I am the Arcane Archer, and all my skills are self-created.

The white light dissipated.

Li Wu blinked, taking two or three seconds to adjust to the scene before her.

"this……"

He heard the sound of rushing wind behind him, a sound filled with shock and disbelief:

"Where is this place?"

Li Wu did not answer, because he himself was also stunned by what he saw.

There was no ground beneath their feet.

To be precise, there was a transparent passage beneath their feet, about ten meters wide, stretching forward without end.

The passageway is surrounded by...

starry sky.

A pure, boundless starry sky.

Countless stars are scattered in the deep darkness, some large, some small, some bright, some dark.

In the distance, several enormous nebulae were slowly rotating, emitting a ghostly blue and dark purple light.

"Is this space?" The unmoving man squatted down and touched the transparent passage under his feet. It was hard and solid, like glass but not glass.

He looked down and froze.

Beneath my feet lies a bottomless void, with starlight twinkling below.

"Impossible, right?" Steel Shield's voice sounded weak.

Hua Zitong didn't speak; her gaze went over the heads of everyone and looked behind her.

Her pupils suddenly contracted.

"Look back."

Everyone turned around.

Then they were all speechless.

Behind them, the portal of light they had just emerged from was slowly closing.

Behind the portal, a huge blue sphere floated in the starry sky, quiet and peaceful, radiating a soft light.

That was a planet.

Blue ocean, white clouds, brown and green land.

Li Wu recognized him.

Blue Star.

That is their home planet, Blue Star.

"We're out?" Chasing Wind's voice trembled. "We've come out of the Origin Realm...? We're in space?"

"No," Li Wu shook his head.

He raised his hand to sense his surroundings. The perception of a Law Weaver told him that the spatial structure here was fundamentally different from the real starry sky.

"This isn't real space," he said. "The laws work differently. Breathing, temperature, pressure are all normal—real space wouldn't be like this."

"Then what is this?" asked the unmoving mountain.

"It's a simulation," Li Wu said. "Or rather, this is a space constructed with laws. Its exterior resembles a starry sky, but its underlying structure is still governed by laws."

Hua Zitong took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She turned to look at the transparent passage beneath her feet:

"Where does this road lead?"

"Ahead." Li Wu's gaze was fixed on the distance of the passage.

There was something glowing there, but it was too far away to see clearly.

"Let's go."

He took a step forward, and the others followed.

After walking for about five minutes, another burst of light came from behind.

Li Wu looked back and saw that the light gate had lit up again, and another group of people came out from inside.

It was Caesar who brought the people from the Heavenly Punishment Guild.

Caesar's face was grim; he had clearly made his choice.

Li Wu glanced at it and saw that Caesar's name and rank were still displayed above his head, indicating that he had chosen the first option.

"You're out too," Li Wu said.

Caesar wasn't in the mood for a conversation; he was staring blankly at the blue planet behind him.

"What the hell is this place...?" His voice cracked as he looked down at the iron wall beneath him.

Caesar snapped out of his daze and strode up to Li Wu: "Which one did you choose?"

"The second one."

Caesar's gaze swept over Li Wu's head, and sure enough, his name and rank had disappeared.

He glanced at Hua Zitong, Zhuifeng, and Yefeng again; some had it, some didn't.

"You've split into two factions?"

"It's not about dividing into two factions," Li Wu said. "It's everyone's own choice."

Caesar paused for a moment.

"I chose the first one," he said. "Most of my men also chose the first one, and three of them chose the second one."

He pointed behind him, where the names of three members of the Heavenly Punishment Guild had disappeared, and they were feeling the changes in their bodies.

"And you? What's your reason for choosing the first one?" Li Wu asked.

Caesar did not hide anything:

"I'm not sure if I can still fight without the panel. All my combat skills are based on the panel system. Without the panel, I might not even be able to hold a gun steadily."

This is the truth.

"And," Caesar added, "the panel says I can go back after binding, and I have an entire guild to manage."

Li Wu nodded, offering no comment on whether it was right or wrong.

A few minutes later, Flower Whisper and Sword Saint Rose led a large group of veteran players out of the portal.

Those who had been trapped in the Tower of Despair for months or even a year and a half were now frozen in place, staring at the starry sky before them and the blue planet behind them, unable to utter a complete sentence.

Hua Yufengyin quickly walked to Hua Zitong's side: "Xiaotong, what did you choose?"

"The second one," Hua Zitong said.

Hua Yufeng's expression changed: "You removed the panel?"

"right."

"Are you crazy?!" Hua Yufeng's voice rose, "How can you... without a control panel?"

"Brother, what did you choose?" Hua Zitong interrupted him.

The Flower Language and Wind Whisper stuttered for a moment.

"...The first one," he said softly.

Hua Zitong remained silent.

