C2001 Shatter!
Yuen Bu was in the midst of hunting abyssal creatures.
With the Evil Gods converging their power in Creation Land to jointly suppress the Great Demon God Beilstein, they were too preoccupied to monitor the outside world, presenting Yuen Bu with an excellent opportunity.
The demise of these creatures would bolster Yuen Bu's strength, and the source blood that had given rise to him would also reap the benefits.
Yet, his immediate concern should have been to hasten to the Boundless Human Race and uncover the deep truths there. Lingering in the abyss was not advisable for an extended period.
But...
In Creation Land, he felt a sense of homecoming. The Extreme Darkness that had been granted to Tan Xiaotian was filled with a sense of longing and reluctance to let go. All the Evil Gods in the Holy Hall, regardless of their former animosity, now regarded him with a mix of reverence and fear.
This blend of respect and fear was all too familiar to him. Back when he was with the Boundless Human Race and at the height of the Divine Soul Sect, practitioners from other sects looked at him with the same mixture of awe and trepidation.
They revered him and feared him, yet they saw him as the mainstay and leader of the Boundless Human Race.
Even after his fall into the abyss, Extreme Intelligence continued to address him with deference, treating him as their leader.
The guardian of the Holy Hall proclaimed him the chosen spokesperson for the Abyss Treasure, wrapped in Extreme Darkness, and declared him the Abyss Lord.
He assured that Tan Xiaotian, despite gaining the legacy of Extreme Darkness and growing stronger, would still follow Yuen Bu's lead as per the iron law.
The Evil God, Extreme Intelligence, the Guardian—they all saw him in this light.
"Could it be that I truly belong to the abyss?" Yu Yuan pondered, unable to suppress the thought.
Standing on the sixth level of the abyss, he remained still, yet the turbulent and ferocious power of the abyss continued to flood into his body relentlessly.
With a mere thought, he activated the Evil Body Refining Skill, and the efficiency with which his body absorbed the abyssal power soared dramatically.
The abyssal energy crackled through his veins like electricity, invigorating every bone, muscle, and sinew with its formidable force.
He felt as though he had assimilated a portion of Yuen Bu's Life Essence.
Visions of the Ancient Desolate Sect's body refining techniques, along with the Evil Body Refining Skill and the practices of the Evil Sect and Devil Palace, surfaced in his mind.
In the Boundless Great World, those who dedicated themselves to body refining were often seen as heterodox.
Body refiners like Zhongli, Yu Ying, and Shen Feiqing, despite their formidable physical strength, still fell short when compared to the Demon Kings of the Demon Palace and struggled to ascend to the highest echelons through body refining alone.
Even after breaking through to the Yang God, Unrestrained Stage, and Primordial Spirit Stage, practitioners from the Sword Sect, Primordial Yang Sect, and Profound Sky Sect couldn't overcome their inherent physical frailty.
When compared to the mighty Demon Race of the Boundless World and the exotic races beyond the heavens, the human race's flesh and blood were inherently weaker.
This had always been an innate shortcoming of the human race.
Yu Yuan's perspective had shifted.
He now understood that humans born in the Abyss could draw upon its wild and tumultuous energy from birth. Once this power was refined within their bones and viscera, the Abyss-born humans could, with their mere physical might, shatter the heavens and earth and establish a foothold at any level of the Abyss.
In the Abyss where he now stood, the robustness and ferocity of one's physical form were once considered an advantage for humans!
Any human from the Boundless World bearing the mark of the Abyss Treasure could, upon arriving in the Abyss, fortify their bones and build up their physique with its power, overturning the chilling reality of their inherent physical limitations.
The original cultivation techniques of the Abyss were those that emphasized physical strength, like those of the Ancient Desolate Sect, Evil Sect, and Devil Palace.
"Yuen Bu!"
His gaze fixed on the first Shrouded Tower and the blood shadow within. With a single thought, he locked onto the Shrouded Tower.
In that instant of connection, the existence of another Shrouded Tower imprinted itself upon his primary soul.
It was located on one of the sixty-four continents of the seventh layer.
