416: Chapter 416 The long road stretches endlessly, a square monument appears at the end of the void.

Deep within the dark sea of stars, green cloth shoes stepped onto invisible void stairs, producing a rhythmic light tapping, one long and one short.

Zhou Wannian walked with his hands behind his back. His faded green cloth robe, having left the violent turbulence at the edge of the Chaotic Star Sea, gradually hung down, smoothing against his thin and upright frame.

Behind him, the cross-realm merchant ship—its fractures forcibly reconnected and having inadvertently absorbed a trace of Space Law—had long since transformed into a deep shadow, plunging into the unseen undercurrents of the void and vanishing at the other end of the vast Universe. The threads of Karma had been cleanly severed there, leaving no messy traces behind. Zhou Wannian didn't care what waves that merchant named Old Jin might stir up in the Chaotic Star Sea in the future; his thoughts at this moment were solely on that Taiwu Ancestral Court, which harbored ancient secrets.

As he stepped forward at an unhurried pace, the surrounding scenery began to undergo earth-shattering changes.

The mountain-sized meteorite fragments, colorful nebula remains, and the spatial wind blades that whistled as they sliced through everything—all of which had filled the Chaotic Star Sea—vanished without a trace at some unknown point.

In their place was a pure, suffocating pitch-blackness.

This was a deathly silent star sector where energy had been depleted.

Here, the lifespans of the stars had reached their end, turning into a nothingness where not even dust remained. No light could penetrate this thick night, for even the microscopic particles that refract light had been completely extracted. The Spiritual Qi, Devilish Qi, and even the violent void turbulence necessary for the operation of the Major Thousand Worlds would collapse and recede upon reaching the edge of this star sector, as if hitting an invisible Wall of Sighs.

Zhou Wannian walked through this dead land. An Absolute Vacuum Domain extending three feet around his body isolated him from the bone-chilling cold of the outside world.

His breathing was steady and long. Every inhalation and exhalation sent ripples invisible to the naked eye through this deathly silent space. Hearing lost its utility here, as sound waves cannot propagate in a vacuum. However, the perception granted by his Great Perfection Space Law allowed him to clearly 'hear' the hollow, withered wailing emitted by this star sector.

This place might have once been a prosperous Star Domain, nurturing vibrant life and giving birth to brilliant civilizations. But now, it was merely a massive empty shell, its marrow thoroughly sucked dry to the last drop.

Without much thought, Zhou Wannian could guess whose handiwork this deathly silent star sector was.

The Super Matrix of the Absolute Truth Realm, in order to deduce the defense models of the Taiwu Ancestral Court, was like an insatiable, greedy behemoth, devouring all available Origin throughout the Universe. This star sector was clearly an abandoned mine pit they had left behind countless eons ago. Once the last bit of utility had been squeezed out, they abandoned it, leaving behind this despairing darkness.

The green cloth shoes continued to step forward.

The road was long, seemingly without end.

Walking in this darkness without any reference points, one's sense of direction and time would be infinitely stretched and distorted. If an ordinary cultivator fell into this place of death, even without facing any attacks, they would gradually lose their Dao Heart amidst the prolonged sensory deprivation, eventually going mad and becoming a dried corpse floating in the void.

But on Zhou Wannian's face, that casual smile remained constant.

The darkness could not obscure his eyes, and the silence could not shake his Divine Soul. He was like a man of leisure taking a stroll in his own backyard, his steps composed, with even the rhythm of his footfalls never changing in the slightest.

The Star Map in his mind, rubbed from the stone tablet, emitted a faint, cold light. The gray mist coordinates representing the outskirts of the Taiwu Ancestral Court grew closer and closer in his perception.

He only needed to walk a bit further to see that forbidden zone of life that could swallow even light.

Just as he raised his right foot again, preparing to cross an invisible spatial fracture ahead,

Zhou Wannian's movements came to a rare pause.

His eyes, as calm as deep pond water, narrowed slightly, his gaze piercing straight into the endless void directly ahead.

In the path ahead, which was originally empty and filled only with pure darkness, a physical disturbance that defied common logic appeared.

It wasn't the energy ripples left by a passing starry sky behemoth, nor was it the spiritual power fluctuations emitted by some hidden Formation.

It was a stiff, mechanical sense of spatial compression with absolute exclusivity.

It was as if an invisible geometric carving knife had ruthlessly made several straight incisions on this black curtain called the Universe.

Deep within the void directly in front of Zhou Wannian,

The darkness began to recede to both sides like water ripples.

There was no earth-shaking roar, nor any blinding brilliance of Spell light. This manner of appearance exuded a coldness and rigidity of absolute rationality.

A point emerged out of thin air in the center of the darkness.

Immediately after, this point stretched outward, becoming a straight line.

The line expanded toward both ends, forming an absolutely equilateral triangle.

Finally, this triangle violently compressed and expanded toward the three-dimensional plane.

A massive black Obelisk materialized from nothingness in such an abrupt and incredible manner, forcibly squeezing into this deathly silent star sector and blocking Zhou Wannian's necessary path.

This was not a rectangular stone tablet in the usual sense.

Its shape was an absolutely perfect regular tetrahedron.

Four congruent equilateral triangular faces formed the shell of this behemoth. Every edge was so straight it made one's heart turn cold, and every angle was precise to the point where not even a hair's breadth of error existed.

In nature, stars are round, meteorites are jagged, and mountains are undulating. The creation of heaven and earth cannot give birth to such absolute straight lines, nor to such perfect geometric bodies.

