96: Chapter 96 The Hibernating Heart of the World

Those two words, like a key sealed in dust for eons, precisely inserted into the keyhole deep within the Keeper of the Furnace's chaotic soul.

"...Lu... Bei?"

Time was frozen in that instant.

The overwhelming army of immortal and divine vengeful spirits, about to engulf the players' front line, froze in their hideous poses in mid-air, like a doomsday painting with the pause button pressed.

The towering giant of gods and demons shuddered violently.

In the deep darkness beneath his helmet, the ink-colored light spots representing madness and corruption exploded, like fire splashed into boiling oil!

The aura of tyranny, resentment, and chaos counterattacked with unprecedented intensity, attempting to completely devour that flickering point of pure white.

"Roar——!"

A silent roar transformed into a mental storm, sweeping across the entire field.

The players maintaining the [Myriad Spirits Sacrificial Formation] were struck as if by lightning, bearing the brunt of the impact!

"Puff!" "Pfft!"

The dozens of players on the outermost perimeter couldn't even let out a muffled groan before their character bodies, like punctured balloons, instantly turned into streams of data and dissipated on the spot.

That was not an ordinary death; their resurrection countdowns displayed a despairing dark gray, with a duration long enough to make one's heart palpitate.

"Hold steady! Everyone, hold the formation!"

[Immovable as a Mountain]’s eyes were splitting with rage; his bare upper body had veins bulging under the skin, like coiled angry dragons.

He used his own flesh and blood as the sturdiest foundation for the formation.

However, that confrontation at the soul level was far more terrifying than any physical attack.

[Star Dust], as the core of the formation, bore the most terrifying pressure.

Golden blood was already seeping from her seven orifices—the manifestation of the power of incense and the over-burning of her soul.

On her delicate face, there was not a trace of pain, only her eyes, which remained locked onto the pure white light point in the giant's eyes, maintaining that hard-won "connection."

"Wake him up... Ancestor..." she shouted in her heart with all her might.

The phantom of the Ancestor behind her flickered, clearly also under a huge load.

That old and weary consciousness turned into a final trickle, flowing along the connection into the Keeper of the Furnace's soul.

"Cang Yuan... it's me, Lu Bei."

"I'm back."

There was no impassioned persuasion, no righteous reprimand, only a plain greeting, as if an old friend had reunited.

Yet, this very greeting became the final straw that broke the camel's back.

The Keeper of the Furnace's frantically flickering black eyes, after a final violent collision with the pure white light point, suddenly paused, and then, like the tide, slowly receded.

The tyranny and madness that enveloped the entire Return to Ruins also vanished like smoke.

Silence. A deathly silence.

All the immortal and divine vengeful spirits frozen in mid-air, like weathered sand sculptures, silently disintegrated, turning into the most primitive light dust and returning to the sea of chaos.

The hundred-foot-tall giant of gods and demons slowly, slowly lowered its head.

In the deep darkness beneath his helmet, only one point of light remained.

It was a point of pure white, clear as glaze, yet filled with endless weariness and sorrow.

He "looked" at these battered and weak "viruses" at his feet; there was no longer hostility in his eyes, only a sorrow that spanned eras.

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

His voice was no longer the coldness of rules, but carried a hoarseness and difficulty like grinding metal and stone, as if he hadn't spoken for a very, very long time.

"But you shouldn't have come back."

"This... is a graveyard. Everyone's graveyard."

As his voice fell, his massive body, composed of light particles, began to become thin and transparent at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Clearly, awakening his reason had exhausted his final strength.

"Senior!" Ninth Prince struggled to stand up and bowed deeply to the towering figure that was about to dissipate, "We are not invaders, but have come to save this world!"

The Keeper of the Furnace, or rather, Cang Yuan, seemed to "look" at him.

"Save?" He let out a chuckle that seemed like self-mockery, "In the last era, we thought the same... as a result, we all became prisoners."

His gaze finally fell on [Star Dust], the core of the formation, who was connected to Lu Bei's aura.

"Tell Lu Bei... our path was wrong. Resistance... is wrong. Sealing... is also wrong. That thing... cannot be destroyed, because It, itself, is the other side of 'existence'."

Cang Yuan's figure was already as faint as a candle in the wind.

"The only way... is not resistance, but... restart."

He used his last bit of strength to turn around and look at the silent, vaguely outlined creation furnace behind him.

He stretched out his arm, which was also becoming illusory, and placed his palm against the cold outer wall of the furnace.

"I guarded it for an era, but I never truly entered its heart."

