469: Chapter 468 The backlash of death energy surges like a tide, white jade chains protect the true spirit.

"Clatter, clatter, clatter——"

When Zhou Wannian's hands, dripping with blood and even beginning to show signs of grayish-white necrosis, desperately clasped together, and he drove that invisible giant axe—bearing endless Absolute Mass and the aura of Mortal life—downward once more along that crack, which was finer than a strand of hair.

A tearing sound, more tragic and shrill than any before, exploded within the absolute nothingness at the lowest level of the Universe.

This sound was as if ten thousand ancient beasts had their chests torn open at the same time.

The invisible edge of the giant axe, glowing with a warm yellow light, carried Zhou Wannian's reckless bravery—the kind that would bite a chunk of flesh off you even in death—and slashed ferociously and without hesitation deep into the dark green dome!

"Hiss——!"

The once insignificant slit finally could not withstand this unreasonable, violent crushing force.

The irregularly jagged crack directly above Zhou Wannian suddenly wrenched apart to both sides. From being as thin as a hair, it was forcibly pried open to the width of two fingers!

The opening grew larger.

But what greeted Zhou Wannian was not the dawn of a breakthrough.

"Boom——!!!"

At the ten-thousandth of a second when the opening was pried to the width of two fingers.

The grayish-white viscous liquid, which had previously only been oozing out drop by drop, was now like an ancient dam whose gates had been blown open.

A massive, extremely thick, grayish-white substance—one that would cause a person's Soul to completely stagnate at a single glance—spewed out madly and unreservedly from that two-finger-wide crack, like a terrifying inverted waterfall or an erupting high-dimensional death volcano!

This was not water, nor was it Qi.

This was the most fundamental "Death" and "Despair," purified from countless parallel Universes that had been trapped by this copper coin and were heading toward heat death, after enduring the crushing weight of endless eons.

This grayish-white torrent moved faster than any physical limit. It carried a terrifying kinetic energy meant to drag all things into a bottomless abyss, slamming head-on into the invisible giant axe, and then, like a bursting flood, poured down over Zhou Wannian's head.

"Splash——"

There was no space to dodge, nor was there any time to avoid it.

Zhou Wannian hadn't even finished the motion of tilting his head before his entire body was completely submerged by this waterfall of grayish-white Death Qi.

Extreme impact force.

Extreme chill.

The moment this grayish-white torrent slammed into Zhou Wannian.

The three-foot Domain of absolute vacuum around him, which originally possessed Invulnerability to All Laws, was like paper; it couldn't even hold for half a breath before emitting a crisp "crack" and shattering directly into fragments of nothingness.

"Rip——"

That washed-out blue cloth robe, which had wandered the All Heavens and Myriad Worlds with him for ten million years and hadn't even been scorched by the main cannons of the Truth Realm.

The moment it made contact with this waterfall of grayish-white Death Qi.

All material structures within the fabric's fibers were instantly stripped of the concept of existence. Starting from his shoulders, down his chest and back, the blue robe crumbled like a thousand-year-old painting weathered by time, directly turning into grayish-white powder and melting into that viscous torrent.

Losing the cover of his clothing.

Zhou Wannian's Physical Body, tempered by the Great Perfection Law and supposed to be indestructible, was completely exposed to this ultimate baptism of despair from the Universe.

"Ugh...!"

A groan of extreme pain, forcibly suppressed deep in his throat, was squeezed out from between Zhou Wannian's clenched teeth.

Pain.

This pain had already exceeded the limits of what physical nerves could transmit.

The viscous grayish-white Death Qi was not corroding his skin; it was forcibly "editing" the physical state of his body.

The moment his fair, sturdy muscles were washed by the grayish-white torrent, the warm blood flowing in his veins seemed to have the pause button pressed. The muscle fibers lost all elasticity and vitality, becoming withered and grayish at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Starting from his arms, the area of grayish-white necrosis spread like a plague, madly advancing toward his chest, neck, and even his cheeks.

The necrotic flesh, like mud drained of water, peeled off his bones piece by piece and was swept away by the grayish-white death water.

But Zhou Wannian's hands remained tightly clasped together, like two rusty iron pliers, gripping the invisible axe handle.

Even though the flesh on the back of his hands had fallen away, revealing stark white finger bones.

