Chapter 607 - 378: Desolate Land

Eastern Region.

Far beyond the civilized provinces of the central territories, past the sacred mountain peaks where the grand sects held court, lay the boundary of the civilized world.

Here, the leylines of heaven and earth twisted into jagged, bleeding knots, giving birth to terrain that rejected life itself.

The Eight Wastes Desolate Land.

It was renowned throughout the history as one of the forbidden lands in the Eastern Region, standing alongside catastrophic territories like the Ten Thousand Beast Mountain Range—the legendary cradle where the primordial inheritance of the Bright Silver Emperor had once been unearthed by Haoran and Ning Xueli.

It is an incredibly dangerous place, with no human or beast daring to step through.

Below the heavy, leaden sky, the earth was an endless, apocalyptic expanse of cracked, black bedrock and rust colored dust.

Gale winds blew across the desolate plateaus, shrieking like millions of starved wraiths, carrying clouds of caustic, sulfurous sand that could strip the flesh from a Spirit Ascension’s bones in mere breaths.

Spatial cracks, hair-thin rifts in the fabric of reality that opened and snapped shut at random, littered the horizon like invisible guillotine blades.

No vegetation could take root in this dead soil; no celestial beasts, no matter how ferocious or ancient their bloodline, dared to build dens within its perimeter.

The ambient spiritual energy was chaotic, corrupted by prehistoric dao fragments from ancient battles that turned any cultivator’s inner meridians into boiling poison if drawn into the lungs.

It was a dead zone, an eternal scar upon the face of the Eastern Region where even the sunlight seemed to lose its warmth, turning a sickly, faded ochre as it filtered through the dust clouds.

And at this moment, Haoran’s Profound Ark hovered above this wasteland.

The colossal warship glided silently through the upper reaches of the toxic atmosphere, casting a massive, terrifying shadow across the jagged canyons below.

The heavy plating along its hull glowed with a subdued, deep violet luminescence, the hundreds of defensive wards deflecting the shrieking, caustic sandstorms without allowing a single vibration to reach the interior.

The four spiritual engines hummed with a low, steady cadence, keeping the immense steel leviathan steady amidst the violent atmospheric turbulence.

Inside the command bridge, Haoran stood tall before the panoramic glass viewport, his hands clasped loosely behind the small of his back.

His golden hair fell cleanly, framing a profile that was cold, sharp, and carved from ancient marble.

"Is this the place, Luochen?" His voice was quiet, smooth as polished ice, cutting through the low hum of the bridge’s array cores with effortless authority.

Ling Luochen stood three paces behind him, her eyes glued to the hovering blue system window that bathed her pale face in a rhythmic azure pulse.

She cross-referenced the chaotic dimensional readings outside with the system’s recursive tracking algorithms.

"Yes, Young Master," Ling Luochen replied firmly, nodding her head as her fingers tapped rapidly against the floating interface. "The coordinates match. The spatial density and the resonance frequency of the sub-system are centering directly beneath this sector."

"Alright, star searching," Haoran ordered, his golden eyes surveying the desolate trenches below.

"System. Start a full-spectrum dimensional scan. Increase sensory output to maximum and trace the connection’s harmonic frequency." she commanded within her mind and out loud.

[Command received. Consuming 5,000 system energy points.]

[Engaging Deep-Void Radar...]

[Scanning the Eight Wastes Desolate Land...]

Strings of golden and crimson code cascaded across the translucent blue pane like a torrential downpour.

Outside, from the prow of the warship, a massive, invisible pulse of electromagnetic and spatial energy rippled downward, sweeping across the barren bedrock, penetrating miles into the cracked mantle.

All the while, the Profound Ark moved as if surveying the land.

The gargantuan warship banked smoothly to the southwest, cruising low over jagged obsidian ravines, crumbling plateaus, and dried riverbeds where rivers of magma had flowed hundreds of millennia ago.

Its shadow moved like the hand of a dark god tracing the contours of a dead world, its sensory arrays humming continuously as it stripped away the natural illusions and toxic mirages concealing the desolate ground.

For nearly an incense stick of time, only the howl of the sulfur wind and the mechanical chiming of the system filled the bridge.

Just then, Ling Luochen received a signal.

Ding!

A sharp, high-pitched resonance chimed through the interface, and the chaotic lines of code instantly stabilized into a flashing, vibrant crimson marker!

"Young Master! I finally found it!" Ling Luochen shouted, her face lighting up with excitement as she pointed toward the forward display. "Three hundred miles ahead, at the bottom of a sunken rift! The system picked up an anomalous spatial folding! That’s probably where sistse Yunxi is!"

Haoran’s gaze shifted downward, piercing through the swirling clouds of yellow dust.

Nestled within the hollow of a colossal, impact crater basin that looked as though a fallen star had struck the earth in prehistoric times, an ancient architectural ruin jutted out from the black shale.

It was a massive, weathered gateway carved from ancient stone, spanning over thirty miles in height.

One of its towering pillars had collapsed into rubble, while the crossbeam hung at an unnatural, precarious angle, half-swallowed by centuries of drifting ash.

The stone was pitted and scarred by ancient weapons, yet etched deep into the lintel were remnants of archaic Clear Universe Imperial Writing, glowing with a faint, ghostly silver luminescence that defied the erosion of time.

"Is that it?"

"Yes. That’s it," Ling Luochen confirmed, reading the rapid telemetry streaming down her terminal. "The system confirms this gate acts as the dimensional anchor for a folded pocket realm."

Haoran nodded, and with a simple flick of his divine sense, Haoran seized command of the ship’s primary array nexus.

