The Eighteenth Layer of the Rune Clan was not to be found deep beneath the Vermillion Bird Star, but built within the very heart of this Outer Realm Battlefield! Wang Lin strode to the wall, and with a mighty thrust of his right hand, pressed against its surface. A chorus of cracks echoed through the air as the fissures spread like spiderwebs. Then, with a final, deafening crack, several lines connected, causing a section of the wall to crumble inwards, revealing a gaping breach.

Wang Lin stood within the opening, and before him lay the Outer Realm Battlefield!

Vast and boundless, the Outer Realm Battlefield stretched into infinity. Before Wang Lin’s gaze, colossal remnants of corpses drifted slowly, aimlessly wandering towards the unending horizon.

Within those skeletal hulks, countless spectral souls swirled and danced. In the distance, a silent storm raged, yet a chorus of shrieking whispers assaulted the soul. This storm was comprised entirely of tormented, wandering spirits.

A shiver ran down Wang Lin’s spine as his divine sense expanded, revealing his location. He stood upon a gargantuan bone, not of man, but the skull of a dragon-like beast.

The breach he had made in the wall was but a sliver of this creature’s skull! He was within its head, gazing out upon the battlefield.

From a vantage point within the Outer Realm Battlefield, one would see that the massive skull was surrounded by a suffocating sea of corpses, an endless expanse of death and decay.

The spectral storm, drawing closer, hesitated at the edge of the skull. As if sensing something terrible, the multitude of souls shrieked in unison and scattered in a frenzy of terror, fleeing as though Wang Lin’s very presence posed a threat beyond comprehension.

For Wang Lin was once a Soul Devourer!

Staring into the Outer Realm Battlefield, he had traversed countless cultivation planets, yet nowhere had he seen such a place connected to another world like this, outside Vermillion Bird Star.

It seemed this Outer Realm Battlefield belonged solely to Vermillion Bird Star, solely to its cultivators!

In silence, Wang Lin stepped forward, crossing the threshold into the Outer Realm Battlefield after two thousand years. He could not forget the day when, slain by the Elder of the Teng Family, his soul, aided by the Heaven Defying Bead and Situ Nan, had entered this realm. Here, he had witnessed the dying Ma Liang seize another’s body and begin a new existence.

As Wang Lin’s divine sense expanded, reaching across the desolate landscape, he saw a myriad of bones and countless wandering souls. They shrieked and recoiled, trying to escape his consciousness, but found themselves trembling in his presence.

Some of the bones belonged to fallen cultivators, but most belonged to strange, ferocious beasts, many of which Wang Lin had never seen.

His divine sense stretched farther than before, beyond the furthest reaches of any Vermillion Bird Star cultivator. With increasing range, Wang Lin uncovered even more remains.

At last, Wang Lin’s divine sense touched the boundary of the Outer Realm Battlefield, a membrane that stifled his power.

With a flash of insight, Wang Lin did not hesitate. He unleashed his divine sense with tremendous force. A deafening rumble erupted at the edge of the battlefield, and Wang Lin heard a cracking sound, as if a mirror were shattering. With this surge of power, he shattered the barrier, revealing the world beyond!

It was another Outer Realm Battlefield, but on a scale beyond reckoning. Compared to the area he had known, it was as an ocean compared to a stream!

Wang Lin’s heart quaked. There, in the unfamiliar expanse beyond the barrier, were countless golden skeletons, radiating a powerful aura of divinity. These were the bones of Immortals!

He saw the bones of savage beasts, their forms twisted and grotesque, emanated a potent energy that spoke of their terrifying strength in life.

His divine sense swept onward, revealing sights beyond imagining. He saw the skeletons of gargantuan Mosquito Beasts and fierce Qiongqi, the bones of beasts that stretched for tens of thousands of feet.

Every beast he had ever encountered, save for the Underworld Beasts, were all present in the Outer Realm Battlefield beyond the barrier!

Wang Lin’s shock washed over him like a tidal wave. His divine sense spread again, sweeping past the countless skeletons until it reached the true edge of the Outer Realm Battlefield. He had mapped it all.

At that moment, Wang Lin’s eyes widened in terror.

As his divine sense encompassed the entirety of the Outer Realm Battlefield, he realized it was but a fragment, connected to the Vermillion Bird Star in a strange way, as if the planet itself was born from it!

An irregularly shaped fragment, as if torn from a larger whole.

