Chapter 3182: The Other End of the River Channel
Kong Chengzi was once a top-tier powerhouse of the Kunlun Realm. Even in this place filled with darkness and nothingness, his corpse had not visibly decayed.
The divine blood within his body had long since cooled, yet it still contained an extraordinary divine essence.
At the broken edges of his shattered corpse, divine chains were densely packed. One could only imagine how ferocious an attack he had suffered back then to be torn apart like this, his life force utterly extinguished.
Gong Shang had clearly refined Kong Chengzi's corpse. Inside the divine body, Zhang Ruochen discovered many Nether Patterns, which closely resembled the techniques recorded in the *Nether Soldier Scroll*, obviously an extension of that method.
After investigating and finding nothing of value, Zhang Ruochen gathered the fragments of Kong Chengzi's corpse and stored them away, intending to bring them back to the Kunlun Realm for burial.
After all, this was a worthy who had died defending the Kunlun Realm.
"This should be a river channel. If we follow it, we might find a way out," Zhang Ruochen said.
Mu Lingxi had been studying the Heaven Cauldron, deeply focused.
Zhang Ruochen walked over and said, "Senior Feng Tian, when do we set out?"
"Set out? Where to?" Mu Lingxi asked.
Zhang Ruochen said, "To leave this place and return to the Kunlun Realm, of course."
Mu Lingxi shook her head. "We can't go back."
"Why?" Zhang Ruochen asked.
Mu Lingxi had already traced every pattern on the Heaven Cauldron with her fingers. Annoyed by Zhang Ruochen's persistence, she put the cauldron away and said, "I came here to avoid trouble. Why would I want to leave?"
"This was once a battlefield of gods. Gong Shang must have collected many good things. You can search for them."
"Just stay here and cultivate for a while. With your current cultivation level, even if the Boundless Ones march north, among the Great Gods, there are still plenty who can defeat you."
Zhang Ruochen said, "If Senior Feng Tian wishes to avoid trouble, please stay here yourself. I must return to the Kunlun Realm as soon as possible. I'm afraid I can't accompany you."
"Zhang Ruochen!"
A cold glint flashed in Mu Lingxi's eyes. "I've given you some face, and now you want to take advantage of it? Without my permission, you're not going anywhere!"
Zhang Ruochen stopped and met Mu Lingxi's gaze. "I have reasons I must leave. If Senior keeps pressing me, it will benefit no one in the end."
"How dare you speak to me in such a tone?" Mu Lingxi's gaze was as sharp as a sword, cutting across the space between them.
Zhang Ruochen did not back down. "If Senior were at your peak, I naturally wouldn't dare. But even in your weakest state, I have treated you with respect and risked my life to protect you. I have done nothing to wrong you. Now that Gong Shang is dead, this world is almost completely safe. I have things I must do, and I have to leave."
With that, ignoring Mu Lingxi's furious glare, Zhang Ruochen walked along the dried-up river channel into the darkness. "I'll leave the Yin Yang Eighteen Formations and Mo Yin here with you, just in case."
Mu Lingxi trembled with rage but could not stop Zhang Ruochen.
Rebellious, truly rebellious!
A mere Great God dared to offend a Heavenly God?
If not for being bound to this body, she would have dragged Zhang Ruochen back and taught him a harsh lesson until he admitted his mistake.
"Lord Feng Tian, please don't be angry. Brother Chen must have something very urgent to attend to, which is why he has to go back. Otherwise, he would have waited until his injuries healed before leaving!" Another gentle, melodious voice sounded from within Mu Lingxi's body.
Thinking of Zhang Ruochen's severe injuries and his resolute departure, Mu Lingxi's anger subsided somewhat. Gradually, she was startled—why had her state of mind fluctuated so violently?
Was it because, after her Nirvana, the power within her had shifted from death to life?
Or was it because obtaining the Heaven Cauldron had unsettled her emotions?
Whatever the reason, her current mental state was definitely abnormal.
Feng Tian had no more energy to concern herself with Zhang Ruochen. She glanced at Mo Yin, who stood not far away, then sat down on the spot to calm her breathing and meditate.
Although Xuan Yi was being pursued by the five great divine monks, this matter remained unresolved. How could Zhang Ruochen have the peace of mind to stay here and cultivate?
In the end, it was because Xuan Yi was too terrifying an enemy.
The further he went, the more bubbles of nothingness material appeared, spreading across the river channel and completely blocking the path.
When the bubbles collided with the channel and burst, they created powerful ripples of nothingness force, erasing a significant amount of dark matter.
"Could it be that the river channel dried up because of these nothingness material bubbles? Where do these bubbles come from?"
Zhang Ruochen held the Bodhi Tree and charged forward, pushing his speed to the limit.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
...
The dense nothingness material bubbles crashed down, overwhelming the Buddha light emitted by the Bodhi Tree.
Hearing a cracking sound, Zhang Ruochen's expression changed. He raised the six divine swords to defend himself and retreated rapidly, stopping only when he reached an area where the nothingness material bubbles were sparser.
Looking up, the once golden Bodhi Tree had become dim and lusterless. Many branches and leaves had vanished under the impact of the nothingness force.
"No wonder Gong Shang was trapped here for a hundred thousand years and couldn't escape. The attack power of these nothingness material bubbles is truly beyond what ordinary treasures can withstand."
