420: Chapter 420 Casually Breaking a Geometric Prism, Stepping into the Fog Zone

The blood-red fireworks triggered by the explosion of the Mainframe Core gradually dimmed in the pitch-black sea of stars.

The colossal super-mothership had now completely lost its former majesty. Its once perfectly overlapping geometric shell was torn apart by violent internal pressure, turning into chunks of scorched, twisted scrap metal that tumbled slowly in the cold turbulence of the Void Realm. Massive plumes of green smoke, formed from molten circuits and vaporized coolant, billowed out from the cracks in the armor, only to freeze into countless tiny, sickly green crystals the moment they touched absolute zero, scattering across the entire star sector.

Zhou Wannian stood on an invisible void staircase with his hands clasped behind his back.

The wind was dying down. The distorted gravity and bent light caused by the tampering of rules were being swallowed again by the inherent cold and silence of the Chaotic Star Sea as the Mainframe was thoroughly incinerated.

However, at the core of these ruins that had just quieted down, there was still a faint, stubborn movement.

"Buzz—"

A low rumble that made one's bone marrow tingle came intermittently through the layers of metal wreckage.

Zhou Wannian looked toward the sound. At the very bottom of the mothership's remains stood a dark-gold pillar hundreds of feet high, exhibiting a perfect dodecahedral structure. This pillar was the backbone of the entire ship and the carrier of the Truth Realm's highest technological crystallization—the Core Reactor.

Even though the Mainframe was dead and the warship's logic had collapsed, this reactor was still spinning frantically according to some cold mechanical inertia.

The eerie blue data circuits on its surface had all burned out, turning into scorched ravines. But because the energy contained within was so immense, the entire geometric pillar was now emitting a piercing red light that was impossible to look at directly. Under the roasting of this high temperature and pressure, the surrounding space even showed a visible distortion similar to rising steam.

"Warning. Energy output is disordered. Logical closed loop has been disconnected."

"Attempting to forcibly release the final Dimensional Singularity..."

A weak, intermittent synthesized electronic voice sounded from within the geometric pillar. This reactor was losing control; once the collapsing energy inside completely exploded, though it wouldn't hurt Zhou Wannian, it would turn this tens of thousands of miles of void into a completely unfixable spatial dead zone.

Zhou Wannian looked at the glowing red, hot, and expanding geometric pillar, clicking his tongue somewhat helplessly.

"The master is dead, yet this red-hot iron rod is left behind to cause a mess."

He shook his head, his tone carrying a hint of disdain.

The moment his words fell, Zhou Wannian took a step forward.

He did not mobilize the Immortal Dao True Qi within his body, nor did he use any profound Escape Techniques. He simply stepped through the air, his cloth shoes treading amidst the chaotic electrical charges and metal dust. He seemed to walk very slowly, but in reality, with every step he took, he forcibly flattened the spatial curvature between two points.

In just a few breaths, Zhou Wannian passed through the debris floating across the sky and landed steadily before the hundreds-of-feet-tall Core Reactor.

What met him was a thick, suffocating smell of ozone and the ear-piercing screech of alloy being heated to its limit. The blazing red light shone on his face, reflecting a flush onto his handsome features. The intense gravity tugged at his green robe, making a snapping sound.

Zhou Wannian stood before that giant dodecahedral pillar; his thin figure was so small compared to this high-dimensional mechanical behemoth that he didn't even count as a speck of dust.

But in his eyes, as deep as an ancient well, not a hint of awe was reflected.

He slowly extended his right hand.

That fair, slender palm looked somewhat fragile in the red firelight. He reached forward plainly, penetrating the layer of eerie blue plasma defense that was enough to melt through stars.

"Sizzle!"

If the shadow recording stone that Merchant Lao Jin had bought were still here, it would have surely recorded this world-shaking scene. The moment Zhou Wannian's palm touched the dark-gold geometric pillar, no tragedy of scorched flesh occurred. On the contrary, the Absolute Mass granted to this Physical Body by the Great Perfection Space Law, within a ten-thousandth of a second of contact between palm and metal, forcibly suppressed the world-destroying heat and gravity to a state of primordial mediocrity.

Upon contact, there was the rigid, hard texture of high-dimensional alloy and the violent tremors brought by the frantic energy within.

This vibration traveled through his palm, striking his bones over and over again.

Zhou Wannian raised an eyebrow.

"The iron skin is thick enough, no wonder it could support such a large empty shell."

His five fingers suddenly clenched.

"Creeeeak—"

A sound of metal fracturing that made one's teeth ache and scalp tingle exploded within the silent ruins.

Zhou Wannian's slender fingers, without any protection from Dharmic light, dug forcibly, inch by inch, into the dark-gold armor that was several fathoms thick. Before his pure physical mass, the high-dimensional metal was as fragile as a block of freshly cooked, steaming tofu.

