Here, it was not the battlefield of the God-Slaying War.
Or rather, not just that.
The fragments before him, with their contained broken information and legacies, did not originate from humans, but from... a special lifeform known as the Yuan-Devouring Great Beast.
Ah, the Yuan-Devouring Great Beast he had seen before.
It seemed only one of this species remained in this era, but back then, the Yuan-Devouring Great Beasts were a 'divine beast' clan.
What he found here was not a legacy left by this Yuan-Devouring Great Beast. When a high-ranking being fell, they would have no power left to preserve a legacy.
He had merely stumbled upon a fragment of the Yuan-Devouring Great Beast's residual origin.
"The origin carries legacy and power. Fortunate recipients can gain a sliver of the Yuan-Devouring Great Beast's might."
"However, the greater possibility is that the contactee cannot withstand the chaotic information, the mysteries, and their soul directly cracks."
Both mythical beings and demigods would be injured by this.
This was never meant to be a legacy.
It was akin to directly witnessing the origin of a high-ranking being. Enduring it… might not necessarily grant an opportunity, and one's own self had to possess the ability to extract that wisp of power from the chaotic, fragmented information.
Even ordinary high-ranking beings could not achieve this.
If one was as experienced as he was, already mastering numerous skills and versed in myriad arts, like a high-ranking being or a tenth-tier existence, they could indeed sort through the power and consolidate it into a legacy.
However,
"A flawed legendary skill is of little use to a high-ranking existence."
Fang You carefully examined it.
He had only barely grasped this Yuan-Devouring Body-Forging technique, not even enough to execute a complete set. However, with his rich experience, he quickly analyzed it.
He frowned.
"It's a bit weak."
It was a notch stronger than an epic skill, but still slightly inferior to a true legendary skill.
The gap was not significant, but due to its own flawed nature, this body-forging technique could only be cultivated to the proficient level at most.
What could be achieved at the proficient level?
One would at least need to cultivate it to the master level to bring about some improvement for a high-ranking existence.
"Tasteless to eat, a pity to discard."
"No, not entirely."
He had lacked experience earlier. If he were to try again, he could use his own might to refine this fragmented origin power, tainted with much filth, into a one-time legacy light cluster.
Other capable high-ranking beings or tenth-tier existences could also do this. Such legacy light clusters would be useless to them personally, but they could be bestowed upon talented descendants.
However, their mythical or demigod realm successors would not need such flawed skills.
Wouldn't it be better for them to learn complete, stronger skills with a clear path forward?
So, it was still a "chicken rib"?
"No, directly learning it is indeed of little use, but no matter how flawed this body-forging technique is, it remains a legendary skill, an extremely superior material!"
One such skill could be equivalent to several or a dozen epic materials.
Brilliant!
Regardless of the considerations, Fang You, along with Chi Yan and the others, continued deeper into the ancient battlefield.
There were not many remains here.
Perhaps everything had been erased by the passage of time.
But as they discovered more origin fragments, Fang You's expression gradually grew solemn.
Back then, how many ancient beings had perished here?
Before Kandra initiated the God-Slaying War, in even older eras, the world had also witnessed great wars, wars on a much larger scale.
Fallen gods were as numerous as rain.
"Ding!"
"Notification: Legendary Skill 'Star Gazing (Fragmented)' has been learned."
"Notification: Legendary Skill 'Dragon Feather Body-Forging Technique (Fragmented)' has been learned."
"Notification: Legendary Skill 'True Martial Divine Body (Fragmented)' has been learned."
"Notification: Legendary Skill 'Nine Hells Body-Forging Technique (Fragmented).' has been learned."
"Notification: ..."
The body-forging techniques and visualization techniques extracted from the origin power were the most numerous. This was because they were fundamental and more likely to remain within the origin.
However, some of the broken origins were too severely worn away for him to extract any legacy.
And many more broken origins might have long since vanished into the mists of time, leaving not even a trace.
There was great terror here.
Fang You was hesitant to proceed further.
However, looking at Chi Yan's eager expression and remembering the purpose of their journey, he still continued deeper.
The storm of laws grew fiercer, and space began to wrinkle.
Space wrinkling was not unusual.
A casual strike from him could pierce space.
However, this was within a certain region or regions of the Mid-Weird Realm, where space should have been very stable. Even if torn by high-ranking beings, it would recover after some time.
