On the Divine Rest Mountain, the Cloud's End Cliff was the deadliest place among the Four Deadly Regions of the Azure Cloud Continent. This cliff had also been called the Death God's Cemetery more times than anyone could count. Over countless years, the number of people who had fallen into this abyss was simply incalculable…
In fact, throughout the entire recorded history of the Azure Cloud Continent, countless individuals had been thrown from Cloud's End Cliff or had attempted to climb it, yet not a single one had ever returned alive. This included even those unparalleled and god-like existences that ordinary people regarded as supreme—Monarchs!
Moreover, this was no secret; it was common knowledge across the entire Azure Cloud Continent.
After flying for a few minutes, Ren Zu landed silently on the edge of Cloud's End Cliff. He leaned his upper body slightly forward.
Above him stretched the endless azure vault of the sky; beneath him lay an endless abyss. At that moment, it felt as though he stood on the boundary between heaven and hell, with the only sounds remaining in the world being the rhythm.databinding of his own breathing and the beating of his heart.
He said nothing.
With profound indifference reflected in his pitch-black pupils, he silently gazed into the unfathomable, eternal abyss before him. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he bent his body slightly and simply jumped. His figure plummeted like a meteor torn from the heavens, tearing through the air as it plunged toward the endless void below—where not even light dared to reach.
In the blink of an eye, he had already descended three thousand meters, and his surroundings had become a sea of darkness.
He raised his head and found that he could no longer see even the faintest trace of light in the space above.
Darkness instinctively evokes fear in human beings, let alone the absolute darkness found in a deep abyss. Yet his falling speed did not slow in the slightest; instead, it grew faster with every passing moment.
Golden Crow flames ignited in his hands, illuminating the pitch-black world of the abyss. But beneath the radiance of the Sun Bird's flames, he still saw only layers of darkness, with no end in sight to the abyss stretching beneath him.
Knowing it would be of little use—just as he had suspected—Ren Zu simply extinguished the burning Golden Crow flames and continued his full-speed descent…
In the history of the Azure Cloud Continent, the countless profound practitioners who had attempted to descend Cloud's End Cliff had always done so extremely slowly and cautiously. Thus, he was undoubtedly the first person to hurl himself recklessly into this cliff—the most terrifying abyss on the entire Azure Cloud Continent… or perhaps even the rest of the world.
The wind whistled past his ears as the air gradually grew darker and colder.
Amid the howling dark wind, he continued to plummet thousands of feet. Only then, during that seemingly endless fall, did a familiar sensation touch his skin—a strange, dense, cold… yet unmistakable aura.
Dark devil profound energy.
Anyone else would have mistaken it for ordinary yin aura, the kind that naturally accumulates at the bottom of deep abysses. But to him, who had cultivated the Law of Darkness to its utmost extremes, a single instant was enough to recognize its true nature. It was profound dark energy—the essence that sustained the Devil's Path, as distinct from and opposed to the divine path as night is to day.
This energy did not merely strengthen those who cultivated it; it shaped, corroded, and twisted their personalities. It was said that the more powerful a profound practitioner of the Devil's Path became, the more evil deeds they had committed and the more lives they had reaped to bolster their own existence…
The sound of the wind grew increasingly strange. He had already been falling for some time. By his estimation, he had dropped more than thirty thousand meters, yet there was still no sign of reaching the bottom.
After falling several more kilometers without reaching the abyss floor, at a certain moment his body unconsciously passed through some kind of "checkpoint." In the next instant, it was as though he had entered an entirely different world.
An extreme cold struck him immediately. A dense, icy, and deeply malevolent aura surged toward him from all directions, attempting to pierce his meridians and deep veins. At the same time, a powerful attractive force rose from the void below, as though countless invisible hands made of pure darkness were trying to seize him and drag him into the depths.
In that instant, he understood why anyone who fell into Cloud's End Cliff could never return. It was certain death. This exceptionally terrifying dark devil aura was something the profound practitioners of this world could not resist. Even if they were strong enough to withstand it temporarily, with such a horrifying attractive force, escape was impossible.
