Overdraw the future and become a peerless martial god

Chapter 200 The Abyss of Shackles
There, the Soul Lock patterns were clearly visible, with traces of dark gold engraved at the intersection of the five patterns, resembling divine iron inscriptions cast and sealed, cold, profound, and devoid of human presence.

He has shed the appearance of a seeker of the Tao in the mortal world and transformed into a being who walks in the world—a body bound by tribulations.

Once the Soul Master's will becomes unbalanced, he himself will become a "walking calamity" that is devoured by the mark.

At that very moment, where the primordial soul shadow dissipated, the enormous soul monument suddenly lit up.

On the surface of the monument, the two characters "Hun Yuan" suddenly burst forth, and the light stream did not spread out, but rather shot straight up like a sharp arrow, into the dome of the Soul Palace.

"Om."

"Crackling!!"

The ancient dome, constructed entirely of soul crystals, cracked inch by inch under the onslaught of the ghostly golden soul light, eventually collapsing and peeling away.

A massive, endlessly rotating spatial vortex slowly opened up from the dome.

Within the vortex, chaotic light surged ceaselessly, with dark purple, deep blue, and pale white intertwining and swirling, as if a "Soul Domain Storm" composed of three natural disasters had descended from another realm.

With just a glance, Chu Ning's soul consciousness felt as if it had been pricked by needles. The dark gold mark in his soul lock trembled violently and emitted a sharp sound, as if it was resisting some kind of "extraterrestrial rule" from another realm.

That is—the entrance to the pinnacle of the realm.

The light and shadow of the Soul Palace shattered, and spatial fragments peeled off at the edge of the vortex, turning into nothingness before hitting the ground.

And the three giant shadows deep within the vortex also emerged into the world.

A colossal, illusory lock stretching across the galaxy, its chains as thick as mountains, coils around a shattered star, signifying the "Source of the Sealed Realm."
The void of the Spiral Abyss, like a bottomless maw, continuously devours all the soul light from the Soul Realm;
The cracked eye, suspended in mid-air, was half-open and half-closed, seemingly watching Chu Ning silently through the naming ring.

These three, though lacking life, are better than all spirits.

These are the final thresholds for the inheritance of Hunyuan.

It is also the three locked barriers that the Soul Master must face.

Chu Ning gazed into the depths of that chaos, and the Soul Lock in his palm trembled slightly. At the fifth rune, the faint golden light rippled like a gentle tide.

The Soul Monument has been opened, and the Gate to Heaven has appeared.

And he will be the first person to go in.

—Truly stepping into the "Boundary Realm," locking onto the Soul Fate.

"Rumble--"

The speed of the spinning vortex suddenly increased dramatically, and the chaotic light flow poured down from the dome like a boiling sea, causing the entire Soul Palace to tremble violently.

The ancient inscriptions on the ground cracked and collapsed inch by inch, the soul crystal platform began to break and collapse, and the runic light veins shattered like lightning.

From the center of the vortex, an irresistible force of absorption roared out and locked onto Chu Ning.

Or more accurately, it locked onto the newly fused Nether Gold Soul Master's mark within his body.

The last piece of soul crystal ground beneath Chu Ning's feet turned to dust. He was suddenly lifted up by that force and soared into the air, flying towards the chaotic vortex that was devouring everything.

The wind howled, and the soul flow collapsed.

Chu Ning's robes fluttered wildly, and the flames of his soul lock surged. His entire sea of ​​consciousness was enduring the pain of his soul being torn apart and his bones and blood burning backward.

But his expression remained completely unchanged.

He didn't struggle. Instead...

"The pinnacle of the realm."

He whispered, his voice so soft it was almost torn apart by the storm, but his eyes were sharp and resolute, like lightning piercing through the clouds.

—He activated the Soul Lock on his own initiative.

"Buzz!"

A golden light rose up, and the fifth soul rune burned fiercely in his palm, like the last glimmer of a star before it burns out.

The Soul Master's mark also trembled and resonated, no longer merely devouring, but instead igniting, transforming into a sharp propulsive force.

