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

He stood barefoot on the membrane, the burn marks on the soles of his feet clearly visible. Su Yao knelt down and used the Chaos Essence to soothe his feet. Qin Yuan didn't look down at her, but gazed into the depths of the Chaos Sea in the distance, where his Chaos Eye saw the outline of a creature different from those of the Chaos beings.

That was a door.

It was not a crack, not a passage, but a genuine man-made gate. The gate was engraved with runes identical to those on the foundation of the Seven Star Tower, and its frame was cast from a translucent material remarkably similar to that of bone blades. Dense, chaotic mist swirled within. On either side of the gate stood a stone statue, its form identical to the white-haired guardian within the Seven Star Tower.

"We've arrived," Qin Yuan said.

Su Yao looked up and followed his gaze, seeing the door. Her expression didn't relax; instead, it became even more serious.

"The source is behind the door."

"right."

"The guardian from 100,000 years ago cleaved the passage to the outer realm right here." Su Yao stood up and walked to Qin Yuan's side. "He didn't go in. He only had time to seal the door, and then he couldn't go back."

Qin Yuan looked at the door, remained silent for a moment, and then stepped forward.

The membrane connected to the base of the door, with a gap of about three feet between them, filled with pure chaotic turbulence. Qin Yuan was the first to leap across the gap, landing on the stone steps in front of the door. The stone steps were very stable, out of place with the chaotic environment of the outer realm, as if forcibly fixed there by some force. The seven women leaped across in turn, landing behind Qin Yuan.

Upon closer inspection, the runes carved on the door frame became clearer. Qin Yuan recognized a portion of them—the same script as the "Seven Stars Return to Their Positions, Chaos Reopens" inscription on the base of the Seven Star Tower. However, there was an additional rune on the door frame that he had never seen before, carved in the very center of the lintel.

"What are you looking at?" Yueyao followed his gaze to the lintel.

"Those words," Qin Yuan read aloud, "Beyond chaos, there is nothing else. Those who enter this gate must relinquish all thoughts."

"Give up all thoughts?" Yueyao tilted her head and thought for a moment. "Does that mean you're not allowed to think about anything after entering?"

"Once you're inside, you can't think about anything." Su Yao's voice was soft, but every word was clear. "In the chaotic current, there are no laws, no matter, no time. The only thing that allows a person to maintain self-awareness is thought. If you even abandon your thoughts, you will merge into the chaos and become a part of it."

She looked at Qin Yuan and asked the most crucial question: "The Guardian didn't enter back then, not because he didn't want to, but because he knew that once inside, he would forget what he was protecting. Once he forgot, he would no longer be the Guardian, but a wandering soul in chaos."

Qin Yuan nodded. He understood another meaning in Su Yao's words—she was asking him if he would forget about them after he went inside.

"No," Qin Yuan said.

Just as Yan Lingji was about to open her mouth, Qin Yuan raised his hand and pressed down on the top of her head.

"Ten thousand years ago, when I was killing people all by myself, I never forgot why I was killing them. Ten thousand years from now, I won't either." He withdrew his hand, turned to face the door, and held the bone blade horizontally in front of him. "Let's go."

Qin Yuan reached out and pushed open the door.

Beyond the door lay a world devoid of light, sound, and anything perceptible. Only absolute nothingness. The instant Qin Yuan stepped inside, all his senses failed him. He couldn't see the bone blade in his hand, hear his own breath, or feel the ground beneath his feet. He felt as if he were immersed in an endless sea of ​​nothingness, with only his consciousness remaining active.

Then consciousness began to be eroded as well.

It wasn't an attack, but a dilution. Like a drop of ink falling into the ocean, the ink gradually spreads, its color fading until it eventually merges with the seawater. His consciousness was that drop of ink, and this void was the ocean. The omnipresent chaotic laws of the chaotic sea were attempting to dissolve his consciousness, turning him into part of the void.

Qin Yuan instinctively gripped the bone blade. The hilt of the bone blade was forged from his bones and connected to his body and bloodline. The patterns on the hilt flashed for a moment when his consciousness was diluted, and a warm power flowed from the hilt back into his body, refocusing his consciousness.

He regained some of his senses. Not sight, not hearing, but a deeper level of perception—the perception of the Eye of Chaos. The Eye of Chaos operated automatically in this void, penetrating the surface of nothingness and allowing him to see what lay beneath.

He saw someone.

The person stood with their back to him in the depths of nothingness. White hair, hempen clothes, and a semi-transparent bone blade in their right hand. The person's posture was exactly the same as the guardian in the mural of the Seven Star Tower, but their body was not a stone statue, but living flesh and blood.

Qin Yuan walked over. Each step felt like walking on non-existent ground, the sensation under his feet somewhere between solid and liquid, and ripples spread out from the soles of his feet with each step.

He walked three steps behind the man and stopped.

"Senior," he said.

The man turned around.

His face was exactly the same as the stone statue in the Seven Star Tower, but he was younger, looking no more than forty years old. His eyes were closed, and two runes were engraved on his eyelids, the same shape as the Chaos Eye rune between Qin Yuan's brows, but more complex. He faced Qin Yuan with his eyes closed, and the corner of his mouth moved slightly, as if he were smiling.

"You've come." His voice was hoarse and dry, as if he hadn't spoken for a hundred thousand years, and his vocal cords were almost rusted.

"Have you been waiting for me?"

"I wasn't waiting specifically for you." The man shook his head, his movements slow, as if his neck was rusting. "I was waiting for anyone who could make it this far. You're the first."

He stretched out his hand to Qin Yuan, palm facing up. Qin Yuan looked down and saw a groove in his palm, shaped exactly like the Chaos Seal.

"The Chaos Seal is on you," the man said. "It is mine. I used that seal to leave the phrase 'The Seven Stars Return to Their Positions, Chaos Reopens' on the Seven Star Tower."

Qin Yuan took out the Chaos Seal from his robes and placed it in the man's palm. The man grasped the Chaos Seal, gently rubbing the seal's knob with his fingers, and the seal lit up. Light leaked from between his fingers, illuminating the surrounding void, and the areas of the void touched by the light began to change—fragmented images emerged from the chaotic turbulence, like scattered puzzle pieces on the ground.

Qin Yuan recognized several of the images. Seven individuals with sacred bodies stood side by side. A white-haired man stood in front of them. The sky split open, and an eye without pupils peered through the crack. Flames, frost, sword energy, and lightning—seven beams of light simultaneously poured into the white-haired man's blade. The blade shot into the sky, cleaving the crack and splitting the eye in two.

"That battle ten thousand years ago." The man's eyes were closed, yet he pointed precisely at the images. "I severed the invasion passage from the outer realms, but I couldn't completely destroy it. Because the source of the passage wasn't in the outer realms, but deeper within them—in the owner of that eye."