The ancient return was exposed by his sister's live stream.

But that ray of light did not disappear.

After passing through the crystal sphere, it maintained its original trajectory and continued flying forward.

It shot straight into Tianwu's chest.

Tianwu's body swayed slightly.

Just for a moment.

The towering structure staggered almost imperceptibly. Then it regained its footing.

After the light entered Tianwu's body... it did not explode immediately.

It's inside.

It was inside, quiet and peaceful.

Tianwu lowered its five still-moving heads. It didn't look at the tiny, pinhole-sized opening in its chest.

The entrance was too small; a body that was 10,000 meters tall couldn't find it at all.

But it knew that thing was inside it.

It knows what it is.

The singularity of the spatial order. Once detonated, the space in which it is located will be completely erased. Not a destruction on the material level, but the space itself will cease to exist.

Tianwu no longer looked at his own body.

It raised its head.

His vertical pupils, the blood color had faded considerably, turning into a pale blue-green... staring at Chen Hao, who was suspended in mid-air.

"You can't protect Kyushu for long."

Tianwu spoke up.

The voice was calm. There was no anger. No murderous intent. It was a statement.

"When you perish..."

The spot on his chest began to light up. Tiny rays of light, the size of pinholes, seeped outwards from within Tianwu's body. One ray. Two. Ten.

"...that will be the time when Kyushu is destroyed."

Light burst forth from every wound, every pore, and every crack in Tianwu's body.

The singularity exploded.

Tianwu's ten-thousand-meter-tall body was shattered from the inside. Not by explosion... but by obliteration.

When the flesh, bones, Dao patterns, blood... everything that constitutes its body comes into contact with the spatial elimination wave spreading from the singularity, it does not shatter or evaporate, but rather transforms from existence into non-existence.

silent.

There wasn't even a sound of an explosion. Because sound needs space to travel, and that space was no longer there.

Tianwu's body was broken into countless fragments, some as large as mountains, others as small as fists.

Each piece trailed a blue-green tail of light, scattering in all directions across the planet.

Like a meteor shower.

A reversed meteor shower. Spreading out from a single point, falling to the ground in all directions.

Where Tianwu used to stand... there's nothing there anymore. It's not empty.

That space itself disappeared, leaving behind a huge spherical void.

There is no bottom. There are no boundaries. There is only absolute and utter nothingness.

The sphere of light flashed briefly in the center of nothingness.

Those were the last embers of the singularity. It shrank, converged... from a hundred meters to ten meters, from ten meters to one meter, from one meter to a single point.

Then that dot disappeared.

Tianwu's last words still lingered in the air.

Chen Hao landed on the seabed.

There was no sea left. Tianwu had drained most of the planet's seawater, and the rest had evaporated in the explosions and void storms. He stood on the cracked seabed, his feet on grayish-white sedimentary rock covered with spiderweb-like cracks.

It was very quiet all around.

The void storm is receding. The spatial rifts are slowly healing themselves... Without Chen Hao's Dao power to drive them, those rifts will close on their own within a few days.

But half of the planet is completely unrecognizable. No intact terrain can be seen on the horizon; everywhere are collapsed cliffs and flattened ridges.

Fragments of Tianwu are scattered everywhere. Several larger pieces of wreckage can still be seen on the distant horizon, their blue-green light flickering on and off.

It's dead.

But he didn't die.

Chen Hao stood there, thinking about Tian Wu's last words, which were about Chen Shu.

The true form of the Daoist Venerable.

In this realm, every cell of the body is imbued with the power of the Dao. A single drop of blood can bring about rebirth. As long as this Dao of Water exists between heaven and earth, Tianwu can reassemble his physical body.

At least several thousand years. Maybe even longer. Rebirth takes time.

But it will come back.

The same principle applies to those who have attained the state of refining emptiness and merging with the Dao. As long as the Great Dao does not perish, their will will not dissipate.

Even if the physical body is destroyed, it can be re-formed using the Dao as an anchor. From this perspective, the true body of the Dao Venerable and the refining of emptiness to merge with the Dao are different paths leading to the same goal.

However, both share a common enemy.

years.

Nothing in this world can withstand the erosion of time. Even a Void Refinement expert's lifespan is only tens of thousands of years. Exotic beasts, with their innate talents, live longer, but a hundred thousand years is the limit.

Tianwu's last words made it very clear... I'll outlive you, I can wait.

Chen Hao withdrew his gaze.

He was about to tear open a spatial passage to leave when he paused.

Bow down.

Something is glowing in the cracks of the seabed.

Chen Hao squatted down.

The crack was deep, at least ten meters deep. At the bottom of the crack, a faint blue-green light pulsated. It flickered on and off, like the rhythm of a heartbeat.

He reached out and beckoned.

The thing flew up from the bottom of the crack and landed in his palm.

A bead.

The size of a fist. Entirely blue-green, semi-transparent. Countless extremely fine lines flow within the bead... not carved patterns, but living ones. They are Dao patterns. Dao patterns of the Great Dao of Water.

The moment Chen Hao held the bead, his arm felt heavy.

weight.

A bead the size of a fist, unreasonably heavy. If this weight were thrown directly onto the ground, it could create a crater tens of kilometers long on this planet.

Chen Hao examined the bead. It was translucent, with flowing Dao patterns, and contained within it a pool of water Dao essence concentrated to its extreme.

Moreover, there is a subtle connection between it and this Void World, not in a physical sense, but at the level of laws.

"The Pearl of Return to Nothingness"

This thing was recorded in ancient books. He had consulted relevant ancient texts a long time ago, so long ago that he couldn't even remember the exact year.

The Returning Void Pearl. The source of all rivers and streams. One of the top treasures in the path of body refinement.

His body refinement cultivation has been stuck at the peak of the Chaotic Battle Body for some time now. The next step is the Undying Battle Body... This threshold, if approached using conventional methods, might take a very long time to overcome. But with this bead, the time can be significantly shortened.

Chen Hao put the Guixu Pearl into his Qiankun Bag.

Raise your hand and tear it open with your five fingers pointing forward.

Space cracked open. A black archway took shape before him.

He stepped inside.

Bahrain Desert.

Bottom of the crack.

Chen Siyao sat in front of the rock wall.

She had been in this position for hours. Cross-legged. Back straight. Hands on her knees. Breathing evenly.

She looked like she was meditating. But she wasn't practicing. She was waiting.

Yang Wanqing leaned against the rock wall beside him, legs crossed, twirling the shaft of the Heavenly Thunder Halberd in his hand. He twirled it listlessly, only occasionally.

"Yao Yao".

"Um."

"Do you think Master will take a stroll around the Ruins of Return after defeating that giant creature? What if he discovers something interesting and loses track of time—"

"Won't."

Why?

"Because my brother knows I'm waiting here."

Yang Wanqing stopped wielding the halberd. He glanced at Chen Siyao.

"……Too."

She changed the subject.