"Stop talking nonsense, how much longer until we reach the spatial rift…?"
"Don't rush me, I'm calculating. The spatial rules deep within the Lemnian are too chaotic. No wonder Master couldn't suppress the Void."
"Damn it, they call for backup when they can't win? These scourges, shouldn't they just wait to die? Just you wait for me…"
The grumbling man was Yun Ming.
Three years had passed in a flash. The youth of yesteryear now possessed a tall and straight figure, only slightly shorter than his Senior Brother beside him.
His black hair had grown long, and the hair tie had long been lost in battle.
Thousands of strands of hair danced wildly in the gale.
His ink-black eyes concealed a relentless sharp edge. A hint of anger flashed in his gaze. Three years had passed in a blink, and he had practically lived entirely on this Lemnian island.
From clearing out scattered Aetheric Undead in the outer air-cities to gradually delving into the depths of the Lemnian Hollow, countless people had fallen into eternal sleep here.
The Aetheric Undead seemed endless.
They weren't just monsters formed from humans; foul breath spawned unspeakable things, and the corrupted plants gave rise to wave after wave of derivatives.
They absorbed Aether and propagated life.
No wonder, even after all these years, Ailidu had kept ordinary residents from entering the Void and sent the Defense Force to suppress it… these Voids still persisted perfectly well.
Like a giant abyss, waiting for the opportune moment to devour.
But what was even more terrifying was—
Three years ago, Yun Ming, Xu Zhimo, and Luo Hua delved into the Lemnian for an investigation. Along the way, other than the Aetheric Undead growing increasingly stronger… they encountered no other accidents.
Yun Ming, wielding his demonic blade, was invincible.
The strongest Aetheric Undead was only a sixth-tier one, which was almost the strongest Aetheric Undead he had encountered in games in his previous life.
Its body, dozens of meters tall, blotted out the sky, yet it still vanished like a bubble under the Heaven and Earth Millstone, eventually being devoured by the demonic blade.
So, what about above sixth-tier… the Lemnian Hollow, was that all there was to it?
But it was at this moment that the Aether aura suddenly intensified.
Cracks appeared in the sky, and a sphere, like an Aetheric Undead's "core," swallowed the light, becoming utterly dark.
Just a bizarre, mask-like monster appeared, its leaked aura surpassing everything Yun Ming had seen before.
Luo Hua's face instantly turned pale, and she collapsed to the ground.
The extremely dense, virulent Aether could not be resisted even by protective suits. The "Smiling Face" just floated there, motionless.
"Run!"
On the woman's expressionless face, a palpable terror almost surged forth. Yun Ming and Xu Zhimo exchanged glances.
They began with Heaven and Earth Co-existence… Ilyse carried her young mistress on her back, not daring to look back even once, retreating at an unparalleled speed along their original path.
The battle did not last too long.
The "Smiling Face" seemed to have no intention of killing, and eerie laughter echoed in the empty ruins. Countless jumbled memories flooded their minds, as if trying to burst their heads.
Yun Ming was still unharmed, but Xu Zhimo's mouth instantly overflowed with blood, his eyes blank.
He naturally had no desire to fight, so he scooped up his Senior Brother and fled on his sword.
The laughter still echoed.
But the Heaven and Earth Millstone, with its power to suppress rules, blocked everything. The youth departed on his blade.
By the time they escaped the Void, Xuan Mingzi was already waiting outside. When he raised his lowered eyes, they carried a monstrous sword intent.
"You saw it all?"
"Master, what was that…?"
"The remnants of an old civilization, beings from beyond the Black Wall."
"The Black Wall?"
"From here, go in any direction – east, west, north, or south. You'll know if you travel a thousand li by sword."
Yun Ming set down the three injured individuals and headed south alone.
A thousand li from here.
At the edge of human civilization, the land still stretched, but it stopped before a "Black Wall."
That's right, the Black Wall.
A Black Wall thousands of meters high, surging like a world-ending flood, yet not advancing an inch, as if an invisible barrier lay ahead.
It wasn't just one wall; beneath Yun Ming's feet was another steel city wall hundreds of meters high. Behind him were the legacies left by the old civilization.
