366: Chapter 366 Bronze Revealed Deep Within the Forbidden Abyss, One Finger Breaks the Heaven-Sealing Lock

Darkness.

An absolute darkness that stripped away all senses and would instantly shred even the Divine Sense that probed into it.

Zhou Wannian had his hands casually clasped behind his back, his washed-out green robe snapping loudly in the sinister winds pouring back into the Forbidden Abyss.

He stepped into the bottomless Forbidden Abyss, but his figure did not fall like a kite with a broken string; instead, he walked with steady, unhurried steps, as if treading upon the bluestone stairs in his own courtyard.

Beneath his feet, the Great Perfection Space Law automatically unfurled into layers of invisible, intangible, yet solid stairs.

With every step he took downward, the violent suction of the abyss was silently and invisibly neutralized.

"Hoo—woo—"

A piercing whistling sound scraped past their ears, like thousands of vengeful ghosts screaming in despair from the mud at the bottom of the abyss.

In this bottomless rift, the wind was no longer a simple movement of airflow, but a materialized torrent formed by the Spiritual Qi forcibly sucked in by the shackle at the bottom of the abyss.

Shitou followed closely, three feet behind Zhou Wannian.

The boy bit his pale lips tightly, his hands clutching the hem of his tattered gray cloth garment so hard that his knuckles turned a bloodless, ghastly white.

Cold.

An bone-chilling cold, like thousands of poison needles refined from ice essence, desperately drilled through his pores and into the gaps of his bones.

This was not the cold of wind and snow in the natural world, but a deathly chill capable of directly freezing vitality and stripping away lifespan.

If not for the thin, cicada-wing-like five-colored glazed barrier radiating from Zhou Wannian's body protecting him, Shitou's Mortal Physical Body, which had just been transformed by the Sky-Opener Origin, would have been frozen into a lifeless ice sculpture in the very first breath of entering the Forbidden Abyss, and subsequently turned into dust within the violent torrent of Spiritual Qi.

All around was an impenetrable, dense blackness.

This black was as viscous as asphalt boiled for three days and three nights, clinging tightly to one's eyeballs, not allowing even a sliver of weak light to penetrate.

Shitou felt the sound of his own heartbeat magnified infinitely in this absolute silence.

"Thump, thump, thump," like a heavy hammer striking a broken drum.

"Big Brother... just how deep is it down here..."

The boy finally could no longer endure the oppressive sensation that stripped away all senses, and asked in a trembling, dry voice.

The hot breath he exhaled condensed into frost the moment it touched the five-colored glazed barrier, falling away with a rustling sound.

Zhou Wannian did not look back; his gait remained relaxed, as if strolling in a leisurely garden.

"Deep?"

He chuckled softly, his voice appearing exceptionally calm in the darkness, like casual small talk, even carrying a touch of lethargy that came from seeing through everything.

"This pit looks scary, baring its fangs and brandishing its claws, but in reality, it is nothing more than a large hole brutally gouged into the spinal column of the Qingping Realm's earth veins."

"If we are really talking about depth, it is about the same as the dry well for drawing water at the entrance of a Mortal village."

"As long as your heart is settled and you aren't scared out of your wits by this illusion, this path is only a few steps to the end."

He walked with leisurely steps, his posture relaxed to the extreme.

As they delved deeper, Shitou could clearly feel that in the surrounding viscous darkness, vast torrents of Spiritual Qi were being forced to converge toward the very bottom of the abyss, emitting shrill, mournful cries like giant dragons with their necks caught in invisible chains.

That was the Heaven and Earth Foundation of the Qingping Realm.

It was the Origin lifeline upon which the hundreds of millions of living beings in this Major Thousand Worlds relied for survival and Cultivation.

Now, however, it was being treated as fuel for some massive machine, ruthlessly and coldly drained away.

He did not know how long they had been walking downward; perhaps it was the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, or perhaps it was a long few hours.

The darkness ahead finally showed a trace of unusual change.

It was no longer that viscous, deathly black.

Instead, it revealed a faint, greenish shimmer that radiated a cold metallic luster.

