With a thought from Lu Xuan, an object was drawn over by chaotic qi and appeared before him.
It was not a dazzling immortal material wreathed in divine light, nor a supreme treasure entwined with laws.
It was a palm-sized bronze shard, mottled with rust and even somewhat incomplete.
It looked utterly ordinary, like a fragment that had fallen from some ancient artifact.
Upon it were engraved ancient patterns so blurred they were almost impossible to make out. It was filled with the traces of passing ages, exuding a desolate, deathly aura unique to the Emperor Fall Era.
At first, Lu Xuan paid it little mind. Relics from the Emperor Fall Era were rare, but he had seen many before. Most contained shattered laws and lost fragments of historical information; for his current realm, their help was limited.
He casually picked up the bronze shard, preparing to probe whatever remnants of information might remain within it with his divine sense.
Yet the instant his fingertips touched that cold bronze—
“Dong!”
The silent Chaos Bell within his body actually let out an extremely faint hum on its own, one carrying an indescribable tremor!
It was neither a warning at the approach of danger, nor the delight of discovering treasure. It was more like… an instinctive reaction upon encountering something exceedingly familiar!
Immediately after, Lu Xuan’s entire body shook violently!
His state of mind, long as calm as an ancient well and capable of reflecting the heavens, was at this moment swept up by towering waves!
A resonance—so faint it was nearly nonexistent, so ethereal it seemed to come from the far shore of spacetime—spread from the depths of the bronze shard, traveled along his fingertips, and instantly coursed through his entire body. It shook his Dao fruit and stirred a trace of movement in the origin of his Three Corpses!
This aura… this feeling…
Lu Xuan’s pupils abruptly contracted to the size of needle tips, and for the first time, an expression of disbelief appeared on his face!
Deep within the ancient aura belonging to the Emperor Fall Era that lingered upon this bronze shard, there was actually…
Mixed within it was a faint aura that shared the same source as his own origin, as the deepest part of his soul, as the Dao of Chaos he commanded!
Though this wisp of aura was so faint it could almost be ignored, though it had endured the vicissitudes of countless ages and long since been worn down by time until only a trace remained, Lu Xuan would never mistake its essence!
It was as if… as if another “him” had once existed and moved about in an unimaginably distant past, leaving an indelible mark upon this bronze shard!
“How is this possible?!”
Even with Lu Xuan’s current state of mind, he could not help but cry out.
He and the Emperor Fall Era of this Perfect World should have belonged to two utterly unrelated spacetimes!
Why would there be his aura upon a relic from the Emperor Fall Era?
Was it an illusion?
Was it the misdirection of some similar Great Dao?
Or perhaps…
An even more inconceivable thought, one that made his heart suddenly tighten, uncontrollably surfaced:
Could it be… that his arrival was not accidental?
Could his existence have some unknown connection to that mysterious, fallen Emperor Fall Era, buried beneath countless secrets?!
This sudden discovery shocked him even more than his inability to break through to the Emperor Realm after tens of thousands of years of bitter cultivation—and brought with it an inexplicable chill.
He stared fixedly at the unremarkable bronze shard in his hand, his gaze seeming to pierce through the spacetime of countless ages to see clearly the truth buried beneath dust and time.
The bottleneck to the Emperor Realm that had stagnated for tens of thousands of years seemed, because of this shard’s appearance and the pull of that wisp of same-origin aura, to have loosened ever so slightly.
But what followed was an even greater fog, shrouding the road ahead.
His Dao, the secrets of the Emperor Fall Era, and that distant, unreachable Emperor Realm…
All of it seemed to have been linked together by this tiny bronze shard.
Lu Xuan slowly tightened his grip around the bronze shard. Its icy touch made him clearer-headed than ever before.
“The Emperor Fall Era… It seems I must go and investigate it.”
His low voice echoed through the chaos palace, carrying resolve.
The path ahead, once clear, suddenly became shrouded in uncertainty.
