Traveling against the current, the immortal realm arrives for the first time.

Ten Thousand Demon Valley, deep within the Forbidden Ground.

On a flat black stone altar, Nightmare stood alone. The area around the altar had long been cleared, with only the core layers of isolation and defensive Formations operating quietly, ensuring no fluctuations from this location would leak out.

Nightmare spread his hands, palms facing upward.

In the palm of his left hand, a deep earthy-yellow radiance emerged—thick, solid, and carrying the Origin aura of the Mortal Realm's earth and the Law power of the chaotic earthly veins—the mortal realm reverse key mark.

In the palm of his right hand, a pitch-black ghostly light flowed—cold, erosive, and containing the extremity of the lingyuan Evil Qi and the power to reverse Yin and Yang—the lingyuan reverse key mark.

Both dao reversal key marks were activated simultaneously. Without needing Nightmare to deliberately urge them, they spontaneously emitted a strong resonance. Threads of Reverse Path patterns, interwoven with earthy yellow and pitch black, spread from his palms, traveled up his arms, and finally converged at his chest, outlining a complex and profound temporary symbol array.

At the center of the symbol array, space began to twist and tremble uneasily, emitting a faint "buzzing" sound. Using the two dao reversal keys as a guide, and Nightmare's Late Tribulation Crossing stage Peak Reverse Dao Demonic Essence as the foundation, an unprecedented spatial channel leading to a higher-level world was being forcibly constructed.

"As expected, gathering both keys makes the stability far exceed what it was before." Nightmare felt the stability transmitted during the channel construction process, and understood in his heart. Back when going from the Mortal Realm to the Spirit Realm, he still had to rely on spatial rifts, and there were many risks and uncertainties when traveling. Now, with both keys in hand, he had a much stronger ability to interfere with and open up space, especially the barriers between lower-level spaces.

"Immortal Realm edge... Fallen Immortal Wasteland..."

He locked onto the general direction of the third immortal firmament path-reversal key transmitted by the star dao fruit, as well as the coordinates of areas where the immortal realm heavenly dao's perception was relatively weak.

"Open!"

Nightmare gave a low shout, and slammed his hands together in front of his chest!

"Boom—!"

Above the altar, at the point of the twisted spatial node, a stable channel entrance with edges burning with interwoven dark red and pitch-black flames was violently torn open! The inside of the channel was not pitch black, but presented a bizarre and colorful flowing light. However, the channel walls were unusually stable, and the phantoms of the two dao reversal keys faintly floated within, suppressing the violent spatial power.

Without the slightest hesitation, Nightmare took a step forward, and his figure submerged into the channel.

The channel entrance rapidly contracted and closed behind him, finally disappearing, leaving only the spatial ripples slowly calming on the altar.

...

Inside the Reverse Path spatial channel.

It was completely different from the bumpy, chaotic, and dangerous feeling of traversing between two realms in the past. The current channel was spacious and stable, and the speed was astonishingly fast. Nightmare could clearly feel that he was escaping the shroud of the Mortal Realm's Law at an unimaginable speed, approaching a world with a higher energy level and more rigorous and vast rules.

However, this high-speed and stable travel obviously touched some existences in the dark.

Suddenly, the colorful scene in front of the channel dimmed sharply! An invisible and intangible power, yet one that pointed directly at the Origin of the Divine Soul, surged over like a cold tide!

This power was not a physical attack; it carried a kind of high and lofty "Heavenly Might," a deep malice and judgment will towards all "rebellious," "heretical," and "Reverse Path" existences! It ignored the stable channel barriers and acted directly on Nightmare's Divine Soul!

"Hmph, Immortal Reversal Heart Demon?" Nightmare snorted coldly, instantly understanding what this was.

The immortal realm heavenly dao system was indeed much more complete than that of the Lower Realm. This "Immortal Reversal Heart Demon" was not a naturally generated Heart Demon, but a special existence catalyzed under specific conditions (such as when a Reverse Dao Practitioner conducts large-scale, high-intensity cross-boundary travel) by pure immortal realm heavenly dao Origin, combined with hostility towards the "Reverse Path" concept and rule exclusion! It specialized in attacking the Divine Soul, triggering a Heart Demon Tribulation, and its power was a hundred times more terrifying than the Heart Demons of the Lower Realm!