Even though his skeletal fingers were making a hair-raising "creaking" sound from friction against the axe handle.

He did not loosen even a single finger bone.

However, the terror of this grayish-white Death Qi waterfall was by no means limited to destroying the Physical Body.

"Hum——Hum——Hum——"

It was an extremely strange fluctuation with countless overlapping echoes, following the grayish-white mucus, along Zhou Wannian's corroded flesh and exposed white bones, like billions of greedy blood-sucking leeches, madly drilling into his body, heading straight for his Sea of Consciousness at the center of his brow.

Death Qi backlash, polluting the Divine Soul!

This was the most vicious defensive mechanism set by that copper coin, or by the minter hidden behind the scenes.

In Zhou Wannian's mind.

The screams of the dying beings from the All Heavens and Myriad Worlds, which he had previously crushed, exploded once again in a more grand, more irresistible manner.

But this time, it was no longer just demonic sounds confusing the ears.

The grayish-white Death Qi materialized directly in his Sea of Consciousness.

A vast grayish-white ocean whipped up terrifying waves at the edge of his inner universe. Floating in the ocean were countless withered Universe bubbles and tombstones of countless civilizations.

This Death Qi roared and bellowed:

"Return to zero! Return to zero!"

"All struggles are futile; your Physical Body is rotting, your vitality is being severed!"

"Let go! Merge into this endless Void Realm, feel this absolute heat death! This is your only destination!"

It not only wanted to corrode Zhou Wannian's Physical Body, but it also wanted to eradicate the "True Spirit" of Zhou Wannian, this variable, at its root. As long as the True Spirit was polluted, and as long as the slightest thought of "giving up" arose in his mind, the Absolute Mass supporting the axe would instantly collapse.

The cold, despairing grayish-white seawater, mixed with a temperature capable of freezing the Soul, launched an overwhelming charge toward the Divine Soul True Spirit at the very core of Zhou Wannian's inner universe.

"You think you can drown my Divine Soul with this soup of dead people?"

Zhou Wannian kept his eyes tightly shut, the muscles on his face twitching violently from extreme pain. On his face, half of which had turned into grayish-white bone, he pulled a grin of extreme, savage madness.

Facing this torrent of Death Qi that struck directly at the Divine Soul.

He did not retreat, nor did he mobilize his power to intercept it.

Because he knew that against this kind of Death Qi, which represented the fundamental concept of the Universe returning to zero, any conventional defense was futile.

Only another, purer, and more powerful concept could deal with a concept!

"Chains, form a net!"

Zhou Wannian bit down and shattered a mouthful of blood-soaked teeth, letting out a thunderous roar in his Sea of Consciousness.

"Hum——!!!"

Within the inner universe.

Those ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine mutton-fat Jade-ified Chains, which originally spanned the Void Realm and emitted a warm, gentle luster, seemed to hear their master's desperate call at this moment and went completely berserk.

These Jade-ified Chains were no longer stationary pillars.

They were like over ninety thousand white Dragons churning the deep sea, carrying that most mundane, most tenacious aura of Mortal life acquired in the Lower Realm wine shop, frantically weaving and intersecting in front of Zhou Wannian's True Spirit.

"Clang! Clang-clang! Sizzle!"

The chains collided and rubbed against each other, emitting the crisp ringing of jade.

In less than a ten-thousandth of a breath.

Over ninety thousand Jade-ified Chains, bearing Absolute Mass, forcibly wove themselves around the periphery of Zhou Wannian's True Spirit, which was emitting a faint golden light, into an airtight, unimaginably massive net of white jade!

Or rather, this was an indestructible Divine Soul cocoon woven from Jade-ified Chains!

The net had just formed.

The grayish-white torrent of Death Qi, mixed with the despair of billions of Universes, slammed solidly into this white jade net like a mad bull charging into a cliff.

"Rumble——Sizzle-sizzle-sizzle——"

Inside the Sea of Consciousness, a conceptual slaughter even more tragic than the one outside erupted.

The grayish-white Death Qi tide, carrying the depriving power of "all things will eventually reach heat death," frantically washed over every mesh of the white jade net. Those condensed despairs turned into blurry grayish-white ghost faces, opening their mouths wide and biting onto the jade chains, attempting to assimilate and corrode that warm, gentle luster.

