Projection of the Heavens: I prove my immortality through slaughter.

Night falls in the northern foothills medicinal herb garden, utterly silent. The moonlight is obscured by thick clouds and mist; only the rustling of the mountain wind through the leaves of the herbs whispers like nature's gentle voice. The occasional distant roars of wild animals echoing from the forests further accentuate the profound and ethereal nature of this place.

Inside the stone house, a single lamp flickered dimly. Lin Xuan was not cultivating the "Star River Qi Refining Technique" as usual. He sat cross-legged on the simple futon, his figure appearing exceptionally upright in the faint light.

His eyes were slightly closed, his breathing was long and deep, and his mind was as calm as a still well. However, his consciousness was like a bowstring ready to be released, highly focused, carefully communicating with the two black auxiliary tokens that were quietly suspended in the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness and emitted a deep luster.

It has been some time since I returned from the Tianyuan Realm. My physical cultivation has broken through to the sixth level of Qi Refining, and my divine soul has also grown much stronger due to the baptism of the world's origin and the continuous nourishment of the power of faith.

He vaguely sensed that his connection with the mysterious token was becoming closer and more intuitive, and his control over the mysterious "projection" ability seemed to have also increased slightly.

"It's time," Lin Xuan murmured to himself. He needed more resources to accelerate his cultivation, broader knowledge to solidify his foundation, and the ability to draw nourishment from all the heavens and myriad worlds to enrich his "Dao."

Although the Tianyuan Realm was wonderful, allowing him to experience the wonders of faith and the origin of the world, it was ultimately a low-level martial arts world that primarily relied on internal energy, offering relatively limited benefits for cultivating immortality, refining qi, and comprehending the laws of heaven and earth. He yearned to explore more diverse, unique, and even vastly different worlds to validate and expand his path of cultivation.

Thoughts, like the most delicate tentacles, gently touched the two auxiliary tokens that seemed to carry the endless starry sky, with a mixture of probing and anticipation.

"Buzz—!"

A resounding echo, seemingly from the depths of his soul, rang out, clearer and louder than before! The complex and twisted patterns on the surface of the two tokens seemed to be infused with life, slowly flowing and writhing, emitting an increasingly profound, dark light that seemed to devour all light, illuminating his sea of ​​consciousness in a hazy state.

A suction force, far greater and more overwhelming than during the initial projection, yet seemingly slightly "tamed" because of his power, emanated from the central vortex of the token and precisely acted upon his core consciousness.

Having learned from his previous experience of traversing time and space, Lin Xuan remained vigilant but no longer felt the initial apprehension. He discarded distracting thoughts and actively guided his highly condensed consciousness, no longer resisting but instead yielding to the immense suction force, like a stream flowing into the sea, resolutely plunging into the raging vortex of time and space composed of countless distorted rays of light, broken laws, and colorful scenes.

In an instant, the world spun, and light and shadow shattered! Countless incomprehensible fragments of color and information, like a flood bursting its banks, assaulted his senses. A massive spatial tearing force attempted to rip his consciousness apart, while a chaotic flow of time tried to confuse his perception.

However, this time, Lin Xuan's powerful divine soul played a crucial role. His consciousness, like a small boat adrift in a raging storm, though violently tossed about, maintained a core of clarity. He could even barely catch glimpses of fleeting fragments of the world rushing past in this dizzying torrent of chaos—

He saw giant steel ships arrayed in the boundless sea of ​​stars, spewing out scorching beams of light powerful enough to annihilate stars, and the explosions blazing like supernovae.

He saw a giant dragon with wings on its back roaring among the ancient mountains shrouded in clouds, its breath colliding violently with the magical shields rising from the ground, causing the elemental tides to surge and swell.

He also saw cold metal and writhing flesh strangely fused together, and indescribable creatures suspended in the huge culture tank, shimmering with the spiral light of their genetic chains...

These fragmented scenes of the world were bizarre and beyond his imagination, but they were fleeting.

Finally, that mysterious force seemed to have found a clear target, suddenly intensified, and abruptly pulled his consciousness out of this chaotic kaleidoscope, firmly casting it toward a world coordinate that exuded an extremely dense aura of death, decay, corruption, and darkness!