"Now, I will use my broken soul to open the final door for you all."

"Go... go and see what this world... truly looks like..."

"Hum——!"

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no heaven-destroying radiance.

Cang Yuan's towering body, like the first ray of morning light cast upon a lake, silently dissolved and scattered, turning into billions of pure white, warm light spots that all fused into the massive creation furnace.

Immediately after, the creation furnace, which had been motionless for eons like the carcass of a giant beast, had a giant structure at its very center, resembling a heart door, slowly open a crack amidst a difficult, rumbling sound.

A deep, dark passage, exuding the most primitive aura, appeared before them.

At the end of the passage, there seemed to be some indescribable, magnificent existence quietly waiting.

[Outlaw Zhang San] watched this scene, with no joy of victory in his eyes, only an unshakable gravity.

He quickly ordered in the command channel: "[STEM Man], immediately analyze the casualty report and reorganize the formation! [Immovable as a Mountain], take people to count the personnel who can still fight, and prepare to enter!"

He paused, raised his head, and his gaze crossed countless broken floating islands, looking toward a certain direction in the Return to Ruins.

That was where [Charge to the End] and the others had lost contact.

Beside him, Ninth Prince also looked grim and whispered: "This is not a coincidence. Our route was top secret, and the ambush by that support legion, along with the awakening of this senior... the timing is too precise."

"It's Fairy Yunshang."

Zhang San spat out a name, his voice icy and bone-chilling.

"She is not a lackey of the Evil God; what she wants to be is the Evil God's master. She treated us as... free labor to clear the old world order and, incidentally, test the 'God Prison' defense system."

"From the moment we stepped into the Holy Land, we were pawns on her chessboard."

Ninth Prince fell silent.

He was from the royal family and understood too well this kind of power tactic that played with the lives of the common people in the palm of one's hand.

But he had never imagined that someone could be crazy enough to bet on the end of the world.

"Go in first." Zhang San withdrew his gaze, "Pawns also have a time when they can flip the chessboard. But first, we need to know what this chessboard actually is."

The remnants of the alliance, after paying the painful price of nearly half their casualties, finally stepped into the passage opened by the last warden with his life.

Passing through the long and dark tunnel, the scene before them suddenly opened up.

But there were no dense traps as imagined, nor was there surging energy.

Here... there was nothing.

This was an absolute void space that could not be measured by any scale.

Above, below, left, and right, it was all bottomless darkness; even light seemed unable to exist here.

The only light source came from the very center of this space.

Everyone subconsciously held their breath.

In front of them, floating was a... heart.

A gigantic heart, incomparably huge, almost occupying the entire field of view, made of some unknown crystal.

Its surface was engraved with billions of extremely complex golden patterns, which were the most primitive forms of the laws of the world.

Through the translucent crystal outer wall, one could see energy pathways inside, like blood vessels that had long since dried up.

It must have beaten once.

Every beat was enough to give birth to a world, and every breath was enough to nourish billions of living beings.

But now, it was dead.

It just floated there quietly, no longer beating, no longer shining, no longer having any signs of life.

An indescribable sorrow and deathly silence, like a tide, submerged everyone's mind.

This was the true face of the [creation furnace].

The Heart of the World.

A... dead heart.

Everyone approached slowly; awe, shock, confusion... all kinds of emotions were intertwined on everyone's faces.

Just then, a cold, emotionless system prompt clearly appeared in the minds of all players and local cultivators simultaneously.

[World Announcement: You have arrived at the World Hub—creation furnace (Core Area).]

[Status: Dormant.]

[Restart Condition 1: Inject energy. The total energy required exceeds the sum of all existing spiritual veins, spiritual stones, and living souls in this world.]

[Restart Condition 2: Carrier. A 'God' is needed as the core to carry and guide the world's original power to complete the restart.]

...

Deathly silence.

Every word of the announcement was like a ruthless heavy hammer, smashing fiercely into everyone's heart, shattering the glimmer of hope they had just raised.

Exceeding the sum of all energy in the world?

Where to find it?

And need a... God?

In this era where even True Immortals are extinct, where is a God to be found?

[The Romance of the Science Guy] adjusted his non-existent glasses; his data streams flashed frantically before his eyes, and finally, all models pointed to a scarlet conclusion—"Impossible to achieve."

The color on Ninth Prince's face completely faded at this moment; he looked at the huge, dead heart, and for the first time, revealed true despair in his eyes.

[Outlaw Zhang San] slowly closed his eyes.

After a long while, he opened his eyes and only spat out two words.

"Deadlock."