The scent of soil and decaying leaves peculiar to deep mountains and old forests in the air had completely vanished, replaced by a smell of rust that was intense to the extreme.

That smell was like walking into an ancient Sword Tomb that had been sealed for hundreds of thousands of years, where thousands upon thousands of rusted, broken bronze swords were piled together, emitting that pungent and stale metallic oxidation scent under the erosion of time.

"We've arrived."

Zhou Wannian stopped and said calmly.

He took his last step, his feet firmly treading upon a piece of solid Void Realm.

There was no soil here, no rocks, only space barriers forcibly solidified by powerful Laws.

Shitou also landed.

He rubbed his sore eyes hard, trying to adapt to the dim environment and see the scene before him clearly.

When his vision finally penetrated that faint green light and saw the behemoth in front of him clearly.

The boy gasped sharply, his legs went weak, and he fell directly onto his backside on the invisible ground, his mouth wide open, unable to close it for a long time.

Appearing before them.

Was not some underground magma lake, nor some Secret Realm of a Dragon Palace piled with Heaven And Earth Treasure.

But a door.

A colossal bronze door, so huge that it completely exceeded the limits of Mortal cognition!

This bronze door had no frame, no wall to rely on.

It hung alone, yet incredibly domineeringly, in the Void Realm at the very bottom of the Forbidden Abyss.

The height of the door could not be seen at a glance, as if it had pierced directly through the dome of this world. Its width cut across the entire earth vein direction of the abyss.

In front of this door, even the Iron Blood Sect's bone warship that was thousands of feet long in the sky earlier seemed as small as an insignificant falling leaf.

The giant door was entirely a deathly dark cyan color, its surface mottled and worn.

Large patches of greenish-blue rust, like ugly scars growing on an ancient beast, clung tightly to the door panels.

It was like a giant plug forcibly shoved into the throat of the Qingping Realm, abruptly severing the Heavenly Dao cycle that should have flowed smoothly in this world.

Those torrents of Spiritual Qi converging from all directions were swallowed clean by the suction emanating from the door the moment they struck it.

But, what made Zhou Wannian feel the most glaring, and what made Shitou feel the most dizzy.

Was the patterns engraved on this bronze door.

According to the common knowledge of the Cultivation world, such ancient portals that suppressed the Luck of Heaven and Earth should be engraved with ferocious primeval dragons, ancient phoenixes reborn from fire, or those Taiji Bagua and Daoist runes that contained the supreme principles of the Dao and were profound and complex.

But on this door, there was nothing.

No birds or beasts, no mountains or rivers or sun or moon, and certainly no flowing charm of the Dao following nature.

What was engraved on the door panels.

Were lines.

Absolutely straight lines.

Perfect squares without any error.

Equilateral triangles with angles that were not off by even a fraction.

These geometric figures, composed of pure "logic," flickered with a cold, glaring, pure white shimmer that lacked any temperature.

On the ancient and vicissitudinous background of the bronze door, they wove into a vast, airtight, and rigorous network of code.

Classical and mechanical, ancient and cold.

Two completely different styles of Dao were extremely crudely stitched together on this door, revealing a nauseating strangeness and distortion.

These were the geometric codes of the Absolute Truth Realm!

Shitou looked at those flickering pure white lines, and a sudden, violent stabbing pain shot through his mind.

The gray mist he had inhaled into his body on the periphery of the Yunlan Ancient Land, which was the residue of the truth code, now seemed to have received some strong summons, and began to run wildly through Shitou's Meridians.

Shitou clutched his head in pain, his eyes bloodshot.

In his vision, those geometric figures on the bronze door began to twist and rotate, as if they wanted to forcibly drill into his eyes, completely format his brain, and transform him into a cold, emotionless execution program.

And deep within the center of his eyebrows, that cyan lotus mark representing the Origin of the Sky-Opener Qingpingzi also erupted with brilliant cyan light at this moment.

The vibrant power of the Sky-Opener's creation and that cold, deathly truth logic used Shitou's body as a battlefield, launching a frantic tug-of-war.

