a dying Mortal who had suffered fatal injuries and was clinging to their last breath solely by a tenacious will to survive.

He just kept his head deeply bowed. His vision seemed barely able to focus on the small patch of ground beneath his feet, numbly avoiding the rubble and cracks that might trip him.

His movements were stiff and sluggish, and his joints emitted an extremely faint, teeth-gritting "creak" as they moved, like an old, rusted machine on the verge of falling apart; every step he took felt like a battle against the entire world.

Yet, his goal was exceptionally clear—moving slowly and stubbornly toward the towering, majestic Cyan Heavenly Ladder, toward that "Origin Heavenly Ladder" where the Prodigies of ten thousand worlds gathered, filled with boundless pressure and Opportunity.

One step. One step. And another. Every step felt like crossing the boundary between life and death.

"Hmm?"

This scene, which was extremely abrupt and conflicted with the entire environment to an uncomfortable degree, finally pierced the keen perception of some nearby Prodigies like a rusty, cold needle.

Several young Demon Race powerhouses nearby, whose bodies were churning with thick, violent, and aggressive Devilish Qi, were the first to glance over.

When their gazes pierced through the tattered clothes and disheveled, withered yellow hair of the thin figure, and touched that sallow, silent, lifeless face, they all froze in unison, their pupils slightly constricting.

A fleeting look of confusion and astonishment appeared on their faces, as if they had seen a ghost that should never exist in this world, or some absurd hallucination that challenged their perception—how could a dead person still be walking?

Immediately afterward, that brief astonishment was like a spark falling into a pot of boiling oil, instantly igniting the accumulated, seething negative emotions!

Shock quickly twisted and deformed, transforming into unmasked disdain and loathing that spewed forth like magma, along with a cold current mixed with rage at being severely offended and pure murderous intent!

"Wufa?!!"

A shrill roar, like a Vicious Beast of the abyss that had its tail stepped on, suddenly exploded, tearing through the relatively calm atmosphere and attracting even more gazes!

The one who spoke was a Demon Race Prodigy with a dark purple spiral horn on his forehead, blood-red pupils, and an aura of chilling Devilish Qi.

The muscles on his face twisted and twitched from extreme rage, and his outstretched finger trembled violently from intense emotion, pointing straight at the thin figure still slowly moving.

His voice became hoarse and shrill from extreme hatred and disgust:

"Is it you, this filthy, lowly piece of trash?!"

"Who gave you the audacity to step foot in such a Holy Land?!"

"You mongrel! You lowlife who has tarnished the noble Demon Race Bloodline and should have long been thrown into the Myriad Demon Soul-Devouring Cave to be ground into powder! Every drop of blood flowing in your body makes me sick!"

"Your very existence is a blasphemy against this Primordial Battlefield!"

"Who let you come here?! What blind thing let a filthy object like you out?!"

His chest heaved violently, and violent Devilish Qi uncontrollably spilled out.

Pitch-black Devilish flames coiled around his body, corroding the ground within several feet of his feet with a "hissing" sound, sending up thick black smoke carrying a pungent sulfur smell:

"Get lost! Disappear from my sight immediately! Get back to the Graveyard of Ancestral Sins where you belong! Otherwise, I won't wait for the trial to end, and I won't wait for the Demon Prince Wutian to speak; I will tear you apart right now and feed you to the Demon maggots!!"

Not only this horned Demon, but three or four other nearby Demon Race Prodigies also gathered around with gloomy expressions almost simultaneously.

Their faces wore identical cold disgust and naked murderous intent, invisibly forming a barrier filled with malice, completely blocking any possible direction for the youth named "Wufa" to move forward.

Their gazes were like they were examining a pile of foul-smelling, nauseating garbage, or a dirty maggot that had crawled onto a sacred banquet, unaware of its own death. Only by completely crushing him could they relieve the hatred in their hearts.

Even higher up, on the dazzling Cyan main path, the contemporary Demon Prince of the Demon Race—Wutian—who was steadily climbing upward, shrouded in pure and condensed dark purple Devilish flames like a Demon God walking among Mortals, seemed to sense in the dark that extremely weak, yet particularly "glaring" fluctuation below due to some homologous aura.

He tilted his head slightly.

His Demon eyes, pitch-black as an abyss and seemingly capable of devouring all light, cast an extremely brief, emotionless glance toward the direction where the commotion and insults were coming from below.

This gaze was cold and indifferent to the extreme. It was like a deity from the Nine Heavens, inadvertently looking down at the meaningless struggle and screeching of an ant at its feet.

It was also like an elegant noble catching sight of a speck of dust accidentally stained on their fine clothing, holding only pure indifference and a trace of barely perceptible annoyance.

