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

The door opened. There was no sound. It slid open to the sides like an elevator door, revealing a downward staircase. The staircase was narrow, allowing only one person to pass at a time. On the walls on either side of the staircase hung ever-burning lamps, their wicks and flames black. The black light shone on the black stone steps, making it almost impossible for Qin Yuan to see his footing.

Deep within the stairs, there was a sound. One beat after another, and another. It wasn't footsteps, but a heartbeat. Slow and heavy, each beat causing the black flames on the walls to flicker.

Qin Yuan stood at the top of the stairs and glanced down. He couldn't see the bottom.

"Wait for me outside," he said to Lin Qing'er.

Lin Qing'er shook her head. "It's too dangerous inside. Let's go together."

Qin Yuan looked at her. There was no hesitation on her face, and her eyes were calm.

He nodded. The two walked hand in hand down the steps.

The stone door behind them slowly closed. The last ray of light from the ruins was cut off, leaving only black flames illuminating their faces.

The stairs were long. Qin Yuan counted the steps, giving up after reaching a thousand. His legs began to ache, not from fatigue, but from the stronger gravity here compared to outside. Each step required three times the effort of usual. Lin Qing'er's breathing also became heavier, but neither she nor he told her to stop.

The heartbeat grew closer and closer. Each beat made Qin Yuan's chest vibrate.

At the end of the stairs lay a vast space. There were no walls, no pillars, only an empty, black flat ground. In the center of the flat ground, a heart floated.

It wasn't a human heart. It was enormous, so large that Qin Yuan had to crane his neck to see the top. It was gray in color, with countless vein-like patterns on its surface, within which a dark red light flowed. Every time it beat, the entire space trembled, and the pebbles on the ground bounced up.

The core of the progenitor of chaos.

Qin Yuan walked towards the heart. He had only taken three steps when an eye opened on the surface of the heart. It was gray, without a pupil, but Qin Yuan could feel it watching him. Then a second, a third, a fourth… countless eyes opened on the surface of the heart, all staring at Qin Yuan.

A voice emanated from within the heart. It was not the language of the ancient gods, nor any language, but a will etched directly into the soul.

"You killed Huang, Xu, and Yao. You are strong. But you are still no match for me."

Qin Yuan gripped his sword tightly. "Aren't you still asleep?"

"It'll be soon. You've come too early. If you had arrived ten thousand years later, I would have woken up, and you would have had no chance. Now, you still have a chance."

Qin Yuan said nothing more. He raised the black longsword and poured all the power of the Heavenly Dao, the three forces of chaos, and the three ancient god cores into its blade. The light on the sword was no longer gray, but gold. Pure gold, just like when he first comprehended the Heavenly Dao.

He brandished his sword.

The sword energy flew out, slashing towards the heart.

The eyes on the surface of the heart closed simultaneously. Not out of fear, but out of focus. They closed, concentrating all their power on one point. The instant the sword energy struck the heart, it produced not the sound of metal clashing, but the sound of a heartbeat. Thump. The sword energy was deflected, and the heart remained intact.

Qin Yuan was pushed back three steps by the recoil. His hands were trembling, his tiger's mouth was split open, and blood was dripping onto the ground.

"Not enough," the voice said. "You're missing one thing."

Qin Yuan asked, "What?"

"Time. You're out of time. I'm awake."

The heartbeat quickened. From one beat per breath, it became two, three, four. Faster and faster, until it became a continuous beat, like the pounding of a drum. The cracks on the surface of the heart began to widen, the gray outer shell peeled away, revealing what lay beneath—not flesh and blood, not crystal, but a ball of light. Colorless light, not white, not black, not any color at all.

Lin Qing'er gripped Qin Yuan's hand tightly.

Qin Yuan watched the ball of light slowly expand, slowly condense, and slowly take shape. A human form. Not a giant like an ancient god, but a person about the same height as Qin Yuan.

The progenitor of chaos.

The heart's outer shell peeled away piece by piece, like a dried-up riverbed curling, warping, and shattering under the scorching sun. Gray fragments fell to the ground silently, turning to powder and being scattered by an invisible wind. Beneath the shell, what was revealed was not flesh and bone, but a ball of light. Colorless light. Neither white nor black nor gray, neither bright nor dim. It simply existed there, inconspicuous like air, but when you noticed it, you found it omnipresent.

The ball of light expanded and contracted, like breathing. With each expansion, its shape changed. From a sphere to an ellipse, from an ellipse to a human figure. The outline blurred, like looking at a person through frosted glass.

The ball of light suddenly contracted and solidified. It took on a human form.

It was about the same height as Qin Yuan. Its body was transparent, and countless points of light could be seen flowing inside, like the Milky Way, like nebulae, like all the stars in the myriad worlds shrunk and stuffed into a human shell. It had no facial features; its face was smooth and flat, like a mirror. Qin Yuan's figure was reflected on the mirror, but the reflection was not normal—his face was elongated, and his body was compressed, like a monster in a funhouse mirror.

The progenitor of chaos looked down at his hands. Transparent, without skin, without nails, only the flow of light. He opened his five fingers, clenched them, and then opened them again. The movements were slow, like an infant getting to know its own body.

It looked up at Qin Yuan.

The reflection changed. The mirror no longer only showed Qin Yuan's face, but also Lin Qing'er's. Their figures twisted, overlapped, separated, and overlapped again on the mirror. The Ancestor of Chaos observed them, like a scholar examining cells under a microscope.

"Qin Yuan," it said.

Sound doesn't originate from the throat, because there is no throat. Sound is emitted from the entire body simultaneously, like countless tuning forks being struck at the same time, and then all the sounds are superimposed, becoming a single, emotionless note.

Qin Yuan gripped his sword tightly. "You will destroy all worlds."

"I created all worlds," said the Ancestor of Chaos. "After creating them, I grew tired and fell asleep. When I awoke, I found that the worlds were no longer what I had imagined. Therefore, I must reclaim them and recreate them."

"What about those living beings?"

"Living beings? When I created all worlds, I did not create living beings. Living beings arose on their own. They were not in my plan." The Ancestor of Chaos's tone remained unchanged, without regret, guilt, or even indifference—indifference is also an emotion, and he had none. "Therefore, they do not need to exist."

Qin Yuan fell silent. He raised his sword, and golden light shone from its blade. It wasn't the brightest light he shone when protecting the Heavenly Dao, but it was very steady.

The Ancestor of Chaos gazed at the light. A change occurred on his mirror-like face—not in his expression, but in the alteration of his reflection. Qin Yuan's reflection transformed from a distorted, elongated shape into a blurry, luminous form, like a flattened sun.