Zhang Ruochen was not discouraged. Just because Gong Shang couldn't do it didn't mean he couldn't.
He planted the Bodhi Tree back into the *Sixth Patriarch's Zen Illustration*, then took out the Earth Cauldron, jumped into it, and retrieved the God-Defying Stele, holding it above his head to seal the cauldron's opening.
"Whoosh!"
Under the activation of the chaotic yin and yang energy within him, the Earth Cauldron blazed with light. Countless mysterious patterns emerged, smashing through one nothingness material bubble after another as it charged into the depths of the void.
At first, the nothingness material bubbles burst silently, unable to shake the Earth Cauldron.
But after a quarter of an hour, the shockwaves from the bursting bubbles transmitted into the cauldron, causing it to shake violently and become difficult to control.
Zhang Ruochen fully unleashed his spiritual power and the Taiji Yin-Yang Diagram, gripping the Earth Cauldron tightly and doing his utmost to keep it moving in a single direction.
In such a situation, losing his sense of direction would be extremely dangerous.
Zhang Ruochen's divine energy drained rapidly, and his spiritual power was constantly worn down by the nothingness. Just as it was about to drop below the eightieth rank, the Earth Cauldron suddenly stopped shaking.
All the nothingness material bubbles seemed to have vanished.
Cautiously, Zhang Ruochen stepped out of the Earth Cauldron, stood at its rim, and looked back. He saw dark tentacles, seemingly right at his doorstep.
This was a certain place in the Void World, but definitely not the space he had been in before.
Because here, there was no dark matter!
But what were those black tentacles?
Zhang Ruochen piloted the Earth Cauldron away, putting distance between himself and the dark tentacles. Gradually, he made out their full form.
It looked like a seaweed, but it stretched for hundreds of thousands of miles, with countless tentacles.
The seaweed exuded a powerful dark aura, as if it were a bizarre lifeform made of dark matter.
From within the tentacles, nothingness material bubbles drifted out.
"What kind of monster is this? Does it have intelligence?" Zhang Ruochen dared not provoke it. He looked around but found no river channel.
Never mind. Since he was in the Void World, as long as he broke through the world's spatial barrier, he could return to the Real World.
"Boom!"
He shattered the world's spatial barrier, creating a hole several meters in diameter in the void. Zhang Ruochen charged through it.
...
The Paradise Realm was an eternal, undying great world with a deep foundation and many ancestral legacies.
After becoming the dominant world of the Western Universe a hundred thousand years ago, the Paradise Realm's power had steadily risen. Gods rose in succession, and over a thousand great worlds followed its lead, enough to rival the Heavenly Palace.
Xuan Yi was known as the number one under the Boundless Realm, yet even in the Paradise Realm, he could only be an assassin of the Heavenly Killing Organization. He could not dominate openly, let alone compare with the Ten Great Divine Temples.
The Ten Great Divine Temples, led by the Radiant Divine Temple, held most of the say in the Paradise Realm.
Besides the Ten Great Divine Temples, the Ten Great Divine Dynasties, headed by Shangqiu, controlled the secular affairs of the Paradise Realm.
Whoever controlled the say in the Paradise Realm controlled the say in the Western Universe. The cultivators of over a thousand great worlds all followed their commands.
Such power—who wouldn't want it?
With such a flourishing great world, even if the Boundless Ones marched north, the Boundless-level defensive measures left behind were still formidable enough to fend off sneak attacks from the Hell Realm.
But the Paradise Realm was enormous. The realm-protecting grand formation could not cover every inch.
Moreover, hundreds of thousands, even millions, of cultivators entered and left the Paradise Realm every day. Relying solely on defense would inevitably leave gaps.
Thus, the realm-protecting grand formation was often also a deadly killing formation.
Entering the realm was easy; leaving was hard.
Chi Xingtian naturally understood this principle. After infiltrating the Paradise Realm, he transformed into a Saint King-level giant and remained cautious, careful not to reveal his aura.
Even within the Paradise Realm, few gods knew where the headquarters of the Heavenly Killing Organization was located. Finding Xuan Yi's lair was no easy task.
But Chi Xingtian knew that Xuan Yi's backer was Shang Tian.
So, he had to go to the Great Shang Divine Dynasty, the foremost of the Ten Great Divine Dynasties. There, he might find clues.
...
The gray sky was overcast, with a gentle breeze carrying the stench of decay.
On the wide water surface, countless corpses floated, drifting from somewhere unknown to somewhere unknown.
The shore was an endless expanse of black soil, desolate and barren. On the wasteland stood mounds of earth like graves. Rotten corpses beached by the river would then rise and walk into the black wilderness.
"Splash!"
A column of water shot up from the river, and then a figure landed on the shore.
Zhang Ruochen looked around, a strange expression in his eyes. "Is this the Santu River basin of the Hell Realm? No, the spatial structure here isn't thick or stable. It should just be a tributary, not the main branch of the Santu River."
Just as he was about to leave, Zhang Ruochen suddenly thought of something. He pointed at the void, tore through the Real World, and entered the Void World again.
But what made his scalp tingle was that the seaweed-like black tentacle creature, hundreds of thousands of miles long, had vanished!
Although the Real World and the Void World did not correspond perfectly, the deviation was usually not too great.
Zhang Ruochen had only just returned to the Real World and immediately gone back. How could the black seaweed have fled so far in such a short time?
(End of this chapter)