Chapter 492: Ultimate Darkness

A mocking, bizarre laugh, as if stitched together from countless tiny malice and ridicule, drifted faintly yet clearly from the core Dead Silence of Zang Dao Gu Yu, a place as black as ink and increasingly boiling, resonating directly in the depths of the four beings' spiritual souls!

Swish! Swish! Swish! Swish!

Four silhouettes shrouded in twisting, writhing gray mist, like phantoms, emerged from the dark edge of the core of the ancient domain, precisely blocking the direction in which the Lord of the Red Dust and his companions were about to depart.

Four bizarre Primordial Ancestors!

Their forms were grotesque, barely retaining a humanoid outline, but their limbs were twisted, proportions distorted, and the gray‑mist‑made bodies were covered with eyes that constantly opened and closed, flashing with evil light, and mouths that oozed slime and whispered faintly.

Even the very being itself emitted a polluting, degenerate aura that made spirits uneasy and the Dark Heart clouded.

They are ominous vanguards, the personified claws of Chaos and Destruction.

"Get out of the way! You petty goblins dare to block the path?!"

The Divine Demon Immortal roared, striking first!

He had long been enraged, and now he held nothing back!

With his left hand, radiant celestial light blossomed, manifesting a sacred scene of auspicious clouds of the Zhutian and the worship of all laws.

With his right hand, demonic aura surged, gathering Chaos Lei Dian and a cataclysmic torrent of Destruction that shattered stars!

The power of the immortal and demon was not a simple addition; under a mysterious balance it became a single Divine Vanishing Light of the immortal and demon, which thundered toward one of the bizarre Primordial Ancestors!

Where it passed, the waters of the Space-Time River evaporated, leaving a brief vacuum channel!

Almost simultaneously, the Lord of the Red Dust, the Lord of the Great Thousand Divine Universe, and Tai Chu also boldly struck!

The Lord of the Red Dust commands ten thousand fathoms of red dust; his joy, anger, sorrow, love, hatred, enmity, birth, aging, illness, death… the thoughts and karmic forces of countless beings are drawn by him, transformed into a turbid, massive Red Dust Karmic River that washes everything away, surging toward another bizarre Primordial Ancestor. This river targets not the Flesh but the Dark Being's foundation and its Causality karmic retribution!

Behind the Lord of the Great Thousand Divine Universe, countless phantom worlds of the Great Thousand spun, the mighty world force and supreme laws were extracted and condensed into innumerable dazzling Great Thousand Law Divine Chains that contain the power of suppression and Purification, tearing through the Void with a clatter, interweaving into a Heaven-Earth Net that enveloped the third bizarre Primordial Ancestor.

Tai Chu then pointed his fingers together like a sword, gave a light tap toward the final bizarre Primordial Ancestor.

That tap bore no dazzling brilliance, nor any overwhelming momentum.

Only a single, extremely fine and faint strand—resembling the Tai Chu Sword Light from the time before Chaos divided and before all things were born—quietly appeared, then drifted slowly yet swiftly toward the target.

Where that sword light passed, whether the gray mist suffusing Zang Dao Gu Yu or the inherent law fluctuations of the Space-Time River, everything seemed reset or smoothed, instantly becoming exceedingly clean and primal.

It contained not Destruction but a more primordial, terrifying Dao Rhythm that returns all subsequently derived things to the origin of Tai Chu.

The four bizarre Primordial Ancestors clearly did not anticipate that the four beings guarding this place would react so swiftly, and that their strength far exceeded the Ancestors' estimates!

They were all Supreme-level terrifying beings, yet faced with this Lei Dian strike born of anger, especially Tai Chu's seemingly simple yet soul‑shaking fingertip, they instantly fell into an absolute disadvantage!

"Roar—!"

"Ugh—!!"

A painful wail and the crackling of the gray mist collapsing rang out simultaneously!

The Divine Vanishing Light of the immortal and demon instantly vaporized half of a bizarre Primordial Ancestor's body, and the remaining part was riddled with countless holes by the corrosive immortal‑demon aura.

As the Red Dust Karmic River washed over, the form of another bizarre Primordial Ancestor twisted violently, as if countless anguished human faces struggled to burst from its body, and its aura rapidly withered.

The Great Thousand Law Divine Chains, like red‑hot branding irons, locked the third bizarre Primordial Ancestor tightly; the Purification power within the chains scorched its gray mist into a boil, eliciting continual wails.

And the bizarre Primordial Ancestor struck by Tai Chu's fingertip Tai Chu Sword Light could not even utter a full wail.

The moment that sword light touched its surface, its body—made of chaotic laws and ominous matter—behaved like a block of ice thrown into a scorching furnace: it melted and returned to void from the point of contact, not destroyed but forcibly reverted to the disordered primordial state that existed before its formation, vanishing completely!

The entire process was terrifyingly silent.

In a single glance, the four blocking bizarre Primordial Ancestors were gravely wounded, their combat power reduced to less than a tenth of a percent!

Yet, even after such severe damage, the eyes scattered across their shattered bodies showed not fear but a near‑manic, twisted excitement.

One of the least damaged bizarre Primordial Ancestors, struggling, let out a broken yet clear hoarse laugh:

"Ho... hoho... even now... trying to stop... it's useless..."

"The great... bizarre source... has already begun... to revive..."

"Your struggle... is merely... adding a bit of... amusement to this feast..."

The Lord of the Red Dust, the Divine Demon Immortal and the others heard this and felt a sudden heaviness in their hearts.

They continued their assault, completely eradicating the four bizarre Primordial Ancestors before them, while their Divine Sense rushed swiftly toward every corner of the Space-Time River.

