403: Chapter 403 Fancy supernatural powers are all illusions; a slap brings down the altar.

That invisible giant hand, condensed from the Great Perfection Space Law, tightly gripped the Extraterrestrial Angler's dark golden long leg just as it was about to step into the warp rift in the hundred-thousand-foot-high Void Realm.

There was no earth-shattering roar, only a tooth-aching, dull grinding sound, as if a rusted iron gate were being forcibly dragged.

The Angler's mountain-like body suddenly froze in mid-air. Most of his body, which had just poked into the cold starry sky of the Truth Realm, was dragged back from the dimensional rift inch by inch by a massive, utterly unreasonable Absolute Mass.

"Let go!"

The Angler let out a mechanical roar full of shock and rage. His wide, dark golden robes billowed violently, and countless grayish-white Truth Codes flashed frantically on the surface of the robes, attempting to calculate a solution to break free from this gravitational bind.

However, no matter how the energy core within him overloaded, or how those codes representing the Laws of the Universe reorganized, the invisible giant hand gripping his ankle was like the singularity that had collapsed to the extreme before the Big Bang—so heavy it brought despair and so stable it chilled the heart.

"Tear—"

Accompanied by a piercing sound of space tearing, the warp rift that The Angler had forcibly opened was rapidly repaired and closed by the remaining Heavenly Dao Laws of the Immortal-Demon Great World once it lost the maintenance of his power.

The last glimmer of the cold light from the Truth Realm's starry sky was completely extinguished before The Angler's eyes.

He was dragged firmly back into the sky above these ravaged ruins.

Despair, an emotion that should only belong to low-dimensional beings, now tightened around The Angler's logic core like a seamless iron net.

He couldn't escape.

This realization instantly took shape in The Angler's brain, which was filled with countless data. The man in the green robe standing on the ruins below was not some ordinary variable at all, but a walking physical black hole. In the face of that Absolute Mass with no upper limit, any spatial jump or dimensional folding became laughable parlor tricks.

Since he couldn't escape, he could only fight to the death.

In the crack-filled grayish-white vertical pupil on The Angler's pale, flat, featureless face, an unprecedented frenzy and death-wish erupted.

"You forced this seat's hand!"

The Angler stabilized his falling figure and hovered in mid-air. He suddenly threw open his arms, tilted his head back, and let out a roar that shattered the clouds.

"Creation Returns to One, Immortal and Demon Perish Together!"

With his roar, the remaining foundation of the entire Immortal-Demon Great World was completely ignited.

In the Void Realm, a vast and boundless dark golden throne broke through the layers of haze and descended behind The Angler with a crash. This throne was built entirely from the wreckage of countless worlds whose Origins had been drained dry; on the armrests of the throne were carved the faces of countless wailing and agonizing living beings.

The Angler's massive body sat heavily back upon the throne.

He raised his withered, giant hand with only four long fingers and clapped it together in front of his chest, forming an extremely bizarre hand seal.

In an instant, the world changed color.

The two most fundamental powers of the Immortal-Demon Great World, under the frantic extraction of this supreme ruler, roared out from deep underground and from the remaining floating island ruins like two enraged world-destroying dragons.

On the left was Immortal Dao Pure Qi, white as snow yet radiating a bone-chilling cold. This pure Qi gathered into a vast, boundless white ocean, from which countless giant phantoms of immortal swords rose, each emitting a cold Sword Intent that could sever the Mortal World and erase all life.

On the right was Nine Nether Demonic Flame, pitch black as ink and churning with endless malice. The demonic flame transformed into a black sea of fire that swallowed everything, where one could vaguely see countless hideous phantoms of demon gods roaring madly, greedily chewing on the surrounding spatial fragments.

Immortal and demon, life and death—these two diametrically opposed forces converged in front of The Angler's chest.

Ordinarily, the meeting of these two forces would inevitably trigger a world-destroying explosion. But now, under the gaze of The Angler's grayish-white vertical pupil, countless Truth Realm codes shimmering with a cold metallic luster pierced into the intersection of the immortal and demonic forces like indestructible steel needles.

"Truth as the guide, reshaping the era!"

The Angler's mechanical voice became hoarse and broken, and the red light on his monocle flashed so intensely it almost seemed to drip blood.

The grayish-white codes forcibly stitched together the repelling immortal and demonic powers.

An enormous, sky-blotting dual-colored lotus slowly bloomed in front of The Angler's throne.

This lotus was half pure white and half pitch black. Each petal of the lotus was woven from countless destructive Law runes. At the center of the pistil was a bottomless grayish-white spatial collapse point.

This was The Angler's trump card—the Immortal-Demon Void-Return Great Divine Ability!

