Chapter 624: Independence is Death

Living beings can conquer the Great Dao, just as a swimmer enjoys themselves on the surface of the water.

But once the undercurrents beneath the surface surge, a single eruption will stir up monstrous waves that sweep away everything; the once-calm surface, the swimmer's playground, can turn into a giant beast that devours lives, a dark abyss on the face of the deep!

The situation Hun Xuan is encountering is exactly this.

"Those who are good at swimming drown"—these four words reveal a phenomenon, not a truth, but this phenomenon seems to always exist, and it exists in every corner. Hun Xuan is about to be assimilated by the Great Dao of the Source Power Degraded Product, falling into becoming a Dao Slave Puppet.

He struggles hard against the assimilation of the Great Dao, and in this moment of crisis, he recovers a sliver of his mind. It is like a drowning person struggling desperately, exhausting all their strength, able to thrust their hands above the water for that brief moment, splashing continuously.

But this is merely meaningless struggling; perhaps he can struggle for a moment, but once his strength is exhausted, he will drown all the same. Rather than calling this a sliver of hope, it is more like the final flare of a dying light.

At this moment, Hun Xuan has exhausted his greatest effort.

He has awakened an object, one originally planned for use during Union with the Great Void, to ensure he would not be polluted or invaded by Calamity monsters, and even to avoid the Great Void's anger should the Great Void manifest a personality, allowing him to dodge the Great Void's wrath.

A delicate, small Bronze Ancient Box appears.

Yet this Bronze Ancient Box has an incredibly ordinary aura, with only a trace of the aura of a divine weapon or supreme treasure, and it emits no Great Dao fluctuations; it is not the manifestation of any Great Dao.

In fact, if one observes the patterns on this Bronze Ancient Box closely, one would discover how crudely made they are; many appear repeated, overlapping, or incomplete.

It is just like a genuine book versus a photocopied version, missing words and pages.

Even the rust on the surrounding surface appears quite unreliable; the aura it displays is not ancient or simple, but rather like a counterfeit, shoddy product that went to some factory for artificial aging.

Well, it is only a bit more refined than small commodities from Yiwu.

Yet Hun Xuan regards this Bronze Ancient Box as his straw to clutch at, for which he does not hesitate to abandon the defense of his own mind, struggling to shrink himself and drill into the Bronze Ancient Box.

In an instant, everything changed.

Li Heng furrows his brows. What is going on? What exactly is he doing? Why did he suddenly unfold his Heaven and Earth Dharma Form? And why did he even fuse a Source Power Degraded Product into his Heaven and Earth Dharma Form?

Could it be that he is trying to trap some enemy?

But why does he have absolutely no impression of this?

With a thought, he searches through space-time, scouring the past, present, and future, peering through Fate and Causality, incorporating countless variables into his calculations, yet he still detects nothing.

It is as if he suddenly went mad and unfolded his Heaven and Earth Dharma Form.

But is that possible? Could it be...

At this moment, hiding inside the Bronze Ancient Box, Hun Xuan glares at Li Heng with hidden resentment, never expecting that he would be forced into such a desperate situation, compelled to use this Bronze Ancient Box with its extreme side effects.

This Bronze Ancient Box, along with the Fruit Knife from the Multiverse Alliance that can sever everything, and the Strange Fire Pile that can burn everything and illuminate the Unknown, all originate from the Wuqiong Weizhi beyond the Great Void.

Counting them up, they were discovered by the Multiverse Alliance in the same batch.

And this Bronze Ancient Box has no killing power; it has only one function, which is extreme "Independence."

Hiding in a small box to form a unity, ignoring the spring, summer, autumn, and winter—once you enter this box, you are completely severed from the outside world. The ancient box also enters a state of independence; all traces of you in the outside world cease to exist, and no one can perceive you, not even a Venerable.

But the price is even more terrifying.

That is, if one stays in this Bronze Ancient Box for too long, or too many times, then the severance between oneself and the outside world will grow deeper and deeper, until finally, one crosses a critical point and is severed forever, independent forever, never again able to leave the Bronze Ancient Box and return to the Great Void.

He has used the Bronze Ancient Box to dodge fatal crises a few times before, and only this last time remains. After this time, if he uses the Bronze Ancient Box again, he will inevitably be swallowed by the Bronze Ancient Box forever, independent forever.

Perhaps the previous user died exactly this way.

To be completely, forever independent—is that not death?

Hun Xuan understands this; after all, when using these unreasonable things, paying a price is only natural. It is just like how once one uses the Strange Fire Pile to burn everything and illuminate the power of the Wuqiong Weizhi, one seems to be cursed, eventually becoming firewood for the Strange Fire Pile oneself.

He feels more regret now.

After all, he originally wanted to save the Bronze Ancient Box and this last chance for safe use for the Union with the Great Void, to avoid danger. Once he could successfully advance to Dao Lord, perhaps he could even break this power of the Bronze Ancient Box's total independence, connecting the inside and outside to explore its mysteries.

But now, having to use it here is truly a pity.

Hun Xuan calculates the time and discovers he only has one stick of incense worth of safe time; once this time is exceeded, this Bronze Ancient Box will start eating people, and he must escape as soon as possible.

However, he is not panicked.

Although there is still a Venerable enemy guarding outside, according to past experience, these enemies will feel confused by his complete disappearance, not understanding the cause and effect of the matter, and subsequently, the truth will be corrected by the Great Void due to his complete disappearance, generating some plausible memories for these enemies to eliminate their suspicion.

In this way, the enemies will naturally retreat.

Half a stick of incense has already passed; this Li Daoren should be eliminating his suspicion and leaving by now, right? After all, even if he walks out within the Bronze Ancient Box's safe time, it is very troublesome to have the Great Void correct the truth of the matter again.

For instance, there was one time he stayed in the ancient box a bit too long; although it was still within the safe time, he was directly rejected by the Great Void after walking out.

The Great Void directly refused to acknowledge his existence as a person.

Whether it was past history, present traces, future possibilities, body, soul, True Spirit, Causality, Fate, cultivation, time, or space—everything related to him was not acknowledged by the Great Void, which wanted to erase him again.

In such a situation, he did not even count as an error. He was something meaningless that should not exist!

If it were not for the help of that scale...

"Huh, what is going on? This Li Daoren is still not leaving? That shouldn't be; it's not like I haven't tested this on Venerables before. After hiding here, they would just leave like dazed geese."

Hun Xuan recovers his senses and suddenly furrows his brows.

Although hiding here provides total independence, he cannot interfere with the outside world at all, nor can he control the movement of the Bronze Ancient Box; he can only be trapped in one place at one time, which is very passive.

If he had any other choice, he would not want to use this method.

"Wait, why is his gaze looking over here!"

He is suddenly startled, and then he hears a voice.

"Found you..."