Chapter 426: Falling into an Ice Pit

Chapter 426: Falling into an Ice Pit (End of Chapter)

【Remaining stay time: One year】

In the hidden space of the Void Secret Realm, Lin Yuan sat cross-legged on a large stone, his eyes open as he glanced at the illusory text below his line of sight.

"It's time to go back," Lin Yuan thought to himself. His six hundred-year sojourn in the boundless void was coming to an end.

Unless Lin Yuan spent another one-third of a thread of boundary-breaking force, he would automatically return to the main world when his stay time was up.

One-third of a thread of boundary-breaking force was nothing to Lin Yuan, and it was worth exchanging for six hundred years of quiet cultivation time.

However—

In the past two decades, Lin Yuan had already felt the limitations of this boundless universe on him.

In simple terms, the efficiency of his insight into the rules was slowly decreasing.

To put it in a more understandable way, Lin Yuan had already emptied the boundless void.

The essence of the rules varies depending on the size of the world.

For example, the time rules of the main universe are far more vast and profound compared to the time rules of the Middle-earth world and the Spirit Realm that Lin Yuan had traveled to before.

As such, the upper limit of the main universe far surpasses that of the Middle-earth world and the Spirit Realm.

This is because the beings in the latter worlds are inherently unable to perceive more complex and profound rule essences.

Now, the boundless void is similar in that regard for Lin Yuan.

Continuing to cultivate in the boundless void would be pointless unless he completely gave up on comprehending the rules; it would just be a waste of time.

Even if Lin Yuan were to advance to the eleventh or twelfth stage, the profundity of the rules he would comprehend would probably surpass that of the boundless void.

At that time, if Lin Yuan were to descend upon the boundless void again, it would be the void seeking to benefit from Lin Yuan's comprehension of the rules.

"Perhaps, countless years ago, when the secret realm creator failed to break through the ultimate realm, it wasn't just because of insufficient foundation and bad luck, but also because of the nature of the boundless void itself?" Lin Yuan speculated. At least, as far as he knew, no twelve-stage ultimate existence had ever appeared in the boundless void.

The only secret realm creator who had attempted to break through to the twelfth stage had ultimately failed, and all traces of their existence had been erased.

"But it doesn't affect me," Lin Yuan said, his expression calm. If the boundless void couldn't help him comprehend the rules anymore, he would just return to the main universe to continue his insights.

And if, one day, the main universe couldn't offer him any more insights into the rules, he would use the Gate of Myriad Worlds to travel to higher-dimensional spaces to further his understanding.

For almost all beings, their upper limits were predetermined by the world they inhabited, but Lin Yuan was different; he had no such constraints.

"A hundred years of bitter cultivation, although the speed has slowed down in the last two decades, it's still been quite fruitful overall," Lin Yuan said with a smile.

During this hundred years, Lin Yuan had focused most of his energy on comprehending the rules, and a small portion of it on tempering his Martial Ancestor's Golden Body.

With the resources of the entire boundless void at his disposal, Lin Yuan had cultivated the "Profound Yellow Body" of the Martial Ancestor's Golden Body to the perfect tenth stage.

The reason he had invested so much in the Martial Ancestor's Golden Body was that he had long considered it his permanent physical body for his sojourns in the boundless void.

Although the boundless void couldn't offer much help in terms of comprehending the rules, cultivation wasn't just about rule insights.

If Lin Yuan ever wanted to take a break from comprehending rules, the boundless void would be a good choice, and with the Martial Ancestor's Golden Body, he could immediately descend upon it and save a lot of time.

After all, cultivating the "Profound Yellow Body" to perfection had used up the resources of the boundless void and hadn't cost Lin Yuan anything personally.

"Origin Bell," Lin Yuan thought, and a small bell the size of a palm appeared floating in front of him.

Upon arriving in the boundless void, after taking control of the Martial Ancestor's Golden Body, Lin Yuan's first action was to summon this weapon that he had been nurturing all this time.

With six hundred years of uninterrupted nurturing and an endless supply of resources, the power of the Origin Bell was no less than that of any eleventh-stage secret treasure.

If used by Lin Yuan, its power would be immeasurable.

After all, the Origin Bell was something Lin Yuan had nurtured from scratch, and it was perfectly attuned to him; with just a thought, he could unleash the full power of the Origin Bell.

For the same attack, other secret treasures might require a hundred percent of their power to be driven, but the Origin Bell would only need one percent.