The absolute elite of the Defense Force were stationed here.
"It's the young master from Yun Kui Mountain."
"…"
"See? This is the truth of the world. Isn't it magnificent?"
"Why don't they advance further?"
The woman leaned on the city wall, speaking somewhat languidly.
"If they go further, the world will truly be destroyed. Both they and we."
…"They're catching up! I sense the Aether anomaly. Have you found the spatial rift? If not, we'll have to fight to the death—!"
Xu Zhimo stopped, his aura sublimating to its extreme.
A faint phantom appeared behind him, like the divine dragon described in myths, with dark clouds surging and thunder rolling.
He had also reached the Second Realm, though he had not yet solidified his manifestation.
But he was close now.
And Yun Ming's realm was also vaguely catching up to Xuan Mingzi, almost reaching the peak of the Yun Zhuan Realm, with his manifestation integrated into his body.
He had completely refined the Heaven and Earth Millstone into his own manifestation.
This was the prerequisite for his words to become law. After this, he would be the Heaven and Earth Millstone, capable of directly disturbing the rules between heaven and earth.
Rather than merely utilizing the rules.
The Heaven and Earth Millstone was more overbearing, suppressing and refining the rules of heaven and earth, allowing him to act like a god within his own conceptual domain.
That being said, reaching that realm would allow one to break through to the Yunluo Realm, a step where many cultivators had been halted for hundreds of years.
Even Yun Ming was stumped.
He still couldn't take that final step.
Otherwise, he certainly wouldn't be the one running right now.
Eerie laughter emerged in waves, like demonic whispers invading their ears, stirring up desires from the depths of one's heart. It was that damned thing again!
Space rippled, bringing with it several figures.
"Tentacle," "Demonic Wood," "Ghost Lock."
These were titles given based on the characteristics of the Aetheric Undead, different from the zombie-like monsters wandering the Void.
These monsters possessed intelligence.
Damn it, Yun Ming knew the Void wouldn't be that simple. Even a zombie apocalypse had a zombie king… He swept his gaze over them, not lingering.
He dragged his Senior Brother, who was planning to fight to the death, declaring that he would still be a good man in eighteen years, and cursed furiously.
"I haven't even done it with Senior Sister and Hongdou yet; I don't want to die!"
"You bastard, don't drag me into a desperate fight with you."
Though he spoke like that, Yun Ming's heart was also filled with hatred. These guys couldn't go to the outer reaches of the Lemnian Hollow; they could only operate in the smallest, special areas.
It was like saltwater fish couldn't live in fresh water.
The Aetheric Undead couldn't survive outside the Void.
But they constantly tried to increase the Aether concentration in the periphery, expanding their range of activity, which was why Yun Ming encountered them.
One or two, Yun Ming could handle, even kill.
Three, plus Xu Zhimo, they could also fight.
But the "Smiling Face" was simply a bug: a pure energy body, capable of spatial blinking and jumping, and mental attacks… it was the most annoying ghost-like thing Yun Ming encountered. Over three years, the two had dealt with each other many times, but he couldn't do anything about it.
The Source isolated the opponent's damage, but Yun Ming's energy level wasn't high enough to completely restrict its movements.
If he had people with him,
Yun Ming would fall into an absolute disadvantage, after all… the Aetheric Undead weren't afraid of death, but he was afraid of his Junior Brother and Sister being buried in the Void.
He never wanted to experience that feeling of powerlessness again.
"I'm going to blow up with you guys today!"
The Heaven and Earth Millstone suddenly appeared in the high sky, covering a range of hundreds of meters, with the Two Extremes of black and white binding the surrounding space.
The wind and clouds of heaven and earth changed, and the bright sun was obscured.
"No, Junior Brother, are you really fighting to the death? I was just pretending."
"Fighting your mom, I'm pretending too, to scare them."
The two spoke in a forced whisper. Yun Ming controlled a faint trace of Source energy to guide Xu Zhimo's retreat in this unstable space.
"It'll be up to you soon."
"Wait, what do you mean…? Don't scare me. If you're gone, how am I supposed to explain it to them?"
"Can't you hope for something good?!"