Chapter 427 The Barrier Realm Opens, Lin Yuan’s Suppressed Cultivation Returns

Lin Yuan turned his head slightly toward her. He did not attempt to dissuade her or offer empty assurances that the journey would be safe.

Bai Qingyue had never been someone who needed to be protected from every danger. He knew that treating her as fragile would only insult the determination she had demonstrated throughout their journey.

Instead, he reached for her hand and held it briefly. The gesture was simple, yet the warmth between them remained untouched by the chaos surrounding the Grand Court.

Whatever awaited them in the Barrier Realm, neither intended to face it alone.

Emperor Tianxu studied the pair in silence. In Lin Yuan, he saw a cultivator who could examine a hopeless situation without allowing fear to distort his judgment.

In Bai Qingyue, he saw a woman whose fortune seemed to move in harmony with the changing circumstances of the world. Together, they represented a possibility that his own calculations had failed to produce.

"Go," Tianxu commanded at last, his voice recovering a fraction of its former imperial resonance. "Find your miracle, Lin Yuan. We will hold the ashes of the Nine Provinces until the Supreme Grand Elder shatters his bottleneck. If he succeeds, we shall do everything in our power to support him."

His gaze shifted toward Bai Qingyue, and his expression softened slightly. "May the heavens, wherever they may now be, guide your path. The Nine Provinces have already lost too much. We cannot afford to lose the people who might yet save them."

Lin Yuan did not offer a formal farewell bow. There was no time for ceremony, and every passing moment allowed the Demon Emperor to consolidate his control over the stolen Wonders.

He turned toward the massive Golden Immortal Beast resting amidst the ruins. Its golden scales were dulled by dust, and its Celestial Jade horn shone faintly beneath the fractured sky.

"We leave now," Lin Yuan ordered.

The beast raised its enormous head, and its golden eyes opened fully. Although it had remained still during the discussion, it had been listening to the surrounding changes through its extraordinary perception.

The collapse of the dimensional boundaries had disturbed the spatial currents around the Grand Court. But the beast’s natural affinity for those currents allowed it to distinguish a navigable path from the surrounding chaos.

Ku Ming leaped onto its broad back and immediately settled into a meditative posture. Bai Qingyue followed, gathering the folds of her pale blue gown before taking her place beside Lin Yuan.

The young cultivator remained near the beast’s Celestial Jade horn. He studied the shifting lights above them as he calculated the safest route toward the Barrier Realm.

Before departing, Lin Yuan glanced once at the three Emperors. Their bodies were battered, their artifacts damaged, and their cultivation remained severely suppressed.

Yet none of them attempted to retreat from the responsibility awaiting them. They had chosen to gamble everything on the Supreme Grand Elder’s breakthrough, and the outcome of that gamble would determine whether humanity retained any meaningful chance of resistance.

The Golden Immortal Beast released a resonant roar that shook the remaining pillars of the courtyard. Its enormous limbs gathered strength, and a radiant circle of spatial energy formed beneath its hooves before it launched itself toward the bruised-purple sky.

The beast passed through the shattered firmament, carrying Lin Yuan, Bai Qingyue, and Ku Ming away from the ruined Grand Court.

Behind them, the three Emperors watched until the golden light disappeared into the distant fractures. Nanheng tightened her grip on the damaged Vermilion Bird fan, while Beiming slowly lowered his head to conceal the exhaustion on his face.

Tianxu remained motionless for several breaths. Then he turned toward the distant core of the Nine Provinces, where the temporal array of the Supreme Grand Elder awaited the last desperate effort of the human race.

?

In the past, entering the Barrier Realm required a meticulous and highly guarded ritual. A cultivator needed to obtain a Barrier Token and align their spiritual Qi with the specific spatial frequency of the boundary.

Without that preparation, the immense pressure between dimensions could crush the body, tear apart the Primordial Spirit, or scatter the cultivator’s existence across countless spatial layers.

The Barrier Token was more than a simple key. It functioned as a temporary anchor, allowing the bearer to maintain a stable connection with the dimension they were entering.

Its inscriptions established a protective pattern around the cultivator, while the energy contained within the token helped resist the violent fluctuations that occurred whenever the boundary was crossed.

Those precautions had once been essential. The Barrier Realm was not designed for ordinary passage, and even powerful cultivators had to proceed carefully when attempting to enter it.

The difference between a successful crossing and a fatal mistake could be as small as a single deviation in the alignment of one’s spiritual Qi.

Now, such preparations had become largely obsolete. The dimensional geometry of the universe had flattened, and the former borders had dissolved into a massive, bleeding continuum.

The separation between the Nine Provinces, the Barrier Realm, and the Hollow Beyond had become little more than a collection of unstable spatial scars.

As the Golden Immortal Beast ascended, Lin Yuan watched the transformation unfold around them. The sky gradually changed from the suffocating darkness that covered the Nine Provinces into a chaotic expanse filled with astral dust, floating debris, and shattered remnants of ancient cosmic battlefields.

Countless fragments drifted through the void, some no larger than a palm, while others were vast enough to contain entire mountain ranges.

The beast’s Celestial Jade horn released a soft, silver radiance. Wherever the light spread, the surrounding spatial turbulence became slightly more orderly, allowing the beast to navigate currents that would have torn apart ordinary flying artifacts.

Lin Yuan remained alert, observing the direction of the currents and comparing their movements with the changes he could sense in the surrounding Dao laws.

Then they crossed the invisible threshold.

The reaction was instantaneous, violent, and almost exhilarating. A tremendous pressure that had been weighing upon their bodies vanished without warning, leaving their meridians feeling strangely light.

The restrictions that had compressed their cultivation into the limits imposed by the Nine Provinces loosened, and the complete Dao laws of the Barrier Realm surged into their perception.

Lin Yuan’s spiritual Qi began circulating with renewed force. The ancient laws surrounding his body recognized the foundations he had cultivated over the years, allowing his suppressed power to recover as the restrictions of the Nine Provinces fell away.

It was not a sudden gift of additional cultivation, but the restoration of strength that had already belonged to him.

He threw his head back and drew a deep breath of the astral air.

BOOM!