“Boom.”
Consciousness penetrated the black boulder. Along with the vast, resounding noise, Dongbo Xueying also sensed the presence of a teleportation passage.
This was a method far more advanced than the ‘Great Shattered Void Teleportation Art.’ With just a slight probe, he could sense the other end of the passage—an unimaginably distant region! It was so far from the Heart Realm Continent that even the distance between his homeland, the ‘Chaos Void,’ and the Heart Realm paled in comparison.
An extremely remote area.
Moreover, he faintly sensed an aura of ‘violence’ and ‘chaos.’ Even from such a distance, the terrifying rules of that region affected him, weakening his strength by a tenth.
“Did you sense it?” Ancestor Tianyu stood beside him. “That region is no ordinary cluster of Source Worlds. No Source World could be so distant that merely sensing it affects our power. Besides, at our level, being sent to another Source World would likely serve no purpose. I suspect it’s a unique zone within the Hunyuan Space.”
Dongbo Xueying nodded.
It was indeed bizarre.
For a place so distant to influence his strength just by sensing it was terrifying.
“It’s so far from the Heart Realm that once we leave, we may never return. And as Emperor Yuan said, tempering ourselves in different civilizations and clashing with their strongest warriors…” Ancestor Tianyu mused. “We might encounter opponents who rival us. Even I, having reached the pinnacle of the Imperial level, could face equals?”
“That black boulder leads to a truly eerie place.”
“None of us Venerables would risk venturing there unless absolutely necessary,” Ancestor Tianyu admitted.
Dongbo Xueying agreed.
“Once you’re done with your tasks, you can return to explore it further. For now, we should go,” Ancestor Tianyu said with a smile.
“Let’s go.” Dongbo Xueying smiled as well, accompanying the Venerable as they left the luminous orb space.
Before departing, he couldn’t help but glance around—through the membrane walls, he could see the two colossal corpses of the primordial Hunyuan lifeforms in the Broken Tooth Mountain Range. His gaze lingered briefly on the black boulder.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
The two departed.
—
Accompanying Ancestor Tianyu, Dongbo Xueying continued traversing the Sea of Consciousness, visiting one luminous orb space after another.
Within the passageways of the network, he advanced swiftly but gradually slowed to a halt.
“Whoosh, whoosh…” Dark winds howled, lashing against him. Though far less violent than the dark vortex at the entrance of the Serpent Fang Corridor, these winds still carried a potent corrosive force, steadily draining the power of the Serpent Fang Marrow Pearl he carried. Ignoring the winds, he pressed forward, but the oppressive aura radiating from the luminous orb ahead grew increasingly unbearable.
The closer he got, the heavier the pressure.
“I can’t hold on.”
Dongbo Xueying felt waves of dizziness, his consciousness blurring, his soul aching with pain.
“Retreat!”
He swiftly transformed into a streak of light, darting backward. As he retreated, the pressure rapidly diminished, and he finally breathed easier.
“Just a bit more. I didn’t expect even you, Flying Snow Divine Emperor, to be unable to enter. Who else could?” Ancestor Tianyu shook his head.
“The pressure was overwhelming,” Dongbo Xueying sighed. He had great confidence in his soul techniques, yet he had still been forced back.
“Haha, let’s move to the next one.” Ancestor Tianyu remained unfazed, continuing to guide him.
The spaces he could enter alone, he had already explored.
Now, he was leading Dongbo Xueying only to those he himself couldn’t breach.
—
Another luminous orb space.
Though the pressure was intense, Dongbo Xueying felt a flicker of hope as he approached. “This seems easier. I might make it in!”
His intuition proved correct.
Even as the pressure spiked dangerously close to the orb, he managed to cross the threshold just before reaching his limit.
“Excellent!” Ancestor Tianyu, watching from a node in the passageway, brightened with delight.
“Hum.”
Inside the luminous orb space, Dongbo Xueying found himself surrounded by countless floating crystalline ‘snowflakes’—millions upon millions of them, filling the space with an ethereal, dreamlike glow.
“What is this?” He immediately formed a guess. “Memory fragments?”
