367: Welcome to the Tomb of the Epochs

That black cube, which devoured everything, traversed through the endless void.

It did not tear space, nor did it distort light.

It simply existed, then moved, as if the Universe itself was making way for it.

It was unknown how much time had passed.

It could have been an instant, or it could have been eternity.

When the suffocating feeling of imprisonment slowly faded, the cube dissolved soundlessly.

Lin Fan's Clone was thrown out from that absolute void.

He stumbled, falling onto a cold, hard floor.

What constituted the ground was neither rock nor metal.

It was a crystalline substance presenting an eerie bone-white color, engraved with countless runes of civilizations long dead.

The Clone raised his head disheveledly, playing the part of a prisoner with the appropriate terror and bewilderment.

His breathing stalled.

Or rather, in this place, the concept of 'breathing' itself seemed redundant.

There was no sky.

Above his head was an infinite, deep-to-the-point-of-madness dark red Chaos.

Within that Chaos, there were no stars, no sun, and no moon.

There were only the corpses of planets, so massive they defied description, floating there silently like tombstones.

Some planets were split down the middle, exposing cores that had long since cooled and solidified.

The surfaces of some planets were covered in vitrified crystals, traces of being instantly incinerated by some unimaginable high temperature.

Further away was a broken planetary ring, still bearing the ruins of urban clusters, like a gargantuan cosmic necklace that had been torn apart and discarded at will.

This was a graveyard of a Universe.

A cemetery of an epoch.

"Tsk."

Deep within the Command Hall, Lin Fan's original body, sharing senses through the Clone, let out a silent sigh of admiration.

What a grand scale.

To directly use a dead Universe as their base, these fellows from the Anomaly Elimination Alliance sure know how to recycle waste.

On the surface, he maintained the Clone's fear, his body trembling slightly due to 'weakness' and 'shock.'

Internally, however, he was like a hacker entering a server's backend for the first time, scanning everything around him with a greedy and excited gaze.

The fundamental rules of space here were shattered.

The flow of time was also completely different from the outside world.

Permeating the air was not Spiritual Qi, but a massive energy mixed with death, finality, and countless resentments.

To any Cultivator, this was lethal poison.

But to Lin Fan, who possessed the authority to 'Tamper with Rules,' this place was practically a buffet.

These ownerless, broken rule fragments and this vast death energy were excellent nutrients to replenish his 'existence value.'

Just then.

A series of uniform footsteps, precise as machinery, approached from not far away.

The Clone looked toward the sound in 'terror.'

A squad of soldiers, entirely encased in gray armor, was walking toward him.

The long halberds in their hands shimmered with a light of extinction; just a single glance caused the Clone's Divine Soul to feel a pang of pain.

The soldiers' armor concealed their entire forms and faces.

Only two eyes were exposed.

They were not the eyes of the living.

Hollow, numb, without any emotional fluctuation.

Like two bottomless dry wells, they reflected no light.

"Not fanatics."

Lin Fan's original body instantly made a judgment.

"They are Puppets."

These soldiers were more like walking corpses controlled by some kind of power.

Two soldiers stepped forward, flanking him, and gripped the Clone's arms with cold metal hands.

The force was so great that the Clone's bones let out a groan of being overburdened.

He was roughly dragged toward the center of this massive plaza.

On the plaza, some other 'prisoners' were scattered and detained.

They were of various forms.

Some were humanoid, some were beast-like, and there was even a singular lifeform whose body was pure energy.

Without exception, they all radiated the terrifying pressure of the Immortal Rank, along with unmasked violence and defiance.

It seems I am not the only 'Anomaly' who was 'invited.'

Lin Fan understood clearly in his heart.

"Let me go!"

A giant prisoner, burning with golden flames like a god, let out an earth-shattering roar.

"Mere ants, how dare you touch the body of a god!"

Boom!

Terrifying golden divine fire erupted from his body, instantly swallowing the two soldiers holding him.

However, within the divine fire, not even the armor of those two soldiers melted in the slightest.

They merely paused in their movements.

In the distance, a Gray Armored Soldier who looked like an officer slowly raised his hand.

His movement was very light, without a hint of aggression.

Hum.

On the forehead of the roaring flame giant, an eerie gray rune, like a brand, emerged without warning.

The moment the rune appeared, the flame giant's roar stopped abruptly.

All the expressions on his face froze.

Within those pupils burning with divine fire, for the first time, an emotion called fear surfaced.

Immediately after, an indescribable suction force erupted from that gray rune.

The flame giant's body began to shrivel at a speed visible to the naked eye.

His vast vitality, his divine fire that could burn stars, his immortal Divine Soul... everything was swallowed clean by that small gray rune within a single breath.

Poof.

A soft sound.

The once invincible flame giant turned into a handful of fine gray dust, scattering with the wind.

Not even a trace was left behind.

The entire plaza fell into a dead silence.

The defiance and violence in all the prisoners' eyes were replaced by a bone-chilling coldness.

The Clone perfectly displayed extreme horror, his body shaking like a leaf in the wind.

Meanwhile, in the Command Hall.

Lin Fan's original body narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Shackle of the Soul..."

He saw it clearly.

That wasn't simple devouring, but a higher-level rule-based weapon.

It directly acted upon the target's 'existence' level, completely draining their Origin and turning it into the purest energy to power the operation of this dead Universe.

Good stuff.

If I can figure out the principles of this thing and then use my authority to tamper with it... A curve that went unnoticed by anyone formed at the corner of Lin Fan's mouth.

Just then, through the Clone's eyes, he keenly captured a detail.

When that flame giant turned into fly ash.

Deep within the hollow eyes of those numb, Puppet-like Gray Armored Soldiers, a trace of fear flashed extremely obscurely.

Though it was only for an instant.

Lin Fan was certain he hadn't seen it wrong.

They weren't true Puppets.

They were living human beings.

Their consciousnesses were imprisoned within their own bodies, forced to become slaves of the 'Shackle of the Soul,' watching helplessly as they turned into the very version of themselves they once hated most.

A wild idea sprouted in Lin Fan's mind.

At this moment, the Gray-Armored Officer who had ordered the execution of the flame giant turned his gaze toward Lin Fan's Clone.

He seemed very interested in this 'new recruit' who appeared to be the weakest and most pathetic.

He set off, walking over slowly.

Every step he took felt like stepping on the hearts of all the prisoners, bringing a suffocating pressure.

Finally, he stopped in front of 'Lin Fan.'

He reached out his hand, holding an ancient-looking branding iron.

The tip of the branding iron was burning with a gray flame identical to the rune from before.

Cold, deathly silent.

It wasn't a flame on a physical level, yet it made the Clone's Soul feel a piercing pain as if it were about to be scorched through.

The Gray-Armored Officer raised the branding iron, aiming it at the Clone's forehead.

That terrifying energy, sufficient to completely evaporate even a Divine Soul, came rushing at him.