Rumble—!

The outer walls of the Garden of Eternity quaked violently as terrifying shockwaves erupted outward in concentric waves. The ground split, the air screamed, and reality itself seemed to groan under the pressure.

Dozens of Chains of Enlightenment wrapped around the Qi Sea tightened simultaneously.

The compression of a vast ocean of energy toward a single point unleashed a catastrophic backlash. Even a stray spark was enough to ignite everything it touched—forests, spirit grass, ancient trees—reducing them to ash in the blink of an eye.

Anyone not sheltered by the Seven Hand Divine Sect's formations didn't even have time to scream.

They were erased.

Rina, seated proudly atop her divine throne, let out a loud, excited cry, her feathers ruffling with exhilaration.

Cukko—!

As expected of her father.

He really was awesome.

Inside the spiritual space, the pressure intensified to a suffocating degree.

Tip.

Tip.

Sweat dripped from Wang Chen's brow—an imagined sensation, yet painfully real—as he pushed himself to the absolute limit, pouring every shred of will into the compression.

Five hundred meters.

Four hundred meters.

…

Three hundred.

Each reduction felt like forcing a collapsing star into a smaller cage. His spiritual space trembled violently, waves of backlash hammering against his consciousness.

When the Qi Sea finally shrank below one hundred meters, the world around it changed entirely.

The compressed Qi no longer resembled a liquid sea.

It became a blazing inferno.

A sea of fire so intense that it scorched the fabric of space itself, distorting light and tearing microscopic rifts into reality.

Kacha!

A sharp cracking sound echoed.

Faint fractures appeared along several Chains of Enlightenment.

The task had surpassed the realm of reason.

If it were anyone else—even Li Mei—a flawless apex-grade Golden Core would have already formed by now.

But Wang Chen was not following a normal path.

He had already compressed the Qi Sea to one-tenth of its original size.

And now came the true nightmare.

From one hundred meters…

To one meter.

The magnitude of that final step was so absurd, so inhuman, that for the first time—

A thought surfaced in Wang Chen's mind.

…Should I stop?

The pressure crushed against his will like an endless tide, whispering seductively that this was enough. That he had already achieved what no one else could.

That giving up now would still make him a legend.

For a fleeting instant—

His resolve wavered.

He was already pushed to the brink of exhaustion.

Is it even possible to go beyond this…?

The thought surfaced unbidden, heavy and treacherous.

Yet Wang Chen had no choice.

He clenched his teeth, steeled his heart, and forced himself to continue.

One hundred meters.

Seventy.

Finally—fifty meters.

The moment the Qi Sea stabilized at that mark, something inside him cracked.

This is it…

This is my limit.

I can't go any further.

The thoughts flooded in, relentless and corrosive.

Why risk it anymore?

You've already done well.

Stop now.

No one can challenge you anyway.

Even without an apex-grade core, who could possibly stand against you?

A devilish voice whispered softly inside his mind, seductive and patient, coiling around his consciousness like a snake.

It wasn't loud.

It didn't threaten.

It persuaded.

Wang Chen's jaw tightened until it trembled.

"No…"

The word barely escaped his lips.

He refused.

There had to be a way.

Blindly forcing it with brute strength was clearly no longer enough. If he continued like this, he wouldn't form a core—he would annihilate himself.

He forced his racing thoughts to slow, searching desperately for another path.

Boom—!

The world answered with violence.

Terrifying heatwaves erupted outward as the entire Garden of Eternity transformed into a hellscape. The land liquefied. Mountains collapsed into molten rivers. Seas of magma surged, swallowing everything in their path.

This was no longer nourishing energy.

This was world-ending power.

Kacha—! Kaboom—!

A colossal shockwave slammed into Wang Chen's spiritual form.

Pain unlike anything he had ever experienced tore through him. It felt as if his existence itself was being flayed apart, as though one more impact would cause his spiritual form to unravel completely.

Then—

Crack.

One of the Chains of Enlightenment failed.

It shattered into countless fragments of light.

"Damn it…!"

Wang Chen's heart sank.

The moment that chain broke, the balance collapsed.

The force compressing the Qi Sea weakened.

The tightly condensed core trembled violently—then rebounded.

Fifty meters.

Fifty-five.

Sixty.

Watching the Qi Sea expand again was like watching a lifetime of effort slip through his fingers.

Wang Chen's vision swam.

His chest tightened.

A violent spasm wracked his body.

Puh—!

A mouthful of blood spilled from his lips.

Not ordinary blood.

Soul blood.

Thick, luminous, and devastatingly precious.

"Bloody hell…"

His face drained of all color.

At this rate, everything he had endured—

The pain.

The centuries of preparation.

The impossible gamble—

All of it would dissolve into nothing.

And worse—

If the instability continued, it wouldn't just be failure.