This also meant that anyone who came into contact with the dark world within the deep abyss would be instantly pulled downward. There was no chance of resistance, much less escape…
But he was no ordinary failed profound practitioner.
The moment the attractive force tried to drag him down, Ren Zu reacted instantly. He gathered his profound energy and released a torrent of pure darkness—far more refined than the corrupt diabolical energy permeating the surroundings. Upon colliding with that corrupt darkness, his own energy effortlessly neutralized it, simultaneously dissipating the attractive force trying to pull him downward. Enveloped in his own dark protection, he continued descending silently for several thousand more meters until, finally, his body collided with something extremely hard.
The impact echoed like muffled thunder, yet his exceptionally powerful body endured it without the slightest difficulty.
The surface beneath his feet was solid and firm.
This could only mean one thing: he had at last reached the bottom of the abyss. He crouched slightly, and his hand touched the cold, rigid ground. The sensation that coursed through him was clear—this material was even harder than the toughest profound steel he had ever encountered in the Illusory Demon Realm…
Ren Zu raised his gaze and, in that moment, understood the true nature of the place he had fallen into. This was not merely an abyss… it was a world so terrifying that no ordinary person could even imagine its existence. In truth, not even someone as powerful as the Little Demon Empress or Duke Ming would survive here. If they were thrown into this dark domain, they would undoubtedly perish within fifteen minutes.
Though he himself had no difficulty handling the surrounding diabolical aura, he knew full well that others would not be so fortunate. The dark energy of this world did not merely devour vitality and corrode the soul; it also aggressively suppressed profound energy. It was a realm designed for killing—a domain where darkness itself possessed will and hunger…
Yet he was not worried about that. He had come down here with a purpose, and he was far from finished.
Ren Zu summoned the Golden Crow flames once more, shaping them into a small sun that floated just behind his head. The golden light tore through the absolute darkness, illuminating a radius of a hundred meters around him—an act that, in this dark world, seemed almost a defiance of the very nature of the place.
Beneath his feet, the ground was flat, marked only by occasional collisions and hard, metal-like irregularities. Everything around him was black—so black that not even the golden flames could reveal any color beyond that oppressive darkness. The air was still, far too cold to belong to the world of the living.
Ren Zu let out a soft sigh. He knew that if he proceeded using ordinary methods, he would waste precious time in this hostile environment. Thus, he decided to hasten things. Gathering his maximum speed, he turned his body into a blur of shadow trailed by the golden sun behind him. At the same time, he expanded his spiritual perception—one of the few abilities not completely suppressed by the darkness.
With that, he tore forward through the dark terrain as though ripping through space itself.
In a single instant, guided by the faintest signals his perception detected, his body shot in a specific direction and began descending even deeper into the abyss.
"ROARR!!"
At that moment, a short distance away, a dull roar suddenly sounded.
That roar came from extremely far away—possibly thousands of kilometers distant.
"HSSS—"
"AOOUU!!"
"ROOAR!"
Following that terrifying roar, a great number of roars echoed one after another from even farther away. In an instant, the previously deathly silent dark world began to tremble slightly, and even space itself quaked.
Yet within Ren Zu's pitch-black pupils there was only the deepest indifference. He knew that the abyss harbored a vast number of ancestral demonic beasts, and even the weakest among them reached the Divine Origin Realm—what profound practitioners of this world called the Divine Profound Realm, the highest known level of cultivation in their limited understanding.
However, he understood that in the Realm of the Gods, that level amounted to nothing more than cannon fodder.
His current strength was more than enough to kill any of those beasts with ease. Still, he had no interest in wasting time on them now.
Thus, he did not even blink. He simply continued his journey, moving at maximum speed—so fast that none of the beasts could catch even a glimpse of his shadow.
In the direction he traveled, the path remained completely silent from beginning to end, as though none of those dark, ferocious creatures existed there. Not a single one.