Sword Saint Rose walked over, and the name above his head was still there; he had also chosen the first one.

"Most people chose the first one," said Sword Saint Rose. "Only about ten people chose the second one."

Li Wu glanced at it and roughly counted.

More than 300 max-level players walked out of the portal one after another. The names and levels of most of them were still displayed above their heads, while only about 20 people chose to have their profiles removed.

In other words, less than one-tenth of the total number of people chose the second option.

The Iron-Blooded Emperor appeared last.

Surprisingly, this reckless man hesitated for a long time before finally choosing the second option.

He flexed his fists as soon as he came out: "The panel is gone, but I feel like there's something inside me. I can't quite put my finger on it, but my arms feel stronger."

Li Wu glanced at him but didn't reply.

After all three hundred-plus people had come out, the portal closed completely.

Everyone stood in the transparent passage, with the endless starry sky in front and the blue planet behind.

"What do we do now?" Zhui Feng asked.

"Keep moving forward," Li Wu said.

There was no other choice.

The group moved forward along the transparent passage.

The footsteps of more than three hundred people echoed in the empty starry sky.

No one spoke; everyone was overwhelmed by the sights they had witnessed along the way.

After walking for about half an hour, the passage split into three branches ahead.

The three paths branch off in three different directions, and each path ends at a faint point of light.

"The road has forked." Caesar walked to Li Wu's side. "Which one should we choose?"

Just as Li Wu was about to answer, his perception of the laws suddenly experienced a violent fluctuation.

This is not a danger warning.

Something was approaching them at an extremely fast speed.

"Be careful!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a silvery-white light shot out from the far right fork in the road ahead, moving so fast that it was almost invisible to the naked eye.

The light carried an extremely sharp edge, and tiny cracks appeared in the space it passed through.

Sword light.

That was a flash of sword light.

"Back off!" The unmoving figure instinctively raised his shield to block the crowd.

Hua Zitong reacted immediately, taking a step back.

But she suddenly realized that she no longer had her skills.

After removing the panel, she had no defensive measures at all.

Li Wu stood at the very front, without retreating.

He stretched out his right hand, his five fingers spread.

The power of the laws surged from his body, condensing into a transparent barrier in his palm.

boom!

The sword light struck the barrier, sparking a burst of dazzling sparks.

A crack appeared on the barrier, but it did not break.

Li Wu's arm trembled.

The power of that strike... was extremely strong.

It's so strong that he has to take it seriously.

He quickly estimated in his mind that the power of this sword strike was about 70% of the power of the six arrows he used.

In other words, the person who unleashed this sword strike was not much weaker than him.

After the sword light dissipated, a figure appeared in the distance of the passage.

The man strode in through the transparent passage, exuding a chilling sword intent.

He wore a set of ancient-style armor, with a uniquely shaped one-handed sword at his waist. His steps were neither fast nor slow, but each step was extremely steady.

The distance is getting closer and closer.

Li Wu could see his face clearly.

He was very young, probably in his early twenties, with clean and sharp facial features and a small mole on his chin.

His eyes were very bright, almost unnaturally so, as if two gems were embedded in their sockets.

All three hundred-plus players were on edge.

This person was too intimidating to them.

Even his immovable hand holding the shield was trembling slightly, not from fear, but because the sword intent emanating from his opponent made him unable to control his muscles.

The man stopped about thirty meters away from the group.

His gaze swept across the crowd, and a clear expression of surprise appeared on his face.

"I didn't expect so many people to come here in such a short time."

His voice was deep, with a unique metallic quality.

The moment Li Wu heard that voice, his mind went blank.

He remembered.

The massive image projected from the space rift on the day of the global mandatory maintenance.

The blurry figure in the video, wielding a one-handed sword, wipes out all the monsters with a single strike.

At the end of the video, the sound resounded through spatial cracks in all anchor cities around the world.

"I am a demon swordsman..."

Hua Zitong reacted faster than him.

"You're a demon swordsman!"

She blurted it out.

The man was taken aback for a moment, then nodded slightly.

"Yes, it's me." He said it casually, as if he were talking about something insignificant.

The entire passageway erupted in chaos.

"Demon Sword?! The Demon Sword who was the first to clear the God's Domain?!"

"What is he doing here?!"

"The Ghost Swordsman from the server-wide announcement? Is that him?!"

"My God... he's so young?"

More than 300 max-level players were discussing it.

Many of them remember that day: the Origin Realm underwent global mandatory maintenance, and the image of the Ghost Sword was projected through a spatial rift. That silent massacre shocked the world.

Since then, Ghost Sword has never appeared again.

Everyone was looking for him, scouring the entire server's leaderboards and investigating every suspected expert, but to no avail.

This person vanished from the game world as if they had evaporated.

Now, he's here.

At the end of the realm of the gods.

In the starry sky.