This was also why Lin Yuan intended to crush and transform the strange objects he had obtained from the two-dimensional world into primal forces to nourish the Origin Bell.

As long as the Origin Bell could reach the twelfth stage, it would be more helpful to Lin Yuan than ten or even dozens of twelfth-stage weapons.

A perfectly attuned weapon like the Origin Bell was already incredibly rare, to begin with.

"Numerous rules," Lin Yuan murmured, his eyes deep.

The greatest gain from this journey was the enhancement of his spiritual will.

Before his descent, Lin Yuan's spiritual will was only in the millions, but now, his spiritual will index had reached over thirty-three million.

The improvement of spiritual will was not a simple multiplication; it became increasingly difficult as one progressed.

The spiritual will index threshold for the ultimate powerhouses was eighteen million points, and the spiritual will index of perfect eleventh-stage legendary lives usually exceeded ten million points.

Could it be that the spiritual will of the ultimate powerhouses was only about one and a half times stronger than that of the perfect eleventh-stage legendary lives?

Apart from spiritual will, Lin Yuan's biggest improvement was in his comprehension of the rules.

Especially after comprehending the sixth level of the space-time fusion rule, his insights into various other fusion rules in the past hundred years had caused him to advance by leaps and bounds.

"Among the numerous pillar-level fusion rules, there are eighty-three types of fusion rules with a comprehension level of six," Lin Yuan said.

"Namely, the rules of life and death cycles, great destruction, cause and effect fluctuations, space-time fissures, endless stars, the celestial river of space-time, void tides, cosmic crevices, the five elements revolution, and space annihilation."

The sixth level of space-time fusion belonged to the realm of the ultimate powerhouses.

Even for the strongest beings, it would be challenging to simultaneously comprehend so many pillar-level fusion rules and elevate all of them to the sixth level.

The strongest beings had their own limitations on time and mental energy, which they needed to devote to their path of understanding.

In fact, with Lin Yuan's enlightenment, if he specialized in a particular pillar-level fusion rule, he could very well elevate one or two of them to the seventh level within a hundred years.

But it wouldn't be very meaningful. Without having comprehended the sixth level of spacetime fusion, elevating a pillar-level fusion rule to the seventh level would significantly enhance Lin Yuan's strength.

However, with the prerequisite of having already comprehended the sixth level of spacetime fusion, what difference would it make to have one more pillar-level fusion rule at the seventh level? Even if it could enhance Lin Yuan's strength, the improvement would not be significant.

Instead, it would be more beneficial for Lin Yuan to attain the sixth level in as many pillar-level fusion rules as possible.

This would also prepare him for understanding the chaos rule in the future.

Although he didn't know exactly how to grasp the chaos rule, according to the information Lin Yuan had gathered so far, it was clear that the more rules he comprehended, the better.

Without a sufficient number of rules grasped, it would be impossible to eventually coalesce everything, return to the origin, and transform into chaos.

In addition to the pillar-level fusion rules, Lin Yuan had also come to understand a large number of ordinary fusion rules, totaling hundreds or even thousands.

These ordinary fusion rules were mostly not Lin Yuan's intention, but rather, he stumbled upon them while trying to understand other pillar-level fusion rules.

"Now that I think about it, my tenth stage is nothing compared to the tenth stages of the countless races in the universe's starry sky," Lin Yuan shook his head slightly.

The tenth-stage evolvers of the human civilization in the main universe, as well as the tenth-stage powerhouses from the countless races, only needed to comprehend one pillar-level fusion rule to be considered Grade A tenth stage. If they could further their understanding of this rule to the second level, they would be able to challenge the eleventh stage.

But what about Lin Yuan?

The second level? Not to mention reaching the sixth level of spacetime fusion, Lin Yuan had reached the sixth level in eighty-three pillar-level fusion rules alone.

When it came to pure rule comprehension, even the most powerful eleventh-stage perfect legendary lives couldn't hold a candle to Lin Yuan.

"My current strength has improved significantly compared to a hundred years ago when I first comprehended the sixth level of spacetime fusion," Lin Yuan felt pleased.

The numerous pillar-level fusion rules that had peaked at the sixth level, working in conjunction with each other, along with Lin Yuan's control over the sixth level of spacetime fusion, unleashed a might that surpassed the singular power of the sixth level of spacetime fusion.

After examining himself, Lin Yuan turned his gaze towards the boundless void.

