406: Chapter 406 Absolute Truth Reappears in Shadow, Attempting to Cross Boundaries to Save the Lackey

Scorching heatwaves rolled wildly at the bottom of the bottomless crater.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of engine oil mixed with the scorched scent of metal melted by high temperatures, making it almost impossible to keep one's eyes open. On the surrounding crater walls, glazed crystals formed from soil and rock under the squeeze of absolute power emitted a faint dark red glow. Occasionally, a crystal, unable to withstand the intense heat, would let out a crisp "crack" and shatter into countless tiny glass shards, sliding down the steep walls.

Zhou Wannian stood quietly in the center of the crater floor.

His faded green cotton robe swayed slightly in the hot wind, its hem untainted by even a speck of mud or blood.

Beneath his feet lay that massive, completely scrapped mechanical wreck. The Extraterrestrial Angler's ornate dark gold robe had long since turned to ash during the fall, exposing a silver-gray metal skeleton that was twisted and broken, looking like a pile of scrap iron discarded in a junkyard.

Having been forcibly stripped of its main control core crystal earlier, this mechanical shell had lost all its kinetic energy. However, inside that oversized metal skull, some remaining backup capacitors were making a final struggle.

"Zzzt... Zzzt..."

Eerie blue electrical sparks occasionally burst from the gaps in the skull's eye sockets, striking the glazed ground nearby and leaving charred black spots. Dark gold coolant dripped from the metal jaw, gathering into a puddle of foul-smelling, viscous liquid at the bottom of the pit.

Zhou Wannian's hands hung naturally at his sides, his deep gaze falling upon the metal skull that was still twitching slightly.

Although he had crushed the core data hub into powder with a single step, this shell, forged from high-dimensional metal, still retained the shady underlying logic codes of the Truth Realm. If left in the ruins of this Immortal-Demon Great World, it might very well spawn some bizarre mechanical monsters like weeds after tens of thousands of years.

To clean a house, one must sweep away the trash completely.

Zhou Wannian slightly raised his right foot.

His spotless green cloth shoe hovered directly above the massive metal skull.

With just one downward step, the Absolute Mass granted by the Great Perfection Space Law would, within a ten-thousandth of a breath, crush this skull along with all its backup circuits, optical sensors, and the Geometric Formations etched into its metal surface into a void that didn't even qualify as elementary particles.

Nothing could leave a trace under such physical pulverization.

However.

At the very moment Zhou Wannian's right foot was about to descend, with the sole of his shoe less than an inch from the cold metal skull.

An indescribable, eerie change descended without warning.

There was no sudden gale, no roaring thunder, nor any flash of blinding light.

Instead, sound vanished.

Not only the crisp cracking of the glazed crystals and the buzzing of the electrical sparks, but even the howling wind pouring into the deep pit was completely erased in an instant by some invisible force.

The entire world fell into a suffocating, absolute silence.

Immediately after, Zhou Wannian keenly felt that the free energy particles in the air, which had been moving violently due to the high temperature, seemed to have been hit by a pause button, freezing rigidly in mid-air.

This feeling was as if the scroll of this world had been forcibly stripped of the concepts of time and space flow, turning into a rigid, cold still-life sketch.

Zhou Wannian halted his descending right foot.

He was in no hurry to crush the metal head beneath him; instead, he slowly looked up, casting his deep, unruffled eyes toward the sky above the crater.

High above, where the dark purple haze rolled, a gap appeared in the already battered spatial barriers of the Immortal-Demon Great World.

But it wasn't the jagged rift produced when an ordinary powerhouse tears through the Void Realm, nor was it a swirling, devouring spatial black hole.

It was a square.

An absolutely perfect square passage, with sides of exact length and four corners forming absolute ninety-degree right angles!

In the natural evolution of all things in the Universe, irregular curves and incomplete outlines are the norm. Whether it be mountains and rivers or the sun, moon, and stars, such absolute geometric shapes that exist only in mathematical formulas cannot exist.

The appearance of this square passage was as if a scalpel named "Truth" had coldly and ruthlessly cut a square piece of canvas out of this chaotic sky.