In front of the channel, that invisible Heart Demon power had already taken form! It was no longer simple distracting illusions, but "Immortal Punishment Envoys" wearing immortal armor, with blurred faces but incomparable majesty, holding phantoms of Heavenly Dao edicts! They roared silently, carrying the light of edicts that annihilated Divine Souls, and charged towards the core of Nightmare's Divine Soul! At the same time, deep within Nightmare's heart, various thoughts about failure, fear, doubt, and the invincibility of the Heavenly Dao were also maliciously magnified and twisted by this power, attempting to disintegrate his will from within!

If it were an ordinary Reverse Dao Practitioner, even one at the Late Tribulation Crossing stage, suddenly encountering this tribulation, they would likely have their Divine Soul shaken; at best, the travel would fail, and at worst, they would suffer Qi Deviation and damage to their Divine Soul.

But Nightmare's expression did not change in the slightest.

"Mere Heavenly Dao distractions, and they dare to be called Heart Demons?"

He did not even stop his steps of travel. He just moved his mind, and that portion of dark red Demonic Flame that had been hiding deep in his Sea of Consciousness and was of the same Origin as the Dao Reversal Demonic Star Flame, surged up explosively!

This Demonic Flame did not release outwards, but formed a dense, burning layer of dark red flame armor outside his Divine Soul! On the armor, Reverse Path runes flowed, emitting an absolute will of "all Laws cannot invade" and "my Dao is only me"!

Those "Immortal Punishment Envoy" phantoms that came charging crashed into this dark red Divine Soul flame armor without even causing a ripple, and like ice and snow hitting a soldering iron, they made a "hissing" sound and quickly dissolved and evaporated! Those negative thoughts amplified by malice were rolled up by the flames and burned clean, unable to shake Nightmare's mind in the slightest.

The Dao Reversal Demonic Star Flame itself contained the characteristics of chaotic rules and burning away all Laws, and for this kind of Heart Demon purely condensed from "order hostility" and "rule exclusion," it was an Innate nemesis!

The entire process took less than three breaths. The colorful scene in front of the channel recovered, and that heart-palpitating Immortal Reversal Heart Demon power had vanished, as if it had never appeared.

Nightmare's eyes did not even flicker, and he continued forward.

But trouble always seemed to like to come one after another.

After traveling for another distance, in a relatively "calm" Spatial Turbulence area in front of the channel, seven brilliant immortal lights suddenly lit up! Seven figures, like hunters who had been lying in ambush here for a long time, revealed their forms and blocked the front of the channel!

These seven people's attire was somewhat similar to the Sky Patrol Guards intercepted on the outskirts of the Spirit Realm, but their auras were more fierce and chaotic, with a little less rigid sense of order and a little more of a rugged, murderous aura. Their silver armor had many traces of damage and unauthorized modifications, and the weapons in their hands were varied. The gaze they directed at Nightmare in the channel was full of undisguised greed and cruelty.

The leader, who had a hideous scar on his face and was at the Late Tribulation Crossing stage, licked his lips and laughed strangely: "Yo, we brothers have good luck today! We actually crouched down a big fish! Traveling through the two-realm barrier alone, and still carrying such pure Reverse Path aura... You must have many treasures on you! Kid, if you're sensible, hand over your Storage Ring and the control of this travel channel yourself, and we grandpas will give you a quick end! Otherwise... hehe, this 'Void Graveyard' will be your burial ground!"

The other six also let out weird cackles, their auras locking onto Nightmare, all of them being at the Late Tribulation Crossing stage! And looking at their skilled positioning and tacit understanding, it was obvious that they had not been doing this "spatial robbery" business for just a day or two, and their strength was far more formidable and difficult to deal with than the previous regular Immortal Realm army.

"Immortal Realm spatial robbers..." Nightmare looked at these seven people, and the turbulence area behind them where some Magical Artifacts and bone remains were vaguely floating, and understood their identities. These were a group of desperate outlaws drifting in the crack between the edge of the Immortal Realm and the lower-level worlds, specializing in robbing cross-boundary travelers, and even hunting lone Immortal Realm Cultivators. They were powerful and ruthless in their methods.

Seven Late Tribulation Crossing stage experts, placed anywhere, were a force not to be underestimated.

Unfortunately, they had blocked the wrong person today.

Nightmare couldn't even be bothered to reply. For people like these who were about to die, saying one more word was a waste.

His response was to suddenly accelerate! The channel left an afterimage behind him, and he himself, like a cannonball out of the chamber, crashed directly towards the center of the Formation composed of the seven robbers!