Yet, before him, the wrinkling and damage to space had persisted for tens of thousands, even hundreds of millions of years.
Even time itself seemed distorted!
Some regions actually reflected terrifying scenes from millions of years ago.
A great river flowed majestically, engulfing vast territories. Countless worlds seemed to bob and struggle on the river, gradually sinking. In the distance, beings wreathed in infinite divine light, wielding supreme authority, unleashed power whose mere overflow turned cities and powerful lifeforms hundreds of millions of miles away into dust.
The vast world returned to nothingness.
Only the colossal figures in the divine light and the endless river flowing through the ages remained.
"And then? Nothing!"
This was like following a serialized novel to its latest chapter, only to find the author had abandoned it.
No, it was even more infuriating than that.
He knew the great beings in the divine light must have been defeated, but how they were defeated, and by how much, was the key point he wanted to understand.
However, there was no continuation!
Damn it!
Wait...
"Retreat!"
With a spatial jump, Fang You and Chi Yan, along with the others, fled in an instant, retreating tens of millions of miles.
Yet, he still heard the sound of waves.
Gray spray splashed from the great river, seeming to disregard the distance of space, crashing towards them.
This was a mere sliver of power leaking from the reflection in time!
Instantly, dark clouds gathered, and killing intent enveloped them. A single droplet was like a world, crushing space and submerging time.
Fang You could see that the droplet was splashing very slowly.
It was as if ordinary water droplets, taking several seconds to land on them.
However, this long expanse of time seemed frozen, and the turbid droplet grew larger and larger in his vision, drawing closer.
"Ah—!"
Chi Yan let out a hoarse, heavy cry.
The surrounding space vibrated violently, as if dozens of super earthquakes had erupted.
The power of slaughter spread.
She roared again, "Kill!"
She lunged forward, the fragmented, infinite slaughter extending from the bones on the back of her hand, forming a pair of claws.
Crossing her claws, she tore fiercely.
Blood-red claw marks tore through heaven and earth, and the world before them shattered inch by inch, disintegrating into nothingness.
A turbid droplet shattered.
With one claw strike successful, Chi Yan seemed to have broken free from shackles, her entire being becoming much more agile. She transformed into a blood-red streak of light, continuously unleashing claw strikes of slaughter.
In the face of the authority of slaughter, be it living beings, inanimate objects, or even turbid water droplets imbued with infinite divine might, they were torn apart like prey, skinned and stripped, returning to dust.
Moments later—
Chi Yan tore again, her claw striking empty air.
She froze, the killing intent in her eyes diminishing slightly.
"There are no more water droplets," Fang You said.
She stood stunned for a few more seconds before listlessly retracting her claws and trotting back, like a harmless kitten.
But what she had torn apart was not just a few dozen water droplets.
If what stood before them were dozens of planets, dozens of worlds, Fang You believed that Chi Yan would have easily torn them to shreds.
Chi Yan's strength was terrifyingly formidable.
No wonder she could challenge and defeat the God of Slaughter, a tenth-tier existence.
However,
"Evil Gods, the twisted black river..."
He murmured.
They had not witnessed the aftermath of the battle, but he had indeed glimpsed a sliver of the evil gods' terror.
Mere droplets splashing from the endless great river could crush space and submerge time; he could not even perform spatial jumps anymore.
Fang You, pride aside, believed that without using the full authority of slaughter, it would not be easy for him to break free and escape this calamity.
If it were another, or several ninth-tier high-ranking beings here, they would most likely have been directly hit by the turbid sewage, which resembled planets, and either severely injured or killed on the spot.
"And this, is merely a few dozen tiny droplets from the rolling great river."
"No, not even that. This is just a mere residual power from a past scene reflected in time."
Evil Gods are truly terrifying!
Fang You gazed into the deeper regions of the Mid-Weird Realm, and his concern for the Great Sun God Venerable, Moon Lord, and the others grew.
He was not familiar with these ancient gods. As a mere ninth-tier existence, he had no right to worry about the top powerhouses of the Weird Realm.
But ultimately, they were all in the same boat.
"The Great Sun God Venerable gives me the feeling of an infinite Great Sun. Even a slight probing could blind me, but..."