With his current understanding of spacetime, Lin Yuan only needed to calm his mind slightly to sense the 'luminescence' of all the martial arts cultivators in the vast void.

"Over the past hundred years, my two primordial spirits have continuously transported countless martial arts cultivators to other worlds. Now, the number of martial arts cultivators in this boundless void has exceeded that of the martial arts evolvers in the main universe," Lin Yuan thought to himself.

The main universe was far more expansive than the boundless void, and even the human civilization domain was much larger.

However, it was within Lin Yuan's expectations that the entire boundless void was now under his influence, and after six hundred years of dissemination and development, the number of martial arts cultivators had surpassed that of the martial arts evolvers.

In the domain of human civilization, countless citizens had many options, such as the other nine pinnacle evolution paths or evolution paths that were more suitable for them.

Sometimes, choosing an evolution path that suited oneself was more important than choosing a powerful one.

However, in the boundless void, martial arts was the only way, the supreme path. Naturally, all life forms would cultivate martial arts if they could, and even if they couldn't, they would still try.

"It's a pity that there aren't many high-level martial arts cultivators," Lin Yuan shook his head slightly.

This was an inevitable outcome of the rapid development of martial arts.

For any cultivation system to produce high-level powerhouses, it required a long period of time. Lin Yuan could only ensure that martial arts spread far and wide.

However, when it came to high-level martial arts cultivators, he couldn't interfere too much unless he stopped cultivating himself and personally guided these cultivators.

That would be putting the cart before the horse.

At all times, one's own cultivation should be the foundation, and spreading martial arts was ultimately for the benefit of one's own future cultivation.

"I still have one year left," Lin Yuan thought, wondering if there was anything else he needed to wrap up.

Suddenly, Lin Yuan sensed something, a spacetime fluctuation that swept through the eight directions.

"Hmm?" Lin Yuan's expression turned slightly surprised.

"Has a Fallen God reached the tenth stage?"

With a brief sense, Lin Yuan clearly identified that the Fallen God who had reached the tenth stage was none other than the Child of the Void.

The Child of the Void had been stuck at the peak of the ninth stage for billions of years, unable to take that final step. But soon after Lin Yuan's arrival, he had broken through.

Lin Yuan speculated that the Child of the Void's breakthrough might have something to do with him. Many bottlenecks and constraints required a change in mindset to be overcome.

In the main universe, the human civilization's Nalan Vice Tower Master was able to break through to the eleventh stage because she lost to Lin Yuan, who was still at the ninth stage, in a contest of their best-understood time rule.

"Interesting," Lin Yuan said as he took a step forward and disappeared from his original spot.

Deep within the Void Secret Realm.

The aura of the Child of the Void was terrifying, and the spacetime fluctuations he emitted engulfed the entire boundless void. All the Fallen Gods and True Gods who had reached the ninth stage sensed this occurrence.

"I now stand at the highest peak ever reached in the ancient and modern history of the boundless void."

A wild ambition arose in the eyes of the Child of the Void as he exclaimed, "That Martial Ancestor... I no longer need to be so intimidated by him."

Upon entering the Tenth Stage, the Child of the Void felt a surge of confidence. In his opinion, even if the Martial Ancestor was also a Tenth Stage Fallen God, his strength was probably inferior to that of the Tenth Stage Fallen Gods he knew about.

After all, according to the secret realm creator's message, an ordinary Tenth Stage Fallen God wouldn't be able to treat the Void Secret Realm as nothing.

But regardless, he was now at the same level as the Martial Ancestor.

The Child of the Void had no intention of engaging in a life-and-death struggle with the Martial Ancestor. Even among Ninth Stage Fallen Gods, direct confrontations were rare, let alone between Tenth Stage beings. Strong cultivators weren't fools; why would they risk their lives against an equal opponent?

However, in terms of status, the Child of the Void felt that he should at least strive for a higher position.

At the very least, he felt that he no longer needed to be as submissive and humble as before.

At the same time, the temporal and spatial fluctuations caused by the Child of the Void's breakthrough to the Tenth Stage also startled numerous Perfected Fallen God True Gods.

"Temporal and spatial fluctuations? Has another strong cultivator reached the Tenth Stage?"

"Is it the great Child of the Void?"

"Has the Child of the Void broken through to the Tenth Stage?"

One after another, the Perfected Fallen God True Gods were initially astonished, but soon their spirits were lifted.