The existence of this thing itself was a crude trampling of the natural evolutionary Laws of the Universe. It represented a mathematical Law imposed upon nature.

The volume of the black Obelisk was unimaginably vast; it lay across the sea of stars like an insurmountable primordial bronze gate.

The surface of the monument presented a pure blackness that went deep into its core. That surface was as smooth as a mirror, polished without a single texture or flaw.

But strangely, this mirror did not reflect anything.

The already dim stray light in the void, the moment it approached the surface of the black Obelisk, was swallowed as if by a greedy, giant maw, leaving not even a faint reflection. It was like a miniature black hole compressed from pure physical mass, standing there quietly, emitting a pressure that made the Soul tremble.

The path ahead was blocked.

A brand-new enemy, without even a single opening word, had moved a great mountain to Zhou Wannian's feet in this overbearing manner.

Zhou Wannian stood on the invisible void stairs, still some distance from that massive regular tetrahedral black Obelisk.

He did not grow annoyed because his path was blocked, nor did he immediately swing his hand like a blade to strike the stone monument in his way.

His hands remained folded behind his back, his chin slightly raised, as his deep gaze slowly swept over the mirror-smooth, light-swallowing black body of the monument.

Despite being in a vacuum, Zhou Wannian, relying on his perception of the Great Perfection Laws, still 'smelled' the unique aura emitted by this Obelisk.

This aura was completely different from all the opponents he had encountered before.

It didn't have the stench of the Immortal-Demon Great World, which was mixed with embalming fluid, rotting corpses, and violent Evil Qi. Although the methods of the Immortals and Demons were cruel, they still carried a bit of the tyranny and distortion of flesh-and-blood creatures.

Nor did it have the sense of death from deep within the Taiwu Ancestral Court—that sense which made all things wither, stopped time, and exuded an endless desolation and grayness. The Death Qi of Taiwu was a tranquility of returning to nothingness.

What emanated from this Obelisk was a pure smell of metallic machine oil, mixed with the scent of ozone produced after high-voltage electric arcs pierced through the air.

Within this scent were hidden countless cold, rigid binary data streams devoid of any life temperature. These lights operated frantically inside the Obelisk, forming a seamless, invisible net that locked down dimensions.

Zhou Wannian immediately understood the background of this behemoth.

This thing did not belong to the Immortal Dao, nor to the Demon Sects, and it was certainly not an ancient relic that had escaped from the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

It was an ultimate weapon used by the Absolute Truth Realm to lock down dimensions and suppress variables.

This black regular tetrahedron was itself a massive Spatial Anchor. Nailed into this deathly silent star sector, it forcibly fixed the surrounding physical constants to a steady value. Any matter, energy, or even Karma attempting to cross this area would be forcibly intercepted, analyzed, and then erased by the computing power within the Obelisk.

It seemed that the bounty he saw on the merchant ship earlier, as well as that projection of the Truth Warship that failed to fully descend because the cross-realm passage was severed, were all just appetizers.

Those high-dimensional mechanical lifeforms hiding behind the matrix, after calculating his route, had directly deployed this level of Dimensional Lockdown Weapon.

This was like a steel wall reaching the heavens suddenly descending onto a quiet country road. The opponent was using the simplest and crudest physical isolation to cut off Zhou Wannian's thoughts of heading to the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

Zhou Wannian looked at that massive regular tetrahedron.

Under the pull of the invisible gravitational field emitted by the Obelisk, the corners of his faded green cloth robe rose slightly before sticking back to his legs.

The appearance of this Obelisk meant that the path ahead was no longer an aimless stroll, but a war zone strictly blockaded by the Truth Realm. The other party was telling him in this crude manner: this path is closed.

The corners of Zhou Wannian's mouth slowly curled into a smile tinged with a bit of helplessness and mockery.

He raised his right hand and gently rubbed his temple with his long, fair fingers, his knuckle letting out a soft pop.

“These tin cans who do nothing but crunch numbers are truly persistent.”

Zhou Wannian's voice was smooth and pleasant, carrying the disappointment of a leisurely traveler whose mood had been disturbed. Under the agitation of the Absolute Mass field, his voice ignored the obstacle of the vacuum and drifted far away.

He placed his right hand behind his back again, moving his gaze from the smooth surface of the Obelisk to the void on its left side that was being firmly blocked. That was precisely the direction of the gray mist of the Taiwu Ancestral Court.

“I merely wanted to find a quiet mud pit to sleep soundly for a few hundred years. And while I was at it, take a trip to an old place to see the sights.”

Zhou Wannian took a step.

His spotless green cloth shoes left their original spot and stepped steadily into the void ahead.

He walked forward at an unhurried pace toward that black regular tetrahedral Obelisk, which emitted a terrifying gravitational pressure sufficient to suppress a Major Thousand World.

“You people are something else. Not only did you dig pits in the road, but now you’ve even taken down the door panel and blocked the street with it, leaving not even a crack.”

The green robe pulled a long, upright silhouette in the dark sea of stars.

Zhou Wannian did not stop his pace. He looked directly at that black high wall that swallowed all light. On that handsome face, the look of laziness gradually faded, replaced by a cold calmness sharp as a blade.

“Since you think this black stone can block my path...”

His sole landed on the void stairs, producing a crisp footfall.

“Then I shall have to see for myself whether this piece of scrap metal of yours actually carries enough weight.”