"Compared to the endless, filthy great river, it doesn't seem enough."
He gazed into the distance, but naturally, he could see nothing.
Further into the ancient battlefield, he dared not go.
That might be the core of a war, or several wars, with too much residual power.
The temporal reflections he had seen earlier were still visible, observable from afar. However, he then saw on the vast land, visions of time suddenly appear, engulfing the entire region.
While he could still evade the former and resist it, the latter, once caught, could lead to utter annihilation!
Instructor Fang, always a rational person, quietly adjusted his direction of travel, deviating from the core of the ancient battlefield, and did not dare to venture too deep into the evil god faction's territory.
He led Chi Yan and a few others, exploring the surrounding areas.
In the outer regions of the ancient battlefield, he would pick up fragmented legacies, hunt high-ranking weird entities, and occasionally communicate with An Jianyou and the others to obtain information from the outside world.
At this time, the communication crystal in his hand could no longer reach the other teams.
The distance was too great.
The interference in the Mid-Weird Realm was also very severe.
However, the connection between Fate Apostles remained instantaneous.
From An Jianyou, he learned that the situation for the various teams that had entered the Mid-Weird Realm was not optimistic. Bai Yao the Wise and a few others were also forced to retreat from the Mid-Weird Realm, with the High-Ranking Luminary being severely injured, nearly perishing.
The team in the West Weird Realm had lost one high-ranking being.
If not for the timely assistance of Empress Ice and the Old King of Red Sand, who were waiting outside, more than one high-ranking being might have been lost.
One of the former ten wise men of humanity was gone.
Even more demigod realm existences had fallen.
The assembled human powerhouses were enveloped in an atmosphere of somber grief.
The Sea Monster Empire, the Myriad Beast Territory, and the Elemental Spirit Court also seemed to have lost high-ranking beings.
If one only looked at the kill count, the high-ranking weird entities slain by the dominant races far outnumbered the losses, with kill-to-loss ratios of two to one, three to one, or even four to one. However, how could high-ranking weird entities compare to high-ranking powerhouses?
The fall of any single high-ranking being was a devastating earthquake for their respective factions.
"Was it wrong to enter the Mid-Weird Realm?"
A demigod asked.
His face was pale, not just from his injuries, but because his empire's only high-ranking ancestor had perished. He could not imagine the panic that would ensue when this news reached his homeland.
"But if we didn't enter the Mid-Weird Realm, the high-ranking weird entities and attendants within would eventually... swarm out and spread throughout the entire Weird Realm."
"We had no choice to begin with, but... we are truly unsure if such sacrifices are worth it."
"It seems some ancient high-ranking beings have also fallen."
Said a human wise man.
In recent days, they had roamed the fringes of the Mid-Weird Realm and occasionally encountered some ancient high-ranking beings.
Many innate high-ranking beings or those with immortal bodies or souls were stronger than human high-ranking beings. However, the ancient existences were more arrogant and rarely cooperated, plunging into the Mid-Weird Realm alone.
They seemed to have suffered even greater losses.
"Someone saw from afar that the Yuan-Devouring Great Beast was heavily injured, and might have already perished within."
That one, whose body was comparable to half a planet!
The demigods were horrified.
The high-ranking beings were also shaken, some feeling a sense of dread. Beings like the Yuan-Devouring Great Beast, with their extremely resilient lifeforce and defenses, could withstand a tenth-tier existence for a short period. Yet now, it might be dead?
The Mid-Weird Realm, the heartland of the evil god faction, was more dangerous than imagined!
Their ability to survive was likely due to not venturing too deep.
The Luminary Demigod swallowed and looked at An Jianyou, "Are your instructor and the others still inside the Mid-Weird Realm?"
It was becoming increasingly dangerous within the Mid-Weird Realm.
It seemed many evil god attendants and ensnared beings, who were in a dormant state, had been awakened.
An Jianyou and the others also dared not continue probing the dangerous edges.
Perhaps Instructor Fireshine was the strongest human, but if he ventured too deep, he might face a grim fate.
Many thought this, but did not voice it.
Their faces were grim.
On one hand, they worried about humanity losing more of its pillar-strength experts.
On the other hand, they also hoped that Instructor Fireshine and the others could venture deeper and gather more valuable intelligence.
Alas...
"Yes, the instructor and the others are still inside."