As the second Shrouded Tower emerged, Yuen Bu, who had descended into the Abyss alongside the blood shadow, now had nowhere to hide.
No matter where Yuen Bu was in the Abyss, as long as he remained within its bounds, he couldn't escape detection.
The absence of a third Shrouded Tower signified one thing: Yuen Bu, in possession of the Old Ape's body, had not ventured into the Abyss but was still active within the Origin Realm.
"Yuen Bu!" he called out once more, a sudden urge to confront him taking hold.
This impulse sparked an immediate resonance between his core soul and the Dragon Slash Platform, as if they had bridged the very laws of the Abyss with the void.
It was his soul that had forged this connection to the Abyss's laws, with the Dragon Slash Platform serving merely as a conduit, a tool providing the energy of spatial stones.
In the next moment, he and the Dragon Slash Platform materialized before the Shrouded Tower.
On the sixth level of the Abyss, amidst one of the thirty-six dim lands, he had slain a group of abyssal creatures known as Dark Shadow Demons. From them, he refined a drop of gray-green Life Seed. The blood figure, meant to dissolve, stared in astonishment at the Dragon Slash Platform—and at Yu Yuan, who wielded it.
"With your Eleventh Level Yang God absent, what could you possibly do to me with just your physical form?"
The blood figure was merely a manifestation of Yuen Bu's blood energy, not yet fused with the Shrouded Tower, and before transforming into a skeletal being, it bore no distinct features.
He shook his head slightly, seemingly puzzled by Yu Yuan's tactics. "What's the point of challenging me in the Abyss? Shouldn't you be in the Boundless Great World, resolving your conflicts with the Boundless Human Race's supreme beings?"
"I can teleport with the Dragon Slash Platform just as you can with your Shrouded Tower. I can stay or leave as I please..."
Yuen Bu's statement came to an abrupt halt.
In his blood shadow form, standing atop the black jade altar, he gazed in amazement at the space beside the altar, now sealed by some force.
The Shrouded Tower's ability to traverse space had been rendered useless!
As he mused to himself, aware that Yu Yuan's Yang God could descend from the heavens at any moment to aid him, he had no intention of engaging in a fight to the death with the Yu Yuan before him.
He intended to harness the interconnecting power of two Shrouded Towers to reach the seventh level of the Shrouded Tower, then disperse their energies.
In doing so, he planned to conceal his blood energy, urging the towers to exercise extra caution to avoid the relentless attention of Yu Yuan.
Unexpectedly, his desire to leave at will was thwarted.
Yuen Bu quickly sensed that something was amiss.
Yu Yuan experienced the same realization.
The force that had frozen space was not emanating from his Dragon Slash Platform.
Instead, it originated from the power concealed deep within his soul!
The Dragon Slash Platform merely served as a stone providing spatial energy. The true influence on space, allowing him to teleport instantly before Yuen Bu, stemmed from his very thoughts.
He envisioned standing before Yuen Bu, and just like that, he arrived.
It was as straightforward as that.
He imagined the Shrouded Tower, where Yuen Bu's blood shadow stood, possessed the capability to traverse the void. With the mere thought of imposing a restriction, Yuen Bu became immobilized.
He attuned himself to the sensation and gradually discovered that he had assimilated a portion of the soul energy he had acquired from the boundless darkness of the Creation Land.
This energy, now integrated into his primary soul, became the wellspring of his soul's essence, granting him the leverage to manipulate the laws of the Abyss!
He could influence all the laws of the Abyss!
Whether it was within the Evil God, the Extreme Intelligence, or the foundational laws that structured the Abyss, he found he could shift them all!
This sensation surpassed even the exaggerated feelings he had within the Gray Domain and the Dim Starfield!
The Gray Domain, fashioned by the Titan and spinosaurus, resonated with his Yang God due to their shared origin bloodline, giving him a sense of belonging akin to a Dao Integration Stage cultivator amplifying their power.
In the Dim Starfield, where the source blood lay dormant, he, as the source blood's emissary, also enjoyed an enhancement of power.
But now, in the Abyss, he felt as though he was within the inner world of the Dragon Slash Platform, where he was both the founder and the Creator!
