653: Chapter 653 River Styx

Just at the moment she straightened up, a sudden change occurred.

Before she had fully risen from her bow, while her back was still in the process of slowly straightening, Luo Xiaojiu's pupils suddenly constricted—

It was not because she saw something, but because she felt an indescribable vibration.

This vibration did not come from the ground, nor from the air, but from the cauldron that had just settled deep within her brow.

It was vibrating and humming.

The nine Seal light patterns flashed violently at the same time, as if awakened by something, emitting a low moan that was almost mournful.

This sound was like a whimper from ancient times, passing through hundreds of millions of years of time, crashing heavily onto her Divine Soul, causing her heart to contract sharply as well.

Amidst the light rain left behind after the Golden Giant dissipated, one ray of light was different from the rest.

It did not drift away like the other light rain, scattering with the wind, but instead condensed into a golden thread as thin as a hair, shooting straight toward the sky of the Secret Realm.

This light was so thin it was almost invisible, yet it was shockingly bright—not the blinding kind of brightness, but a deep, restrained light, as if a star had been compressed to the thickness of a hair, concentrating all its radiance into one extreme point.

It pierced through the dome of the Secret Realm, penetrated layer upon layer of spatial barriers, like a golden arrow shot into the firmament, its momentum undiminished, plunging straight into the deepest depths of the endless Void Realm.

Within this golden light remained the Golden Giant's last trace of his life-bound mark.

It was not consciousness, not a remnant soul, and not even a complete memory.

It was merely proof that he had existed, an obsession to return, a stubborn aura unwilling to dissipate just like that.

Just like the last scrap of paper left after a letter is burned to ashes, still retaining half a blurred character—this was the final evidence of his existence in this world.

He wanted to take this evidence back to where he came from, back to that river that carried all beginnings and endings.

Luo Xiaojiu looked up, watching the direction where the golden light disappeared, and a strong sense of unease welled up in her heart for no reason.

This unease came without cause, yet it was so intense that it made her almost unable to catch her breath.

Her heartbeat suddenly accelerated, the cauldron deep within her brow trembled crazily, and the nine light patterns erupted with blinding light simultaneously, as if desperately trying to warn her.

She did not know what had happened, but she knew—something was waiting ahead for this lonely ray of light.

Something did not want it to return.

The speed of this light was extreme; in just a few breaths of time, it had already passed through countless layers of the Void Realm and arrived at the boundary of Chaos.

Here there was no up, down, or cardinal directions, no past or present, only an eternal void.

There was no light, no sound, no temperature, and no existence that could be perceived.

This was the final destination after all matter and energy had perished, the primordial state before the Universe was born.

Any living being that entered here would be assimilated and devoured by this void, becoming a part of it—except for this golden light, because it was already an existence on the verge of dissipation; to it, the void was merely the last stretch of empty field on the road home.

And at the end of this void, a river spanned across heaven and earth.

This river was not water; it was time.

It was so vast that it could not be described in words, wide enough that the opposite bank could not be seen, and long enough that the end could not be sighted.

The river water was not a flowing liquid, but countless glowing fragments churning, surging, and colliding; every fragment was a solidified piece of Karma, a moment frozen in time.

There was the first light of creation, tearing through Chaos, illuminating the eternal night.

There was the first cry of all things newly born, tender yet resounding, announcing the birth of life.

There was the last drop of blood from a hero at the end of his path, falling to the ground, smashing out a deep pit, the splashed dust burying an era.

There were also the unknown joys and sorrows of the common ants—the smile of a mother mending clothes for her child, the satisfaction of a farmer bending down to cup the soil during a harvest, the peace of an old man closing his eyes under the setting sun.

All of these were solidified in the fragments of time, eternally flowing within the River of Time.

The River of Time.

The beginning and end of all worlds and all things, the destination and source of all Karma.

It is the most ancient Law of the Universe, the place where all living beings must eventually return.

Whether you are a god high above, or an ant as humble as dust, when you reach the end of your life, your traces will merge into this river, becoming a part of it, achieving another form of eternal life in its eternal flow.

This golden light did not hesitate in the slightest, falling toward the River of Time like a meteor.

It wanted to return to the river, back to its original starting point, to return to silence together with the era that once belonged to it.

This was the final destination for every powerhouse who remained in the world in the form of a Divine Soul. "Soul returning to the River"—these four words had circulated in the cultivation world for who knows how many tens of thousands of years, and it was the most sacred end in the hearts of all Cultivators.

Just like fallen leaves returning to their roots, just like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea, this was a fateful return, a ritual where, after life had completed a Reincarnation, it could finally rest in peace.

However, at the very moment the golden light was about to submerge into the River of Time—

The sky turned dark.

It was not that the light was obscured, nor that the sun was blocked, but that something deeper than darkness, more hollow than the void, had descended.

This kind of darkness was not a lack of vision, but a conceptual devouring—it did not just make you unable to see, but made you feel as if you had never seen at all.

It did not just erase light; it erased the meaning of the very existence of the concept of light.

In the face of this darkness, all light appeared pale and ridiculous, like a firefly attempting to compete with the abyss.

It was silent, yet it caused the flow of the entire River of Time to stagnate.

Those eternally rushing fragments of time, those never-stopping torrents of Karma, appeared to have a brief pause at this moment. It was not stagnation, but—fear.

The River of Time was afraid.

This ancient river, which had witnessed the birth and death of all things and contained the past, present, and future, had actually instinctively recoiled when facing this darkness.

