After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

Zhou Ran exerted force with his feet, and the primordial energy and blood sank into his feet, firmly rooting him to the ground.

He looked around; the environment was all too familiar to him.

Isn't this the virtual world?

Compared to the true virtual world, this place lacks the boundless chaos.

In this region where planes overlap.

The physical laws of Earth are diluted to a minimum here.

By the faint silver light, everyone finally saw the full extent of the hollow.

There are no murals or reliefs on the hundred-foot-high cliff.

There were only crisscrossing, bottomless ravines.

The cut surface is as smooth as a mirror, and each section is tens of meters long.

Fatty Wang finally managed to steady himself, peeked out, and his eyes were stung so badly that tears streamed down his face.

Close your eyes.

Those are sword marks.

Zhou Ran reminded him in a deep voice.

More than four thousand years later, the sword intent on the rock wall has not dissipated.

Each sword mark contains the supreme Daoist essence capable of shattering the void; if an ordinary person were to look at it for too long, their soul would be shattered.

Zhou Ran felt a burning sensation erupt from the Qilin bone in his left arm.

A deep resonance within his bloodline confirmed the origin of these marks.

Four thousand years ago, Li Chengfeng single-handedly fought against a terrifying monster that crossed over from another realm here.

The sword marks on the rock face are irrefutable evidence of that epic battle.

Everyone looked towards the center where the sword marks intersected.

An octagonal white jade altar floats in the very center of the hollow.

Around the altar, nine thick, purplish-black iron chains, each as thick as a water vat, were nailed into the void, their surfaces covered with suppressing runes that slowly rotated.

At the point where the nine chains intersect, a fist-sized, grayish-white bone floats in the air.

It has no flesh and blood, but is covered with natural textures.

It expands and contracts, producing a rhythmic sound.

thump,

thump--

This is the source bone.

The core divine object that completes the final piece of the puzzle of "The Great Wilderness Overlord Body Technique".

But Zhou Ran's gaze did not linger on the source bone.

His purple-gold demonic eyes were fixed on the shadows below the altar.

There were three things standing there.

Three gray-black phantoms, clad in tattered armor and bound by chains of dead souls.

Unlike the patrolling demon he had just smashed with his knee, these three Yin generals were much stronger, their armor had denser runes, and they exuded a stronger aura of death.

They remained kneeling, motionless.

It is not about kneeling before the source bone.

They knelt before the empty space behind the altar.

Looking directly below the source bone, a crack hundreds of meters long had been torn open beneath the altar.

Deep within the crack, there was no soil or water, only a desolate, ghostly silhouette of a starry sky.

Countless skeletons floated in the empty starry sky.

Some are thousands of feet long, like winding mountain ranges;

Some resembled half-collapsed cities.

This is exactly the same as what I saw when I entered the Void Realm at Longhu Mountain that day.

The Graveyard of the Gods.

Each of these ruins bears witness to the rise and fall of a civilization.

Gray mist churned around the edge of the crack, attempting to erode the white jade altar, but was repeatedly pushed back into the abyss by the suppressive power of the source bone.

Aning's breathing became increasingly rapid.

She stared intently at the pulsating bone, the clarity in her eyes fading, replaced by a morbid fanaticism.

She dropped the folding spatula and her legs moved forward uncontrollably.

Zhou Ran let out a very heavy, cold snort from his nose.

The Great Sun Tathagata's Purification Mantra struck Aning's mind like a thunderbolt.

Ah Ning shuddered and collapsed to the ground.

"What happened? I just... I couldn't control myself."

She was breathing heavily, her voice trembling with tears.

"You have been implanted with psychological suggestion."

The caster has etched the command into your subconscious; if you see the Source Bone, you will stop at nothing to steal it.

Aning was stunned.

The employer said that bringing back the source bone would break the curse, but she never imagined that she had a time bomb planted in her mind.

Zhou Ran put his hands in his pockets and circled around A Ning for half a turn.

Aning is nothing more than a flesh-and-blood compass used to detect minefields and locate positions.

"Senior Li truly has a great spirit."

He used his own bone as a lock to seal this hole for over four thousand years.

His tone turned cold, and his golden demonic eyes locked onto the shadowy area behind the altar.

"Come out."

How long are you planning to hide?

The silence lasted for three seconds.

The space behind the altar distorted like ripples on water.

Applause came from the void.

"Slap, slap, slap."

A blond, blue-eyed white man in a custom-made suit floated out of the distorted space, his feet dangling in the air.

Behind him followed six experts shrouded in black robes, exuding an aura of death from the underworld.

The three kneeling underworld generals rose at the same time and consciously retreated to the sides of the white man, lining up like guards.

A general of the underworld rebels became a henchman for a foreigner in the mortal realm.

The white man hovered in mid-air, looking down at Zhou Ran with a smile on his lips.

"As expected of Zhou Ran, who caused us a great loss in Jiangcheng."

"Your intuition is so sharp, sensing the folds in my space, it's almost enviable."

"Let me introduce myself, Richard, S-class executive of the Saint Radiance Foundation."

Zhou Ran didn't reply.

Richard tilted his head, as if examining a corpse.

"You think you found this place because of luck?"

He held up one finger and waved it upwards.

"Feng Bancheng 'accidentally' unearthed the entrance to the Taihuang Tomb in Mangshan, and 'just happened' to find you with the bone fragments."

Before you searched Davis's soul in Jiangcheng, he 'just so happened' to retain fragmented information about the Paradise and the Ancient Tomb in his mind.

Richard smiled.

"Zhou Ran, I arranged all of this."

From the moment Feng Bancheng first knocked on the door of your manor, every step you took, every brick you trod on, has been on my chessboard.

Zhou Ran's expression remained unchanged.

"Are you done talking?"

"no."

Richard's smile faded, and his gaze fell on Zhou Ran's left arm.

"Do you know why it has to be you?"

He pointed to the suspended source bone.

"Li Chengfeng used his own primordial bone as the sealing key."

For four thousand years, countless people have tried to uproot it, including our allies in the underworld.

But this thing only recognizes the bloodline of the Primordial Era.

Richard lowered his voice by half a octave.

"Only on the entire planet Earth do you have blood that originates from it."

Only your hands can pull it out.

Zhou Ran finally moved.

He tilted his head, and the light in his demonic eyes flashed for a moment.

"and then?"

"Then the crack will be completely unrestrained."

Richard opened his arms, as if embracing the desolate starry sky.

"The areas where planes overlap will expand outwards from here as the center. The boundaries between the Underworld, the Void Realm, and the Yang Realm will become increasingly blurred, until—"

"Until the rules completely collapse."

Zhou Ran finished speaking for him.

Richard clapped.

"clever.

So you see, I don't need to kill you.

All I need is for you to stand before that bone and extend your hand. The rest, your bloodline will take care of for me.

Zhou Ran's lips curled slightly.

He really wanted to extract that piece of source bone.

But who says that after the chessboard is removed, it will still belong to Richard?

"You went through all this trouble just to ask me to open a bottle for you?"

Zhou Ran took both hands out of his pockets and flexed his knuckles.

"Okay."

"But can you afford the corkage fee?"