The world began to quake as the void accelerated its devouring and disintegration of the domain.
Wei Yuan surveyed his surroundings. There were still lingering afterimages of the past, but there was no time to inspect them one by one. Although this body had been reinforced, it had reached its limit; within it, wide swaths of tissue were turning necrotic.
In truth, Wei Yuan could have enhanced his physical resilience further, but the ceiling was strictly constrained by this realm. In the end, he could only push it to the level of an ordinary dharma idol. In terms of pure physical strength, it fell far short of what he had possessed upon reaching the perfection of the Dao Foundation.
Yet the little monk who had broken into this realm was bound by no such restriction, possessing a physical ceiling far higher than Wei Yuan's. However, he had attacked Wei Yuan using purely Buddhist force, playing directly into Wei Yuan's hands—both his Buddhist teachings and demonic intent were drastically suppressed by Wei Yuan's Pupils of the Six Realms.
Wei Yuan looked down at his body, knowing he could linger no longer. Laughing aloud, he sat cross-legged atop the snowy peak. A mote of true spirit transformed into light and flew out, vanishing beyond the heavens.
No sooner had Wei Yuan's true spirit departed than the clouds in the sky churned, and the little monk burrowed back in. Just as he was about to do something, the heavens broke open once more, and a gateway descended from above, crashing onto the snowy summit with a thunderous roar!
At the sight of this gateway, the little monk's eyes bulged in utter disbelief!
This was a portal capable of traversing the many realms, endowed with the grand divine ability to anchor fragments of worlds. Even across heaven and earth, such miraculous powers were exceedingly rare.
When the Gate of the Many Realms descended into the realm, this fragment of heaven and earth was visibly altered by an unseen force. The little monk felt an immense repelling pressure that forcefully ejected him from the world.
Even without that repulsion, he would never have dared to tarry, for a colossal hand reached out from the Gate of the Many Realms, stretching tens of thousands of feet to seize him from above!
Instinct told the little monk that nothing good would come from being caught by that hand, so he could only flee immediately, escaping this world fragment.
Standing in the void, he watched the world fragment, completely enveloped in a shroud of light, flying rapidly away. It was clear that once the Gate of the Many Realms descended, someone was claiming this fragment of heaven and earth.
The little monk gnashed his teeth in helpless frustration. He opened his palm to reveal a broken piece of his Buddhist staff, suppressed by his Buddhist force to keep it from disintegrating into nothingness.
This fragment carried Wei Yuan's Buddhist intent. He had exerted all his strength just to preserve it, intending to take it back and study it thoroughly—to understand how, in a clash of Buddhist intent, the authentic dharma and supreme divine abilities he had received directly before the Buddha could have suffered such an utter defeat.
At that moment, Wei Yuan's figure manifested. The fragment of heaven and earth shrank rapidly and was drawn into the space between Wei Yuan's brows. Looking toward the little monk, Wei Yuan remarked calmly, "Take it back and study it well. I hope you gain something from it!"
Looking at Wei Yuan, the little monk suddenly fell into a daze, as though he could once again hear that unimaginably vast voice: *Draw near to me, praise me, become me!*
He gathered his senses, only to realize that Wei Yuan stood serenely on the other side of the void, having uttered no such sound.
Filled with suspicion and dread, the little monk dared not linger any longer. He turned and departed.
Once the monk's figure vanished, Wei Yuan turned as well, fading into the void.
At the center of the Grand Array of Reflection into the Return to the Ruins, Wei Yuan slowly opened his eyes as if waking from the deepest of dreams. It took him quite a while to overcome the sensation of weakness and dizziness, gradually falling back in sync with the Native Realm and becoming one with it once more.
Wei Yuan did not get up immediately. Instead, he entered the Splendor of the Many Realms. Sure enough, at the foot of Jade Mountain stood an additional teleportation gate; on the other side lay that fragment of heaven and earth.
In truth, this fragment was remarkably small. Only the topmost section of the Umbrella Corporation headquarters remained, while most of the lower portion had already been devoured by the void. Including the snow mountain, it spanned merely a hundred-odd li.
A domain so tiny was nowhere near enough to coalesce into a Great Dao of Heaven and Earth. Yet the little monk had used supreme Buddhist divine abilities to forcibly simulate a heavenly dao and fabricate a complete realm, successfully baiting Wei Yuan's true spirit into it.