He furrowed his brows—which slanted up to his temples and were sharp as sword edges—barely perceptibly and extremely slightly.

Immediately, as if he had merely brushed away a trivial noise from his ear, he withdrew his gaze without lingering, continuing to focus on his own firm and steady path of ascent.

The rhythm of his pace did not have the slightest disorder.

It was as if the thin figure below, who seemed to have some inextricable, tangled Bloodline connection to him, was truly just an insignificant, annoying fly that would soon be cleaned away.

It was not even worth him spending an extra bit of mental effort.

This unmasked disdain and seething murderous intent originating from within the Demon Race was so obvious and glaring that it even pierced through the spatial barriers of the Secret Realm, attracting the attention of those outside the Secret Realm, floating on the observation platform in the endless high sky.

Those great powerhouses and Old Ancestors from the major ancient clans of the Demon Race, with auras deep as the sea and whose mere sitting caused the surrounding Void Realm to slightly distort, saw the figure of "Wufa" through that massive water mirror spell that resembled a Heavenly Eye. The moment they did, their faces—previously indifferent, majestic, or filled with hidden anticipation—suddenly darkened.

Like thick dark clouds gathering in the sky before a storm.

"Wufa..."

A cold, stiff, hoarse voice, as if two pieces of rusted metal were rubbing against each other, sounded from an old Demon Race elder shrouded in a wide black robe, with only a pair of eyes flickering with ghostly green flames exposed.

These two words spat out from his mouth, as if he were chanting a taboo, a stain, a disgrace that should have been wiped away long ago.

"How could this evil spawn, who was stripped of the noble 'Demon' surname and eternally exiled to the Graveyard of Ancestral Sins, have snuck into this trial land of the 'Origin Heavenly Ladder'?!"

"What is the commander of the sin army guarding the Graveyard of Ancestral Sins doing?!"

Another Demon Race giant with a pair of curved, ferocious giant horns on his head and a majestic face spoke in a deep voice, his voice rumbling with irrepressible rage, shaking the surrounding light and shadow slightly, "To actually let a piece of trash like this, with a filthy Bloodline and a completely destroyed Dao foundation, slip out and even sneak into the core area of the Primordial Battlefield? It has completely lost the face of our Holy Race!"

"Hmph, not knowing the height of the sky and the depth of the earth, wishful thinking."

A female Demon Race powerhouse with a bewitching and beautiful face, but with a pair of thin, cicada-wing-like purple-black membrane wings on her back, sneered.

However, her eyes were cold with no hint of a smile, only endless contempt and loathing. She raised her slender hand, carelessly playing with the dark hair hanging in front of her chest. Her posture was lazy and elegant, yet every word she spoke was soaked in venom:

"With his Dao foundation shattered and his Meridians completely severed, he is no different from a crippled ant, yet he dares to engage in wishful thinking and covet this supreme Primordial Legacy? It is truly the biggest joke under heaven."

"What does he think this place is? A shelter? A charity hall? Or can those ridiculous, long-dead delusions of his allow him to ascend to the heavens in one step?"

"It seems the punishment the clan imposed on him back then was still too merciful. It actually allowed him to retain a trace of an improper, ridiculous delusion."

Another Demon Race powerhouse coldly chimed in, his gaze like looking down at a struggling, dying ant: "Leaving him a breath was to demonstrate the clan's benevolence. Yet he took this as an Opportunity? Ridiculous, pathetic, detestable."

The discussions beside the water mirror were cold and caustic, like a final verdict, carrying a condescending indifference and unquestionable denial.

And within the Secret Realm, facing the insults, rebukes, and seething murderous intent pouring in from his own kind like a monstrous wave, enough to completely freeze the Soul of an ordinary person, the thin youth named "Wufa"...

Still had no reaction.

He did not even raise his head to look at the horned clansman who was furious, raging with Devilish Qi, and seemed about to pounce and tear him apart at any moment, nor did he pay attention to the malicious and mocking surrounding gazes of the other few Demon Race Prodigies.

His gaze remained fixed, stubbornly, on his own feet, which were slowly moving forward, covered in mud and blood scabs. It was as if those scarred feet, and the rugged, broken ground beneath them, were the only things in this world worthy of his attention.

The waves of insults, enough to tear eardrums, were like a violent storm, mercilessly battering his paper-thin body that seemed ready to fall apart at any moment.

Yet they failed to cause him even the slightest bit of wavering.

In his eyes, silent as an ancient well of ten thousand years, there was no fear of death, no grievance at humiliation, no anger at injustice.

Not even the most basic sense of humiliation belonging to a living being could be seen in the slightest.