The edges of the square emitted a blinding, grayish-white cold light. That light carried no warmth, yet it cut through one's vision more sharply than the keenest Sword Qi, making one's Divine Soul sting with just a glance.

Inside the passage, there was no Immortal Qi, no demonic flames, and no Chaos of Void Realm turbulence.

Only a cold starry sky, deep to the extreme, composed of countless flickering binary codes.

"Vrrr—"

A low, monotonous mechanical hum with a constant frequency that made one's teeth ache slowly emanated from the depths of that perfect square passage.

This sound bypassed the medium of air and buzzed directly at the edge of Zhou Wannian's Sea of Consciousness.

Along with this hum.

A colossal object descended bit by bit from the square passage into the sky above the Immortal-Demon Great World.

Standing at the bottom of the deep pit, Zhou Wannian quietly watched this uninvited guest.

It couldn't be called a traditional warship at all. It had no streamlined hull, no towering masts, and no thrusters spitting out tail flames.

Its true form was a massive energy projection composed entirely of various nested and combined perfect geometric shapes.

A massive regular tetrahedron formed its core, surrounded by slowly rotating regular hexahedrons and dodecahedrons. These geometric shapes were not solid metal but were condensed from high-density grayish-white data streams. They constantly intersected, folded, and reorganized in mid-air, each transformation creating a high-dimensional ripple that distorted the surrounding physical constants.

This was the highest symbol of military power in the Absolute Truth Realm—the Truth Warship!

Although it was only an energy projection crossing dimensions, the pressure it emitted—viewing all things as data, absolutely rational and cold—was even more oppressive and despair-inducing than when The Angler used the Void Returning Divine Ability earlier.

The warship projection hovered in the sky.

Grayish-white cold light poured down, illuminating the entire scarred ruins of the Immortal-Demon Great World.

Under this light, the heatwaves at the bottom of the pit were instantly frozen, and those scorching dark red glazed crystals quickly lost their color, turning into a lifeless grayish-white texture.

The pungent smell of engine oil and scorched metal at Zhou Wannian's nose was also dispelled. It was replaced by a cold, dry, inorganic smell devoid of any life, similar to that found in a sterile laboratory sealed for millions of years.

"They certainly moved fast."

Zhou Wannian stood with his hands behind his back, watching the Truth Warship in the sky as it constantly changed its geometric form, a flicker of interest crossing his lips.

Just before The Angler died, he had used his monocle to send an ultra-dimensional distress signal, while also packaging and transmitting the combat data collected here.

Zhou Wannian had originally thought that those "tin cans" hiding behind the scenes crunching numbers would at least take some time to build models and run simulations after receiving the data before sending an army to reclaim their honor.

He hadn't expected their reaction to be so direct, tearing open a square dimensional passage and projecting a warship over.

It seemed that his Absolute Mass, which had no upper limit, had indeed touched a nerve with these people who claimed to be the masters of universal truth.

While Zhou Wannian was observing the geometric warship.

At the core of the warship, the massive regular tetrahedron suddenly stopped rotating.

One tip of the tetrahedron pointed straight at Zhou Wannian at the bottom of the pit.

"Target locked."

"Unknown mass variable. Danger Rank: Unassessable."

Accompanied by several short electronic beeps.

A grayish-white beam, thin as a hair yet extremely concentrated, shot out from the tip of the tetrahedron.

The speed of this beam surpassed conventional physical concepts; it had no trajectory through the air. At the same moment it was fired, it had already descended upon Zhou Wannian's head.

This was not an attack.

This was a Matrix Anchor Ray used by the Truth Warship to scan, analyze, and attempt spatial locking.

Zhou Wannian's expression remained calm, and he made no move to dodge.

Around him, within three feet, the Absolute Mass vacuum Domain granted by the Great Perfection Space Law was always present. This Domain had no form, yet it was more indestructible than any defensive Magic Treasure. Previously, even the concentrated fire of a million monsters or the crushing weight of the Returning to Void Two-Colored Lotus could only be turned into dust before this Domain.