"Ugh... Big Brother... my head... my head hurts so much..."

Shitou rolled painfully on the invisible ground, his hands gripping his hair tightly, his nails even digging out bloody marks.

Zhou Wannian turned his head and looked at the suffering boy.

He did not intervene in the power conflict within Shitou's body.

The Karma of this world ultimately needed to be borne by the Bloodline of this world itself.

He could ensure the boy did not die, but this tempering that belonged to the descendant of the Sky-Opener could not be replaced by others.

Zhou Wannian cast his gaze back to the colossal bronze door.

He stood with his hands behind his back, his green robe unmoved by the scouring of the Spiritual Qi torrents.

A mocking sneer of seeing through everything appeared on his handsome face.

"What a brilliant, desperate scheme to drain the pond to catch all the fish."

Zhou Wannian's tone was steady, his voice echoing at the bottom of the empty abyss, carrying an unquestionable sense of judgment.

"Using the oldest bronze Origin of this Universe to cast the door panels, and then inviting that bunch of blockheads from the Absolute Truth Realm to carve this Heaven-Sealing Lock using their prideful, rigid formulas and geometric codes."

He looked up, his gaze creeping upward along those straight, pure white lines.

"The Heavenly Dao of the Qingping Realm was originally like water, flowing endlessly with infinite vitality."

"But these straight lines and squares forcibly dictated the direction of the water flow and the trajectory of the wind."

"They denied variables, denied creation, and turned a living world into a withered hourglass running according to rigid programs."

"As long as this door does not open, and the code on it does not perish."

"The Spiritual Qi of the Qingping Realm will only ever be able to enter, not leave."

"All its Foundations and all its vitality will be sucked dry by the things hidden behind this door."

"No wonder this realm has had no Soul Transformation for a million years."

"The throat of the Heavenly Dao is being tightly gripped by this lock, making it hard to even catch a breath; what is there to use to nurture a Soul Transformation expert?"

Zhou Wannian shook his head carelessly.

He did not look again at those geometric lines that made one feel annoyed.

[part:gemini-3.0-flash]

Those High-Dimensional Truth Codes that, in the eyes of others, represented the ultimate mysteries of the Universe and contained incredible power.

In the eyes of a Creation True God who had reached Great Perfection in his inner universe and had just finished fiddling with the Dominator of the Absolute Truth Realm like an abacus bead.

They were nothing more than a few low-quality chalk drawings scribbled on scrap metal.

Zhou Wannian set off.

Stepping onto the invisible Void Realm, he walked step by step, unhurriedly, toward that massive bronze gate.

He walked very slowly, his posture as lazy as if he were taking a stroll in his own back garden to admire the flowers.

As he approached, those pure white geometric codes on the bronze gate seemed to sense a terrifying threat that was impossible to analyze.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz!"

Piercing logic error sounds exploded frantically at the bottom of the abyss.

On the gate panels, thousands of squares and triangles erupted with blindingly bright light. They moved and reorganized at high speed, attempting to construct an absolute defensive Dimensionality Reduction Barrier in front of Zhou Wannian.

Countless pure white light beams intertwined into a web, sweeping toward Zhou Wannian. This light web contained a formatting power that stripped away all physical attributes; even a Cultivator at the Great Perfection of the Late Nascent Soul Stage would be instantly reduced to a two-dimensional scroll without thickness if they touched even a sliver of it.

However.

Zhou Wannian didn't even look at that light web capable of wiping out a powerhouse of an entire realm.

He maintained his steady and relaxed pace.

The moment his tall, slender body came into contact with that pure white light web.

The perfectly self-consistent and impeccable inner universe rules of the Great Five Elements Illusory World Art didn't even require his active activation; they relied solely on the most instinctive release of mass from his Physical Body.

"Pop."

A soft sound, like a bubble bursting.

That light web containing high-dimensional truth logic, upon touching the faded blue fabric of his clothes, directly collapsed into a sky full of meaningless white specks of light.

Logic? Truth?