Now that the little monk had been driven away and his lingering Buddhist intent thoroughly shattered before Wei Yuan's eyes, this fragment naturally lacked any Heavenly Dao. It was only being held together by the power of the Gate of the Many Realms, keeping it from being swallowed by the void.
At the time, the little monk had intended to claim this priceless world fragment for himself, but he had never expected Wei Yuan to possess a means like the Gate of the Many Realms—tossing in a portal that anchored the domain and swept it away directly.
Had the little monk dared to interfere, it would have meant facing Wei Yuan's true body in combat.
Wei Yuan's Buddhist intent was exceptionally bizarre and unprecedented, yet capable of countering the little monk's own—and that was daunting enough. Moreover, everyone knew Wei Yuan's true body carried billions in karmic luck. To use an uncouth analogy, it was like a pile of dung that exploded the moment it was touched; anyone who saw it would steer clear.
The little monk naturally lacked the courage to confront Wei Yuan head-on. It wasn't that he would definitely lose, but rather that he felt he had no wish to perish alongside Wei Yuan, nor did he want to impair his own Dao path just to kill him.
The result was that he could only watch helplessly as Wei Yuan took the fragment away. In this angling endeavor, the little monk had not only failed to catch the fish, but had even lost his fishing tackle to Wei Yuan.
His sole gain was that he had slightly altered the ordained destiny: he had built a bridge that shouldn't have existed, forcing the young girl Ji Liuli—who could otherwise have escaped—to sacrifice herself so that Wei Yuan could get away.
Now standing on the ridge of the snow mountain, Wei Yuan reexamined the lingering temporal afterimages, his expression growing grimmer by the second as he realized this very fact. The young Ji Liuli would originally have had enough time to flee with Wei Yuan to the far end of the snowy peaks and activate that strange device, teleporting them to an unknown world.
Yet the little monk had added that bridge—a bridge traversing time, capable of existing simultaneously in the past, present, and future, a bridge that had sent Ji Liuli to her death!
Wei Yuan's expression grew increasingly solemn. What he had seen back then was not merely an afterimage of past time, but a slice of reality pulled directly from the past through supreme Buddhist divine abilities!
And after that slice of reality was altered, Wei Yuan had used the Pupils of the Six Realms to destroy the Buddhist intent sustaining this world, which amounted to casting that altered reality back into the past. In other words, the young Ji Liuli, who should have survived the past, had already fallen!
Wei Yuan's heartbeat quickened beat by beat. He still could not tell where this world fragment had originated, nor could he discern whether this realm's time existed before or after that of the Native Realm. Still less did he understand the connection between that young Ji Liuli and child Wei Yuan and the Ji Liuli and himself in the Native Realm.
Yet one thing was certain: if the young Ji Liuli was one of the countless projections and reincarnations of Ji Liuli's true form across the myriad realms, her death would exert a profound impact on the Ji Liuli of all realms united, creating a flaw in her perfect golden body. And that single flaw would be enough to cost her the supreme karmic attainment.
Right before Wei Yuan's eyes, the little monk had altered the young Ji Liuli's destiny and doomed her to death.
Now that this domain was under Wei Yuan's control, with a shift of his thought, the ridge of the snow mountain reverted to the node where destiny had been altered. Countless snow beast tracks appeared upon the snow before Wei Yuan, alongside two faint patches of blood. Most of the bloodstained snow had been eaten by the snow beasts, leaving only a faint pink smudge on the ground.
Wei Yuan swept out his divine sense. A point of Buddhist light rose above his head, instantly illuminating heaven and earth, immediately pulling from the past every single snow beast that had just hunted and killed Ji Liuli and Wei Yuan.
Illuminated by the Buddhist light, the snow beasts let out groans of agonizing torment, as though enduring the deepest pain known to the mortal world. They thrashed desperately as roaring flames erupted from their bodies, burning them to cinders in an instant. Then, from each snow beast rose a faint trace of gray light. Possessing sentience, the specks of gray sought to flee, only to be burned to ashes under the radiant Buddhist light!
As each speck of gray light was reduced to ash, a shrill, wretched scream echoed.
From the deepest recesses of the void, a colossal will suddenly let out a cold grunt, seemingly laced with wrath.
Chapter 1105