He gazed at the Shrouded Tower housing the blood shadow, pondered briefly, and then commanded, "Shatter!"
Yuen Bu's blood shadow froze in shock.
Abruptly, a blade embodying the laws of the Abyss materialized as a radiant Space Edge, as if wielded by an unseen deity, cleaving through the air towards him.
Yuen Bu was paralyzed, his consciousness and thoughts fragmented into innumerable pieces by Yu Yuan's utterance of the word "shatter," unable to coalesce once more. Powerless, he could only watch the Space Edge slice through the air toward him.
The Shrouded Tower, crafted from animal bone, had no chance to morph into a skeletal form and offer any effective resistance before it was mercilessly cleaved apart by the Space Edge.
With a sickening tear, the blood shadow burst into numerous blood cloud fragments, his consciousness ruthlessly erased.
As the blood shadow and Shrouded Tower faded away, the last vestige of Yuen Bu's awareness was gripped by a sudden, terrifying realization. The Shrouded Tower in the seventh layer, the eternally dark place, had met the same grim end.
Yu Yuan had spoken but a single word, "shatter," and with the intrinsic power of the Abyss and its foundational laws, he obliterated Yuen Bu's two Shrouded Towers, along with his twin streams of blood energy.
Boom! Boom! Echoing deep within Yu Yuan's soul, the word "shatter" resonated, draining away the Abyss soul energy he had drawn in, leaving him overwhelmed by an immense fatigue.
It was because he had spoken that word, "shatter," with the intent to obliterate Yuen Bu and the two Shrouded Towers, preventing them from causing chaos in the Abyss, and so his will was enacted.
He was like the highest deity of this realm, intolerant of any defiance against his will.
Anyone who descended into the Abyss, anyone who emerged in this world, unless they wielded a law equal to his own, he could, with his might and through the laws of the Abyss, crush them as effortlessly as one would an ant.
What magnitude of power was this?
His main soul, not yet ascended to the Primordial Spirit, not yet having taken the final step, how did it command such dreadfully absolute power in this enigmatic Abyss?
The profound respect and fear from Extreme Wisdom, who addressed him as "Master," the terror in the eyes of the Evil Gods upon seeing him, the indulgence and care from the Abyss Lord—it all began to make sense.
He had the power to extinguish Yuen Bu's blood shadow and shatter the two Shrouded Towers, and with the same ease, he could annihilate the Evil Gods present.
He even felt that slaying the Evil Gods born in the Abyss would be a breeze for him.
Extreme Wisdom had indeed grown stronger in the Abyss, as had Tan Xiaotian. In time, anyone with an Origin Soul would find their power magnified in the Abyss.
Moreover, with the imprint of the Abyss Treasure, mortals from the Boundless Great World could fortify their bodies within the Abyss. They could effortlessly absorb its energy and rapidly mature using the secret arts.
Yet, it was he who had always harnessed the mightiest power from the Abyss.
In the Abyss, he might well be unbeatable.
If the Yang God, representing the Origin Blood in the Dim Starfield and Gray Domain, could amplify his power and act with impunity as its spokesperson,
then, when his true self descended into the Abyss, it felt like the homecoming of the Origin Blood itself.
After the Abyss Treasure, enveloped in utter darkness, was taken by the ancient Titan spinosaurus and sank into the heart of the Vast Ocean, it corrupted the Origin Soul, the wellspring of the Yin Meridians, bestowing supremacy to all.
That object had left an indelible mark on his main soul, as if it had long since become one with his spirit.
"Sir, why... did you not enter the Sacred Hall?"
Extreme Wisdom, at the pinnacle of the Abyss, materialized and watched him shatter Yuen Bu and the two Shrouded Towers without surprise, yet he spoke with a tinge of regret, "If only you had entered, if only you had reclaimed your true self, wouldn't all problems be solved? What exactly are you resisting? That is your essence!"
"Don't you see? You could control everything in the Abyss."
"Just step into the Sacred Hall, and the Great Demon God Beilstein will perish. The Abyss, Origin Realm, and Desolate Realm will all fall under human dominion because of you."