And that white jade net erupted with an extremely dazzling, warm yellow light.

Within this light.

The abacus beads of the Old Shopkeeper were clicking "clatter, clatter"; the bellows in the blacksmith shop were pumping "whoosh, whoosh"; the stray dogs in the alley were barking "woof, woof" over half a bone.

This was the most bustling, most tireless vitality of the Mortal world!

Two completely different concepts unfolded a perilous, unyielding tug-of-war at the edge of Zhou Wannian's Divine Soul.

The grayish-white Death Qi attempted to drag everything into deathly silence, while the smoke and fire aura on the Jade-ified Chains desperately proved the meaning of "living."

"Sizzle, sizzle..." The corrosive sound that made one's teeth ache echoed continuously in his Sea of Consciousness.

This power of Death Qi backlash was truly too vast, too pure. It was the accumulation of countless eras.

Even the Jade-ified Chains, which bore Absolute Mass, gradually showed signs of decline after enduring such massive bombardment.

A morbid flush suddenly surged onto Zhou Wannian's cheek, which still had half its flesh remaining; immediately after, a large mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of grayish-white necrotic organs sprayed wildly from his mouth, scattering into the void abyss before him.

His deep eyes were wide open at this moment, the eyeballs covered in dense bloodshot veins like spiderwebs.

He could clearly perceive the situation within his inner universe.

On that great net woven from over ninety thousand Jade-ified Chains.

The surfaces of those chains, which were originally crystal clear and resembled the finest mutton-fat jade.

Under the frantic scouring of the Death Qi that lasted for dozens of breaths, began to show small, shocking, mottled gray spots.

These gray spots were like malignant sores growing on beautiful jade; they rooted deeply into the material of the chains and were constantly spreading and expanding outward.

For every gray spot that appeared, the warm yellow smoke and fire light emitted by the great net would dim by one fraction. The crisp sound of the abacus and the blacksmithing would become one fraction hoarser and weaker.

Pressure. A terrifying pressure capable of crushing a Creator's Divine Soul into two-dimensional fragments passed through the great net and acted directly upon Zhou Wannian's True Spirit.

"Cough, cough... My bones are not that easy to chew..."

While coughing up blood, Zhou Wannian squeezed out intermittent harsh words from his throat, which was bubbling with blood.

His brain was enduring an unimaginable sense of dizziness at this moment; although those grayish-white emotions of despair were blocked by the great net, the cold chill that seeped through still made his thinking somewhat sluggish.

He felt like a Mortal standing before a bursting dam, trying to hold back a flood with his own strength.

The dam was already riddled with holes, and the flood was ice-cold and bone-piercing.

As long as he relaxed even a tiny bit, as long as a thought of "retreat" arose in his heart, that great white jade net covered in gray spots would instantly collapse. His Divine Soul would be completely assimilated into a pool of gray water by the Death Qi within one-ten-thousandth of a breath.

But he could not retreat. Not only because he would die if he did, but more importantly, in this tug-of-war that had reached the extreme, what was being tested was not just defense, but the physical stalemate between the two sides.

In the Void Realm outside, Zhou Wannian's entire body was still being frantically scoured by that waterfall of grayish-white Death Qi. His legs, from the knees down, had long since been ground into ashes, bones and all, in the violent friction between the dead water and the copper rust.

He was now relying on the Great Perfection Space Law to firmly anchor his lower body, suspending himself in the air like a bloodied man cut in half, hanging on that dark green cliff wall.

And his hands—those two hands that had completely turned into ghastly white bones and were entangled by grayish-white Death Qi—were still firmly gripping the air, clutching the handle of the invisible giant axe!

"Creak... creak, creak..." The blade of the giant axe was still stuck deep in the two-finger-wide crack of the copper coin dome.

That dark green Deadlock Copper Coin, vast beyond imagination, was currently frantically operating its closed-loop Law.

It sensed the fatal threat brought by the crack. It was self-healing.

The dark green copper rust of time, as if it had life, was frantically wriggling and proliferating at the edges of the crack. They were like layers of thick scabs, squeezing towards the middle of the crack with the force of an avalanche, attempting to forcibly squeeze out the giant axe that had cut into it and weld this fatal wound shut again.