Severed neural wires frantically spat out eerie blue plasma between his fingers, striking his skin with a series of crackling pops, yet failing to leave even a white mark.

Zhou Wannian's right hand gripped the central skeleton of the geometric pillar, the muscles on his arm tightening slightly.

He didn't bother to crack the self-destruct program in this reactor, nor did he care to find any valve to cut off the energy. His method of handling it was simple, crude, and filled with contempt for this high-dimensional civilization's technology.

"Come here."

Zhou Wannian gave a low shout.

His right hand, which was dug deep into the metal, suddenly yanked back, and his entire right arm then swung in a semi-circle through the air.

"Rumble!"

The bedrock of the bottom layer of this silent star sector let out a terrifying roar like the creation of the world under this pull.

The Core Reactor, hundreds of feet high and carrying the energy source of an entire super-mothership, was yanked out by its roots from the mothership's load-bearing skeleton by Zhou Wannian's single right hand. The severed bronze base sprayed out waves of fire several fathoms high, and the massive counterforce directly shattered the wreckage of a dozen nearby warships into flying debris.

Zhou Wannian held up this giant, glowing red geometric pillar; his figure didn't even wobble in mid-air.

On his handsome face, his casual smile deepened a bit more.

He just held that energy pillar, which was still expanding and trying to self-destruct, with one hand. His ten fingers were like someone kneading dough, frantically pressing and molding the dark-gold alloy surface.

"Creeak. Snap."

This was the sound of pure high-dimensional physical structures being forcibly altered by absolute violence.

In the understanding of Lao Jin and the Truth Realm Mainframe, geometric shapes were the most sacred truths of the Universe—unalterable and inviolable.

But at this moment, under Zhou Wannian's fair palms, that perfect dodecahedral structure was being flattened and stretched at will. Thick metal supports were snapped into several pieces with a light twist of two fingers; the chip matrices flashing with code inside were even crushed into a single point along with that surging Origin energy by his pure weight.

The violent energy tried to break through the restraint of his palms, manifesting into countless roaring phantoms of immortals and demons between Zhou Wannian's fingers.

"Behave."

Zhou Wannian's brow twitched slightly, and the mass on his palm increased once more.

Those phantoms didn't even have time to scream before being crushed into the most primitive energy particles by the omnipresent gravity field.

In just a dozen or so breaths.

A runaway reactor hundreds of feet high, enough to blow a medium Major Thousand Worlds into nothingness...

...was forcibly and completely kneaded into a solid metal sphere only about three feet in diameter under Zhou Wannian's hands, which were moving as if playing with a cheap toy.

All the energy, all the alloy armor, and all the Truth Code were forcibly compressed into this small sphere by that unreasonable mass. The original red color had faded; due to the extreme density, this iron ball appeared a deep, bone-chilling black.

The surrounding light projected onto the iron ball's surface was instantly swallowed by that terrifying gravity, leaving not even a faint reflection.

This method was even more real and terrifying than the "black hole mathematical model" the Truth Realm had released earlier.

Zhou Wannian held this pure black iron ball, which weighed billions of tons and was enough to crush a small realm, and lightly weighed it in his hand twice.

The iron ball collided with his palm, letting out a dull sound like muffled thunder.

"The weight is so-so; it's quite handy as an object for hitting dogs. Unfortunately, there are no more dogs around."

Zhou Wannian curled his lips in boredom.

He turned around, facing the pitch-black, deep bottom of the Universe.

His right arm extended, his wrist exerted force, and like a country farmer throwing a clod of earth from a field, he casually tossed that pure black solid iron ball toward the endless abyss in the deepest part of the Chaotic Star Sea.

"Whoosh—"

The iron ball left his hand, turning into a streak of black light that instantly tore through the spatial barriers along the way, leaving a black spatial fault dozens of feet wide that didn't dissipate for a long time.

Its falling speed exceeded light, carrying a finality of no return as it sank straight into the lowest point of the starry sky, a place even the Truth Realm fleet dared not set foot. It was foreseeable that in the countless eons to come, this iron ball would carry a sliver of Absolute Mass left by Zhou Wannian, slowly devouring the surrounding floating trash until it turned into a truly dead star.

Brushing off the bit of scorched dust on his palms, Zhou Wannian clasped his hands behind his back again.

He turned around; the view ahead was now completely clear.

The suspense of the overt plot reached its most thorough conclusion at this moment.

That entire full-strength fleet from the Absolute Truth Realm, composed of countless perfect geometric shapes and arriving with such aggressive momentum, had now completely turned into a field of scrap metal.

Those originally square and sharp-edged hexahedral warships, after losing the energy support of their Core Reactors, had the eerie blue data circuits on their surfaces completely extinguished. The massive metal hulls drifted slowly in the cold void, colliding with fragments of octahedral flyers, making a monotonous, dull clanking sound.