It would be annihilation.

Think. There has to be a way out of this.

Wang Chen's mind raced, gears grinding against each other at terrifying speed—but no matter how fast he thought, no solution surfaced. Every conventional path was already exhausted.

Brute force had failed.

Endurance had failed.

Talent alone was no longer enough.

His thoughts stalled.

Then—an idea surfaced. Crude. Dangerous. Almost stupid.

…I can only try this.

Chronoblade.

He didn't know why freezing time would help. He didn't even know if it could help. But right now, reason had run out, and instinct was all he had left.

The moment he activated the Chronoblade, the world collapsed into silence.

Color drained away.

Sound vanished.

Motion ceased.

The inferno of blue flames froze mid-roar, tongues of destruction suspended like glass sculptures. The second Chain of Enlightenment—already spider-webbed with cracks—hung in place, millimeters from complete annihilation.

Time had stopped.

Wang Chen ignored everything else.

He had three seconds.

No more.

No less.

In this absolute stillness, he focused inward and commanded.

Compress.

Not with strength.

Not with force.

With will.

The Chains of Enlightenment were never tools. They were extensions of thought, crystallized intent forged from understanding. And now—after realizing that the soul itself was merely a vessel, that memory, cognition, and will were the true self—his command carried terrifying weight.

In frozen time, the chains did not hesitate.

They obeyed.

Whip—!

A faint vibration rippled through existence itself, as if the universe had noticed something it didn't approve of. Space hummed. Reality buzzed, correcting itself too slowly to stop what was happening.

The Qi Sea—still over sixty meters wide—collapsed.

Not gradually.

Instantly.

In less than a heartbeat, it shrank to under ten meters.

Wang Chen's eyes widened, shock nearly breaking his focus.

This… actually worked?!

There was no time to marvel.

He pushed harder.

Nine meters.

Five.

Three.

Then—

Kacha!

The compressed Qi Sea detonated inward, not with destruction, but transcendence.

A brilliant golden sphere ignited at its core, radiant beyond description. The raging heat vanished, replaced by profound stillness. A sacred, god-like glow washed through the Garden of Eternity, stitching torn space back together wherever it passed.

Cracks healed.

Scars vanished.

The world breathed again.

"So… beautiful…"

The words slipped from Wang Chen's lips without him realizing it.

And then—

Time resumed.

The frozen inferno shattered into motion. The universe caught up all at once, as if choking on what it had just allowed. Shockwaves thundered outward—but this time, they weren't destructive.

They were affirming.

The Golden Core had formed.

Not through brute force.

Not through luck.

But by cheating reality itself—just long enough.

And for the first time since the compression began, Wang Chen allowed himself to breathe.

The Garden of Eternity finally had a sun of its own.

Not an illusion.

Not a borrowed reflection.

But a true celestial body born from Wang Chen's Golden Core—its heart burning with True Fire.

Suspended high above the spiritual space, the newborn sun radiated gentle yet absolute authority. Its light did not scorch; instead, it defined. Wherever its golden brilliance reached, the laws of the Garden stabilized, the qi circulation became orderly, and the very fabric of the realm grew more robust, as if acknowledging a rightful ruler.

This was no ordinary sun.

It was a core of judgment, a beacon forged from compression, will, and defiance of heaven itself.

Beneath the Garden of Eternity, something else quietly took shape.

If one looked past the visible realm—past the soil, the mountains, the seas of qi—a shadowy outline could be seen forming outside the spiritual boundary. Dim, indistinct, yet unmistakably real. A second layer of existence, inverted and silent.

The Shadow Realm.

This was not yet the Nether Realm—but it was its embryo. The place where death would one day settle, where souls would cycle, where the foundations of the Nether Reincarnation Cycle would be carved into existence.

Above ruled the sun of life and order.

Below, the quiet domain of judgment and return began to stir.

At the same time, the outside world responded.

Across the Azure Dragon Continent, thousands of rivers surged violently as qi was torn from every corner of the land. Mountains trembled. Forests shuddered. Ley lines groaned as vast streams of spiritual energy were forcibly redirected, converging toward a single point—the Phoenix and Dragon Dojo.

It was as if the continent itself was paying tribute.

Wang Chen's breakthrough did not belong to him alone.

It reshaped the world.

Shockwaves rippled outward, crossing borders and oceans, reaching even the distant Phoenix Dragon Continent. In secluded peaks and ancient sect grounds thousands of kilometers away, formation arrays flared to life on their own.

Eyes opened.

Breaths hitched.

In places like the Thousand Sword Sect, old monsters rose from seclusion, their expressions dark and unreadable as they sensed the disturbance.

"A Golden Core…?"

"No… something far more dangerous."

Whatever had just been born—

The era had shifted.

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