That grayish-white scanning beam landed silently on the edge of the three-foot Domain.

Just as Zhou Wannian thought this beam would shatter and annihilate upon contact like the previous attacks,

a sudden change occurred.

The moment that grayish-white beam touched the Absolute Mass Domain, it did not engage in a head-on collision.

The Truth Code inside the beam actually underwent hundreds of millions of self-reorganizations and frequency modulations at a terrifying speed that exceeded Zhou Wannian's expectations.

The originally cold and rigid code displayed a bizarre "adaptability" at this moment. It attempted to mimic the extremely minute space curvature fluctuations at the edge of Zhou Wannian's three-foot Domain, trying to adjust its own frequency to the same band as Absolute Mass.

"Buzz..."

An extremely subtle vibration rang out.

In Zhou Wannian's perception, his three-foot Domain, which had always been perfectly harmonious and possessed Invulnerability to All Laws, actually experienced an almost negligible stagnation at this moment.

It was as if a tiny speck of dust had fallen onto a flawless mirror.

Taking advantage of this ten-thousandth of a breath of stagnation, the grayish-white beam miraculously bypassed the outermost mass barrier, penetrated into the interior of the Domain, and lightly swept across Zhou Wannian's left wrist.

An extremely faint chill, as if being scraped by a cold metal probe, flashed across the skin of Zhou Wannian's wrist.

Zhou Wannian's pupils constricted slightly at this instant.

A look of genuine surprise finally appeared on that face which had always worn a casual smile.

He did not hesitate, and the dormant Absolute Mass within his body surged instantly.

"Puff."

The segment of the grayish-white beam that had penetrated, along with the anchor coordinates it attempted to establish, instantly turned into a puff of blue smoke and completely dissipated under the mass-crushing force actively released by Zhou Wannian.

The three-foot Domain restored its unreasonable state of absolute defense.

The projection of the Truth Warship in the sky seemed to have sensed the failure of the scan; the tip of the regular tetrahedron quickly retracted the remaining beam and resumed its slow rotation.

At the bottom of the deep pit, Zhou Wannian slowly raised his left hand and glanced at the spot on his wrist where the beam had swept.

His skin was still fair, without any wounds, and not even a faint red mark was left behind.

But he knew that what just happened was not an illusion.

The opponent's ray had indeed broken through his usual state of Invulnerability to All Laws, leaving a mark on him for half a breath.

"A bit interesting."

Zhou Wannian lowered his left hand, a profound light flickering in his deep eyes as he looked up at the geometric warship.

He immediately understood the key to this.

The data packet sent out by The Angler before his death was not a meaningless struggle.

After receiving the data, the Super Matrix Computer in the Truth Realm, although unable to calculate the upper limit of his Absolute Mass, captured the micro-fluctuation frequency generated by his three-foot Domain during defense through the feedback from The Angler before his death.

This descending warship projection came with this newly released targeted patch.

They modified the underlying logic of the scanning ray, giving it the camouflage ability to simulate mass fluctuations, thereby tricking the physical judgment of the absolute Domain in a very short time to achieve a brief "penetration."

Although this penetration was extremely weak and was immediately crushed once Zhou Wannian became slightly serious,

it was undoubtedly a technological leap.

This showed that the Absolute Truth Realm was not like those cultivators who only knew how to perform Spells step-by-step. They possessed terrifying learning and iteration capabilities. As long as they were given enough data and time, they could continuously deduce new algorithms to bypass rules and break through defenses.

"To be able to write a targeted code patch so quickly based on the experience of being beaten."

Zhou Wannian clasped his hands behind his back, his tone carrying a hint of rare praise, but the coldness deep in his eyes grew even more intense.

"It seems you tin cans have slightly more brains than the idiot lying in this pit."

While Zhou Wannian was secretly reflecting,

above the firmament, the projection of the Truth Warship, composed entirely of geometric shapes, changed once again.

The rotating regular hexahedrons and regular dodecahedrons on the periphery of the warship slowly came to a halt, arranging themselves into an array resembling a giant loudspeaker.

