Chapter 415 - 414: The Third Wonder Vanishes, The World’s Foundations Crumble

A sound resembling a dying exhale rippled across the five continents, passing through mountains, rivers, cities, and the shattered remains of ancient formations. The enormous bubble contracted inward, its translucent surface folding into itself as though an invisible hand were crushing it. For a brief instant, the entire Exotic Realm seemed to become a brilliant sphere of multicolored light, containing the last traces of the ancient laws that had sustained it.

Then the light vanished.

The Third Wonder of the world dissolved from reality.

The transformation was so sudden that many cultivators did not immediately understand what had happened. One moment, the Exotic Realm had dominated the heavens, its shifting colors illuminating the battlefield and its Dao Fishes falling like ethereal meteors. The next, there was nothing where the ancient dimension had existed. Only the bleeding spatial rift remained, stretching across the firmament like an enormous wound that refused to close.

The remaining Dao Fishes disappeared almost simultaneously. Some had been hovering above the battlefield, while others were still descending toward the hands of desperate cultivators and demons. Their luminous bodies flickered as the laws sustaining them collapsed, and their outlines began to lose their stability. The brilliant colors that had once contained pure manifestations of the Great Dao faded into pale wisps, dispersing before anyone could seize them.

Several cultivators reacted instinctively, leaping toward the nearest disappearing fish. Their hands passed through the fading light, grasping nothing but empty air.

Others attempted to release their spiritual Qi and bind the remaining Dao essences before they could dissipate, only to discover that the surrounding laws no longer permitted such interference. The treasures that had appeared within their reach moments earlier were becoming nothing more than fading memories.

The reason was simple, yet devastating.

The Dao Fishes had existed in their extraordinary state because the Exotic Realm had provided an environment capable of sustaining their concentrated laws. Their forms were not ordinary bodies, and their essences could not remain stable indefinitely within the damaged structure of the Nine Provinces.

Once the dimension collapsed, the Dao Fishes lost the foundation that had allowed them to exist in such a concentrated state. Their disappearance was not a matter of physical destruction alone. The laws that had maintained their existence were dispersing with them.

The Third Wonder was gone, and with it vanished another indispensable component of the world’s ancient structure.

For a brief moment, an unnatural silence settled over the battlefield. Even the demons that had been fighting over the last treasures paused, their instincts warning them that something far more serious had occurred. The air felt thinner, and the pressure that had once permeated the Nine Provinces seemed to have changed in a manner that no ordinary cultivator could explain. It was as though an invisible support had been removed from beneath the world, leaving everything suspended over an abyss.

Ku Ming stood among the shattered jade tiles of the Grand Court, his crimson body covered in dust and streaks of demonic blood. The golden Buddhist aura surrounding him flickered irregularly, struggling to maintain its usual radiance under the suppression of the broken laws. His prayer beads remained tightly wrapped around one hand, but his attention had shifted entirely to the heavens. He watched the place where the Exotic Realm had disappeared, his expression growing increasingly grave.

For years beyond counting, Ku Ming had cultivated the Buddhist path while studying the relationships between karma, existence, and the fundamental laws of the universe. He had encountered ancient formations, explored forbidden ruins, and witnessed phenomena that ordinary cultivators would have dismissed as legends.

Yet the collapse of the Exotic Realm presented him with a reality that even his extensive knowledge had not prepared him to confront. He was not merely witnessing the destruction of a treasure. He was watching the foundations of the world being dismantled.

"The architecture of the universe has fundamentally changed," Ku Ming whispered.

His voice was low, but Lin Yuan and Bai Qingyue heard every word. The monk’s usual composure had not entirely disappeared, yet his expression revealed the strain of attempting to understand a disaster whose implications continued to expand with every passing moment.

His golden eyes moved across the horizon, following the faint distortions that still lingered in the atmosphere. He was searching for the spatial boundaries that had once separated the different dimensions, hoping to discover that at least some of their original structure remained intact.

Unfortunately, the signs before him offered little comfort.

Lin Yuan and Bai Qingyue stepped up beside him. Their footsteps disturbed the fragments of jade scattered across the ground, while distant explosions continued to echo from the surviving sections of the Grand Court. Bai Qingyue held the Sun Shooting Bow at her side, its dark star-iron surface cold and lifeless beneath the suppression of the world’s broken laws. The divine weapon had displayed extraordinary power during the earlier battle, but the environment surrounding them had changed so drastically that even its presence seemed quieter than before.

Lin Yuan studied the sky with a focused expression. His deep purple eyes reflected the faint light of the remaining spatial distortions, and his divine sense extended outward to examine the surrounding environment.

He could feel the restrictions pressing against his True Elemental Body, forcing his Five Great Secret Realms to operate at a fraction of their normal capacity. The laws that had once supported his cultivation were no longer responding with their former clarity, and even the spiritual Qi circulating through his meridians seemed to encounter invisible resistance.

Despite these restrictions, Lin Yuan did not allow his thoughts to become disordered. His comprehension had already reached a level that allowed him to recognize the difference between an ordinary fluctuation in the world’s laws and a fundamental change in their structure.

What he felt now was not simply the suppression of individual cultivators. The very environment that had made their cultivation possible was being altered, and the consequences would affect every living being within the Nine Provinces.

"What do you see, Master Ku?" Lin Yuan asked.

Ku Ming slowly raised one hand and pointed toward the enormous rift that stretched across the horizon. Its edges pulsed with dark purple light, and the surrounding space twisted faintly whenever energy from the Hollow Beyond leaked through. The monk watched those distortions with an expression of deep concern, as though he were examining the remains of a formation whose original arrangement had become impossible to reconstruct.

"The sky above us is no longer merely a sky, Benefactor Lin," he replied. "Look carefully at the spatial fault lines. You may notice that the distortions are no longer behaving as they did before the battle. Their movements have become smoother, but that does not mean the situation has improved. The boundaries that once forced these dimensions to remain separate are disappearing!"