At that moment, Chu Ning seemed to transform into a sharp arrow made of soul, resisting the scouring of the chaotic vortex, igniting his soul intent, and leaping into the rift in the sky.

Even if there is no way back, this door—will still be opened by me!

His figure, amidst the flames, soul light, and shattered soul monuments, carried an almost resolute determination, heading straight into the unfathomable Three Locks Sealing Gate.

"boom!!!!"

The instant he plunged into the vortex, the entire dome of the Soul Palace collapsed with a deafening roar. The chaotic vortex suddenly contracted, like a thunderbolt gathering its core, transforming into a thin, dark golden crack. Then, with a "crack," it closed in the air, as if a wound had healed, and vanished without a trace.

All that remained below, amidst the scattered remnants of soul crystals and fragments of runes, was the still-standing, but dimly lit, soul monument. The two characters "Hun Yuan" on the monument seemed to have been extinguished like dead flames, silently recounting the storm that had raged here.

The moment Chu Ning stepped into the vortex, the entire Soul Array above the Realm Within a Realm suddenly lit up.

Each soul meridian circuit emitted a low-frequency resonance, like ten thousand lines vibrating together, causing the array clouds in the sky to shatter layer by layer.

Dozens of monitoring stations outside the Mirror Abyss malfunctioned, their runes flickering, and even the observers could faintly hear shrieks.

The inspector looked up at the sky, his expression changing drastically:

"That's not an ordinary trial fluctuation; it's the main soul of the Floating Pavilion... being activated in reverse!"

He turned and ran towards the Mirror Abyss:

"This matter is no longer a simple soul lock resonance. Quickly, inform Elder Yu."

Meanwhile, beside the floating pavilion, the sky remained unchanged, but Lei Jingjing's heart suddenly sank.

She suddenly felt a burning, stinging pain in the soul ring, and her soul breath snapped like a broken string, trembling almost to the point of explosion in her sea of ​​consciousness.

Her expression changed abruptly, and she murmured softly:
"No—something happened to Chu Ning."

That wasn't the instability of soul power that usually occurs during trials; rather, it was the Soul Lock System suffering a severe backlash, bringing it to the brink of life and death.

She turned and hurried away, almost disappearing in a flash, to Chu Yun's meditation spot.

"Chu Yun!" She rushed to the door before she could even announce her arrival.

Chu Yun was just coming back to his senses from the meditation on the Soul Diagram, and the divine lines between his brows had not yet dissipated when he heard Lei Jingjing's voice mixed with hurried breathing.

Lei Jingjing raised her hand, and the Soul Ring flashed with golden light, pulsating like a mournful cry:
"This is Chu Ning's current soul aura! He and Yu Xing Shui are deep within the Soul Domain... but the Soul Ring is cracked. This is not ordinary suppression, it is... a backlash from the lock!"

Chu Yun's pupils suddenly contracted:

"Wasn't he with Yu Xingshui? How could he be—"

"This is not the time to ask 'how could this happen'!" Lei Jingjing gritted her teeth. "If we don't intervene immediately, his soul lock may rupture and he could die on the spot!"

Chu Yun shattered the hall doors with a single palm strike and whispered:

"Let's go find Li Jing'an immediately."

Before long, the three passed through the main array of the floating pavilion's soul patterns and headed straight for the core area of ​​the Soul Chart Pavilion—the Surveillance Hall.

Yu Xing Shui stood before the Heavenly Mirror, the rune between her brows suddenly throbbing violently. Her expression changed drastically, and before she could speak, a deafening roar came from the center of the mirror.

The light pulse circuit, which should have been operating smoothly, suddenly shattered completely.

The Soul Mirror was as if it were being cleaved by a thousand blades, creating a raging storm. Runes danced wildly around it, and the mirror shell emitted a piercing tremor.

At the edge, concentric circles of extremely unstable "Soul Lock Vibration Echoes" spread out, as if the cracks in the rules were collapsing from the inside.

