Blind Prophet added a grim warning: "Bar wields the Ancient Tribunal’s forbidden technique, ’Space Entropy.’ It can turn all matter and rules within a ten-li radius into the Void."

"Simply put, anyone below the Demigod stage who gets near it will die instantly."

Hearing this, Logan silently calculated his odds of survival. The final result was chilling: his chance of winning was less than 10%.

The terrible odds fell over the room like a heavy silence. Everyone knew how low that was.

"For now, I can only focus on repairing my DNA fractures first," Logan said, turning to Blind Prophet. His voice was low and firm. "At the very least, I need to walk into that trap at my peak power."

Blind Prophet frowned silently upon hearing Logan’s resolve. "You really intend to go?"

"Of course!" Logan answered without hesitation. "Nine Demigods? Their divine Rule Fragments are a massive feast for me!"

A crazed grin spread across Logan’s face as he continued. "Either they kill me, or I’ll step over their corpses to finally reach the Demigod stage!"

With that, Logan opened up space cracks and vanished inside the tower.

The Black Abyss Canyon.

Logan stepped out of the spatial channel and immediately felt clouds of volcanic ash slapping against his face.

The ash was mixed with tiny shards of black obsidian, scraping his cheeks until they went numb.

He wiped the grime from his face with his hand. His fingertips were covered in a mix of black soot and faint gold dust. "Did the space turbulence inside the tunnel tear my skin?" he muttered.

"It seems the space here is also on the verge of collapsing."

He took a step forward. The moment his foot made contact with the ground, a surge of energy rippled through the air.

Logan looked up. Far away, on the canyon walls near the entrance, he saw a dense network of twisted silver-gray runes carved into the rock.

"We need to hurry. The Arbitration countdown is 45 hours away," Logan thought, his eyes sharp as blades. He took three more steps forward, but the ground beneath his feet suddenly erupted in blinding silver light.

Instantly, the entire canyon was flooded with light. A translucent barrier of rules rose from all directions, trapping Logan completely.

The small stones at Logan’s feet suddenly floated up. The moment they touched the barrier, they instantly turned into silver-gray smoke, leaving not even a single speck of ash behind.

"This power is terrifying!" Logan tried to touch the edge of the barrier with his fingertip. His skin was instantly shredded, exposing the pale golden veins underneath. The pain made him curl his finger in pain.

"Hiss!" He pulled his hand back. The surface of the barrier was crawling with dense spatial cracks. Any fragment of rock that touched it was instantly crushed into nothingness.

Logan’s right hand tightly gripped the Blade of Time, while his left hand instinctively raised a spatial shield.

His first instinct was to teleport through the barrier, but as soon as he lit up a space coordinate with his fingertip, the silver-gray rules crushed his attempt.

The second time, he tried to summon his familiar legion. But the moment the contract channel opened even a fraction of an inch, space chains snapped it into pieces.

The third time, Logan drew his bow and fired an arrow infused with the Destruction Rule. The arrow only flew half a meter before dissolving into the Void.

Three attempts, all failed.

"This is a big problem," Logan thought, feeling a cold obstruction in his mind. His Divine Rule authority had been completely frozen. "It seems the Seal of Truth is already interfering with the Time Rule."

Logan quickly calculated the odds in his mind.

His original two backtracking permissions were sealed, leaving him with only two Save Points to read from. He had lost all chance to make mistakes.

But Logan was not the type to wait for death.

He raised his spatial shield and smashed it hard against the barrier.

The moment the golden shield, which was almost person-sized, fully formed, a rift opened in the void above his head.

"So, you actually came!"

Accompanied by a roar, silver chains dropped from the rift, smashing down onto the golden shield. The collision noise was as piercing as a funeral bell.

The first strike failed. The chains quickly retracted into the spatial rift.

They were covered in tiny fragments of Space Power. As they swept through the void, they left behind a trail of black marks—deep, unhealing space cracks.

Suddenly, a translucent figure, tall enough to block half the sky, stepped out of a space crack. The scattered cracks around it were instantly sucked into his form.

This entity had silver-gray skin, its body wrapped in tangled chains, and its eyes were like bottomless black holes.

When Logan locked eyes with the figure, he felt his very DNA, with its five-stranded helix, shudder in terror.

Logan’s pupils shrank. "You’re Bar!"

At almost the same time, Origin Devourer appeared on the other side.

The Black Hole Domain swirling around him had condensed and tightened, its density much higher than before. "Heh, Logan! I noticed last time just how powerful your Time Rule is."

"Do you really think I wouldn’t guard against you?" Origin Devourer sneered, releasing a massive surge of gravity.

The power was so intense it felt like it was tearing Logan’s flesh apart, whipping his black cloak wildly.

Through this crushing force, Logan clearly sensed that Origin Devourer had recovered to at least 80% of his full strength.

Suddenly, three figures emerged from the edge of the black hole.

Soul-Devourer [Maka] was a towering figure made of black vortices, nearly touching the canyon walls, with a massive black hole burning in his chest.