The four engines pivoted downward, unleashing a controlled, deafening roar of counter-thrust plasma!

The colossal Profound Ark descended vertically through the howling dust storms, displacing millions of tons of yellow sand, until it hovered barely ten yards above the crater floor, its massive shadow completely engulfing the ruined archway.

Then, a hatch beneath the forward bridge slid open, and both Haoran and Ling Luochen stepped out onto the empty air.

Haoran’s boots touched the cracked black shale without making a sound, his black and gold dragon robes settling gracefully around his ankles.

Beside him, Ling Luochen landed with a soft rustle of her academy coat, her breathing quickening as the heavy, suffocating pressure of the ancient forbidden land brushed against her skin.

Standing directly before the colossal, ruined stone gate, its sheer scale became truly overwhelming.

The ancient stone gate towered over them like a cliffside, radiating a faint, dormant heat that tasted of ozone, holy incense, and long dried blood.

Between the two upright pillars, the space was empty, yet the air rippled like clear water disturbed by an unseen hand, a translucent spatial film blocking all passage into the void beyond.

Ling Luochen stepped closer to the shimmering spatial barrier, raising her wrist where the blue interface hummed with vibrant light.

"System, can you interfere with this ancient array and open it?" Ling Luochen asked with suppressed urgency.

[System Query processed.]

[Target identified: Ancient Eastern Imperial Gate (Damaged).]

[Analyzing dimensional frequency... Harmonic match found via Qian Yunxi’s Sub-System.]

[Confirmation: System can hijack the spatial sequence and force the portal open. Computational requirement: Minimal.]

"It can do it, Young Master!" Ling Luochen reported, looking back at Haoran with bright, confident eyes.

"Do it," Haoran commanded simply, his golden eyes narrowing onto the rippling seam.

Ling Luochen tapped the central rune of her interface.

BZZZZZZT!

A blinding, sapphire colored beam of data and digital light shot from her terminal, striking the center of the ruined crossbeam!

The dormant Clear Universe Imperial Writing carved into the stone suddenly roared to life, blazing with violent, molten gold fire!

The ancient mechanisms within the bedrock ground together with an ear splitting, metallic screech that shook the crater basin!

CRACK!

The translucent spatial film between the stone pillars fractured down the center like brittle ice!

A massive, swirling vortex of blinding white gold and deep indigo light tore open, expanding until it filled the entire expanse of the gateway!

A howling gale of stale, freezing air surged outward from the vortex, carrying the overwhelming, nauseating stench of ancient copper, burnt marrow, and centuries-old decay—the unmistakable scent of a world where millions had been butchered and left to rot.

Ling Luochen gasped, instinctively covering her nose, her eyes widening in horror at the oppressive, suffocating malice rolling out from the portal.

Haoran did not flinch. His expression remained an unreadable, icy mask of supreme authority.

He stepped forward, his boots crossing the threshold without an ounce of hesitation, and Ling Luochen quickly followed after him, passing through the roaring light.

The blinding glare of the dimensional portal swallowed their figures, the chaotic void currents buffeting their bodies for the briefest fraction of a millisecond as they crossed the cosmic divide between the mortal star and the folded micro-realm.

THUD.

Their boots touched solid, greasy ground.

And immediately found themselves in an ancient battlefield, with countless corpses that piled into mountains, and blood that formed rivers.

The sight that greeted them was a panoramic nightmare of apocalyptic slaughter that stretched beyond the curvature of the horizon.

There was no sky here—only a low-hanging, bruised ceiling of curdled purple clouds and stagnant yellow mist that cast a sickly twilight over the desolation.

The air was cold, dead, and heavy, thick with the gag-inducing reek of putrefying flesh, rusted metal, and congealed blood that coated the back of the throat with a foul, metallic grease.

All around them, as far as the eye could see, mountains of the dead rose thirty, fifty, a hundred meters into the dim air.

These were not common graves. They were colossal, grotesque mounds of slaughtered warriors from a forgotten epoch, stacked high like discarded lumber.

Rotting giants with single, broken wings, tall elven archers whose bodies were pinned together by black iron spears, and armored human legions whose breastplates were split open to the ribs lay jumbled in grotesque, rotting heaps.

Some of the corpses were desiccated, their leathery grey skin clinging tightly to exposed bone, while others were black, swollen, and weeping streams of foul fluids into the soil.

Between these towering boneyards, vast, sluggish rivers of dark, clotted blood wound their way through the shale like open veins.

The crimson liquid did not dry; it churned slowly, thick as mud, bubbling with foul gases and carrying broken shields, snapped swords, and shattered helmets in its sluggish current.

Millions of rusted weapons—halberds, broadswords, and hooked pikes—stood driven into the earth like markers in an infinite, god-forsaken cemetery.

"Good heavens..." Ling Luochen choked out, her stomach heaving violently as she clamped both hands over her mouth, her knees trembling beneath her as she witnessed the horrifying scale of the butchery. "What... what kind of war happened here?!"

Even with someone with a demonic physique like her, this is the first she had seen such carnage.

She couldn’t even image the scale of battle that occured for a battlefield to be like this.

Even the legendary Immortal Road would probably only be this terrifying, right?

Haoran stood motionless in the center of the bloody mud, his black and gold dragon robes fluttering lightly against the stagnant draft.

His golden eyes swept across the mountains of bone, the rivers of blood, and the rusted weapons with cold, absolute detachment.

His divine sense expanded effortlessly, penetrating through the lingering miasma of ancient death, searching the horizon for the familiar, radiant light of six celestial wings.

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