The moment the Divine Ability took shape, the sky of the Immortal-Demon Great World completely collapsed. The air within ten thousand miles was instantly sucked dry, and as light approached that dual-colored lotus, it was forcibly swallowed and distorted. An oppressive force heavy enough to turn a Mortal into meat paste in an instant spread out like spilling mercury.

Wild winds howled, and lightning flashed amidst thunder. The pungent smell of ozone and a thick scent of blood mixed together, forming a suffocating aura of death.

The Angler sat on the dark golden throne, his entire body emitting blue smoke from the overload. His crack-filled vertical pupil stared fixedly at Zhou Wannian below, his eyes filled with the madness of mutual destruction.

"To be able to push this seat to this point, you have earned the right to be proud. But this world-ending strike, which fuses the supreme Profound Truths of Immortal, Demon, and Truth, would turn even a Chaos Demon God from the dawn of the Universe into dust within this lotus of Void-Return!"

The Angler raised his trembling right hand, pointed from afar at Zhou Wannian, and shoved forward violently.

"Die for this seat!"

The sky-blotting Immortal-Demon dual-colored lotus, carrying a terrifying world-destroying might, slowly rotated as it pressed down toward Zhou Wannian below. Everywhere the lotus passed, space shattered inch by inch like fragile glass, leaving behind a pitch-black Void Realm trail tens of thousands of feet wide.

However.

Faced with this terrifying Divine Ability that was enough to wipe out a Major Thousand Worlds.

Zhou Wannian, standing on the broken alloy ruins, only slowly raised his hand.

He did not form any seals.

Nor did he sacrifice any Magic Treasure.

He raised his slender, fair right hand and gently covered his own mouth.

And then.

In this apocalyptic scene of howling winds and collapsing heavens.

Zhou Wannian opened his mouth and let out a full, hearty yawn.

"Ah—"

After finishing the yawn, a physiological tear even squeezed out from the corner of his eye. He casually wiped the tear away with the back of his hand, then stretched his somewhat stiff shoulders, his joints making a series of crisp cracking sounds.

The storm blew against his washed-out green cloth robe, making the black hair on his forehead a bit messy.

He slightly tilted his chin, looking at that grand dual-colored lotus slowly pressing down from the sky above. In his eyes, as deep as an ancient well, there was not a single trace of fear or gravity; there was only overflowing boredom and disdain.

"You certainly made quite a scene."

Zhou Wannian lowered his hand, his tone calm and lazy, his voice clearly reaching every corner of the world amidst the deafening roar.

"All this flashing light and thunder. Mixing all these colors together makes it look like a giant dye vat."

He looked at The Angler sitting on the throne with a face full of madness and shook his head somewhat helplessly.

"Can't you people just be a bit more straightforward when you fight? You just have to do all this fancy stuff; it's honestly making me sleepy."

As his voice fell.

Zhou Wannian didn't look at the dual-colored lotus about to crash onto his head again.

His hands hung casually at his sides, and facing that terrifying wind pressure capable of tearing space, he slowly lifted his right foot, clad in a green cloth shoe.

Then, he took a step forward.

Just one plain, ordinary step. There was no dazzling light, no sharp sonic boom of tearing space.

But at that moment, the Great Perfection Space Law was pushed to a logic-defying extreme by his Absolute Mass, which had no upper limit.

Space, beneath Zhou Wannian's feet, was no longer a measure of distance.

Instead, it became a piece of paper that could be folded at will.

The instant the sole of his shoe landed.

Zhou Wannian's figure vanished from the spot without any warning.

It wasn't high-speed movement, nor was it a spatial teleportation Spell. It was pure physical mass forcibly pulling the spatial curvature between two points to zero.

The vast distance of tens of thousands of feet, that void chasm filled with destructive storms.

Under this one step, it was completely flattened.

Above the firmament.

The Angler sat in his dark golden throne, pouring all his strength into controlling that Immortal-Demon Void-Return lotus to press downward. His grayish-white vertical pupil stared fixedly below, expecting to see the scene of the green-robed man being turned to ash under the Divine Ability.

Suddenly.

The void in front of him rippled slightly without producing any energy ripples or any warning.

A figure wearing a washed-out green cloth robe just appeared out of thin air, crossing that Divine Ability blockade that could tear anything apart, and stood steadily before the armrest of that dark golden throne.

He was less than a foot away from The Angler's massive, pale face.

The Angler's thinking core fell into a severe stall at this moment. The data stream on his monocle scrambled wildly, emitting a piercing short-circuit sound.

This is impossible!

That was the Void-Return Great Divine Ability that had locked down space and isolated Karma! Even the highest-level warp battleship of the Truth Realm could not perform a spatial jump in the center of that Divine Ability's activation. How did he get here?

"You..."

The gears in The Angler's throat ground frantically, squeezing out a pitch-shifted syllable. He tried to retract his hands controlling the lotus to defend against the imminent, fatal threat.

