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

As dawn broke, the two stood before the crevice. The morning light shone from behind them, casting their shadows into the crevice, where they were swallowed by the chaotic energy.

Qin Yuan stepped inside first, followed by Lin Qing'er.

The Chaos Abyss has changed.

Qin Yuan remembered how it looked when he last left. Fragments of the Chaos Fire City lay scattered in the void, like a dark red ribbon of rubble. The icicles of the Chaos Ice City floated in the chaotic energy, occasionally colliding and clanging. The dark clouds over the Chaos Thunder City had dissipated, leaving only a pile of charred rocks. He remembered every path, every direction.

But now, all of that is gone. The fragments vanished, the icicles melted, and the charred stones sank to the depths. In their place stands a colossal ruin.

Stone pillars. Black stone pillars rose from the depths of the chaotic energy, each a hundred feet tall, their surfaces smooth as mirrors. But instead of Qin Yuan's face, the mirrors reflected ancient characters. The characters flowed across the surface of the pillars, as if alive. Qin Yuan didn't recognize them, but their meaning appeared directly in his mind.

"The Chaos Ancient Clan, born in chaos, is commanded to guard the abyss. The Chaos Heavenly Ones are our servants, shepherding all realms as if they were sheep."

Lin Qing'er stood before a stone pillar and reached out to touch it. Her fingertips barely touched the stone's surface before she was repelled. A ripple appeared on the stone, like water struck by a pebble, and then the speed at which the text flowed doubled.

"Don't touch them," Qin Yuan said. "They're recording us."

At the center of the ruins stands a door. Not an ordinary door, but a massive stone slab, leaning against the two tallest pillars. Nine recesses are carved into the slab, arranged in a circle. Each recess contains a picture—the first a mouth, the second a short blade, the third a pair of hands, and the last six are worn and illegible.

Three of the indentations were glowing. The mouth in the first image shone with a dark red light, like a dying ember. The short blade in the second image shone with a silvery-gray light, like mercury. The hand in the third image shone with an earthy-yellow light, like dried soil.

Three lights, three auras. Each one is stronger than the Chaos Heaven.

Qin Yuan walked to the stone slab and looked at the three glowing indentations. The light flickered, like a heartbeat.

Footsteps sounded from behind the stone slab. Heavy and slow, each step sending the pebbles on the ground trembling. It wasn't a person, but a colossal creature emerging from the darkness behind the slab.

Qin Yuan pulled Lin Qing'er behind him. He gripped his black longsword tightly, and a hazy gray light shone from its blade. Three forces circulated within the sword—fire, ice, and lightning—flowing in sequence like three gears meshing.

From a crack in the stone slab, a hand emerged. It wasn't a human hand, but one made of gray rock, with five fingers, each as thick as Qin Yuan's arm. In the palm was an eye, grayish-white, without a pupil, staring directly at Qin Yuan.

The hand retracted. Then the entire stone slab shattered from the inside. Fragments flew everywhere, the largest one smashing into the ground in front of Qin Yuan, creating a crater.

The ancient god emerged from the fragments.

It was ten times the height of Qin Yuan. Its body was gray, like a rock weathered over millions of years, its surface covered with countless tiny cracks from which a dark red light flowed. It had no facial features—no eyes, no nose, no ears. Only a mouth. A huge mouth, horizontal across its chest, stretching from its left rib to its right. The mouth was closed, its lips black, like two cracked riverbeds.

"Wilderness." The sound didn't come from his mouth, but appeared directly in Qin Yuan's mind. There was no tone, no emotion, just information.

Qin Yuan looked at it. "You are a Chaos Ancient God."

"Ancient God. Desolation." The voice rang out again, "You killed Chaos Heaven. Not strong enough."

The desolate jaws opened. Not slowly, but like a chasm splitting open, the space between the upper and lower jaws large enough to swallow a house. There were no teeth, no tongue, only endless darkness. A suction force emanated from that darkness—not wind, but the very fabric of rules—drawing in the surrounding chaotic energy, the rubble, and even the dark red light emanating from the cracks in the ground. Everything was moving towards the desolate jaws.

Qin Yuan's feet slid across the ground. He used the Heavenly Dao to stabilize himself, a golden light shield fixing him in place, but the stones on the ground were cracking, and his feet sank into the earth. Lin Qing'er was behind him, also pulled by the suction force; her sword was stuck in the ground, her hands gripping the hilt, her body almost parallel to the ground.

Qin Yuan reached out and grabbed Lin Qing'er's wrist, pulling her behind him and shielding her with the protective light of the Heavenly Dao. The suction force was still there, but the two finally stabilized.

The desolate creature intensified its suction. Gravel began to fly from around Qin Yuan's feet, into its mouth. Qin Yuan's feet plowed two deep furrows in the ground, extending from his heels to several feet behind him. The light shield trembled, like an umbrella in a storm.

Qin Yuan raised the black longsword above his head. Three forces surged from within him—red flames from his right arm, blue ice from his left arm, and purple lightning from his spine. They converged on the sword, merging with the golden light that guarded the Heavenly Dao, transforming into a murky, hazy light.

He swung his sword. The sword energy flew towards Huang's open mouth, not in a straight line, but pulled by the suction force in an arc, but ultimately still flew into it.

Huang closed its mouth. The moment its lips closed, a dull, resounding crash echoed, like two mountains colliding. The gray rock body began to tremble, and dark red light flickered violently within the cracks. New cracks appeared around its mouth on its chest, not on the surface, but spreading from the inside out. Gray liquid gushed from the cracks, not blood, but like molten rock, viscous and scalding hot.

Huang's body lurched forward. His ten-zhang-tall frame crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of gray dust. After the dust settled, Huang was no longer moving.

Qin Yuan walked to Huang's corpse and squatted down. A crack had appeared in its chest, deeper than the others. Inside the crack was a gray crystal, about the size of a fist, with a smooth surface and a dark red light flowing within.

The core of the ancient god.

Qin Yuan reached out and took it out. The crystal was very hot, like iron just taken out of a fire. He gripped it tightly, and the crystal turned into a gray liquid, flowing down his wrist into his sleeve and seeping into his skin.

His cultivation level rose. From the fifth level of the Primordial Chaos to the sixth level, and then to the seventh level. Spiritual energy surged through his meridians like a thawing river. The old injury on his left shoulder was completely healed by this power, and the bones in his right leg made a slight cracking sound as the misalignment was corrected.

Lin Qing'er's aura was also changing. She broke through from the highest level of nothingness to the first level of the primordial chaos. Gray light spots floated out from her body, like fireflies.

On the stone slab, the first indentation went out. The mouth pattern no longer glowed.