The rhythm of the river's churning became chaotic, countless fragments collided and shattered against each other, emitting sharp, mournful cries, as if the entire river was trembling.

Above the River of Time, a black river slowly emerged.

This was a river completely different from the River of Time.

It was equally vast, equally boundless, but its color was a dead, grayish-black, and what surged in the river water were not glowing fragments, but rotting bubbles and shattered shadows.

No light could be reflected from its surface; all light rays, once they touched its river surface, would be absorbed and devoured, without even leaving a single ripple.

The air was permeated with the scent of decay and ending, not the smell of a rotting corpse, but something more essential, more terrifying—the smell of "existence" itself being corroded.

This was the River of the Underworld.

It ran parallel to the River of Time, yet was completely different.

The River of Time carried the traces of what had existed, the footprints left by all living things in this world.

And the River of the Underworld carried everything that had been forgotten, erased, and buried.

Those names that were never remembered, those words that never had a chance to be spoken, those sighs that dissipated in the wind, those tears that sank to the bottom of the sea—everything abandoned by the world would eventually flow into the River of the Underworld.

If the River of Time is the destination of all things, then the River of the Underworld is the destination of destinations, the end after all endings.

The grayish-black river water churned, emitting an aura of decay and ending, as if it were the final grave of all things.

A palm reached out from the River of the Underworld.

This hand was unimaginably large, its five fingers like five giant pillars supporting the sky, each knuckle covered in eerie patterns.

These patterns were not carved on, not painted on, but were composed of countless tiny Talismans—each Talisman was constantly twisting, deforming, and roaring, as if possessing an independent life.

They were like wriggling maggots, densely covering the gray skin, sometimes gathering into some kind of ancient and evil script, sometimes scattering, crawling, multiplying, and devouring each other between the fingers.

The roaring sounds emitted by those Talismans were extremely faint, yet sharp and ear-piercing, like hundreds of millions of mosquitoes buzzing in one's ears simultaneously, and also like the wails of countless dead souls in despair.

The color of the palm was a dead gray, like a ghost hand reaching out from a coffin dug up from an ancient grave.

The nails were as black as ink, about several zhang long, curved like hooks, covered in some kind of viscous black liquid, dripping one drop after another into the Void Realm, and every drop that fell would corrode a hole, revealing an even darker void beneath.

This hand did not belong to any known creature, did not belong to any known race; it gave one only a single feeling—pure, absolute malice.

Its target was this golden light.

The speed at which the giant palm descended was impossible to capture; it was clearly just reaching out slowly, yet it seemed to cross the boundaries of time and space, appearing directly above the golden light.

This speed surpassed common sense, surpassed cognition—it was not moving fast, but it was already there the moment it appeared, as if it had been waiting at that position from the very beginning, and it was only now letting you see it.

The five fingers closed, like a Five-Finger Mountain descending from the sky, intending to completely crush this weak light.

At this moment, the River of Time boiled.

Countless fragments shot into the sky, erupting with blinding light, as if the entire river was roaring in anger.

But this Five-Finger Mountain still pressed down unmoved, with an indifferent, condescending posture, as if saying—whether you are angry or struggling, no one has ever been able to stop what I want to destroy.

Under the shadow of the giant palm, this golden light appeared so small, so fragile, like a firefly swaying in a storm, likely to be completely extinguished at any moment.

It desperately dashed forward, wanting to throw itself into the embrace of the River of Time before the giant palm closed, but the speed at which the five fingers closed was too fast, so fast that even time itself lost its meaning before it.

Just as this light was about to be completely crushed—

"Presumptuous!!!"

A roar exploded from the end of the River of Time.

The voice was not loud, yet it contained an irresistible majesty, as if it were not one person speaking, but the entire River of Time roaring.

The power contained in this voice was pure to the extreme, without any fancy techniques, without any gorgeous spells, just the most primitive, most barbaric energy impact.

Just like the first roar of an ancient giant beast awakened from its slumber, it did not need any embellishment; the sound itself was enough to change the color of heaven and earth, and make ghosts and gods tremble with fear.

The giant palm reaching out from the River of the Underworld was forced back three zhang by this power.

The five closed fingers were forced to loosen, the gray palm retreated several zhang, the wriggling Talismans on the fingertips emitted a series of shrill screams, as if they had been scorched by fire, falling off the skin in large patches, revealing the even more grayish and decaying texture beneath.

This palm trembled slightly, not knowing if it was because of pain, or because of anger.

And below this golden light, the River of Time suddenly split open a huge gap.

A giant hand, so brilliant that it was impossible to look directly at it, reached out from the crack.

This hand was completely different from the one reaching out from the River of the Underworld—it was golden, but not the dazzling, tacky kind of gold, but a warm, restrained gold, as if it had settled through countless epochs of time.

Every inch of skin exuded a soft light; those lights were not blinding, yet made people dare not look directly at it, because when you looked directly at it, you would feel your own insignificance—not insignificance in strength, but the insignificance of existence itself, just like the awe one feels when a speck of dust looks up at the starry sky.

The movement of this hand was gentle yet firm, as if afraid of breaking something precious, slowly wrapping this golden light in its palm.

The five fingers closed gently, forming a perfect posture of protection, firmly shielding this weak light.

The moment it closed, this golden light trembled violently, like a child who had finally found support, letting go of all defenses and strength in its mother's embrace, emitting one last silent whimper.

And this brilliant giant hand held the golden light steadily in its palm.