He had heard from Ancestor Tianyu that some luminous orb spaces contained residual memory fragments. Within the Sea of Consciousness, these fragments were categorized—each orb held fragments of the same type.
Memory fragments posed no danger.
Those that endured even after the death of such a terrifying Hunyuan lifeform were imprints of the most deeply ingrained memories.
“What is this?” He extended a wisp of consciousness into one of the floating snowflakes.
The moment his consciousness touched it—
Boom!
His mind roared.
He ‘saw’ an enormous serpent, coiled within a dim expanse of Hunyuan Space. The serpent let out a furious hiss, clearly enraged and frenzied. Then, its bizarre tail flickered—in an instant, it pierced through countless spaces, as though multiplying into millions of tails! Each tail stabbed through a different space, faintly striking an equally terrifying entity.
That being radiated overwhelming power, its form obscured by distortions of unseen rules. Dongbo Xueying couldn’t discern its appearance before the memory fragment ended.
“A battle?” Dongbo Xueying mused. “Just a single move?”
The battlefield was clearly within the Hunyuan Space. The corrosive, terrifying Hunyuan power that had eroded him so fiercely was like air to the serpent. Its attack spanned countless spaces in an instant! And the being capable of fighting the serpent without faltering—even if not quite on Emperor Yuan’s level—couldn’t be far off.
He continued examining other fragments.
Out of the millions of fragments, he viewed over a hundred—all depicting the serpent’s tail strike, piercing through countless spaces in a single motion, almost always landing a hit.
“Finally, something different.” Another fragment showed the serpent gliding through the boundless Chaos Void. Its body, though longer than an entire Source World, was far smaller in volume.
After reviewing millions of fragments, Dongbo Xueying reached a conclusion.
The fragments fell into just three categories: the serpent’s tail strike, the serpent in flight, and the serpent coiled and dormant—its body fading into nothingness during slumber.
“Even with millions of fragments, my random sampling suggests these are the only three types,” he thought. “And all three are undoubtedly related to the Void Path.”
His eyes gleamed with excitement.
Finding memory fragments wasn’t unusual—Ancestor Tianyu and others had encountered them before. But stumbling upon Void Path fragments on his first discovery? That was pure fortune.
The serpent was an innate Hunyuan lifeform. Its techniques were inborn, yet it had honed them to an extreme—otherwise, it wouldn’t have dared challenge Emperor Yuan. These three techniques revealed to Dongbo Xueying possible directions for the Void Path to reach the ‘Hunyuan level.’ Strictly speaking, they represented three distinct approaches.
Like the ‘Seven Strikes of Hunyuan,’ which guided him to trace the Void’s origin—Hunyuan power.
Or like the supreme secret art ‘Blossom of the Void,’ which Emperor Xia had mastered—a life-nurturing force no less profound than Hunyuan power.
Different paths led to different strengths.
“I’m still far from the Hunyuan level,” Dongbo Xueying reminded himself. The leap from Cosmic God Second Layer to the Ultimate was arduous enough. How many barriers had he shattered to get here?
But the gap between the Ultimate and the Hunyuan level?
That was the fundamental chasm separating Source World lifeforms from true Hunyuan beings. Countless peerless experts had been trapped at this stage. Since the dawn of the Heart Realm Continent, none—not Undying Underworld Emperor, not Emperor Xia, not the Infinite City Lord, not even Patriarch Fan—had ascended to Hunyuan. Even in his homeland’s Source World, history held no record of such an ascension.
Becoming a Hunyuan lifeform was a challenge of unfathomable difficulty.
He had to steady his heart and prepare for a long, arduous journey.
“Shh.”
Standing within the luminous orb space, Dongbo Xueying’s body split—a second white-robed figure emerged beside him.
“Leaving a clone here poses no danger. No need for the Serpent Fang Marrow Pearl’s protection. This clone can remain and study the memory fragments indefinitely.” Though only one of his clones had entered the Serpent Fang Corridor, his power allowed him to manifest more at will. Leaving one behind, his main body—carrying the Serpent Fang Marrow Pearl—swiftly exited the luminous orb space.
—
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