But it was too late.

And too slow.

Zhou Wannian stood on the armrest of the throne, looking down from above at this close-up, pale face that had no features except for a single bleeding vertical pupil.

[part:gemini-3.1-flash-lite]

A pungent scent of antiseptic mixed with the smell of machine oil and rust rushed toward him.

The look of disgust in Zhou Wannian's eyes deepened slightly.

He did not use any flashy Divine Ability.

Nor did he draw any peerless Magic Treasure.

He simply raised his right hand slowly.

His five fingers were brought together, his wrist relaxed.

It was as if he were an idle spectator, disturbed from a nap by a cheap trick, trying to shoo away a buzzing fly before him.

Facing The Angler's massive, pale face.

Zhou Wannian swung his raised right hand, utterly plain and unremarkable, across.

This was the most standard, most simple, and completely untechnical slap in the face.

"Slap!!!"

A crisp, resounding sound of a slap, penetrating all dimensions and space, exploded across the zenith of the Immortal-Demon Great World.

The sound was not deafening, yet it possessed a peculiar penetrating power. It directly drowned out the howling of the Void Realm storms, the rumbling of thunder, and even the tearing sound of that dual-colored lotus in operation.

In the ten-thousandth of a second when this slap made contact with The Angler's cheek.

There were no sparks, no light and shadow.

There was only pure, unreasonable Absolute Mass.

The Angler's face, forged from high-dimensional materials and Immortal-Demon secret techniques, felt like a fragile piece of tofu being struck hard by a heavy forging hammer the moment it touched this mass.

He didn't even have time to feel pain.

That terrifying kinetic energy, sufficient to pierce through a small galaxy, poured out from Zhou Wannian's palm, unreservedly crashing into The Angler's left cheek.

"Boom—"

The high-dimensional ruler, who had been high and mighty just a moment ago.

The Angler, who controlled the power of life and death in the Immortal-Demon Great World, had laid out a world-destroying giant net, and unleashed the Return-to-Void Divine Ability.

Was sent flying off that dark golden throne by this unremarkable slap.

His massive body suddenly folded into an eerie obtuse angle in mid-air, and his dark golden robe instantly tore into countless rags under the terrifying acceleration.

He was like a cannonball rudely fired from its chamber, or a falling meteor that had lost the tether of gravity.

With a series of ear-piercing air-tearing sounds, he plummeted straight toward the earth below.

As The Angler was slapped away, he lost control of the Immortal-Demon Return-to-Void Lotus.

Even more terrifyingly, the Absolute Mass ripples accompanying Zhou Wannian's slap rippled through the air and directly collided with the dual-colored lotus floating in mid-air.

"Crack."

That peerless Divine Ability, which claimed to be able to turn the Chaos Demon Gods from the beginning of the Universe into dust.

Could not hold on for even a single breath under the crushing weight of this pure physical mass.

The pure white Immortal sword phantoms shattered inch by inch, turning into snow filling the sky; the pitch-black Nine Nether Demonic Flames were forcibly extinguished, leaving only wisps of foul-smelling black smoke; the gray-white spatial collapse point at the center was directly filled and smoothed over by the mass ripples.

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

Only a teeth-grinding sound of disintegration.

The flashy Divine Ability, in the face of the most simple physical attack, was as fragile as a soap bubble that bursts with a single poke. It turned into scattered energy particles filling the sky and dissipated with the wind.

Zhou Wannian stood before the empty dark golden throne and slowly withdrew his right hand.

He lowered his head and looked down.

"Boom!"

The Angler's falling body smashed heavily onto the first floating island suspended above the Inner City.

It was a Jade Pool Water Pavilion built entirely of top-grade white marble and wreathed in Immortal Qi. Usually, it stood high and aloof, allowing no Mortal to approach.

But in front of The Angler's body, which carried terrifying kinetic energy, this floating island was like a biscuit.

With a muffled "thud."

The entire Jade Pool Water Pavilion instantly shattered. The white jade crumbled into powder, and the Immortal spring turned into water vapor. The Angler's body did not pause in the slightest, penetrating the jade fragments filling the sky, and continued to fall.

Immediately following was the second floating island.

It was a Demonic Path altar churning with blood, engraved with defensive array patterns.

"Boom!"

The blood evaporated, and the altar collapsed. Those sturdy array patterns were like paper under the impact of the Absolute Mass.

The third layer, the fourth layer, the tenth layer, the one-hundredth layer...

The Angler was like an indestructible meteorite, trailing a long wake mixed with fire and thick smoke. He smashed through all the defensive facilities in the sky of the Immortal-Demon Inner City, smashed through countless resplendent palaces, and smashed through those sturdy city walls fired from the remains of abandoned worlds.

