Chapter 236: Layout

The beast Wang Shan's gaping maw was like a black hole proclaiming Termination.

Inside there was no flesh, no stench, only a pure chaos that could devour all things.

The Shadow Guard captain, before that chaos, found his earth‑shattering cultivation reduced to a joke.

His prideful late Golden Core power, the law insight he relied on for survival, and the steel will forged while slaughtering beings—all now resembled sandcastles on a beach, collapsing at the first touch of the wave called Conceptual Stripping.

"No…"

His final struggle was not a spell, not a divine ability, but a wail from the depths of his soul, filled with fear and incomprehension.

The massive mouth slowly closed.

There was no chewing sound, no bone‑cracking noise, not even a thunderous annihilation of energy.

The Shadow Guard captain's form, like an image on a projector that had been switched off, became transparent and void from the feet upward, eventually vanishing completely into that chaos.

He was "eaten".

Not a physical consumption, but an erasure of existence.

From this moment onward, it seemed as if such a person had never existed in this world.

The remaining four Shadow Guards completely collapsed.

"Captain… the captain was… eaten?" a Shadow Guard's voice trembled; his black armor could not hide the shiver emanating from his spirit.

"What is that… what exactly is it!" another shouted, "He erased the captain's 'existence'!"

"Run! Must run! Seek aid from the Holy Lord! This is not an enemy we can handle!"

Fear was the best catalyst. The instinct to survive overrode all discipline and honor. Four black silhouettes simultaneously turned into streaks of light, fleeing wildly in four different directions. They dared not even glance back at the beast, lest the beast's eyes, burning with black‑gold flame, "remember" them and then "wipe" them from this world as well.

Yet the beast Wang Shan simply stood still, making no pursuit. On his massive body, the void gaps stripped by the "Soul‑Stilling Stakes" not only failed to heal but tended to expand. Black‑gold flames flickered in his pupils, wavering.

From afar, Li Hu watched clearly, his jaw chattering.

"Lao Wang… he's about to collapse."

Zhang Mei clutched his arm tightly, her nails nearly embedding in flesh, yet Li Hu felt no pain. All his spirit was drawn to the tragic and terrifying figure at the battlefield's center.

Wang Shan won, but his victory was tragic. He was like a candle that burns itself to light the darkness; the brighter the glow, the faster it extinguishes. The astonishingly shocking "Conceptual Erasure" just now likely consumed his most fundamental life force.

"Grandfather…"

A whispered voice, trembling uncontrollably.

Wang Zhitao struggled to stand, but the previous blow had nearly drained all his strength; even moving a finger now was exceedingly difficult. He could only watch helplessly as his grandfather's figure grew increasingly unstable in the void, as if it might be completely erased like that Shadow Guard captain.

At that moment, Wang Zhize, who had remained silent, moved.

He neither looked at the fleeing Shadow Guards, nor helped his younger brother, nor even glanced at the teetering beast. He simply closed his eyes, as if he were completely cut off from the Outside World.

The simple Black Jade Slip in his hand suddenly began to glow without warning.

The light was not dazzling, yet terrifyingly deep, like a miniature black hole greedily absorbing all surrounding light and energy.

"Brother? What are you doing?" Wang Zhitao panicked, feeling an unprecedented terrifying power gathering on Wang Zhize.

Wang Zhize gave no reply.

His consciousness had already sunk into an unprecedented layer.

Through the Jade Slip, his perception was infinitely amplified; the Core of the Whirlwind Trap Zone was no longer a chaotic energy storm and twisted space in his mind. He "saw"! He saw, beneath the raging energy, the lowest‑level "Rule Network" tangled like a spider's web.

These networks, some representing "Rending", some "Distortion", some "Corrosion"... they were like the world's veins and nerves, together forming the terrifying essence of this desolate realm.

And Grandfather, using his own body as the battlefield, forcibly imposed his own "law" to overlay and rewrite the "law" here. It was a war, a war waged with "concept" as a weapon.

"Grandfather... is about to lose."

"No, we cannot lose!"

A mad thought flashed through Wang Zhize's mind like lightning.

"Resist? Why resist?"

The streams of information Grandfather had previously implanted, the obscure Array knowledge, the insights on "Distorted Law", all suddenly became clear at this moment.

The Jade Slip was not merely a tool for harnessing energy.

It was a "Port"! A port that could "communicate" with the underlying laws of this trap zone.

Grandfather taught him not how to fight, but how to... become the master of this place!

"Zhitao!" Wang Zhize snapped his eyes open, and in his pupils the same black‑gold light as the beast Wang Shan's appeared, "Give me your power! All of it!"

"Brother! You'll blow up!" Wang Zhitao exclaimed in horror. Though his "Devouring Primordial Body" was temporarily dormant, he knew better than anyone how violent that energy was.

"I trust you, and you trust me!" Wang Zhize's voice was low but carried an unquestionable resolve, "We are descendants of the Wang Family; we... are the true masters here!"

"Dammit..." Wang Zhitao gritted his teeth hard, a flash of manic determination in his eyes, "Fine! We'll die together!"