A synthesized mechanical voice, deeper and more oppressive than before, devoid of any emotional fluctuation, followed the grayish-white light and slammed heavily onto the ruins of the Immortal-Demon Great World like a tangible giant hammer.

"Warning. Unknown Variable Entity. Your actions have seriously violated the 'Truth Realm Pan-Dimensional Resource Management Regulations'."

This voice did not use any language of the cultivation world but instead directly forced a wave frequency containing semantic logic into Zhou Wannian's Sea of Consciousness. Fortunately, Zhou Wannian's Divine Soul was like an endless abyss; the moment this forcibly instilled information wave made contact, it was effortlessly dissolved into understandable words.

The mechanical voice of the warship continued to echo across the empty world.

"You have destroyed Resource Collection Point No. 372 under the Truth Realm. You have eliminated the Semi-Mechanical Agent responsible for collection work."

"According to the Supreme Matrix Code, your existence has been defined as a 'Dimension-Hazard Level Error'."

The regular tetrahedron at the core of the warship lit up again with a piercing gray light.

"However, given the abnormal physical mass you display, you possess extremely high analytical value."

"The Matrix Mastermind grants you one opportunity to correct your error."

The synthesized voice without any ups or downs issued its final ultimatum in an unquestionable tone, as if reading out an iron law of the Universe.

"Cease your current destructive behavior."

"Deactivate the abnormal gravitational field surrounding your body."

"Immediately hand over the wreckage core of the Agent beneath your feet, surrender all resistance, and accept the guidance and comprehensive analysis of the Truth Warship."

"Otherwise, the Expeditionary Fleet of the Truth Realm will lock onto these dimensional coordinates and execute a thorough cleansing on a physical level."

At the bottom of the deep pit,

the hot wind stagnated.

Zhou Wannian stood silently in place, listening to this condescending ultimatum filled with cold logic and arrogance.

Beneath his feet, the metal skull belonging to The Angler was still emitting faint electric sparks from time to time.

Zhou Wannian tilted his head slightly.

He looked at the geometric warship projection hanging in the sky, then looked down at the pitted mechanical head in front of his toes.

Telling him to stop the elimination.

Telling him to hand over the wreckage of this lackey used to send positioning and distress signals.

Even telling him to give up resistance and lie obediently on the Truth Realm's dissection table to be a lab rat for their research.

On Zhou Wannian's handsome and easygoing face, that casual smile gradually widened.

The curve of his mouth became more and more pronounced, until finally, he couldn't help but let out a soft sneer.

"You want me to stop?"

Zhou Wannian raised his head, facing that piercing grayish-white cold light.

"And you want me to hand over this pile of scrap metal?"

His voice was no longer calm, but carried a hint of undisguised arrogance and mockery. This voice pierced through the pressure of the Truth Warship and echoed outside the square dimensional passage.

"You've knocked too much code in your server rooms and gone stupid, haven't you?"

Zhou Wannian shook his head, looking at the warship as if looking at a brat making unreasonable demands.

"Used to giving orders all the time, do you really think every brick in this Universe has to be placed according to the grid you've drawn?"

He ignored the warship's threat of a so-called "thorough cleansing."

In those eyes as deep as an ancient well, a heart-palpitating glint of light flashed.

Since the opponent had upgraded their scanning technology and could touch a corner of his clothes when he wasn't paying attention,

then he naturally had to give these guests from afar a sufficiently weighty greeting gift in return.

Zhou Wannian lowered his hands from behind his back, letting them hang naturally at his sides.

He withdrew the smile from his face.

"Since you want this pile of scrap metal,"

Zhou Wannian looked levelly at the geometric warship projection in the sky, his tone returning to a bone-chilling flatness.

"then I'll pack it up and let you take it back."

The moment the words fell,

Zhou Wannian's right foot, which was suspended in mid-air less than an inch from the metal skull,

carrying all the mass granted by the Great Perfection Space Law and a terrifying kinetic energy that seemed ready to stomp through the entire crust of the Immortal-Demon Great World,

met the gaze of the Truth Warship in the sky.

Without any hesitation, he stomped down heavily.