Indeed!

The darkness at the core of Zang Dao Gu Yu boiled, and the anomalous aura erupting from several distant nodes, though temporarily slowed by their Lei Dian strike, had already formed a subtle yet solid resonant link between them!

That link was like a lit fuse, transmitting some signal or coordinate toward deeper, more unpredictable realms!

What made their faces turn sourer was that they clearly sensed that, whether in Zang Dao Gu Yu or those nodes, the root of the anomalies—or their ultimate direction—did not lie entirely within the Space-Time River itself!

The ultimate convergence of that resonance, the source of terror that sent a shiver of bone‑cold ice through their spiritual senses, faintly pointed to the ultimate forbidden land—far deeper than the Space-Time River—deep within the No Return Path!

"The purpose of those node anomalies and the emergence of the bizarre Primordial Ancestors… is to delay! To delay our march to support the No Return Path!" the Lord of the Great Thousand Divine Universe suddenly understood, his voice cold.

Tai Chu's eyes also flashed with comprehension and gravity: "Make a sound in the east, strike in the west; covertly cross Chen Cang. Clever scheme. The Bian Huang pressure is a ruse, moving Ye Shengyuan and his group and triggering node anomalies is the first step, delaying us is the second… the true killing move and purpose have likely already been set in motion deep within the No Return Path."

Meanwhile, the three Ye ancestors battling in the Bian Huang against Yongye Zunzhu and others seemed to sense the Space-Time River's upheaval, attempted to withdraw, but were tightly entangled by the Three Sovereigns of the Other Shore, Supreme, unable to break free!

"Damn it!" the Divine Demon Immortal cursed, the immortal‑demon aura roared violently, blasting the dying bizarre Primordial Ancestor before them into pure void.

Just as the four, at breakneck speed, completely eradicated and killed the remaining three heavily wounded bizarre Primordial Ancestors—

Above the Space-Time River, the resonant fluctuations of Zang Dao Gu Yu and those nodes suddenly surged to a peak!

Immediately thereafter, an indescribable aura of ultimate terror and ultimate despair, as if from the end of all things and the terminus of hope, spread slowly yet inexorably from the deep of the No Return Path, like a slumbering world‑ending Demon God finally opening its eyes, permeating through layer upon layer of Space-Time Barriers, resonating clearly in the hearts of every being!

"It's done! Hahaha!!" the last bizarre Primordial Ancestor, completely erased by the Red Dust Karmic River, let out a final shrill scream of ecstatic release before vanishing.

All four bizarre Primordial Ancestors were utterly exterminated.

Yet the Lord of the Red Dust, the Divine Demon Immortal, the Lord of the Great Thousand Divine Universe, and Tai Chu showed no trace of victorious joy on their faces, only an extremely grim, unsightly expression.

They stood at the edge of Zang Dao Gu Yu, gazing at the anomalous wave that, though its guide was gone, had formed resonance and pointed toward the No Return Path, their hearts filled with raging fury.

They had guarded here, believing it impregnable, yet did not anticipate the opponent's far‑reaching scheme, which cleverly used the Bian Huang's battles to maneuver, coordinated on many fronts, ultimately allowing the ominous plot to succeed at its crucial juncture!

Tai Chu's gaze was abyssal, piercing layer upon layer of illusion, as if trying to grasp the precise source of that ultimate terror; he spoke in a deep voice, each word weighing a thousand pounds: "The ultimate source of that aura just now… clearly points to… the deepest part of the No Return Path."

The Divine Demon Immortal and the Lord of the Great Thousand Divine Universe, upon hearing this, wore expressions even more gravely solemn.

No Return Path, that is the ultimate battlefield, and also the place of the greatest secret and crisis.

Lord of the Red Dust quickly calmed down, rapidly analyzed and said: "The dramatic changes here, the node anomalies, the strange ancestor's obstruction… now it seems all are superficial ruses, meant to attract our attention, drain our power, delay our time. The true storm center, birthing the greatest conspiracy and disaster… has always been No Return Path! We are being held here!"

"These chain schemes, these sacrificial nodes, the sacrifice of the strange ancestor's hand…" the divine demon immortal murmured, eyes flickering with uncertain astonishment, "Could it be… that this is the prelude to the legendary… Ultimate Darkness that has been drawn forward…?"

That speculation seemed to freeze the surrounding air.

Ultimate Darkness is the world‑ending scythe hanging over all beings of Zhutian Wanjie, including these WorldShatteringExistence above their heads.

Just as the four felt heavy‑hearted, rapidly contemplating how to respond, whether to force a breakthrough of any possible subsequent obstacles, and rush toward No Return Path—

Whoosh—

Not far away, the waves of the Space-Time River suddenly surged in a strange rhythm, not due to anomalies or battle, but as if a gentle yet powerful force was actively pushing them aside.

An elderly figure, clad in a plain gray Dao robe, with all hair white and a simple, kind visage, yet now his brows were shrouded in an impenetrable layer of anxiety and sorrow, stepped with slightly hurried strides from the downstream side of the river, parting the waves and rushing forward.

He was surrounded by a profound, deep Dao Rhythm that seemed capable of deducing heavenly mechanisms and perceiving the trajectories of all changes, yet at this moment the Dao Rhythm appeared somewhat chaotic and unstable.

"Hmm?" Lord of the Red Dust was the first to notice, turned his head, a hint of surprise in his eyes, "You… Jiang Tianyan, Daoist companion?"

The newcomer was none other than the ancestor of the Jiang Clan in the Xuanhuang World, famed throughout Zhutian for his calculations, who achieved the invincible Supreme of the Great Derivative Heavenly Dao… Jiang Tianyan!