After all, in recent years, they had felt quite oppressed under the pressure of the Martial Ancestor.

The Martial Ancestor was too strong, and his influence was too great. None of the Perfected Fallen God True Gods dared to defy him, and they didn't even dare to gossip about him too much behind his back.

But now, the Child of the Void had also reached the Tenth Stage.

Unlike the Martial Ancestor, the Child of the Void was at least the leader of all the Fallen Gods and True Gods. Before the Martial Ancestor had reached the Tenth Stage, all the Perfected Fallen God True Gods obeyed the Child of the Void's commands.

Compared to the Martial Ancestor, whose temperament was unknown, the Perfected Fallen God True Gods naturally hoped that the Child of the Void would reach the Tenth Stage.

"Let's go."

"We should go and congratulate the Child of the Void right now."

"The great Child of the Void is destined to continue being great forever."

All the Perfected Fallen God True Gods immediately made their way towards the location of the Child of the Void.

In a spacious grand hall, the Child of the Void sat high upon a throne, while below him were numerous Perfected Fallen God True Gods.

"Great Child of the Void, now that you've reached the Tenth Stage, your radiance will undoubtedly shine upon the boundless void, and all life will submit to you."

One by one, the Perfected Fallen God True Gods offered their extremely respectful congratulations to the Child of the Void.

The Child of the Void sat quietly on the throne, listening to these praises and flattery that he had heard countless times before. But now that he had reached the Tenth Stage, hearing them again gave him a different feeling.

"Great Child of the Void, from today onwards, we Fallen Gods no longer need to worry about that Martial Ancestor."

"Indeed, these past few hundred years have been nerve-wracking. I've always been afraid that I might offend that Martial Ancestor somehow."

"But now, with you, the great Child of the Void, here, that Martial Ancestor won't dare to go too far."

The many Perfected Fallen God True Gods soon brought up the Martial Ancestor. This was inevitable, as before the Child of the Void's breakthrough to the Tenth Stage, the Martial Ancestor had been the ruler of the boundless void.

Even the Child of the Void had to bow to his will.

But now, everything was different.

At the very least, there were now two rulers in the boundless void.

Of course, the Perfected Fallen God True Gods in the hall didn't expect the Child of the Void to really go against the Martial Ancestor for their sake.

That wasn't realistic.

But at least he could act as their solid backing.

Having the Child of the Void on their side would make the Martial Ancestor think twice and raise the status of the Perfected Fallen God True Gods.

"Rest assured," said the Child of the Void, a confident smile on his face. "Now that I've reached the Tenth Stage, I won't let any of you suffer any grievances in the future."

Before the Child of the Void could finish speaking, the surroundings fell into a silent, soundless tranquility.

This silence was absolute; even the Child of the Void, a Tenth Stage Fallen God, couldn't sense any temporal or spatial fluctuations. It was as if he had returned to the Ninth Stage, no, it felt like he was back at the weakest First Stage.

Swish.

A figure appeared silently. He looked ordinary, without any aura or energy release, but in this completely silent environment, he seemed out of place, as if he had dominion over all of space and time.

This figure was Lin Yuan.

Just by appearing, he had caused the temporal and spatial fluctuations to cease, and the Child of the Void, who had been overflowing with energy, now seemed like a tiger that had lost its teeth, struggling to even sit on his throne, cold sweat dripping down his face.

"Martial... Martial Ancestor."

The Child of the Void looked up at the Martial Ancestor towering above him. At this moment, he knew that the changes in his surroundings were caused by the Martial Ancestor. He had thought that after reaching the Tenth Stage, he would be able to match the Martial Ancestor.

But now, it seemed like a joke.

The Martial Ancestor didn't even need to lift a finger, and he was already struggling to maintain his composure. How could he claim to be on par with the Martial Ancestor?

"I see that you've reached the Tenth Stage," Lin Yuan said as he looked down at the Child of the Void, his tone calm. "So I came to offer my congratulations."

"Thank you, Martial Ancestor."

"You're too kind, Martial Ancestor."

The Child of the Void forced a smile and replied respectfully.

The many Perfected Fallen God True Gods below also sensed the complete silence of the temporal and spatial fluctuations.

However, compared to the changes in the temporal and spatial fluctuations, the conversation and attitude between the Child of the Void and the Martial Ancestor made all the Perfected Fallen God True Gods' hearts tremble.

It was as if they had fallen into an ice pit.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end