She couldn't help but worry as well.
Yin Luoxi, however, put an arm around her shoulder and said, "Don't worry, don't worry. What kind of person is our instructor? He wouldn't get into trouble so easily."
"That's true," An Jianyou nodded, gazing towards the Mid-Weird Realm shrouded in gray mist.
Given the instructor's... cautious style, he likely wouldn't encounter any accidents.
...
"Close, so close to an accident."
Fang You and the others had just encountered an acquaintance.
The Lord of Specters.
He had manipulated his Dimensional Palace into a grain of sand, burying himself in the desolate land, desperately hiding.
But the hidden state of the Dimensional Palace could not evade the careful search of a tenth-tier existence using their authority. It was only because the Lord of Specters passed by in a hurry that they were not discovered.
"A single Lord of Specters is not something to fear. He is only a pseudo-tenth-tier. Even borrowing a sliver of an evil god's authority, he is likely still inferior to the God of Slaughter."
"But what if there were a few more, or a stronger tenth-tier existence?"
It had been half a month since they set foot in the Mid-Weird Realm.
More and more teams had been defeated and retreated from the Mid-Weird Realm.
As more teams withdrew, the predicament of those who remained inside naturally grew more perilous.
Fang You also began to consider retreating.
"After so long, has Moon Lord and the others... found the Unnamable Evil God?"
"There seems to be no movement yet?"
As he thought this, a Great Sun rose from the distant sky.
The Great Sun blazed, omnipresent.
No matter how far he traveled, looking up, the golden sun was in the same position.
Even when An Jianyou and the others outside the Mid-Weird Realm looked up in the same direction, they could see a golden sun of the same size, obscuring the sky.
The Great Sun emitted boundless light and heat, burning everything.
The gray mist and the weird entities from all directions began to spontaneously combust.
Following this, two miraculous sights appeared: a sea of mist rising with a bright moon, and starlight illuminating the nine regions.
Sun, Moon, and Stars hung high in the sky!
Dispersing infinite power.
"Has the war begun?"
Fang You could only see the celestial phenomenon of the sun, moon, and stars, his gaze blocked by the gray mist, unable to pierce through the vast regions.
But!
The complete authority of slaughter materialized within his body.
He wielded immense power, becoming the master of all slaughter.
The killing intent pervading heaven and earth was an army obeying his command.
The battles across the vast regions were his eyes and ears.
Fang You extended his consciousness along the laws of slaughter.
Scenes of slaughter surged like a tide.
One thousand!
One hundred million!
Ten trillion!
His mind wavered, and he gritted his teeth, filtering out useless scenes, ignoring the meaningless clashes between the claws of weird entities and evil gods.
The useless information finally dwindled.
He saw the dismembered Yuan-Devouring Great Beast, propping up its broken wings, fleeing in panic.
He saw a silvery-white giant snake, its body seemingly endless, its head and tail connected, encircling a vast territory.
He saw the Great Sun, the bright moon, and the starlight filling the sky.
And...
He could see no more.
Ahead was darkness.
No, it was nothingness, the most fundamental nothingness!
The laws of slaughter shattered violently. Fang You shook his throbbing head, and the magnificent panorama in his mind dimmed.
He opened his eyes and seemed to hear a voice.
"Let there be light."
Sunlight, moonlight, starlight.
Infinite light bloomed.
The gray mist in heaven and earth was dispelled, the Great Sun hung high, casting warm sunlight.
The bright moon and countless stars accompanied it.
But, a gray river without end stretched across the Great Sun and the bright moon, casting infinite shadows!
Moments later,
The light disappeared, and the gray mist once again enveloped the land.
What happened afterward, Fang You no longer knew. He lacked the strength and dared not probe further.
He merely grabbed Xiao Huan's hand, and the two of them, pooling all their spatial power, guided the Dimensional Palace and sped towards An Jianyou and the others at the fastest possible speed.
The evacuation process was uneventful. With a mere thought, he arrived before An Jianyou.
At this time, the human powerhouses who had seen the Great Sun, the bright moon, and the gray river above from afar dared not linger.
The elemental powerhouses, the sea monster powerhouses, and the ancient lifeforms also felt the same.
They gazed at the great terror rising from the depths of the Mid-Weird Realm, and their hearts grew cold.