……

It was icy cold, bone-chillingly cold, as if even thoughts were being frozen.

Stiff and rigid, like a fossil buried in permafrost for millions of years, every thought is extremely difficult to form.

Decay permeated the air, a stench of decay that seeped into the very soul—the smell of the end of all things.

This was Lin Xuan's first feeling after his consciousness, having endured the turbulence of time and space, finally "landed" again and regained consciousness.

He "opened" the eyes of this new body, which burned with a ghostly blue soul fire. What came into view was an endless, desolate, and bleak plain filled with despair. The sky was an unchanging, oppressive leaden gray, devoid of sun, moon, and stars, only heavy clouds that seemed to press down on the ground, unable to pierce through a single ray of life.

The earth was parched and cracked, littered with the stark white skeletons of various creatures, even humanoid beings, and rusted fragments of weapons and armor, as if a devastating apocalyptic war had just ended here.

The air was thick with the stench of corpses, sulfur, and a deeper, underworldly aura, enough to drive any living being's senses to madness and mental breakdown.

Deathly silence is the only dominant theme here. Even the sound of the wind sounds like the wailing of departed souls.

He tried to sense and control this new "body".

A tall body wearing tattered black metal armor, covered with marks from sword cuts and mottled dark red rust.

Beneath the armor lay thick, hard muscles that had long since withered and shriveled, leaving only pale bones connected by tough tendons.

When the joints moved, they made a teeth-grinding "creaking" sound, as if the body might fall apart at any moment. What flowed through his body was not the spiritual power or internal force he was familiar with, but a cold, deathly, heavy, yet strangely vibrant and orderly gray energy flow—this was pure death power, the very foundation that sustained the existence of this undead body.

At the same time, fragmented, chaotic, and negatively charged memories belonging to the original owner of this body flooded into his consciousness like a tidal wave:

An undead creature... a low-ranking death knight... belonging to a legion under the Lich King named "Kel'Thuzad"... participating in the Scourge that swept across the entire continent of Azeroth... during a fierce siege, his head was smashed by a human paladin whose entire body shone with blinding holy light, using a massive warhammer infused with divine power...

My memories end here, leaving only endless darkness and cold.

"A world filled with the undead and dark magic... and I, a low-ranking death knight who has just 'died' in battle..." Lin Xuan (projected consciousness) quickly digested this information and began to adapt to this extremely unfamiliar body.

He looked down at his own hands, covered in rusted scales and reduced to pale bones. He felt little fear or disgust, but rather a strange urge to explore. Having experienced true life and death, having traversed different universes, the body of a dead person was, in his eyes, merely another form of life vessel, a perfect vessel for experiencing the rules of different worlds.

He attempted to mobilize the cold, stagnant power of death within his body. Initially, it was quite difficult; the nature of this energy was completely opposite to the stellar spiritual energy he was familiar with, and its operation was also vastly different. However, his powerful divine sense and profound understanding of the nature of energy allowed him to quickly grasp the key. He no longer tried to force a change, but instead began to understand its grammatical structure, like learning a new language.

With a slight thought, she carefully guided a wisp of dark, cold energy along a certain instinctive path inherent to this body, converging towards the white bone fingertip.

At first, the energy was somewhat scattered, but soon, under his precise control, a wisp of solidified, icy-cold gray-black energy, like a docile venomous snake, coiled and swirled around his fingertips.

"It is filled with the meaning of ending, annihilation, and returning to nothingness... It is the complete opposite of the vitality, creation, and vastness of the stellar spiritual power." He carefully experienced and analyzed this power of death, like a rigorous scholar.

"Interesting. If I could understand the mysteries of these two extreme forces, it would be of immeasurable benefit to my understanding of the great Dao of Yin and Yang, the cycle of the universe."

He raised his head, the ghostly blue flames of his soul flickering in his empty eye sockets, scanning the desolate wasteland—a place known as the "Plagueland."

In the distance, shadowy figures wandered aimlessly—these were lower-ranking skeletons and clumsy ghouls.

Further into the mist, there seemed to be entities emanating even stronger death energy, such as floating ghosts and enormous stitched-together abominations.

This is a world completely ruled by death, where the living are forbidden.