After advancing through the darkness for several minutes, Ren Zu frowned. The miniature sun formed by the intense, domineering Golden Crow flames had suddenly become inconvenient. With a mere thought, he dismissed it, instantly extinguishing the golden radiance that had swallowed everything within a hundred meters.
Absolute darkness returned as though it were alive.
Yet… not entirely.
His eyes swept the darkness ahead. Unless he was mistaken, a faint purple glow was emanating from somewhere far in front of him.
The light was extremely dim and shallow, almost nonexistent, but in a world devoured by endless darkness, the mere presence of any luminosity was unquestionably abnormal.
"Light…" he murmured to himself, almost unconsciously.
Had he not extinguished the golden flames, he very likely would never have noticed that glow.
Ren Zu frowned and moved toward the light, traveling quickly yet calmly. After covering an immense distance, the purple hue finally seemed within reach. Then, using his maximum speed, he crossed the remaining distance and finally arrived.
What appeared before his eyes was a world filled with enchanting purple light.
Countless fantastical flower stalks swayed amid this purple radiance. Branches of bewitching flowers bloomed proudly on deep-purple stems. Every petal of these flowers resembled brilliant purple jade, emitting a bright purple light and a faint, indistinct purple mist that seemed to rise from the depths of the underworld, floating around them.
The purple light filling this space came from these seductive purple flowers.
Within this unparalleled and terrifying world of darkness, his own flames could only illuminate a hundred-meter radius, yet these alluring flowers clearly lit up a vast area, their radiance incredibly sharp and undimmed by the darkness.
Ren Zu stood still, and his dark pupils seemed to shimmer faintly. As someone who had completely mastered the [Miracle of Life], he recognized those seductive flowers almost instantly.
These enchanting purple flowers were none other than Netherworld Udumbara Flowers!!
Tens of thousands of fully bloomed Netherworld Udumbara Flowers swayed before him, forming a gigantic sea of Netherworld Udumbara Flowers.
It was as though he had been thrust from a dark world of death into a purple dimension.
Yet the Netherworld Udumbara Flower was not only incomparably bewitching; its most singular—and most terrifying—characteristic was its ability to steal souls!
Fortunately, Ren Zu was fully aware of this and had prepared in advance. After all, a flower of this very type existed in the Moon Slaughter Devil Nest—the place he had originally intended to visit before accidentally ending up on the Azure Cloud Continent.
His preparation?
Knowing that many spiritual herbs required specific harvesting conditions or carried side effects capable of killing the careless, Ren Zu had created a profound art that rendered him immune to any form of damage or side effect, while also replicating the same principle as the Sky Poison Pearl's perfect harvesting ability.
This art completely enveloped the herb in his own aura, preventing any harm that might reduce its efficacy. His creation could perform exactly the same process.
He had named it [Heavenly Will Crystal Body].
The only weakness of this profound art was its short duration. And although it was described as immune to all damage, Ren Zu seriously doubted it could withstand a strike from a profound practitioner capable of obliterating an entire planet with a single blow. Still, it was undeniably a miraculous profound art and one of his greatest trump cards.
He had invested an enormous amount of time in its creation—in fact, it had taken him an entire year from the moment he began developing profound arts to support his various plans.
With a single thought, Ren Zu activated the [Heavenly Will Crystal Body].
There was no explosion of light, no thunderous boom, no exaggerated phenomenon—just a silent, absolute transformation so perfect it seemed to defy the most fundamental laws of the world. His skin completely lost its mortal texture; every cell, every strand of energy, every particle composing his body turned into translucent, lustrous crystal, as though the firmament itself had carved him.
It was a pure, limpid glow with no defined color—an inner radiance that flowed beneath his crystallized skin like rivers of liquid light, reflecting the surrounding world as though he were a living jewel. Darkness could no longer touch him; the extreme cold could not penetrate him; the soul-devouring aura of the Netherworld Udumbara Flowers did not even dare approach.
Having done this, he immediately began walking toward the sea of flowers.
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