"puff!"

Blood gushed from her mouth, and she gripped the dressing table tightly with her fingers, struggling to stabilize her surging blood and qi.

The light in her eyes was more solemn than ever before.

In the mirror, the "soul imprint" representing Chu Ning erupted from the core of the Lock Source Hall, unleashing a beam of dark golden light that pierced through the structure.

The light was as intense as a thousand bolts of lightning simultaneously exploding in the abyss. Immediately afterward, the entire Soul Network was paralyzed.

The thousand monitoring soul lines in the Soul Map Pavilion's Mirror Abyss were all instantly severed.

Yu Xingshui trembled slightly and murmured:

"...Mirror Abyss...Collapse?"

The voice was extremely soft, yet every word was piercing.

She almost refused to believe her own judgment, but the Soul Mirror's floating patterns revealed without reservation that this was not a breakthrough for a Soul Master, nor the unlocking of the boundary lock, but rather, a high-level will beyond the sequence of this realm was... countering.

The Soul Map Pavilion's secret scrolls list a name for this phenomenon:
“A forbidden sign of a boundary.”

That is a phenomenon that has only occurred in a very few historical periods within the entire realm's rule setting.

If someone could shake such a warning within the Soul Realm.

Alternatively, he will become a variable that transcends the Soul Map system;

Alternatively, he will be rejected by the "boundary" itself.

The next moment, the doors of the main hall were violently shaken open.

Chu Yun, Lei Jingjing, and Li Jing'an entered almost simultaneously.

"Elder Yu!" Chu Yun exclaimed urgently, "Chu Ning's soul ring is acting strangely, we sense that his soul lock is on the verge of collapse!"

“It’s no longer a matter of ‘abnormal activity’.” Li Jing’an stepped forward, looked at the damaged soul net filling the room, and added in a low voice, “It’s that your Mirror Abyss System… has malfunctioned.”

Yu Xingshui slowly straightened up, her pale face gradually turning as cold as ice.

Her voice was low: "It wasn't him who got into trouble."

"It was him who tore open a thread of fate that should never have been opened."

With a single palm strike, she shattered the Soul Chart Platform behind her, her long robe billowing like thunder, and the Triple Soul Lock Array suddenly activated.

The core array of the entire palace rose up, and a golden token slowly rotated, engraved with the emblem of the supervisory scepter of the Soul Chart Pavilion for seven centuries.

She ordered coldly:
"Retrieve all records of the 'Fate Abyss System'. Immediately block the Mirror Abyss Surveillance fragment."

"A general order was issued to Bai Tuzuo and Yuan Yin, the stewards—"

"The Soul Chart Pavilion will formally establish a high-level destiny chart observation agreement with Chu Ning."

This is the first time in the past century that a martial artist has triggered a soul-locking event of this level.

Yu Xingshui already understood:

From this moment on, Chu Ning is no longer someone she can monitor alone.

……

At this moment, deep within the heart of the monument, Chu Ning's soul had sunk into the deepest part of the Fifth Lock Reflection Domain—the Abyss of Lock Construction.

That was a gray zone forbidden area that even the Soul Master's Seal could not fully control. The Soul Dao textures were broken, the cause and effect were unbalanced, and the rules were self-bound... like an ancient and unknown wasteland of the Destiny Realm, quietly sleeping at the bottom of the Soul Lock System.

But at this moment, the true trial of the Soul Chains has only just begun.

From the depths of the soul domain vortex that Chu Ning rushed into, three illusory figures were projected, causing the entire floating pavilion and even the sealing realm's will to tremble briefly:
The first lock is called the "Horizontal Sky Lock".

It was a chain phantom stretching across the Soul Palace, its body ancient and as solid as star iron. Locked between the chain links was a broken section of the Heavenly Gate beam—once a God of Destiny crossed the boundary wall and lost his wings here, and the remnant radiance of his divinity has not yet been extinguished.

The second lock is called "Abyss Within Abyss".