Yet because of this shard’s appearance, a rift leading toward a deeper truth had been torn open.
However, he was not entirely ignorant of this world’s ancient history.
He recalled a mysterious place once mentioned in the original work—a forgotten ancient land where the laws were incomplete, spacetime was in disorder, and even the Great Dao of heaven and earth was isolated. It was known as a place of “Heaven-Severing and Earth-Connecting.”
More importantly, he remembered that the Lord of the Forbidden Zone in the original work had once used heaven-defying means in that ancient land to send Shi Hao into… the Emperor Fall Era!
“Heaven-Severing and Earth-Connecting… the Lord of the Forbidden Zone…”
A sharp gleam flashed in Lu Xuan’s eyes as all the clues linked together at that moment.
If he wished to uncover the secret of the bronze shard, clarify the connection between himself and the Emperor Fall Era, and even find the true opportunity to break through to the Emperor Realm—
Then heading to that ancient land and finding that mysterious, unfathomable Lord of the Forbidden Zone was perhaps the only feasible path at present!
He hesitated no longer.
With his cultivation having reached this level, once his mind was set, there would be no further obstruction.
“I must make a trip to the Ancient Realm.”
A vast Dao voice entered the core of the Golden Crow clan’s territory and fell into the hearts of Lu Huang, who was acting in charge of clan affairs, as well as several core elders.
No explanation was given, but the unquestionable will contained within made Lu Huang and the others instantly turn solemn. They all knew His Majesty must have some matter of utmost importance.
In the next moment, Lu Xuan’s figure vanished from the chaos palace.
He did not alarm the kings of the Immortal Realm, nor did he make any grand display. He merely tore open the void in silence and stepped forward, crossing endless starfields in a single stride to arrive at the Primordial Ancient Realm adjacent to the Immortal Realm.
Primordial Ancient Realm, Central Heavenly Palace.
The Immortal King Without End and the Immortal King of Six Paths Reincarnation sensed Lu Xuan’s arrival almost the instant he descended.
The two leaders of the Ancient Realm instantly appeared outside the Heavenly Palace. When they saw Lu Xuan, whose aura had become even more unfathomable than it had been tens of thousands of years ago, both of their hearts shook.
“Fellow Daoist Eastern Emperor, you have come so suddenly. May I ask what matter brings you here?”
The Immortal King Without End cupped his hands and asked, his tone carrying a trace of confusion and solemnity.
The current Lu Xuan affected the situation of the heavens with every move he made; they had no choice but to treat him seriously.
Lu Xuan’s gaze swept over the two Immortal Kings, and he spoke calmly.
“I seek a place named ‘Heaven-Severing and Earth-Connecting.’ I also wish to meet someone—the ‘Lord of the Forbidden Zone.’ You two fellow Daoists govern the Ancient Realm’s reincarnation and spacetime; do you know their whereabouts?”
“Heaven-Severing and Earth-Connecting? The Lord of the Forbidden Zone?”
The black holes around the Immortal King of Six Paths Reincarnation stilled slightly. Clearly, these two names had stirred his ancient memories.
He pondered for a moment, then slowly said, “‘Heaven-Severing and Earth-Connecting’… That is an abandoned ancient land. Legend says it connects to certain unknowable cracks between eras. Its laws have collapsed, and it is extremely dangerous. It has long been classified as a forbidden land of the Ancient Realm, not to be entered lightly. As for the ‘Lord of the Forbidden Zone’…”
He looked toward the Immortal King Without End, who continued, his expression grave.
“That existence is even more ancient than we are. His origins are a mystery. He has dwelled deep within the forbidden zone for many years and almost never communicates with the outside world. Even we have only seen a few scattered records of him in extremely ancient texts and have never met him in person. Fellow Daoist, why do you seek him?”
Lu Xuan did not reveal the matter of the bronze shard. He merely said lightly, “To verify a Dao. It concerns the road ahead.”
Those few simple words caused tremendous waves to rise in the hearts of Without End and Six Paths.