He reactivated the "Devouring Primordial Body", this time not to devour chaotically, but to channel the freshly refined, purest energy within him unreservedly toward Wang Zhize!

"Hum—"

A massive black‑gold energy torrent surged from Wang Zhitao's body, instantly linking to the Jade Slip in Wang Zhize's hand.

Wang Zhize's body shuddered violently, thin blood seeping from all seven apertures. The power was so immense it nearly burst his Meridians and soul.

Yet he did not retreat; instead he poured all his spirit into the Jade Slip.

"Using the blood of our Wang lineage as a conduit..."

His voice became ethereal and grand, as if it were not himself speaking but the very space proclaiming through him.

"Using the 'Devouring Primordial Body' as a furnace..."

The Jade Slip in his hand flared, beginning to sketch countless ultra‑intricate runes in the void. Those runes were not solid; they were twisted, precise "concepts" that, upon appearing, instantly merged into the surrounding void and vanished.

"Using the 'Whirlwind Trap' as a foundation..."

The entire massive Cave began to quake violently. The energy vortex at its Core suddenly spun faster, and the massive aberrant energy, no longer dispersing, was drawn by an invisible force, crazily converging toward Wang Zhize's location.

"Brother... what... what is he doing?" Li Hu, far away, stared dumbfounded, feeling his worldview being repeatedly crushed.

If the beast Wang Shan was the battlefield's fiercest general, and Wang Zhitao the most ferocious vanguard, then at this moment Wang Zhize was the mastermind behind the scenes, ready to overturn the entire board... the player!

"Form the array! He… he's using the whole trap area to form an array!" Zhang Mei's voice trembled with sobs; she finally understood.

This already exceeded the scope of what she could comprehend. Ordinary mortals form arrays with spirit stones and Magic Artifacts. But Wang Zhize uses laws, concepts, this entire damned extra‑dimensional space!

At that moment, the four fleeing Shadow Guards also sensed something was wrong.

"What's happening? The space… the space seems to have become 'viscous'!" a Shadow Guard shouted in terror, realizing his evasion speed was dropping sharply.

"No! It's the rules! The rules here are changing! Our magical power… is being repelled!"

"Look over there! That kid!"

They finally noticed the blood‑soaked youth radiating a god‑like aura, and the Black Jade Slip in his hand that resembled a cosmic singularity.

"He's altering the rules here! Stop him! Quickly stop him!"

The remaining shred of reason told them that if Wang Zhize completed that unknown damned thing, they would have no hope of escape.

The four acted decisively, no longer fleeing, but turning to gather and concentrate all their remaining magical power.

"Combined strike! 'Divine‑God Light'!"

Four jet‑black light pillars shot from their hands, merging in midair into an even thicker, darker, dread beam saturated with annihilating aura, which, at a speed beyond thought, rushed straight toward the eyes‑closed, array‑forming Wang Zhize!

That strike could vaporize an entire mountain in an instant, could annihilate a Nascent Soul cultivator body and spirit!

"Zhize!" Li Hu's eyes widened to the brink of tearing, and he instinctively wanted to rush forward.

But the moment he moved, a gentle yet irresistible force pressed him back. It was the giant beast Wang Shan. He remained where he stood, his blazing beast eyes calmly watching his grandson, showing no intention of intervening. That gaze was weary, yet also filled with… anticipation.

Just as the "Divine‑God Light" was about to strike Wang Zhize.

Wang Zhize's eyes suddenly snapped open!

"Array!"

He softly uttered the two words.

In an instant, the whole world seemed to have been muted.

Centered on Wang Zhize, countless black‑gold runes that had previously merged into the void suddenly flared up in unison! No longer hidden, they interwove into a massive, unparalleled three‑dimensional Array covering the entire Core Area!

This great Array seemed to become the world's new "skin".

That world‑shattering "Divine‑God Light", the instant it entered the Array's range, behaved like a bullet plunging into thick tar—its speed abruptly slowed, its brilliance dimmed sharply. The "annihilation" rule that composed it was violently torn, analyzed, and reshaped by countless twisted "concept" runes within the Array.

Finally, less than ten meters from Wang Zhize, the terrifying beam completely disintegrated in a silent distortion, turning into the purest energy particles, which the Array then unceremoniously absorbed, becoming fresh nourishment for the Array.

The four Shadow Guards, as if struck by lightning, simultaneously spewed black blood, their aura instantly withering to the extreme.

Their strongest combined strike didn't even graze the opponent's hem, and was… digested?

"What… what is this Array…"

"Impossible… such an Array cannot exist in this world!"

Wang Zhize ignored their wails. He slowly raised his hand, palm facing the giant beast whose aura had dwindled to the limit.

"Grandfather," his voice was calm and powerful, "now it's our turn."

As his words faded, the black‑gold Array that covered the entire space began to turn slowly. Vast amounts of distorted energy, after the Array's initial "sorting" and "definition", ceased raging and instead became a gentle torrent, surging toward the giant beast Wang Shan.

On Wang Shan's massive body, the "gaps" that had been permanently erased began, under the wash of this energy, to slowly… heal at a visibly rapid pace!