Wang Lin’s mind reeled. Then, in a flash, he remembered the words spoken by the Old Vermillion Bird of the Four Holy Sects, the earth-shattering secret passed down to him before death: the Vermillion Bird Star was part of a Door…

The words echoed in Wang Lin’s mind, merging with the sight revealed by his divine sense. And in that moment of clarity, he realized that the fragment that made up the Outer Realm Battlefield was part of a vast, strange Door!

“The Door that the Four Holy Sects found… What kind of Door is it? Does the First Ancestor of the Fallen Land know about this?”

Wang Lin stood for a long time, finally suppressing the turmoil within his heart. His thoughts drifted to the silver-clad woman who had gazed upon the statue of the Seven-Colored Daoist with utter horror.

“I didn’t open the Door… I didn’t open the Door…” Wang Lin murmured.

He could not be sure if these two Doors were one and the same.

Slowly, he withdrew his divine sense, drawing it back into his body. With a complex gaze at the Outer Realm Battlefield, he turned and left, filled with confusion.
Upon his return to Suzaku, Wang Lin was beset by a torrent of revelations, each more bewildering than the last, leaving him feeling estranged from the very world of his birth.

“Hong Die, so the deception…”

“The Nineteenth Layer of the Rune Clan…it imprisons the Arrow of Li Guang itself…”

“The Outer Domain battlefield of legend…merely a fragment of a vaster realm beyond! And it…is but a piece of a Gate…” Wang Lin sat atop a solitary peak on Suzaku, the mountain wind whipping at his hair and clothes, his gaze lost in contemplation.

“With each rise in power, I uncover deeper secrets of Suzaku…so this is its true nature.” He watched as twilight painted the sky, a gathering storm cloud birthing distant rumbles of thunder, and rain began to fall in the far reaches.

A lone white bird, wings a blur, fought to escape the encroaching darkness, desperately seeking to outrun the ominous cloud that promised death. But a deafening roar echoed, and the creature shuddered, caught within the cloud’s grasp, and swallowed whole.

Wang Lin’s eyes narrowed, a disquiet settling upon him.

The rain followed the cloud’s advance, its damp breath reaching Wang Lin, a chilling autumn embrace.

The sky succumbed entirely to shadows, thunder booming closer to Wang Lin’s desolate peak. The swirling clouds, like ink spilled upon parchment, spread inexorably.

The rain intensified, a relentless drumming echoing in Wang Lin’s ears. The earth, which would normally be disturbed by such a deluge, remained eerily still.

Small stones that should have been swept away by the wind were held fast, as if by an unseen force.

A thunderclap shook the heavens, and bolts of lightning, piercing the sky like silver serpents, illuminated the storm-ridden world.

Wang Lin inhaled deeply, a growing unease clawing at his soul. He banished the unsettling discoveries about Suzaku from his mind. He had accomplished his purpose here. Now, he must master the power within, bring his essence of life, death, cause, effect, truth, and illusion to fruition.

He would then refine the Sword of Slaughter gifted by Qing Shui, and with six essences, transcend to the Third Step, tearing open the Door of Emptiness.

He rose, turning to depart, but behind him, the storm roiled, a wrathful god lurking within, watching with deadly intent, seeking to devour him as it had the white bird.

Lightning flashed, and a palpable aura of menace erupted from the heart of the storm.

Wang Lin halted, every hair on his body rising in alarm. A primal sense of impending doom seized him, his heart pounding with terrifying force. He turned, his eyes fixed on the churning clouds, his expression hardening with resolve.

“This is wrong!” The three visions he had seen played out in his mind. The bird’s demise. The stillness of the earth. The stones unmoving.

This sense of death exceeded even the dangers of the Ancient God Cemetery, or his return to the Realm Within. This was a crucible, a trial akin to that of Hong Die.

Only by surviving this trial could he earn the right to continue. This was a truth revealed the moment he laid eyes upon the approaching storm.

The storm’s fury was not the source of this dread. It was the amalgamation of thunder, lightning, and the churning clouds, amplified by his own heightened senses. It was a natural phenomenon, but its arrival now, at this precise moment, felt like a decree of the heavens themselves.

“Heaven’s shift…” Wang Lin’s pupils constricted. Without hesitation, he unleashed his divine sense, sweeping across Suzaku, extending into the cosmos. The sight that greeted him among the stars caused his face to contort in shock.