"Click, click, click..." The terrifying closed-loop crushing pressure traveled along the axe blade to the handle, and finally pressed entirely onto Zhou Wannian's ghastly white-bone arms.

Under this recoil force, the bones of his arms bent into a hair-raising arc. Tiny cracks even burst open on the bones.

This was the most desperate suspense in the dark thread. Zhou Wannian was currently facing a double deadlock. Inside, the grayish-white Death Qi was frantically polluting his Divine Soul, the great white jade net was mottled and Unbearable, ready to collapse at any moment. Outside, the copper coin's closed-loop Law was frantically squeezing and repairing, with a massive recoil force attempting to blast him and the axe away together.

Under such extreme pressure, even if it were Zhou Wannian, even if he possessed Absolute Mass, as long as he, as long as his arms retreated even one millimeter, as long as the invisible anchor point beneath his feet loosened even half an inch, that invisible giant axe would be instantly ejected from the crack by that terrifying squeezing pressure.

Once the giant axe left, that crack, which had been so arduously split open to a width of two fingers, would, under the wriggling of the dark green copper rust, completely heal in the blink of an eye, returning to its original state: indestructible, rejecting any variables, a perfect closed loop!

At that time, all the efforts he had made before, those Mortal smoke and fire auras released to split this deadlock, those flesh and blood that had turned into white bones due to enduring the backlash, would all become meaningless.

This Universe would completely lose its last shred of hope, irreversibly sliding toward that heat-death cycle of no return, drowned by Death Qi.

All life would only be able to turn into a pile of ash without any warmth within this square hole.

"Want to close it? Keep dreaming!"

Zhou Wannian's only remaining eyeball, under the scouring of the grayish-white torrent, was still staring fixedly at the crack above that was frantically healing. A shrill, wild roar like a beast driven into a desperate situation erupted from his throat.

Retreat? When he, Zhou Wannian, was blacksmithing in the Lower Realm, even if sparks flew into his eyes, he never retreated half a step. When he argued with people over two coppers in a wine shop, even if surrounded by ruffians, he never bowed his head once.

Now? Let him concede to a rusty, broken copper coin? Let him watch helplessly as this coffin lid covering all living people was nailed shut again? Never!

"Hold on... for me!!!"

Zhou Wannian did not care about the great white jade net in his Sea of Consciousness covered in gray spots, nor did he care about the cold Death Qi that was eroding his True Spirit. He took the last trace of the Great Perfection Law power remaining in his body, even going so far as to burn his own immortal Divine Soul Origin, turning it into a force that was pure to the extreme, mad to the extreme. Along those two white-bone arms already covered in cracks, he pressed down, firmly, firmly!

"Snap!" Under the extreme stalemate with the copper coin's closed-loop force, the bone of his right arm finally let out a crisp sound of being unable to bear the load, snapping by one-third. The bone shards pierced through the surrounding necrotic grayish-white membranes, exposing themselves to the Death Qi.

But Zhou Wannian's posture did not retreat even a millimeter. He used that broken arm, used that ruined body, to force himself, like a steel nail that would rather break than bend, firmly stuck between that wriggling dark green crack.

The invisible giant axe, carrying a warm yellow light, under Zhou Wannian's desperate suppression, although squeezed until it emitted a mournful cry, still had its edge stubbornly bitten into the deepest part of the copper rust, not retreating half a step.

The surrounding waterfall of grayish-white Death Qi, because of this extreme stalemate, scoured even more violently. Every passing breath was, for Zhou Wannian, like rolling over a mountain of knives in the eighteenth level of Hell.

In his Sea of Consciousness, the gray spots on the great white jade net had connected into patches, and the great net was teetering on the brink of collapse.

"Come again! Is that all the squeezing power you have, you broken copper coin?!"

On Zhou Wannian's ruined face, blood mixed with grayish-white dead water dripped continuously, but that smile, harder than stubborn rock, became increasingly rampant.

Even if he turned into a skeleton. Even if his Divine Soul was eroded by Death Qi until riddled with holes. As long as he, Zhou Wannian, was still standing here, this crack he had split open would not be allowed to close!

He gritted his teeth tightly, using his only remaining left eye to face the ultimate despair pouring down from the sky. With a stubbornness bordering on madness, he continued downward, fiercely pressing down on that invisible axe handle.

"Today... I will absolutely tear open this deadlock of yours!!!"