431: Chapter 431 The draft transforms into a spirit, giving rise to rebellious bones; the graffiti changes into an array, trapping the true body.

His palm pressed against the wall of light shimmering with blinding white light.

The sensation wasn't the searing heat or violent chaos of high-dimensional energy he expected. Instead, when the Absolute Mass refined by the Great Perfection Space Law covered it, his fingertips felt a dry, rough texture, as if stroking the rigid texture of low-quality hemp paper.

Zhou Wannian's wrist sank slightly.

With fingers together, his palm became a heavy, invisible eraser. He precisely pressed down on the "joint" where the brushwork started heavy and ended light, showing obvious misalignment and streaks of white, and wiped it calmly to the right.

“Sha—”

A long, dull sound, like dry charcoal scraping desperately against a rough stone slab, boomed through the entirely closed spherical space.

This wipe used no flashy immortal Daoist Magic, nor did it trigger a world-ending tide of True Qi.

Pure physical mass, in an unreasonable manner, forcibly cut through the ink lines forming the underlying logic of the light wall. That closed curve, revered by "The Initial Circle" as the highest truth of the Universe, met its most fundamental collapse beneath Zhou Wannian's palm.

The dazzling silver-white light dimmed instantly, like charcoal doused by a bucket of cold water.

The plasma flows, which had been tightly interlocking and squeezing inward frantically, lost the restraint of the rules. They turned into a harmless warm breeze, blowing past Zhou Wannian's temples and ruffling a few strands of hair.

“Crack, crack.”

The crisp sounds of shattering were continuous.

Countless pitch-black cracks appeared on the surface of the curved light wall that claimed it could lock down even dimensions. These cracks were no longer glowing energy lines but a lifeless lead-black, like charred powder peeling off a wall.

The light wall shattered.

The hundred-zhang spherical space exploded into the air like a popped soap bubble, turning into dancing black dust.

The imposed sense of claustrophobia and oppression vanished.

The familiar, sour, and moldy Death Qi of the Taiwu Ancestral Court's core, mixed with gray, shriveled mist, poured back onto the dilapidated bluestone street like a tide.

Zhou Wannian lowered his right hand and casually brushed off a few specks of void dust from his palm.

He still stood on that floating fragment of bluestone, his posture upright, the hem of his green robe swaying gently in the backflowing current of Death Qi. He raised his eyelids, looking through the falling black charcoal powder at the surroundings of the long street.

As the killing formation was wiped flat by a single palm, the four "Circle Envoyss" who had looked down from above, descending across dimensional barriers, now suffered a devastating Law backlash.

Their bodies, suspended three feet above the ground in the void, underwent violent distortion.

The silver-white light that had been flowing endlessly and flawlessly was now rapidly fading. The light stripped away from their limbs and bones, exposing the ugly essence hidden beneath the glamorous exterior.

It was a shell haphazardly wound together from black lines of varying thickness, with dry streaks of white.

There was no perfect geometric beauty.

No sacred majesty that suppressed the heavens.

They looked like several scrawled human figures doodled on a wall by a child using a charred stick. The connections between lines were stiff and distorted, and there were even several obvious gaps where the ink had run out.

Now, these four monsters materialized from scribbles were struggling in pain in mid-air. From their featureless round heads, black charcoal powder fell like flowing black blood.

“A few rotten thread ends drawn with a fire stick, having sucked in some Death Qi, actually think they can frame the myriad worlds.”

Zhou Wannian looked at these four struggling monsters, his lips curling into an undisguised sneer.

He found it somewhat amusing, but more than that, it was a bottomless boredom.

If he were facing an old monster who had cultivated for countless eons and came to fight him with a peerless divine weapon, he might find some interest in exchanging a few Moves.

But these things in front of him, what were they?

These were the few strokes of rotten drafts he had idly drawn on a wall while waiting for a pot of wild tea to cool on this wasteland, countless eons ago. Scribbles that even he himself found ugly, not even worthy of a wastepaper basket.

Under the fermentation of long years and the nourishment of the Taiwu Ancestral Court's Death Qi, these few strokes of rotten ink had actually developed sentience, grown rebellious bones, and materialized into the so-called "Primal Circle," coming here to set rules for him, the Creator.

The creation recoiling against its master.

This scenario, which sounded quite fateful, only appeared farcical and tedious in Zhou Wannian's eyes.

“Truly, when the tiger is away from the mountain, even a few pieces of rotten charcoal dare to call themselves king.”