In the face of absolute, crushing mass, any rigid formula was just a fragile joke.

Zhou Wannian walked to the front of the bronze gate.

Standing beneath this giant wall that seemed to support the dome of heaven and earth, his tall and slender blue figure was so small it couldn't even be considered a speck of dust.

Yet, the transcendent and relaxed aura he exuded, which viewed all things as nothing, forcibly and completely suppressed the ancient pressure of this bronze gate.

He did not circulate his True Qi.

He did not summon any earth-shattering supreme Immortal Artifact.

Nor did he perform any complex and profound Formation-breaking seals.

Zhou Wannian simply, in an extremely ordinary manner.

Withdrew his slender, fair right hand from where it had been held behind his back.

He slightly raised his arm.

His index finger extended.

Facing that Giant Heaven-Sealing Gate covered in bronze rust and pure white geometric codes, which had locked away the Luck of the Qingping Realm for a million years.

Plainly.

Casually.

He pointed out with a single finger.

"Thud."

His fingertip lightly touched the cold, hard bronze gate panel.

This finger strike did not produce any deafening thunderous sound.

Only an extremely muffled, weak sound, like the morning bell of an ancient temple being lightly struck, echoed leisurely through the endless darkness.

At this moment, time seemed to fall into a standstill.

The wild winds stopped howling, and the torrent of Spiritual Qi stopped surging.

Even Shitou, who was rolling in pain on the ground, briefly forgot the splitting headache because of this sudden, strange tranquility.

The next instant.

An incredible scene of absolute collapse.

At the bottom of this sunless Forbidden Abyss, in the quietest yet most violent way, it exploded with a shock!

Centering on the point where Zhou Wannian's fingertip touched.

The power of Great Perfection Five Elements Disintegration, mixed with the incalculable absolute mass of his inner universe.

Like a drop of extremely thick ink dripping into a bowl of clear water.

Instantly!

It spread frantically!

"Crack... crack crack crack crack..."

The first to collapse were those pure white geometric codes carved on the surface of the bronze gate.

Those straight lines and squares that represented the highest crystallization of wisdom from the Absolute Truth Realm, perfectly fitted and without any logical loopholes.

Under the impact of the perfect inner universe rules contained in Zhou Wannian's finger.

They were like lingering snow encountering a blazing sun.

Like patterns drawn by a child on a beach being washed away by a tsunami.

All the straight lines instantly twisted into hideous knots.

All the squares had their corners forcibly torn apart by an invisible force, turning into incomplete, discarded patterns.

The blinding white light flickered frantically a few times, like a short circuit, and then went out one after another.

Accompanied by a series of crisp cracking sounds, like glass cups smashing on the ground.

That Heaven-Sealing code network that covered the entire giant bronze gate.

Completely and utterly, all its physical forms and conceptual meanings were erased.

It turned into a sky full of drifting gray dust of discarded data, scattering in the abyss.

The final logical barrier locking away the Heavenly Dao of the Qingping Realm.

Was broken.

Just like that, it was punctured effortlessly by Zhou Wannian with a single finger.

Immediately following.

The ancient bronze gate, which had lost its code reinforcement and was left with only its hard Physical Body.

Let out a desperate groan of being overwhelmed.

"Creeeeeak—"

A heavy grinding sound that was grating to the extreme, as if even the Soul would be torn apart by it, rang out thunderously.

This giant gate, sealed for a million years and never shaken by any force.

Under the push of absolute mass continuously output from Zhou Wannian's fingertip.

The thick green bronze rust on the gate panels peeled off in large chunks, crashing down into the endless darkness below.

A tiny crack, in the very center of the bronze gate, slowly and with extreme difficulty, split open.

The crack grew wider and wider.

From the thickness of a hair, it gradually expanded to the width of a finger, then a palm.

Accompanied by the movement of the bronze gate slowly being pushed inward.

An eerie aura that had been suppressed for a million years and was intense to the extreme, like a flood bursting through a dam, surged frantically out of that opening gate crack!

A wild wind blew against his face.

It made Zhou Wannian's faded blue robe flutter wildly behind him.

