An affiliated force Genius asked hoarsely. They felt that only one or two hours had passed.

"Who would know that? Our lives are about to be gone; naturally no one was paying attention to the time."

Someone answered through clenched teeth, but before he could go on, he saw those images that had already birthed Spiritual Wisdom chasing after them once again.

Everyone had no time to think; they could only flee in utter disarray once more.

This time even Zhan Feng could hardly hold out; one of his arms was chopped off by the Broken Blade Man, and Jiang Shu’s body was also covered with many new wounds.

In the end it was Jiang Shu who activated Dao Rhyme, relying on many Great Techniques to force a way out, and the instant he saw the Wind Cloud Pride, he directly passed out.

When Jiang Shu woke up again, the scene before his eyes was extremely unfamiliar. Zhan Yun was sitting cross‑legged beside him, his aura unstable; the blood at the corner of his mouth had dried up, and there was an extra hideous crack at the corner of his eye. The Light Armor on his body was also tattered beyond recognition.

"I originally thought you wouldn’t wake up now."

Zhan Feng’s figure came over to Jiang Shu’s side and handed him a piece of jerky that radiated surging blood‑energy.

"Where is this?"

The injuries on Jiang Shu’s body were actually not fatal. He propped himself up, tearing huge mouthfuls from the jerky in his hand as he asked Zhan Feng.

Zhan Feng did not answer, only shook his head lightly.

"I don’t know either."

Jiang Shu’s brows furrowed. During his brief coma, his blood and qi had already recovered quite a bit.

Climbing high and looking into the distance, the dark‑red Crystal Stone earth spread out, while an iron‑gray firmament hung low, like a canopy of leaden clouds stained by gunsmoke, never to disperse.

In the distance, broken mountain ranges were like snapped giant spines, hung with shriveled, blackened ancient corpses that swayed slightly in the bloody wind.

The thick dark‑red magma in the canyons gurgled and bubbled, sending up scorching currents of air that carried the smell of rust and charring, warping the line of sight.

Fine Law remnants floated in the air like invisible blades, cutting through space and bringing a constant stinging pain.

Drifting space fissures, like hideous black scars, were the soundless wail of this Ancient Battlefield.

Zhan Feng and the others had just escaped from a brutal fight to the death with the activated images; the breaths of the group were heavy and ragged.

Yu Sha’s shoulder was a blur of blood and flesh, the wound deep enough to see the bone; her pale face was covered in sweat, clearly already injured at the foundation, even her Realm at risk of falling.

At the lower abdomen of that blue‑clothed girl named Lan Xi, a stubborn clump of black qi was entrenched, constantly corroding her Protective Spirit Light. Seeing this, Jiang Shu casually flicked out a wisp of fine yet tenacious Taichu Dao Rhyme, barely suppressing it at the edges to prevent it from spreading and eroding her Origin.

The other Wind Cloud Prides from affiliated forces all had faces either ashen or auras feeble, with more or less new wounds added; deep in their eyes remained a terror so dense it could not be dispelled.

"Elixirs can only suppress the wounds for half a day. The corruption cannot be extracted; we must quickly find a safe place to meditate and adjust!"

Zhan Feng viciously wiped the filthy black blood splattered on his face with the sleeve of his Battle Suit; his voice rolled out like muffled thunder.

His newly acquired, heavy and ancient Bronze Battle Axe hung low. Along the edge of the axe blade, a few drops of viscous black liquid, thick as asphalt, were slowly dripping down, clearly from those bizarre activated images.

Yet Zhan Yun suddenly snapped his head up; his gaze was as sharp as a hawk leaving its sheath, sweeping the surroundings without letting anything slip, then dropping to the cracked dark‑red Crystal Stone ground beneath their feet.

He extended two fingers, extremely cautious, and, as if touching burning coals, lightly brushed along the edge of a deep fissure. The sensation under his fingertips was not pure cold hardness; within the depths of the fissure, an obscure dark‑red glow flashed and vanished, carrying a faint yet real warmth.

"No... the situation is a hundred times worse than we thought!"

Zhan Yun’s voice carried an unprecedented heaviness.

She suddenly tilted her head back, looking toward the oppressive iron‑gray sky, her brows knotted into a lump.

"Big Brother, Brother Jiang!"

