30: Chapter 30 Coffins Collect Myriad Bones - Tranquility in the Dead Zone

In the mid-period of the Eighth Era of the Primordial World, as the last batch of life was extinguished, this world officially stepped into the true Dark Era.

In this era, there was no hope, no light, only eternal slaughter and death.

Darkness! Utter darkness! It had finally arrived!

As the mastermind behind it all and the source of all calamity, Jiang Chen remained unmoved. He continued to stand in the center of heaven and earth, absorbing the monstrous resentment that had condensed due to the world's destruction.

The resentment bred by the burial of the entire world was as vast as the sea.

At this moment, his cultivation had reached the peak of the Hunyuan Daluo Golden Immortal realm, and he could step into the Heavenly Venerable realm at any time.

But he was not in a hurry to break through. He chose to suppress, to continuously suppress, compressing his power to the limit, solely to break through the shackles at the final moment and ascend to the absolute summit.

After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Chen slowly opened his eyes. What met his gaze was a dim world—the earth was shattered and broken, and the sky was as gloomy as if stained with blood.

Between heaven and earth, intense resentment and baleful qi permeated the air, and countless unconscious dead souls wandered in the void.

These dead souls were the remnants of living beings after they had fallen; they possessed no consciousness and could only drift aimlessly in the void.

"It is time to open the cycle of reincarnation." Jiang Chen said in a low voice, his tone calm yet firm.

After practicing for several kalpas, his Law of Reincarnation had advanced by leaps and bounds, now reaching the realm of ten-tenths perfection.

The reason he could reach such great accomplishment so quickly was because the entire Primordial World had turned into a death domain; the dead were everywhere, and the power of death filled the world, greatly nourishing and accelerating the growth of the Law of Reincarnation. Its progress far exceeded the Law of Space-Time, being the first to touch the threshold of Dao verification.

His Law of Space-Time was not weak either, having already been cultivated to the eight-tenths level.

"But before that, let the karmic fire red lotus advance a step further." Jiang Chen reached toward his chest, and a lotus flower wreathed in crimson flames was held in his palm.

This was the karmic fire red lotus. Since its origin reached its limit, it had not evolved further, stagnating at the twentieth-grade realm, which caused Jiang Chen's physical body strength to remain at the level of a middle-grade innate supreme treasure, never breaking through.

Just at this moment, that ancient bronze coffin opened on its own, and a lotus pedestal, entirely pitch-black and emitting a deep, profound light, flew out from within—it was the twelfth-grade Destruction Black Lotus, a treasure once held by Luo Hou.

In that battle back then, Luo Hou had attacked Jiang Chen with the Destruction Black Lotus, but he was suppressed by Jiang Chen, and along with his magic treasure, was sealed inside the bronze coffin, never having escaped to this day.

"It's a pity… I still cannot sense the existence of the Merit Golden Lotus and the Creation Green Lotus; they must have been obscured by the Primordial origin." Jiang Chen sighed softly, his expression slightly dim.

Immediately after, he exerted force with his palm, and the Destruction Black Lotus shattered with a bang, its origin essence entirely merging into the karmic fire red lotus.

In an instant, a vast aura gushed out from the red lotus. A brilliant rainbow light shot up into the sky, tearing through the firmament.

Following that, a shocking scene occurred—the billions of dead souls floating between heaven and earth seemed to have found their destination, madly surging toward the karmic fire red lotus, like hundreds of rivers converging into the sea.

Hum— A mysterious Dao sound resounded throughout the universe, causing the mountains and rivers to tremble, and the myriad Daos resonated in unison.

"This is… the aura of reincarnation?!" Jiang Chen's pupils constricted slightly, and he looked at the lotus flower in his hand with a face full of astonishment.

He had actually detected a trace of a very faint, yet truly existing, fluctuation of reincarnation within it!

"Perhaps… I can give it a try." A flash of thought crossed Jiang Chen's eyes, and after a moment of hesitation, he finally made up his mind.

"Then let's give it a try." He gritted his teeth and circulated the perfected Law of Reincarnation within his body, pouring it entirely into the karmic fire red lotus.

The karmic fire red lotus, which had originally absorbed the origin of the Destruction Black Lotus, had petals of intertwined red and black, making it difficult to distinguish between righteous and evil.

However, with the infusion of the Law of Reincarnation, the entire lotus pedestal began to undergo a violent transformation. The red and black gradually faded, turning into a pale purple, with dense purple qi wreathed around it, its radiance sacred and mysterious.

