I gain ten years' worth of cultivation every day, and even geniuses will only see my doorstep!

Still.

His heart was beating, his blood was flowing, and the spiritual energy in his dantian was slowly circulating. These things didn't need external proof. He was still there, Lin Qing'er was still there—that was enough.

He opened his eyes. Nothingness was still nothingness, but he no longer felt fear.

"Let's go," he said.

Lin Qing'er didn't know how he did it, but she knew that she should just follow him.

They walked for a long time in the void. Without any landmarks or sense of the passage of time, they could only rely on their intuition to determine their direction. Qin Yuan would occasionally stop and take out the War God Token from his robes—it had become colorless and transparent, glowing faintly in the void, as if guiding something.

"That way," Qin Yuan pointed in one direction.

After walking for an unknown amount of time, the scene finally changed. It wasn't light, nor sound, but a difference in "texture." It was like reaching out and touching a wall in a completely dark room—you couldn't see it, but you knew it was there.

The first continent of the Void Sacred Realm suddenly appeared before them.

It's called a continent, but it's more like a huge gray slab of stone, smooth as a mirror, without any bumps or depressions. There are no buildings, no vegetation, no living beings. But it is there, floating in the void, like a sleeping giant.

The moment Qin Yuan stepped onto the stone slab, his entire aura was suppressed. Not by a powerful figure, but by the "nothingness" itself. The rule here is simple: all existence is weakened. Spiritual power, divine sense, physical body, even thoughts, all slowly dissipate in this nothingness.

"Interesting," Qin Yuan muttered to himself.

Lin Qing'er also stepped onto the stone slab, her face slightly pale. Her cultivation level was lower than Qin Yuan's, so she was more affected, and the speed of her spiritual energy circulation was almost halved.

"Qing'er, step back," Qin Yuan said.

Lin Qing'er shook her head. "I won't back down. You said we'd be together."

Qin Yuan looked at her and suddenly smiled. "Okay. Let's do it together."

He raised his hand, creating a protective shield around the two of them, shielding them against the celestial laws. The shield was pale gold, standing out starkly against the gray void. It could block some of the void's erosion; while it couldn't completely neutralize it, it at least made Lin Qing'er feel a little better.

The stone slab was enormous, stretching as far as the eye could see. Qin Yuan led Lin Qing'er for three days, seeing nothing but the gray stone slab. On the fourth day, the stone slab finally reached its end. At the end was a deep abyss, and on the other side, another continent could be vaguely seen.

Qin Yuan was about to fly over when he suddenly stopped.

What's in the abyss?

It wasn't a breath, nor a sound, but a feeling of being "watched." He lowered his head, gazing into the depths of the abyss. There was nothing there—no, that wasn't right. There was "nothingness" itself. Like a mirror, you look at it, and it looks back at you.

Qin Yuan suddenly understood. The rule of the Void Sacred Realm wasn't "nothingness," but rather "everything is nothingness." Nothingness itself is an existence; it exists within non-existence. The more you try to understand it, the less you can understand it. The more you try to conquer it, the more you will be devoured by it.

"We can't force it," Qin Yuan said to Lin Qing'er. "The enemy here isn't any one person, but nothingness itself."

Lin Qing'er seemed to understand, but not quite. "Then what do we do?"

Qin Yuan thought for a moment. "Wait."

"What are you waiting for?"

"Wait until the void reveals a flaw."

They sat down at the edge of the abyss. Qin Yuan closed his eyes, immersing his mind in nothingness. Not in resistance, not in escape, but in merging. He made himself a part of nothingness, so that nothingness could not perceive his existence. Then, he searched within nothingness—searching for the "edge" of nothingness.

Everything that exists has a boundary, and nothingness is no exception. The boundary of nothingness is not outside, but inside. When nothingness becomes aware of its own existence, it becomes "existent." Nothingness is nothingness because it is unaware of its own existence. Once it becomes aware, it is no longer nothingness.

Qin Yuan found that moment of "knowing" in the void.

That was the most vulnerable moment for nothingness.

He opened his eyes, stood up, and slammed his palm into the abyss.

There was no palm print, no light, no sound. But the abyss cracked open. Not a physical crack, but a fissure appeared in "nothingness" itself. From the fissure, something surged forth—sound, light, color, temperature, existence itself.

For the first time, the first continent of the Void Sacred Realm experienced wind.

The crack expanded faster than Qin Yuan had anticipated. In just a few breaths, the abyss transformed into a massive canyon, from which grayish-white mist billowed. Within the mist, something was moving.

Qin Yuan shielded Lin Qing'er behind him, gazing intently at the mist.

The mist swirled and gradually coalesced into the shape of a person. No, not a person, but the concept of a "person." It had a human-like outline, but no facial features, no skin, no color, like a rough doll sculpted from mist.

"The Void Sanctuary has not had a visitor for billions of years." The thing spoke, its voice seeming to come from a great distance, or perhaps echoing in its own mind, "You are the first."

Qin Yuan asked, "Who are you?"

The thing was silent for a moment. "Who am I? That's a difficult question to answer. In your world, names are used to distinguish one another. But in the void, there are no two, only the void itself. So, I have no name. You can call me... the void."

Qin Yuan didn't laugh. He sensed the seriousness in the other person's words. "You are the ruler of the Void Sacred Domain?"

"A ruler?" The thing seemed to ponder the meaning of the word. "No, I am not a ruler. Nothingness needs no rule. I am merely the will of nothingness, or rather, nothingness's self-awareness. Your world has its rules, and nothingness has its rules. What brings you here?"

Qin Yuan said, "To see what else is up there."

"Up there?" The thing looked up at the gray-white sky—if it could be called the sky—"There's nothing up there. Above nothingness, there's still nothingness. No matter how far you go, you can't escape nothingness. Because nothingness has no boundaries."

Qin Yuan shook his head. "I don't believe it."

The thing was staring at him; its faceless form gave the impression of being watched. "You don't believe me? What makes you think you won't?"

Qin Yuan said, "Because in every world I've been to, someone said, 'There's nothing up there.' But every time I went up there, I discovered a new world. Nothingness was no exception."

The thing fell silent. For a very long time. So long that Lin Qing'er thought it had vanished, that it spoke again.