"Seeking death!" "Do it!"

The Scarred Leader's face twisted in a snarl; he hadn't expected the other party to be so arrogant as to charge straight into their Formation!

The seven of them attacked simultaneously. Immortal Light, Devilish Qi (they had clearly practiced unorthodox Cultivation Techniques as well), and the radiance of various vicious Magic Treasures bombarded Nightmare like a torrential storm!

These attacks were sharp, tricky, and perfectly coordinated, instantly sealing off all of Nightmare's evasion space. Their power was enough to blast an ordinary Peak Late Tribulation Crossing stage Cultivator into dust!

Faced with this fatal situation, Nightmare merely extended the index finger of his right hand.

At his fingertip, a point of extreme dark red condensed.

Then, he lightly slashed forward.

"Reverse Dao Fatal Strike—Void Split."

"Ssh—!"

A dark red beam, as thin as a hair and about a zhang long, silently spread from his fingertip.

The moment the beam appeared, the violent, surging torrent of attacks ahead, capable of collapsing mountains and splitting seas, suddenly... paused for an instant.

It was not time stopping, but rather, wherever that dark red beam passed, space itself had been "cut" open, creating an unhealable "rift"!

The rift was not wide, but it carried absolute properties of "severing" and "annihilation," like a boundary of "nothingness" spanning across reality!

All incoming energy, Magic Treasures, and spells, the moment they touched this dark red spatial rift, were like water meeting a red-hot blade; they were silently "cut" and "separated," and then the energy structures contained within them were thoroughly disrupted, disintegrated, and annihilated by the Reverse Dao Rules emanating from the rift!

The seven-person joint, massive fatal strike vanished into thin air before this light slash, not even causing the slightest ripple.

"Wha...?!" The snarl on the Scarred Leader's face instantly froze, turning into boundless shock and fear.

He had never seen such a bizarre and terrifying method! This was not a collision of power, but an erasure... at the level of rules!

He wanted to flee, wanted to scream, but found that the space around him had been shrouded by a deeper, colder Domain at some point. His movements became sluggish, and his circulation of Demonic Essence became stagnant.

Nightmare's figure had already passed through the yet-to-dissipate spatial rift like a phantom, appearing in the very center of their seven-person Formation.

He didn't even spare them another glance.

He merely held his fingers together like a sword, with the Dao Reversal Demonic Star Flame flickering at his fingertips, and seemingly casually drew a circle around himself.

"Extinguish."

Seven imperceptible dark red sword beams spread out in a circle, centered on him.

The sword beams were light and airy, yet their speed was extreme.

The seven notorious Space Plunderers, all with cultivation at the Late Tribulation Crossing stage, still had expressions of shock and disbelief frozen on their faces, but their bodies had already stiffened simultaneously.

Between the eyebrows, the throat, the heart... at each person's vital point, a slender red line appeared. The red lines rapidly expanded, and the Demonic Flame erupted from within them!

There were no screams, no struggles.

Seven human-shaped torches suddenly lit up in the Spatial Turbulence, and in the next instant, they were completely extinguished, turning into seven wisps of ash, swept away by the turbulence, disappearing without a trace.

Only seven ownerless Storage Pouches remained, which Nightmare casually snatched into his hand.

From the encounter to their complete annihilation, the entire process took a little longer than dealing with the Immortal-Defying Heart Demon, but it was still only about ten breaths of time.

Nightmare didn't even look at the place where the plunderers had dissipated. He swept his Divine Sense over the seven Storage Pouches he had obtained. Indeed, there were good things inside; besides the usual Spirit Stones and Materials, there were several strange crystals emitting stable spatial fluctuations—exactly the "Immortal Realm Spatial Stabilization Crystal" he needed at this moment.

"Just in time."

He didn't stand on ceremony, directly taking out the crystals, holding them in his hand, and pouring in his Demonic Essence. The crystals shone brilliantly, releasing a soft yet powerful spatial stabilization force that merged into the passage around him.

Instantly, the already stable travel passage's speed soared again! The surrounding streamers were stretched into blurry lines, and the sense of spatial obstruction sharply weakened.

Who knows how much time passed, perhaps an instant, perhaps a long time.

At the end of the endless streamers ahead, a piece of incomparably tough "barrier," radiating vast majesty and boundless vitality, suddenly appeared!

The Immortal Realm Barrier!

