Chapter 1106 - 501: Nothingness! (Part 2)

A newcomer, a "patch", in front of them, actively embraced the Gui Xu and then... turned the will of the Gui Xu back?!

This is no longer a monstrosity.

This is... forbidden!

Something more terrifying and unfamiliar to them than the Gui Xu itself, a living "forbidden!"

After a long time, Dao Ruins slowly turned around.

His gaze fell upon Thunder Lord and the others.

That gaze was calm, indifferent, devoid of any emotion.

"The trouble here is resolved."

His voice had become hoarse and deep, as if countless eras were sighing simultaneously.

"Where is the next one?"

Thunder Lord and the female guardian with an aura as deep as the sea were paralyzed, forgetting even to breathe. In their eyes, the lightning and deep sea now only reflected that solitary, indifferent figure.

Where is the next one?

This question bore no hint of emotion, like a piece of ancient Profound Ice smashing into the lake of their heart. It was not an inquiry but more of a declaration, declaring that this endless desolate guarding was a journey to be swept away one by one.

After what seemed like a long time, as lengthy as an era, Thunder Lord’s Adam’s apple moved, squeezing out a few dry words through his teeth: "What... have you become?"

His voice no longer carried the fierce violence of thunder, only a shiver when facing the unknown. This person before him, no, this "existence", made him feel a deeper fear than when confronting the Gui Xu rift. Gui Xu is pure "void", the ultimate enemy, clear and frightening in logic. Yet the person before him is a paradox of "existence" and "void", a living, thinking Gui Xu, something beyond their understanding.

Dao Ruins did not turn around, his eyes transformed into pure void, quietly staring at the freshly healed crack, as if seeing through the barrier, glimpsing the retreating, infinite darkness.

"I am still me."

His voice echoed in everyone’s Divine Soul, carrying a metallic grinding texture, like countless lost souls whispering simultaneously.

"Just, I’ve changed the way... to protect."

"Changed the way?" Thunder Lord seemed to hear the most absurd joke, pointing at Dao Ruins, his arm uncontrollably trembling, "You swallowed the Power of Ruins! You turned yourself into the most terrifying forbidden! Is this protection? How are you different from it?!"

"Difference?" Dao Ruins slowly turned around, his void eyes meeting Thunder Lord for the first time.

In the instant those eyes set upon him, Thunder Lord stiffened, feeling that every part of his being, from body to Divine Soul, from past to future, was being read, analyzed, and comprehended by those eyes. His proud Thunder Dao seemed like a line of code at risk of deletion, fragile and vulnerable.

"The difference is," Dao Ruins’ voice sounded, calm and clear, "it wants to erase everything. And I want to decide what... should be erased."

With a single word, before the entire Deathly Silence Dam, time and space seemed to freeze.

The female guardian took a deep breath, her calm eyes as deep as the sea, shock slowly fading, replaced by a complex mix of dread and a faint, weak hope.

"Thunder Lord, silence." She spoke, her voice cold yet carrying irrefutable authority, "He has not been assimilated. His ’root’ is still there."

By "root", she referred to the faintly visible points within Dao Ruins’ void eyes that represented "order" and "chaos", the last imprint from when he was Dao Sheng, and now the "anchor" in wielding this forbidden power.

She stepped forward, standing before Dao Ruins, ignoring the "Dao Ruins" aura that could make even the Divine King shudder, and slightly bowed, performing an ancient and solemn ceremony.

"Guardian Sequence, segment seventy-one hundred, ’Wen Xi’, greets... fellow Daoist."

She did not call him a newcomer nor used any title to define him, choosing a most equal, yet most distant term—fellow Daoist.

This represented a form of acknowledgment, also a kind of warning.

Dao Ruins shifted his gaze from Thunder Lord to Wen Xi. He could "see" this woman’s Dao, like an endless calm sea, seemingly peaceful but containing a power that could swallow everything. Her Dao, in stark contrast to Thunder Lord’s fierceness, was one of "inclusion" and "assimilation", closer to the essence of "persistent effort."

"Where is the next one?" He asked again, as if nothing in the world could stir his emotional waves anymore, only the word "Gui Xu" could ripple his heart, transformed into "Dao Ruins."

Wen Xi raised her head, her beautiful face extremely solemn.

"What you just faced was merely the ’tide’ of Gui Xu, an unconscious aura that manifested an ’Will Hand’ upon your provocation."

Her voice, like jade clashing, was crisp and cold.

"But above the Sea of Realms Dam, there is something more terrifying than the ’tide.’"

"What is it?" Dao Ruins’ voice finally bore a hint of "interest."

"It’s the ’breach.’" Wen Xi stated word by word, "It’s a wound completely pierced, polluted by the Power of Ruins, even... growing something on this side of the dam, an unhealed ’wound’!"

She extended her slender jade finger, pointing towards the dam’s distant horizon, an incredibly remote direction.

"Proceed along the dam, crossing nine thousand segments of barriers to the position of sixteen thousand two hundred, there lies the restricted area of despair for all guardians—’Ten Thousand Dao Tomb.’"

"Ten Thousand Dao Tomb?"

"Yes, tomb, burial mound tomb." Wen Xi’s eyes reflected deep exhaustion and helplessness, "Countless eons ago, several supreme beings of the same level as Fire collaborated to suppress the most ancient ’Gui Xu Source Point’ here. That battle collapsed the Sea of Chaos and cycles of eras."

"Did they... fail?" Dao Ruins asked.

"No, they succeeded but also failed." Wen Xi’s voice became distant, as if narrating a forbidden epic buried by time, "They succeeded in halting the ’Source Point’s expansion, but they themselves, along with the myriad Daos they carried, were forever polluted and twisted by Gui Xu, ultimately becoming a Ruins Spirit... taking the dam as a nest, feeding on Ten Thousand Daos."

"It is no longer pure ’void’, but the most twisted ’mutated form’ birthed from ’void’ consuming ’existence.’ It holds partial powers of those supreme beings yet follows Gui Xu’s instincts, continually gnawing on the dam, gnawing on all beings and laws that approach it."

"We guardians can only set up arrays on the ’Ten Thousand Dao Tomb’s outskirts, constructing logic barriers with our own Daos to delay its erosion, but cannot approach, let alone eradicate it."

"Going there, it’s not guarding, it’s a... death mission." Wen Xi deeply gazed at Dao Ruins, "Even though you have become what you are now."

Dao Ruins fell silent.

His eyes, made of void, gazed towards the direction Wen Xi pointed. In his "vision", he could "see" a colossal, unimaginable "malice" that resembled a throbbing black tumor, parasitically attached to the magnificent body of the Sea of Realms Dam.

That aura, compared to the "Gui Xu Hand", was a hundred thousand times more complex, and... a hundred thousand times more "delicious."

"So... that’s how it is."

Dao Ruins whispered to himself, no one understood the meaning behind his words.

The next moment, he moved.