He slightly narrowed his deep eyes.

On that clear and handsome face, there wasn't a trace of fear; instead, it revealed an extremely intense disgust and coldness.

What blew out from behind the gate.

Was not at all the pure Spiritual Qi that the Cultivators of the Qingping Realm desperately craved, which could prolong life and allow one to ascend to immortality.

Rather, it was a terrifying airflow that completely subverted common sense and was full of extreme contradictions and distortions!

This airflow.

Half of it appeared as a milky white color, as brilliant and holy as pearls.

It exuded a pure "Immortal Dao Clear Qi" full of noble spirit, making one feel as if they were about to ascend to the heavens with just one sniff.

That scent was like the ultimate delicate fragrance emitted by the ten-thousand-year immortal lotuses blooming in the Jasper Pool Immortal Realm above the Nine Heavens.

While the other half.

Appeared as a pitch-black color that could not be thinned, like thick ink.

It exuded a "Nine Nether Devilish Qi" that made the Soul tremble, full of endless slaughter, destruction, and fallen desires.

That scent was like throwing countless rotting corpses into a boiling pool of sulfur and blood to be stewed for countless eons, emitting a nauseating, pungent stench.

Immortal and Devil.

Holy and Fallen.

Fragrance and Stench.

These two extreme powers that, in this endless dimension, should be as absolutely opposed as water and fire, and would cause a world-destroying explosion upon contact.

At this moment.

In this blowing wild wind, they were actually, in an extremely eerie and disgusting way.

Intertwining and penetrating each other, like two deformed venomous snakes devouring and mating with each other.

They had perfectly fused together!

Immortal-Devilish Qi!

An Immortal-Devilish Qi that was refined to the extreme, yet also distorted to the extreme!

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Shitou, slumped on the ground, the moment this airflow blew over.

Let out an extremely painful, violent cough.

On his pale face, one half flushed with an abnormal redness due to the nourishment of Immortal Qi, while the other half turned bruised and black due to the erosion of Devilish Qi.

Two extreme sensory experiences were tearing frantically within his body.

He felt his Soul floating up to the clouds one moment, and being dragged into the Avici Hell the next.

If it weren't for the newly awakened Origin of Heaven-Opening within him desperately protecting his heart Meridians.

Just at the moment of smelling this scent, his Mortal Physical Body would have exploded on the spot and died, turning into a pool of pus and blood.

Zhou Wannian stood before the gate with his hands behind his back.

A barrier that made him impervious to all techniques casually isolated those Immortal-Devilish Qis three feet away.

His eyes, deep as an ancient well, looked through that bronze gate crack which had already opened more than a person's width.

Extremely calmly.

He looked into those unknown dark depths.

Behind the gate, there were no immortal mountains or pavilions.

No jade towers or palaces.

Only a boundless sea of blood, churning with thick Immortal-Devilish Qi in a state of Chaos.

In the center of that sea of blood.

Vaguely, there floated an indescribably massive, tumor-like deformed embryo.

Countless thick blood vessels connected the embryo to the void behind the gate, greedily transforming the Spiritual Qi drawn from the Qingping Realm into that disgusting Immortal-Devilish Qi.

Zhou Wannian looked at that embryo.

The corners of his mouth curled into a bone-chilling arc of extreme mockery.

Zhou Wannian's tone was steady, as if he were pronouncing a death sentence on a malignant tumor.

He spoke faintly.

"Half is Nine Heavens Immortal Spirit, half is Nine Nether Devil Seed."

"Forcibly stitched together with the threads of truth, and then nurtured with the flesh and blood of the common people of a realm."

"This group of lunatics from the Immortal-Demon Great World, their craftsmanship hasn't improved; instead, it's become increasingly nauseating."

He stepped forward with his right foot.

Facing that surging Immortal-Devilish airflow.

With great composure.

He took a step out toward that already opened bronze gate crack.

"I've slept for too long; my bones are a bit stiff."

"Today."

"It's just right to use this unborn freak."

"To stretch my limbs a bit."