The black hole on his chest sucked in the surrounding wind, whipping Logan’s black cloak toward it. He had to grip his knife handle tightly just to keep his balance.

Beside Soul-Devourer stood the Soul-Devouring One [Faceless], who had turned into gray mist. Wherever he walked, rocks crumbled to dust and life withered away.

Behind them was Space-Ripper [Crystal Bone]. His translucent body refracted blinding light, locking down the space around Logan to prevent him from teleporting.

At the same moment.

Four more figures stepped out from the shadows behind Bar.

These were Demigods from the 36th Restricted Zone, masters of the Earth, Shadow, Frost, and Lightning Divine Rules.

The Earth Demigod [Rock Armor] stomped his foot, shattering the ground beneath him as he took a position in front of Bar.

Next to him stood the Shadow Demigod [Gray Eye], draped in a gray robe, watching Logan with cold indifference. Just one glance dimmed the light in the surrounding space.

On the other side, Frost Demigod [Frost Maiden] and Lightning Demigod [Thunder Fang] were wrapped in elemental energy, ready to strike at any second.

In an instant, the battlefield shifted. Four Demigods led by Origin Devourer and five led by Bar—nine Demigods in total—pinned Logan down, their combined power locking his position.

Origin Devourer bared his bloody fangs. "Logan! Today is your death day!"

The air suddenly became thick and sticky, like glue, making every breath difficult.

"Who dies first is still to be seen!" Logan didn’t hesitate. He immediately expanded his Familiar World projection, the Ten Realms.

A vast virtual universe instantly wrapped around him. Nine main stars circled the central star, with the Devouring Main Star and the Space Main Star flanking the sides. Golden and silver rule-lights intertwined, trying to withstand the crushing pressure.

The surface of the central star radiated warm golden light, temporarily offsetting some of the Black Hole Domain’s gravity.

Seeing the projection, Bar’s silver-gray face remained expressionless. He raised his right hand.

"Space Entropy!"

At his command, the rocks within the entire canyon turned instantly into Void, the air itself decomposing into particles.

This is the kind of power that kills anyone below the Demigod stage on contact.

Seeing Bar unleash a forbidden technique without holding back, Logan’s expression turned colder.

Another round of [Space Entropy] followed.

Logan barely dodged the blast. Behind him, the canyon wall first turned silver-gray, then crumbled like sand. Within half a second, more than half of it was gone.

A wave of freezing energy rushed at him, causing a thin layer of ice to form on his skin. Ice coated his eyebrows, his eyelashes froze stiff, and he could feel ice chips scraping against his eyelids every time he blinked.

"Logan! You’re done for!" Seeing Logan struggle, Origin Devourer synchronized the contraction of his Black Hole Domain, doubling the gravity.

The crushing force slammed directly onto the Ten Realms projection. The light around him twisted completely, leaving Logan’s vision filled only with silver-gray Void and the pitch-black holes.

At the critical moment, Logan immediately unleashed his soul power, using the Blade of Time to anchor every point of his past.

At the same time, he sacrificed the core power of his Familiar World, relying on his spatial shield to endure the oncoming Void energy.

But the attacks from both Origin Devourer and Bar, being super Demigods, far exceeded Logan’s expectations.

Soon, the surface of Logan’s [Ten Realms Projection] was instantly covered in a dense network of spiderweb cracks.

Various rule assaults traveled through the projection, striking Logan’s five-stranded DNA directly.

Logan instantly felt a wave of agony rush through his body. Pale golden blood seeped from his nostrils, dripping onto his black robe.

"Damn it!" Logan looked down, sensing his internal state. His already damaged DNA cracks tore open even wider.

The cracks expanded by a full ten percent!

At the same time, the five-stranded structure in his DNA began to tremble under the unbearable pressure, dangerously close to disintegration.

"If I keep enduring this, I have zero chance of winning!" Logan’s eyes, ears, mouth, and nose all bled. His face twisted in a grimace. "Read!"

A wave of Time Rule power wrapped around Logan’s body. In the blink of an eye, his body rewound to the state it was in before he entered the canyon.

However, Logan was still trapped in the same location, completely locked by the space, unable to teleport away.

Suddenly, Logan’s brow tightened. He felt as though a fragment of his memory from yesterday, where he discussed defense ring details with Violet, had just blurred for a moment.

It felt like someone had used an eraser on it, but hadn’t finished wiping it clean.

Logan knew this was the side effect of forcibly reading a Save Point.

With his DNA on the verge of collapse, every time he read a Time Anchor, a bit of his memory would slip away like fine sand.

Logan touched the scar on his left arm. The wound had healed, but inside the scar, it felt like countless tiny bugs were crawling. The itch was excruciating.

He pinched the skin hard until it bled, just to suppress the burning sensation.

At that moment, the memory of Violet handing him hot soup completely vanished from his mind.

He couldn’t even remember what he had eaten last night. All that remained was a faint, warm feeling that flickered and then disappeared.

...