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

Deep within the chaotic abyss, a rift that had slumbered for billions of years suddenly opened.

It didn't open slowly, but rather as if torn open from the inside by two invisible hands. The air at the edge of the crack twisted, the light bent, and even the chaotic energy receded as if scalded. What surged from the crack wasn't chaotic energy, but a black, viscous, petroleum-like liquid. The liquid had no temperature, no smell, but wherever it flowed, everything lost its color. Gray stones became grayer, then white, then transparent. The air darkened, not because there was no light, but because the light was absorbed. Light entering the liquid's domain was like a pebble thrown into an abyss—no echo, no ripples.

Liquid condensed on the ruins. It converged from all directions, like the receding tide flowing backward. At the center of the convergence was a human figure. Tall, thin, with broad shoulders, but as thin as a sheet of paper. His skin was grayish-white, not pale, but like a lime wall that had stood for hundreds of years. He had no pupils; his eye sockets were only black, a bottomless blackness.

deep.

He looked down at his hands. His fingers were long, and his nails were black, like they'd been painted with ink. He clenched his fist, released it, and clenched it again. The movements were slow, as if he were testing whether his body was still functional.

He raised his head. His black-rimmed eyes "looked" into the distance. There lay a village, an ancient village that had survived from the abyss of chaos. Several hundred people—old people, women, and children. They were unaware that the Ancestor of Chaos was dead, and still worshipped his memorial tablet.

Yuan walked over. His footsteps were silent. His greyish-white feet trod on the grey gravel, making no sound. The villagers saw him; an old man stood up and asked, "Who are you?" Yuan did not answer. He raised his right hand, palm facing the village.

Black liquid gushed from his palm like a burst dam. It covered houses, fields, and people. There were no screams, for sound was also absorbed. A few breaths later, the village vanished. Only a grayish-white ruin remained on the ground, as if burned, but devoid of any warmth.

Yuan stood in the center of the ruins and closed his eyes. Black liquid flowed back from the ruins, carrying faint, glowing threads—the power, cultivation, and life force of those villagers were all absorbed by him. His aura grew from nothing to something, from weak to strong, reaching the first, second, and third levels of the Myriad Paths Returning to One.

He opened his eyes. The darkness in his eye sockets had deepened.

In the rescue team's camp, Li Qing's pen stopped. She was checking last month's expenses in the ledger, and halfway through writing a number, ink dripped onto the paper, spreading into a blotchy mess. She looked up at the doorway. Muddy was sitting on the threshold, gnawing on a roasted taro, its skin golden brown, his mouth covered in taro.

"Are there still living people in the abyss?" Li Qing asked.

Mud Egg swallowed the taro in his mouth. "Yes. An ancient village, with several hundred people."

"And now?"

Mud Egg lowered his head. "There aren't any now."

Li Qing's pen fell onto the ledger, rolled a few times, and came to rest on the edge of the table. She tapped her fingers three times on the table, stood up, and picked up the hammer hanging on the wall. The hammer was a rescue tool, not a weapon; the head was round, and the wooden handle was polished to a shine.

"I'm going to find Qin Yuan."

Mud Egg stood up. "I'll go with you."

"You stay here. Keep an eye on the camp."

Muddy didn't argue. He sat down again and continued eating the taro. The taro had cooled down and wasn't tasty anymore.

Li Qing traversed countless realms alone, arriving at the back mountain of the Xuan Yuan Sect. The old plum tree was in bloom, not a profusion of blossoms, but a few scattered flowers, white as snow and pink as the sunset. Qin Yuan sat on a blue stone, without a sword, without a teacup, without anything. He simply sat there.

Lin Qing'er was inside the house when she saw Li Qing through the window. Li Qing came out, carrying a clean garment—a light blue one, the one Qin Yuan often wore. She folded the garment and placed it on the bluestone.

"Go ahead. Change your clothes before you leave."

Qin Yuan stood up. He didn't look at the clothes, but at Li Qing. Li Qing stood by the stream, not crossing it. The stream flowed at her feet, its sound unchanged.

"Something's happened in the Chaos Abyss. Something is killing people."

Qin Yuan asked, "What is it?"

"I don't know. It wasn't a living being, not a cultivator, not anything I'd ever seen before. It came out of the crack and slaughtered a village. Mud Egg said it absorbed the power of those people."

Qin Yuan was silent for a moment. He went into the room and took down the black longsword that had been hanging on the wall for a long time. The scabbard was black, the hilt was black, only the guard was silver. He blew on the dust on the scabbard, but the dust didn't fly away because Lin Qing'er had already wiped it clean.

He changed into blue clothes and hung his sword at his waist. He walked out of the house and glanced at Lin Qing'er.

Lin Qing'er nodded.

He left. Li Qing followed behind him.

The ruins of the Chaos Abyss still remain. A small mountain of grayish-white stones lies piled up, the stones broken, as if struck by a hammer. Qin Yuan crouches down and picks up a fragment. The stone shatters at his fingertips, not from being squeezed, but from its inherent nature. Its internal structure has been destroyed, devoid of any resilience.

He stood up, closed his eyes, and dispersed his divine sense. Chaotic energy surged within his divine sense, like a thick fog. Deep within the fog, there was an even denser darkness. It wasn't that there was no light, but rather that the light was swallowed up there.

The aura of the abyss. The Threefold Path of All Paths Returning to the Source.

Qin Yuan opened his eyes. "He's here."

At the other end of the ruins, a human figure appeared on the rubble. Grayish-white skin, black eye sockets, and a body as thin as paper. He stood on the rubble, his grayish-white toes gripping the cracks in the stones, as steady as if rooted to the ground.

Qin Yuan looked at him. "Who are you?"

"The Abyss." The voice was like the scraping of metal, sharp and piercing. "The malice of the Ancestor of Chaos. It is dead, and I live."

What do you want?

"The power of the Primordial Chaos Ancestor scattered across the myriad realms, transforming into nine ancestral cores. I've already absorbed three. I intend to reclaim the remaining six." Yuan tilted his head, his black-rimmed eyes fixed on Qin Yuan. "You are the strongest being it has ever seen. I want your power too."

Qin Yuan's hand rested on the hilt of his sword, but he did not draw it.

"You will die."

Yuan laughed. His mouth split open to the sides, reaching his ears, revealing two rows of black teeth. The teeth were sharp, like shark teeth. His laughter wasn't loud, but it was shrill, like fingernails scraping against a sheet of iron.

"Die? I will not die. I am malice. As long as there is life, malice will not disappear. If you kill me, malice will parasitize you. You become me, and I become you. It's indistinguishable."

He transformed into black liquid and burrowed into the ground. The liquid seeped into the cracks of the rubble at a speed as fast as water poured into sand. Qin Yuan drew his sword and slashed at the ground. Golden sword energy cleaved through the rubble, the soil, and the rock layers, but the liquid had already vanished.

Qin Yuan sheathed his sword, turned to Li Qing, and said, "Help me investigate. I need to know where his next target is."

The rescue team's information network was swift. Li Qing tracked down Yuan's movements in just half a day. His target wasn't living beings, but the Ancestral Core. The nine fragments of the Chaos Ancestor's power were scattered throughout the myriad realms. Yuan had already absorbed three, leaving six more scattered.