A void core, constantly collapsing and reborn, like the black heart of the universe, devours all the structural laws within the Soul Domain. Its breath is annihilation, its stillness is collapse. Even the Soul Master's mark, if it approaches its edge, will be twisted into nothingness.

The third lock is called "Ten Thousand Eyes".

It was a half-open pupil, suspended atop the sealed realm's heavens, its inner patterns ever-changing, like fragments of a boundary map overlapping, riddled with cracks in the soul's path. A single glance from that gaze could reveal the deepest sins of the soul and the thinnest thread of fate.

These three locks are known as the "Three Locks of the Boundary," which are said to be the highest symbol of the will that guards the heart of the boundary and the bottom of the rules.

They may not be tangible, but they are not illusions.

That is the manifestation of the deepest rules of the Soul Lock, the prelude to the "Battle of the Soul Masters," and the ultimate juncture that every Soul Lock Bearer must face.

The core of the monument trembled slightly, and an ancient soul script emerged from the depths of the soul core, as if etched by blood, reflecting in the depths of Chu Ning's consciousness:

"The three locks are not a one-time challenge, but an eternal battle."

The sealed boundary will crack, the Soul Master will succeed, and the Three Locks will surely open again.

At that moment, the five patterns within Chu Ning's soul sea suddenly tightened, as if being tested by some kind of force.

He hadn't had a chance to respond yet.

—A sudden change occurred.

Before the golden soul light that had pierced the Soul Mirror's monitoring structure had fully subsided, an even more bizarre and twisted energy suddenly exploded from the deepest part of the monument's core.

"Snap!!"

Like a crystal breaking after ten thousand years of cold, or like a heavenly drum shaking the soul.

The mirror core that revealed Chu Ning's soul essence shattered violently within the Mirror Abyss of the Soul Map Pavilion.

It's not dimming, not dissolving, not failing to track down.

But:

—Completely annihilated.

It was as if the entire trajectory of "his existence" had been erased from the monitoring system by an invisible hand.

Not even a trace of his soul imprint remained, as if his "existence itself" had been removed from the rules.

The next instant, at the edge of the vanished mirror, an extremely fine spatial crack quietly appeared.

It swirls like spider silk among the shattered mirror light, and what emerges on it is not soul imprint runes, but chaos—without attributes, without belonging, and without rules.

That aura was like a spatial wound left after a high-level sealing technique collapsed; it flashed with a faint light and then vanished without a trace.

The golden light still hung in the dome, the last glow of the fifth lock, illuminating Chu Ning's back and the faintly red soul mark on his right palm—like a living thing, slowly moving between his flesh and consciousness.

He stood before the broken monument, his palms burning, his breath slightly ragged.

The five soul-locking patterns have been etched deep into his soul, but they are far from being stable.

That wasn't a true fusion, but rather a kind of...anchoring after being torn apart, like forcibly stitching together different destinies.

The fifth mark is awakening, but the rules are resisting, unwilling to acknowledge that this unnamed, unguided youth, who does not belong to any race, possesses such "authority".

The passage to the summit of the realm was not closed. Behind the light curtain, thunder rumbled faintly, and the storm in the soul domain had not yet subsided.

Yu Xingshui and Lei Jingjing were still recuperating on the outside, while Chu Ning stood alone on the broken monument, his soul energy stained with blood in the wind.

Within the mirror realm, Chu Ning slowly closed his eyes and probed his soul into his sea of ​​souls.

In an instant, a hissing sound, like the clanging of metal, exploded from the depths of the soul sea.

"Click——"

Within the sea of ​​souls, five lock marks emerged, intertwined with each other, yet leaving a terrifying "gap" in the center, like a crack in the sky.

Like an unhealed scar.

“This isn’t fusion…” Chu Ning murmured, “This is… stitching.”

Of the five patterns, only the soul thread of the fifth lock trembled constantly, as if it were about to break away from the overall structure at any moment. Once it lost its balance, the five patterns would collapse in reverse, the soul lock would backfire, and he would instantly lose his soul sea and die on the spot.

(End of this chapter)