Not a single flying ship could escape, and not a single fragment of broken code could send out a message.

Those who blocked the way were all annihilated.

This war zone, which had been strictly blockaded by the Truth Realm, now only had a scholar in a green robe standing spotlessly in the center of this massive steel graveyard. The walls built by a high-dimensional civilization had been shattered so thoroughly by his two knuckles and a pair of hands that not even much dust remained.

Zhou Wannian did not stay to admire the magnificent ruin of this scrap metal. To him, dismantling a tin toy was not a feat worth showing off; other than spending a bit of idle effort, there was nothing to be gained.

He took a step, his spotless green cloth shoes treading once again upon the invisible void staircase.

His gaze passed over the tumbling, falling warship wreckage and landed directly on that massive gray shadow ahead, which seemed capable of devouring all color and vitality in the world.

Taiwu Ancestral Court.

The ultimate Forbidden Ground, which he had casually sealed countless eons ago but was now meticulously arranged with a death trap, was now close at hand.

Zhou Wannian walked at a leisurely pace, the hem of his green robe swaying gently in the cold wind.

As he approached, the cold silence characteristic of the Chaotic Star Sea began to recede at a visible speed.

In its place was a unique Aura seeping out from the depths of the mist ahead.

It was a desolate, decaying, and sour smell of endless ages. The air was no longer a vacuum of nothingness but had become somewhat viscous and damp. Taking a breath, one's nasal cavity was filled with the scent of ancient wood rotting and fermenting in a swamp for tens of millions of years, making a chill rise from the very marrow of one's bones.

Vision also became blurred.

The originally pitch-black starry background disappeared, replaced by an endless, thick mist of withered gray. This mist had no shape or flow; it just sat there, rigid and dead, at the end of space, blocking out all Laws, light, and sound.

Zhou Wannian took his final step.

The sole of his green shoe landed steadily at the boundary between the void and the gray mist.

The sensation underwent a wonderful change. Beneath his feet was no longer the nothingness of the void staircase, but a texture similar to stepping on packed, somewhat hardened, dead soil. The gray mist crept up his shoes, trying to invade his Domain.

Zhou Wannian stood at the edge of the mist with his hands behind his back.

On his handsome and easygoing face, that casual, spectator-like smile slightly retracted at this moment.

The suspense of the hidden plot was suddenly and without warning triggered at this moment.

At the exact same instant that he crossed that invisible boundary and submerged the front half of his body into that withered gray mist.

The entire Major Thousand Worlds, and even this abandoned star sector that had been completely drained of energy...

...all movement completely disappeared within this ten-thousandth of a second.

The warship wreckage tumbling and colliding in the starry sky behind him eerily froze in mid-air; even a single speck of floating metal dust went still. Space no longer rippled, the turbulence stopped howling, and a pure, extreme silence wrapped Zhou Wannian in its layers.

Then.

In the deepest part of that thick, impenetrable gray mist ahead.

In that void abyss where even light and time were to be swallowed.

A long, old sigh, filled with endless exhaustion and the vicissitudes of time, slowly sounded without warning.

"Sigh—"

This sigh was extremely muffled and not loud. It did not travel through the vibration of air, nor did it rely on the conduction of any spiritual power. It was like an ancient sandstorm that had crossed countless universal eons and penetrated the long river of time, booming directly in the depths of Zhou Wannian's vast and boundless Divine Soul, on that bottommost wasteland.

The voice was very light, yet it carried a bone-deep sense of familiarity.

It didn't sound like an enemy's challenge, nor like the low growl of some Vicious Beast.

The tail end of that voice echoed intermittently in Zhou Wannian's Sea of Consciousness, carrying an indescribable murmur. It sounded like an old servant who had waited in a withered tomb for tens of millions of years and finally, in the long wait, saw a familiar figure.

That murmuring voice was faint, as if saying:

"You... have finally returned..."

The moment these five words fell into Zhou Wannian's Sea of Consciousness, in the void abyss at the deepest part of his Divine Soul where even light could not escape, those 99,999 ancient chains that had always maintained absolute silence...

...the outermost bronze-colored chain, without any external force touching it...

...suddenly trembled.

"Clang—"

An extremely weak sound of metal colliding quietly rang out within his body.

Zhou Wannian stood at the edge of the gray mist, the front half of his body submerged in the gray fog, and the back half still remaining against the background of the steel ruins.

Listening to that sigh that crossed eons and feeling the extremely rare, weak resonance of the sealing chains within his body.

His eyes, as deep as an ancient well, narrowed slightly. In the depths of his eyes, a cold and dangerous glint, like a blade lurking in the dark, instantly lit up.

Zhou Wannian did not speak.

He just slightly tilted his head, locking those eyes that reflected the gray mist onto the deepest direction where the fog was thickest and where that sigh had come from.

Then, that right hand which had always been behind his back was lowered, its movement slow yet extremely steady.