"When in Rome, do as the Romans do. In this world, cultivate with the power of this world and act according to the rules of this world." Lin Xuan steadied himself and clarified his goal.

He needs to delve into the laws of this world, acquire its unique resources (perhaps a powerful soul fire, or a treasure containing the rules of death), and even... attempt to analyze and master the deep mysteries of the power of death, to see if it can resonate with his own Path of the Stars.

He strode forward with heavy, bone-and-metal steps, his footsteps echoing crisply on the cracked earth and broken bones, a sound particularly clear in this desolate place. He walked resolutely toward a direction where, in his divine sense, the energy of death was relatively denser and purer.

He hadn't gone far when a group of aimlessly wandering skeleton soldiers spotted him, their "kin." These lowest-ranking undead creatures, with faint, almost extinguished soul flames flickering in their eye sockets, relied on their instinctive thirst for the living (even though Lin Xuan was now also an undead). They let out silent roars, brandishing rusty swords and broken bone shields, and staggered as they launched an attack on him.

Lin Xuan stopped and calmly watched the group of skeletons staggering towards him. He raised his right hand, covered in tattered armor plates, again. This time, he more skillfully channeled the power of death, following a rudimentary energy trajectory used for attack from the fragments of memory within this body, and swung it forward with a mighty swing!

"laugh--!"

A crescent-shaped, gray-black blade of energy, composed of highly condensed death power, flew out like a reaping scythe from the underworld, whistling through the air as it precisely swept across the charging horde of skeletons!

"Snap! Snap! Snap!..."

The crisp cracking sounds rang out one after another, like popping beans! Seven or eight skeleton soldiers were instantly cut in half at the waist by this blade of death, their rotten bones scattering all over the ground. The faint flames of their souls, like candles blown out by the wind, dimmed and went out in an instant, turning into the most primal death energy.

The power of death, used in actual combat for the first time, had an unexpectedly good effect, carrying a crisp and clean aesthetic of destruction.

At the same time, Lin Xuan could clearly feel that as he annihilated these skeleton soldiers, their faint yet pure soul essence and death aura were instinctively drawn to his death knight body, like rivers flowing into the sea, and were automatically absorbed into him. The death power within his body, which had been somewhat weak, suddenly solidified and strengthened, and even his withered bones seemed to gleam with a barely perceptible dark light.

"Devouring souls, plundering death energy to strengthen themselves... Is this the most fundamental way of evolution for undead creatures? The law of the jungle plays out nakedly in this land of the dead." He pondered, gaining a deeper understanding of this cruel and direct rule.

He did not linger, continuing his solitary journey through this vast and dangerous land of death, like a lone explorer. He encountered and casually annihilated many low-level undead blocking his path, and, relying on his powerful divine sense, he avoided several powerful gatherings of deathly auras that even he found extremely threatening.

In this process, he continuously familiarized himself with and optimized his techniques for using the power of death, and consistently analyzed and understood the essence and operational laws of this power from the high-dimensional perspective of a cultivator. He discovered that the power of death was not simply about destruction and annihilation; at its core, it seemed to contain a profound sense of rules and concepts about "order returning to chaos" and "existence moving towards nothingness."

Several days later (roughly estimated based on the natural consumption and replenishment cycle of the death power within his body), he arrived before a breathtaking sight—a massive mountain of bones composed of countless various kinds of skeletons piled up like mountains! The bones of humans, orcs, elves, and even various giant monsters were piled up haphazardly, forming a continuous stretch of pale hills, exuding a soaring resentment and deathly aura.

Deep within the Bone Mountain, there seemed to be a powerful vortex, emanating an invisible attraction that drew all the undead from the surrounding area toward it.

At the same time, Lin Xuan's keen senses also told him that a pure, vast, and even ancient source of death energy was hidden in the deepest part of this skeleton mountain range.

There, perhaps he would find what he needed, perhaps an opportunity, or perhaps a great danger.

Standing at the foot of the Bone Mountain, Lin Xuan gazed up at this spectacle formed from piles of death, his eerie blue soul flame burning steadily without hesitation. He took firm steps, embarking on the perilous path made of countless white bones, leading to the unknown and the depths of opportunity.