Nightmare's eyes narrowed, his speed not decreasing but increasing, and the Demonic Flame around his body and the phantom images of the two dao reversal keys shone to their absolute Peak simultaneously!

"Break the Boundary!"

"Boom—!!!"

Like an arrow piercing cowhide, the dark red stream of light slammed fiercely into that invisible barrier! The barrier shook violently, emitting a dull roar, but it ultimately could not withstand the impact of the two dao reversal keys combined with the support of the Immortal Realm Spatial Stabilization Crystal, and was forcibly torn open with a tiny rift!

Nightmare's figure flashed, and he squeezed out through that rift.

His feet touched solid ground.

A completely different feeling instantly enveloped his entire body.

The first thing he felt was the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi, so dense it was almost impossible to disperse! This Spiritual Qi was pure, active, and of an extremely high level; just breathing one mouthful was worth several days of hard cultivation in the Mortal Realm! The air was filled with a faint fragrance, the natural Dao Rhyme emanating from various exotic immortal flowers, herbs, Spiritual Veins, and Immortal Springs.

He looked up; the sky was not the turbid sky of the Mortal Realm, nor the pure blue he had imagined, but a high, unfathomable pale gold, as if countless golden Law runes were flickering at a great height. Sunlight (or perhaps an Immortal Sun?) spilled down, carrying a warm and sacred radiance.

However, the scene before his eyes was completely out of place with this celestial atmosphere.

This was an endless wasteland. The ground was a dull grayish-brown, covered in cracks and pits; almost no vegetation could be seen, only some twisted, strange rocks that seemed to have been eroded by some force stood tall. Besides the dense Spiritual Qi, the air was also filled with a faint, uncomfortable aura of decay and murderous intent, with the lingering resentment of the Immortal Dao faintly wailing in the wind.

The Fallen Immortal Wasteland. The edge of the Immortal Realm, where the Heavenly Dao's perception was weakest, and also a forsaken land where brutal immortal wars had once occurred, burying countless immortals and demons.

Nightmare landed on the edge of a huge crater that looked like it had been formed by a meteorite impact. He immediately restrained all his aura; the Dao Reversal Demonic Star Flame was hidden, and the fluctuations of the two dao reversal keys were also deeply concealed. The power of the star dao fruit flowed slowly within his body, helping him adjust his state to adapt to the higher-level Law pressure of the Immortal Realm, while perceiving the surrounding environment more clearly.

"This... is the Immortal Realm."

Nightmare took a deep breath, feeling the completely different Heaven and Earth Laws and energy levels, his eyes as sharp as a hawk's.

He did not act rashly, but instead carefully spread his Divine Sense in the most secretive way possible to explore the situation of the wasteland, while using the star dao fruit to reconfirm the direction of the Xianqiong Forbidden Land.

The sensing from the star dao fruit was countless times clearer than in the Lower Realm, pointing clearly to the depths of the Immortal Realm, to a location shrouded by layers of terrifying Restrictions and vast Heavenly Might.

But at the same time, Nightmare keenly sensed that the moment he broke through the barrier and stepped into the Immortal Realm, at least dozens, or even hundreds, of powerful and obscure Divine Thoughts, like an invisible scanning net, spread out in all directions with the Fallen Immortal Wasteland as the center!

These Divine Thoughts wove into a dense net, carrying a clear intention of investigation, scanning every inch of the wasteland and every wisp of abnormal energy fluctuation!

The large-scale investigation by the immortal realm heavenly dao forces had already begun!

They had indeed detected that the lingyuan reverse key had been stolen, and had also deduced that the Reverse Dao Practitioner might ascend or sneak into the Immortal Realm, and were now searching with all their might!

Nightmare's gaze was cold, his figure seemingly melting into the shadows, completely merging with the gray, decaying rocks beneath his feet and the aura of decay permeating the air. The Reverse Dao Power simulated the "dead silence" and "desolation" aura originating from the surrounding environment, perfectly hiding himself.

"Investigation, huh..."

He sneered in his heart, "Then let's see, in this Fallen Immortal Wasteland, whether your Heavenly Net is all-encompassing, or if my Reverse Dao leaves no trace."

Like the most patient hunter, he lay quietly in wait, adapting to the Immortal Realm environment while observing the Divine Thoughts that swept past, analyzing their patterns and intensity.

The journey in the Immortal Realm quietly began on such a desolate, murderous, and perilous land.

immortal firmament path-reversal key, wait for me.