Zhou Wannian let out a sigh, a weariness from seeing through the essence of the farce.

He stepped forward, his spotless green cloth shoes leaving the floating stone slab, treading on invisible void stairs toward the nearest Circle Envoys.

The Circle Envoys sensed Zhou Wannian's approach.

Its body, composed of black lines, trembled violently, making a rustling sound like a broken bellows. It raised its distorted arm, trying to condense even a shred of the white light of the rules to block this man's path.

A dim, crooked black ring shot from its fingertips, wobbling as it smashed toward Zhou Wannian's face.

Zhou Wannian didn't even pause.

He just continued walking forward, his right hand casually raised.

His palm gave a light wave in mid-air.

Like shooing away an annoying fly buzzing by his ear.

“Bang.”

The moment the black ring touched the three-foot Domain around Zhou Wannian, it was crushed directly by Absolute Mass. The fragile lines disintegrated into fine black powder, which, with the wind from Zhou Wannian's wave, swept back and smashed into the messenger's body.

Without stopping, Zhou Wannian arrived in front of the messenger in an instant.

He looked at this crude shell wound from draft lines, his gaze as flat as if he were looking at a pile of roadside trash.

Without using any Moves.

Zhou Wannian reached out his left hand, his long, fair fingers spreading open, and directly grabbed the messenger's neck, which was woven from lines.

The touch was shriveled and rough, and from beneath his fingertips came a cracking sound similar to squeezing a handful of dry thatch.

“Rules are set for the living.”

Zhou Wannian's voice echoed over the dead street, devoid of any emotion.

“A pile of black ash from a wall like you isn't worthy of talking about rules in front of me.”

As the words fell.

Zhou Wannian's five fingers suddenly tightened.

The absolute heavy pressure refined by the Great Perfection Space Law erupted within the inch of his palm.

“Chira!”

A tearing sound that set one's teeth on edge rang out.

The Circle Envoys's neck was snapped directly. The black ink lines forming its body instantly lost all stickiness and vitality under the squeeze of pure physical mass.

The previously writhing shell, like a collapsing sand sculpture, turned into a shower of black charcoal powder, pouring down through Zhou Wannian's fingers and piling into a small mound of lifeless black ash on the moss-covered stone slab.

Without even being able to let out a scream, it was thoroughly cleaned away.

Cleaning house didn't require some earth-shattering battle.

Erasing a scribble only required the strength of a rag.

Zhou Wannian let go, his fingers rubbing together casually in the void to shake off the few specks of black dust remaining on his fingertips.

He turned his head, his deep gaze falling on the other three Circle Envoyss.

Those three messengers witnessed their companion's instant annihilation. Although no expression could be seen on their featureless faces, their bodies composed of lines were retreating frantically, trying to escape back into the cracks of dimensions.

The closed-loop rules they were so proud of were like fragile spider silk before this man's Absolute Mass, snapping at a pull. The instinctive fear of the Creator, branded in the deepest part of their lines, finally broke through their rigid logic and took the upper hand.

“Now that you're here, why the rush to leave?”

Zhou Wannian's tone was leisurely, but his pace was not slow.

His green cloth shoes stepped out a steady rhythm on the bluestone.

His figure flashed, like Shrinking the Earth to an Inch, directly cutting off the retreat of the messenger on the left.

His right hand rose, fingers held like a blade, and he made a calm horizontal swipe.

A blade of mass, difficult for the naked eye to discern, sliced through the void, sweeping precisely across the messenger's waist.

“Huala.”

The upper and lower halves of the body separated. The lines at the cut snapped cleanly, turning into two clumps of scattered black lines that fell to the ground, weathering into charcoal powder in the blink of an eye.

Immediately after.

Zhou Wannian backhanded the messenger on the right who was attempting a sneak attack.

The palm wind formed by Absolute Mass was like the steel plate of a bulldozer, crashing into its chest. The torso, formed from nested rings, was instantly caved in and shattered. The entire body, like a smashed ball of black charcoal, flew back dozens of zhang, hitting a broken gray wall by the road and turning into an indelible smudge of black ink.

Four mysterious messengers who had descended aggressively.

In just a few breaths, three were swept away by Zhou Wannian as easily as clearing fallen leaves from a courtyard.

There was no suspense.

And no fun to speak of.

Zhou Wannian stopped and looked up slightly at the last, and also the most slender, Circle Envoys in mid-air.