"Did you feel it? The sense of boundary of this Ancient Battlefield is disappearing!"

"Sense of boundary?"

Zhan Feng subconsciously repeated, his heart giving a fierce jolt.

Jiang Shu’s eyes also sharpened; his powerful Divine Sense instantly spread out like an invisible spiderweb.

Previously, although this Ancient Battle Soul Path was incomparably perilous and its spatial structure chaotic and violent, the sense of being inside an independent Little World was exceedingly clear.

All of them knew that all the scenes they saw were false, existing in a far more ancient time.

Thus, while observing this battle, they were keenly aware that this scene did not belong to their own world, and therefore there was a so‑called sense of separation.

Yet at this moment, that feeling was fading and blurring at an astonishing speed!

It was as if they had already come to a brand‑new world.

Everything here was real, no longer images.

The Heart of Space within Jiang Shu’s body trembled slightly, and the feedback from it made his heart sink.

The spatial structure was not being violently impacted or weakened; on the contrary, it was like it was growing, like withered vines that had absorbed nourishment and were now madly stretching and extending.

This could only mean one thing: this dead Ancient Path world was greedily drawing in Power from the chaotic currents of the Void, using its own endless battle intent, remaining Laws, and the grievances of living beings as its foundation, madly expanding and swiftly stabilizing its own spatial structure.

It was breaking free of the shackles of Secret Realm fragments, evolving toward the embryonic form of a complete and stable, truly real world filled with endless malice!

"The Law Fragments are resonating!"

Zhan Feng was likewise greatly shocked; he too had sensed the anomaly.

The chaotic and violent Dao Rhyme fragments of the far‑ancient battlefield in the air, which ought to have been nothing more than imprints, illusory shadows, were at this moment producing a faint, indescribable resonance with the earth underfoot, the sky overhead, and the magma rivers in the distance.

The fragments seemed to be mutually attracting, mutually filling in the gaps, becoming more vivid.

The faint radiance in the depths of the crack under their feet and the rising warmth from below were the most direct warning signs!

"Not only have the images gained chaotic Spiritual Wisdom and aggressiveness."

Zhan Yun’s voice was ice‑cold and bone‑piercing. He suddenly lifted his arm and pointed toward a huge Ancient Demon corpse, over ten zhang tall and covered in thick Bone Spikes, hanging beneath a nearby cliff.

"Look there!"

Everyone’s gaze focused in an instant.

That enormous corpse, which should have been completely shriveled and rigid, its fingers covered in black keratin, like a gigantic Warhammer, twitched in the stillness—an extremely slight spasm, nearly impossible to catch with the naked eye!

Though the hollow eye sockets still held no gleam, that tiny movement was filled with the sluggishness of a stiff, long‑dead vitality being forcibly awakened, like a cogwheel corroded for ten thousand years being abruptly wrenched by an invisible hand.

"It... it moved?!"

A Disciple from an affiliated force spoke in a shrill voice, unable to suppress his panic.

"And those space rifts!"

Jiang Shu’s gaze flashed like lightning as it swept across the space fissures drifting in the air, like black centipedes.

These fissures should have been utterly patternless, purely natural‑disaster‑like lethal traps.

Yet now, the edges of the two or three rifts closest to them were slowly squirming and stretching like worms, in a way that sent shivers down the spine.

They drew closer to one another, as if about to fuse, yet also as if searching for the best angle to prey.

Deep within the pitch‑black rifts, the light of the Void’s chaotic currents flickered, no longer a random flickering, but more like icy, unblinking eyes!

"It’s not just this world, but those images as well!"

"They are all birthing faint consciousness, and their patterns of behavior are shifting from the initial primitive stupefaction and frenzied chaos, to gradually showing regularity, even preliminary cooperative intent."

Zhan Feng felt a chill surge from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head; the knuckles of the hand gripping his War Axe whitened from the force.

"Their earlier attacks were more like being driven by lingering grievances and the battlefield’s killing instinct—chaotic and disordered."

"But now, they are observing, learning, adapting to this heaven and earth that is coming alive!"

"They are about to become entirely new lifeforms."

This discovery was a hundred times more chilling than the peril of being besieged by the images just now.

It meant that they were not merely facing a group of resurrected deathly images, but were standing inside the womb of a death world that was in the process of gestating and madly growing.