At the same time, the dead souls between heaven and earth, like a bursting river, continuously surged into the lotus, turning into nutrients to nourish its form.

A million years of time passed in the blink of an eye.

Hum-rumble— The Dao sound resounded through the heavens, the laws resonated in unison, and heaven and earth shook. A twenty-fourth-grade purple lotus stood proudly above the void, emitting an extremely dense aura of reincarnation from its body, as if it held the authority over life and death reincarnation.

Jiang Chen looked up at the purple lotus floating above the sky, his expression slightly dazed.

"Top-grade innate supreme treasure…" He raised his hand to summon it, and the purple lotus shrank in response, landing in his palm, only eight inches in size.

"From now on, you shall be named 'samsara purple lotus'." Jiang Chen's mouth curled upward slightly, revealing a rare smile.

Hum, hum, hum— The purple lotus trembled gently, as if it had some perception, emitting a clear, melodious ringing sound, and circles of dense purple light rippled outward.

Jiang Chen nodded with a smile—this lotus had already developed intelligence, and its wisdom was extraordinary.

He looked down at the Primordial continent below; although it had absorbed a large number of dead souls through the samsara purple lotus, the earth was still densely covered with vengeful spirits, and the resentment was monstrous.

Ever since the Undead Clan slaughtered all the living beings of the Primordial World, they had gone into hiding to practice, feeding on the resentment of all living things and growing stronger by the day.

Now, the cultivation of the Four Great Corpse Kings had reached the Half-step Hunyuan, only a sliver away from stepping into the Hunyuan realm and achieving the Great Dao.

In addition, the thirty-six Corpse Marquis had increased by two, who were actually the Heavenly Dragon Emperor and the Yellow Dragon Emperor among the four emperors of the Dragon Clan.

It was precisely because of these two acting as inside agents that the Undead Clan was able to annihilate the God-Demon Alliance in just one kalpa.

As it turned out, long before they had ascended to the throne of Dragon Emperor, they had already been quietly assimilated by the Undead Clan, becoming two key chess pieces lurking within the Dragon Clan.

The route of the destruction of the West Sea Dragon Army back then was precisely leaked secretly by the Heavenly Dragon Emperor and the Yellow Dragon Emperor; otherwise, how could the Undead Clan have succeeded so easily?

Until his death, the Ancestral Dragon never expected that among the four Dragon Emperors he relied on the most, two had already betrayed their bloodline and pledged allegiance to the death domain.

In fact, apart from the Heavenly Dragon Emperor and the Earth Dragon Emperor, within many forces of the Primordial World, such as the Kirin Clan, the Phoenix Clan, and even the Demon Sect, there were hidden lines of the Undead Clan. When the great catastrophe of heaven and earth arrived, they responded from inside and outside, launching a joint surprise attack to annihilate the God-Demon Alliance in one fell swoop.

With the Heavenly Dragon Emperor and the Earth Dragon Emperor joining, the number of Corpse Marquis increased to thirty-eight. After several kalpas of bitter cultivation, their overall cultivation had reached the eighth layer of the Hunyuan Golden Immortal realm.

As for the Corpse Lords and Corpse Generals beneath them, they also broke through their shackles one after another, their strength soaring, and successively stepped into the ranks of the Hunyuan Golden Immortal. For the Undead Clan, the current Primordial World had completely turned into a holy land for cultivation—resentment permeated heaven and earth, and deathly qi was abundant, which was the supreme hotbed for nourishing themselves.

"Rise!" Jiang Chen stepped on the bronze coffin, traversing in an instant, and arrived directly at the Endless Starry Sky.

The starry sky at this moment no longer possessed its former brilliance, having degenerated into a vast graveyard. The primordial galaxy was broken, the stars were dim and lusterless, and even the Sun Star had lost its radiance, with fierce baleful qi surging all around and resentment like fog, condensed and unyielding.

Corpse after corpse that had lost its vitality floated in the void, dead silent, suffocatingly oppressive.

"Collect!" Jiang Chen gave a low shout, and the bronze coffin lid opened with a bang. A majestic devouring force swept out, covering the entire starry sky, sucking countless corpses into the coffin.

After ten thousand years, the corpses in the starry sky were finally cleared away. Subsequently, he turned to the four seas, spending a full thirty-five million years before he could collect all the remains of the living beings buried in the depths of the four seas.