Chapter 218: The Ancient Net Returns Once More

“Have all the native gods of the Primordial Wilderness already fallen?”

Li Shun swept his gaze across the surroundings. As far as the eye could see, endless ruins stretched into the distance, resembling the colossal remains of dead, ancient beasts.

From the majestic outlines of these broken walls and shattered structures alone, one could imagine how magnificent and imposing this place must once have been.

Yet, after suffering some indescribable catastrophe, this legendary Ancient Heavenly Court, which had once stood high above the world, had completely fallen into a dead domain.

Since there was no longer any way to retreat the way he had come, Li Shun decided to make use of the final traces of time remaining within this Primordial Wilderness illusion. He ventured alone into the ruins of the Heavenly Court, hoping to uncover even the slightest clues regarding the ancient catastrophe that had destroyed this place.

And sure enough, Li Shun discovered something deeply unsettling.

Throughout the countless magnificent ruins around him, he could not find the slightest trace of destruction caused by external force. There were no marks left by divine abilities, nor any evidence of blades, axes, or other weapons.

Instead, the ruins seemed to have had their very essence drained away by some unknown force. As the years passed, they had simply peeled apart and collapsed on their own.

These remains, which had once been constructed from unknown immortal materials, had long since lost their original indestructibility and solidity. They retained only their magnificent outer appearance, while everything within had already decayed into something resembling flying ash.

A mere touch of his fingertip was enough to make them crumble and scatter like powder.

That was not all.

To Li Shun's horror, he discovered that the spatial structure of this endless, silent ruin possessed an extreme sense of distortion.

It was as though dozens of enormous architectural complexes that originally had nothing to do with one another had been forcibly kneaded, compressed, and mixed together by some external force.

There were even times when, within the same tiny area, he would uncover three or four buildings whose styles and appearances were completely different from one another.

As he stared at the chaotic and almost insane distortion of space before him, a horrifying image suddenly flashed through Li Shun's mind.

The Ancient Heavenly Court, which had once stood atop the sea of clouds beneath the Nine Heavens, had inexplicably been seized by an indescribable, invisible giant hand.

That hand had merely twisted slightly, almost carelessly.

In an instant, the entire vast Heavenly Court, together with the surrounding space, had been forcibly kneaded, twisted, and compressed into a single mass.

Then, after enduring the erosion of countless eras of death and silence, it had gradually weathered into the heart-wrenching state before him.

Li Shun attempted to find even the slightest trace related to “writing” amid the ruins.

Unfortunately, his luck seemed to be lacking.

He searched almost every corner of the surrounding ruins, yet failed to find even a single written character.

However...

On a huge, flat fragment of stone, Li Shun discovered an extremely strange pattern.

The pattern seemed to have grown naturally together with the stone, yet at the same time, it also appeared as though it had been forcibly branded into its surface afterward.

It seemed to possess an innate, soul-stirring magic.

The moment Li Shun laid eyes upon it, his gaze was involuntarily drawn firmly toward it.

He instinctively extended his divine sense and carefully examined it.

The pattern consisted of a strange network of lines spread across the surface of the stone.

It was formed from countless tiny cylindrical channels of absolutely uniform thickness. These channels connected with one another at rigid, unnaturally precise angles, outlining hundreds and thousands of perfectly interlocking regular hexagonal cells.

Taken as a whole, it resembled a lifeless honeycomb spread across the stone.

Li Shun was horrified to discover that within this single, independent totem, the side lengths and areas of every hexagonal cell were absolutely identical, without the slightest deviation.

The entire thing appeared as a slightly raised, three-dimensional lattice imprint, eerily attached to the dead ruins.

It gave him an absurd impression.

It was as though some incomprehensible existence had passed through this place and casually left behind a “footprint” with a single step.

At first glance, the pattern possessed a naturally formed, almost perfectly rational beauty of order.

Yet if one continued staring at it...

Before long, Li Shun felt a chill shoot straight into his skull. His entire body involuntarily broke out in fine goosebumps.

The sensation was as though, somewhere beyond the perception of heaven and earth, an unknown existence standing above all creation had silently noticed him.

“This feeling...”

Li Shun suddenly felt his brow twitch violently.

There was something terrifyingly familiar about this sensation.

When a flash of insight suddenly struck him and he realized what it was, enormous waves surged through his heart.

This instinctive feeling of terror crawling through his body was exactly the same as the trembling he had experienced when directly facing the [Formless Suspended Skull].

“Could this pattern have been left behind by an Outer God?”

“Why would traces of an Outer God appear deep within the ruins of the Heavenly Court? What exactly does this mean?”

“Could it be... that the catastrophe which destroyed the Ancient Heavenly Court of the Primordial Wilderness back then was the work of an Outer God?!”

Just as Li Shun's mind was filled with uncertainty and his thoughts were surging like raging waves, a sudden change occurred.

Perhaps because he had stared at the pattern for too long, the lifeless net-like design suddenly sprang up from the stone wall without warning.

It seemed to come alive.

In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a streak of afterimage and shot straight toward Li Shun's face!

It was far too fast.

Li Shun had no chance to dodge.

A moment later, after he hurriedly steadied his shocked mind and looked again, the strange net-like pattern had vanished into thin air without leaving the slightest trace.

Li Shun immediately examined his entire body with his divine sense.

Yet he could not find even the slightest trace of the net-like pattern.

A layer of gloom instantly settled over his heart.

How could he still care about exploring the ruins?

He immediately sat cross-legged and repeatedly examined himself from within.

“Even if I have to allow this strand of consciousness to destroy itself, I absolutely cannot let it return to my main body like this.”

“Otherwise, if I bring this unknown net-like pattern back with me, the consequences will be endless.”

After searching again and finding nothing, Li Shun silently made up his mind.

“However...”

Li Shun calculated the time and slightly furrowed his brows.

“Based on my experience from the previous trial, the illusion should be nearing its end.”

“But why is it still so stable? There isn't even the slightest sign that it is about to collapse?”

Li Shun gazed at these ruins, which seemed to have existed since time immemorial, and an ominous feeling rose within his heart.

“Could it be because the flow of time within the Ancient Heavenly Court is different from that of the outside world?”

There was no alternation between day and night within this oppressive ruin.

The sky remained forever shrouded in a suffocating, gray haze.

With no other choice, Li Shun could only forcibly cast aside his distracting thoughts and use the rhythm of his own heartbeat as a measure to estimate the passage of time.

Roughly thirty days passed.

Yet he still had not left this illusion.

Only then did Li Shun finally confirm that he had indeed become trapped here.

Suddenly, he recalled something Zhao Cheng had once said.

During previous grand gatherings, there had occasionally been one or two cases where someone's consciousness became lost and they failed to return.

No one knew what those people had encountered.

Once their consciousness was gone, only an empty shell remained, slowly decaying over time.

“Could it be...”

“The people from previous generations who became completely lost were trapped because they accidentally wandered into the depths of these ruins of the Ancient Heavenly Court?”