On his handsome face, there was a deep sense of laziness.

This core of the Taiwu Ancestral Court should have hidden some old monsters who could pique one's interest, but instead, what emerged were all scraps of metal and rotten drafts he had casually discarded back then. This gave him a sense of helplessness, as if he were being pranked by time.

The last messenger was backed into a corner of the long street.

Behind it was a wall of rolling gray mist, and before it was the Creator who could erase it at will.

It didn't run anymore.

Its body, composed of slender black lines, stopped its struggling writhing. It hung there quietly, its two thin arms outlined with ink lines drooping limply at its sides.

Zhou Wannian stepped forward and came before it.

He didn't punch or swipe like before. Looking at this pile of quieted lines, he reached out his right hand, thumb and forefinger slightly apart, aiming for the neck area of this messenger's circular line structure.

His fingertips touched the dry ink lines.

The oppression of Absolute Mass had already locked onto the single point of sentience at its core. As long as Zhou Wannian applied a little force with his fingers, this last trace of "The Initial Circle" would be completely wiped from this Universe.

At the ten-thousandth of a second before Zhou Wannian's fingers were about to tighten.

The suspense of a hidden thread, like a sudden bolt of lightning, abruptly lit up in the heavy silence.

Zhou Wannian's eyes, which had always been calm, were originally focused on the messenger's neck, but at this moment, they uncontrollably moved up half an inch.

He saw the messenger's featureless round face.

On this dead face composed purely of black, dry lines.

On the right edge of the lines that should have been blank and cold-hearted, at the position known in human common sense as the "corner of the eye."

The black ink lines there suddenly gave a weird tremble.

Then.

From the dry, rigid lines, a drop of liquid actually seeped out.

This drop of liquid wasn't large, only the size of a soybean. It detached from the black lines and, following invisible gravity, slowly slid down with a rhythm that felt foreign to Zhou Wannian.

It didn't reflect the lead-gray light of the street.

It appeared as an extremely pure, extremely clear... light green.

It wasn't murky stagnant water.

Nor was it black ink.

This was a real tear. A light green tear carrying some unspeakable sorrow and plea, flowing from the corner of the eye of a Scribble Messenger that shouldn't have any emotions.

Zhou Wannian's fingers, which were about to apply force, froze in mid-air as if a freezing spell had been cast on them.

On that face that usually wore laziness and mockery, all expressions completely solidified at this moment.

The Great Perfection Space Law gave him eyes that could see through the essence of all things in the Universe.

He could clearly feel that this light green tear contained no cold code from the Truth Realm, nor any of the Taiwu Ancestral Court's decaying Death Qi.

It was as clean as a light spring rain in the Lower Realm.

The trajectory of its fall was very slow.

“Ding.”

This light green tear passed Zhou Wannian's fingers, passed the absolute vacuum Domain of three feet around him, and landed steadily on the bluestone slab covered in dry moss below.

An extremely crisp, ethereal sound of a water drop, which completely didn't belong to this dead world, rang clearly in Zhou Wannian's ear.

The sound rippled out.

After shedding this single tear, the Circle Envoys's slender body seemed to have exhausted all its support for existing in the world.

Without Zhou Wannian needing to crush it.

The black lines forming its body, like melting snow under the sun, silently dissolved and disintegrated on their own, turning into wisps of fine green smoke that dissipated into the thick gray mist.

Zhou Wannian stood where he was.

He withdrew his right hand that was suspended in mid-air, letting it hang by his leg.

His deep, abyss-like gaze stared fixedly at the point of water stain that had already seeped into the stone grain on the bluestone slab.

In the air, within that originally strong sour and moldy smell, at some point, a trace of almost imperceptible cold fragrance of green bamboo after rain had appeared.

This scent was very faint and fleeting, but it was like a fine needle, stabbing hard into the deepest part of Zhou Wannian's memory that had been silent for countless eons.

A rotten draft casually drawn on a wall, having absorbed Death Qi, became a monster.

This was logical.

But.

A dry scribble that only knew how to execute the rules of erasure.

Why would it shed a living person's tear carrying the scent of green bamboo before dissipating?

“In this mess...”

Zhou Wannian stared at the bluestone slab. In his steady voice, for the first time, that high-and-mighty laziness was stripped away, revealing a chilling solemnity and scrutiny.

He slowly bent down, his long, fair fingers calmly pressing onto the moss where the tear had fallen.

“Just whose things are mixed in here?”