Deafening collision sounds rang out continuously, and the entire Immortal-Demon Great World shook violently under this terrifying falling kinetic energy. The sky was filled with scattering architectural debris and metal fragments.

Finally.

"Thud————!!!"

A sound so dull and extreme that it made the entire continental plate tremble came from the deepest part of the surface.

The Angler's body slammed heavily onto the bedrock at the very bottom of the Immortal-Demon Great World, which was pieced together from dead, silent continents.

The earth heaved violently, rolling like ocean waves.

A terrifying crater with a diameter of tens of thousands of miles and bottomless depth formed on the surface with a roar. Violent shockwaves swept across the ground, completely leveling all remaining ruins within a radius of one hundred thousand miles.

A colossal mushroom cloud, mixed with soil, ash, and metal dust, rose slowly from the center of the deep pit, shooting straight into the sky.

The high-dimensional ruler, after unleashing his strongest Divine Ability.

Was slapped by a Mortal scholar with the most ordinary slap, sending him from his high and mighty altar directly into the muddy deep pit.

Zhou Wannian stood before the throne in the high sky, watching the rising mushroom cloud below.

He brushed off the sleeves of his green robe, walked leisurely down the Void Realm stairs, and followed the straight path smashed through the debris toward the deep pit below.

Thick smoke rolled around him, and the scorching air currents carried a pungent smell of scorched earth.

Zhou Wannian landed on the edge of that massive, tens-of-thousands-of-miles-wide crater.

The bottom of the pit was covered with glass-like crystals, formed by soil instantaneously melting and cooling under extreme high temperature and pressure.

In the very center of those glass crystals lay that massive dark golden figure.

The Angler's dark golden robe, woven from data stream light, had been completely burned away during the fall, leaving only a few charred rags hanging on his body.

His proud demigod body was now twisted eerily, his limbs in a state of reverse-jointed fracture.

But.

There was no mangled flesh.

There was no gruesome sight of broken bones piercing through skin.

Zhou Wannian stepped forward, walking on the scorching glass crystals, and came before The Angler.

He lowered his head, his deep eyes falling onto The Angler's face.

That slap just now had landed solidly on this pale, featureless cheek.

At this moment, that "pale skin," which had originally been stretched tight on the face like a human skin mask, was completely shattered.

It was like a layer of inferior ceramic shell, covered in spiderweb-like cracks under the impact of the immense force. Large chunks of gray-white bionic skin peeled off, falling onto the scorching ground, emitting a "hissing" sound and releasing a pungent smell of burning plastic.

Zhou Wannian's gaze pierced through the gaps in the peeling skin, seeing clearly the true face hidden beneath this camouflage.

It was not flesh.

It was not Meridians.

Beneath the broken bionic skin was a mechanical head crafted entirely from pure metal!

The cold, chilling silver-gray metal skull gleamed with a luster devoid of any warmth. There was no muscle tissue; instead, it was replaced by hydraulic synthetic artificial muscle fibers precise to the micron level; there was no bone marrow, and dark golden cooling machine oil flowed inside the bones.

The gray-white vertical pupil that had originally grown in the center of the face had its outer biological camouflage slapped away, revealing the complex mechanical structure inside. It was clearly a high-dimensional optical sensor composed of countless micro-lenses and fiber-optic probes!

Those things twitching around the eye socket were not nerves at all, but broken wires, constantly sparking with eerie blue electrical arcs.

So.

This supreme Dominator, who had ruled the Immortal-Demon Great World for countless epochs and treated countless low-dimensional beings as blood food.

This Extraterrestrial Angler, who claimed to be the truth of the Universe and stood high and mighty.

Had not a single shred of true living flesh from head to toe.

He was merely an Advanced mechanical Puppet wearing bionic human skin, running according to established programs.

A mask of camouflage used to deceive others and to issue orders in this world filled with Immortal-Demon aura had been completely shattered by this unremarkable slap from Zhou Wannian.

The camouflage peeled off, and the truth was revealed.

This entire Immortal-Demon Great World, from the peripheral guards to the Inner City Grandmasters, and even this high and mighty Dominator.

Were all just a group of mechanical tools manipulated at will by higher-level existences.

Zhou Wannian stood quietly at the bottom of the deep pit, looking at the massive mechanical skeleton at his feet, which had revealed its metal body and was making "click, click" short-circuiting sounds.

The pungent smell of machine oil permeated the deep pit.

There was no surprise or anger on Zhou Wannian's handsome and easygoing face.

He just shook his head slightly, the corners of his mouth curling into an undisguised mockery.

"Wearing a fake skin, pretending to be a living person for so long."

Zhou Wannian raised his foot, clad in a green cloth shoe, and stepped casually onto the metal skull that was sparking.

"With this slap."

His voice was calm, echoing in the deathly silent deep pit.

"The iron skin on your face was actually thinner than I imagined."