The World Between the Fold, referred to as the Endless Voyage Realm by its natural-born natives, was renowned for its extremely vast and spacious area. Besides the three cities, the World Between the Fold was largely empty. However, this was merely on the surface.
The foundation of the World Between the Fold was the Endless Void Mirror. When Wei Wuyin first arrived, he playfully produced music on its unique sound-producing surface, and Liu Suyin had warned him of being careful lest he fell in. According to her, falling in represented being stuck beneath the surface for eternity.
This wasn't entirely true.
Beneath the surface of the Endless Void Mirror were the elusive entrances to the numerous Mobile Spatial Pathways that led to the various Node Cores. Each Mobile Spatial Pathway, excluding their chaotic lengths and ever-changing nature, was like an independent dimensional.
There were two entrances only for each, one that led to the Sealed Regions and one to the World Between the Fold. They were interconnected by the snake-like tunnel, and they served as veins and arteries to the World Between the Fold, slowly bringing forth essence, energy, and mana to this guard station of a realm to sustain itself and the Core Nodes.
If one traversed the pathways, they would soon find themselves in one of five World Realms on par with the Devil War Realm, with a fully sustained ecological system, and a continental landmass that served as its foundation. No, one of four World Realms.
When the Tiangou expelled its latent energies after consuming three Solar Stars, one of these three World Realms collapsed, leading to the destruction of countless pathways and entrances, but also severely damaged the structure of every other still-functioning pathway and lessened the living conditions of the World Between the Fold.
Each World Realm contained what Destined and Seekers called the Core Projection Star. This was the Solar Star of that World Realm, very reminiscent of the Devil War Realm's Solar Star, and it maintained the functionality of the Mobile Spatial Pathways and distribution of resources to and fro the Endless Void Mirror, granting it power and sustaining the Sealing Array that kept the Sealed Regions as the Sealed Regions.
The Solar Stars weren't real; the Destined, Seekers, Trueborn, other hostile organizations, and most native Citizens knew that these Solar Stars were the projection of the Node Cores that existed in the Sealed Regions and the World Beyond the Fold. It merely served as a medium and connection to actively affect the Sealed Regions while simultaneously supporting the Endless Voyage Realm and other functions.
These World Realms were heavily defended, reinforced by thousands upon thousands of years of effort in the form of Mystic Arrays. They were bonafide fortresses. Throughout their long history, due to certain slip-ups, such as the Destined tasked with defending the World Realm recklessly chasing after those who assaulted them or corrupt Seekers, these attackers have damaged the Core Projection Star and the territory, resulting in these defenses weakening it considerably for a period.
Unfortunately, they couldn't hold the territory long enough to trace the true location of the unguarded and vulnerable Node Cores situated within the Sealed Regions or World Beyond the Fold, nor could they mount a strong enough counteroffensive after reinforcements arrived to uproot their occupation due to how difficult it was to find the Mobile Spatial Pathways. If it wasn't for Tiangou's unexpected expulsion of world-devastating power, the rough equivalent of a body burp, it was unlikely that any assault would've yielded tangible results.
It hadn't in tens of thousands of years.
Skirmishes still existed year-round despite these seemingly impossible odds and consistent failures, forcing Destined like Chen Shanghe and Seekers against powerful, relentless foes. While these skirmishes weren't too dangerous, they still resulted in a few deaths here and there.
These violent fights occurred almost exclusively in the pathways leading to the World Realms where the Core Projection Star was located.
Since Tiangou's unintentionally destructive actions, some of the elusive pathways had grown static, losing their ability to shift locations and avoid the continuous piling of enemies at its gates. This led to an obvious outcome—these pathways were attacked by the largest force seen in millennia!
Those pathways leading to the Sealed Regions were the most active.
Within 7754th Pathway.
This was but one of the non-functioning pathways that had grown completely still, causing it to become a location of extreme contention. The entrance of this pathway was located in the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region, within the Void-Blank Space that segregated the Hexaflame Starfield and the Trihex Starfield.
At the moment, these two Starfields' leaders—the Hexaflame Starfield's Inferno Solaris Church's Pope Huoyan and Trihex Starfield's Trihex Unity Sect's Sect Master—were occupied by the Saint Cyclic Stellar Region, acting as observers to the greatest event organized by the Everlore Association in the last thousand years.
However, they were unaware that two gargantuan Shadow Eggs surrounded a specific spatial distortion near their territory, and a continuous outflow of jet-black cloaked figures was surging through it fearlessly.
The pathway was a total war zone. There were corpses of Destined littering the pathway for miles and miles, bloody and broken into pieces, while the number of jet-black-robed figures kept pouring into the pathway through the entrance with manic fervor. Thousands upon thousands of Astral Core Realm cultivators rushed forward with a fighting will.
While the number of black-robed corpses made from this moment to the start of the battle could be summed up as tens of times greater than the Destineds' numbers, there wasn't a single corpse of any black-robed figures anywhere to be seen. It created a sense that the Destined were losing without a shadow of a doubt.
However, the scent of death was deep and rich. It was clear that this battlefield was extremely terrifying.
Shiing! Shiing!
Woosh!
A powerful male Destined at the Timelord Phase fought three Starlords with a sword in hand, exuding a peerless sword aura that sliced fixed space apart. He was average in appearance but domineering in demeanor. With a single swipe of his sword, waves upon waves of sword force were unleashed that sent the three black-robed Starlords back for tens of miles.
"NO!!" A wail of death and fear resounded as a Realm World Phase Destined had their Worldly Domain shattered, besieged by five Realmlords with heart-shaking killing intent. They rushed him and intended to leave the Destined as one of the many corpses in the pathway.
"Hmph!" The Timelord Destined coldly snorted; with a palm, he pushed out a forceful amount of Worldly Pressure that caused the attacking Realmlords a few miles away to tumble, halting their lethal siege. With a swing of his sword, a ray of sword light flashed and encapsulated that nearly-crippled Realmlord Destined, sending him further into the pathway to seek treatment.
This, however, caused the three Starlords to rush the Timelord Destined with cold eyes behind their masks. They all knew how terrifyingly powerful this cultivator was, capable of facing three cultivators who were a stage above them, and they ignited their Star Cores.
By doing so, they temporarily gained unimaginable power!
The Timelord Destined reeled, his dignified and powerful demeanor gave way to fear and terror as he felt the exuberant lifeforce aura and powerful auras emit from his opponents. Without hesitation, he attempted to retreat after sending waves of sword light toward his attackers in the hopes of delaying them. Yet their empowered forms at the cost of their cultivation shattered those waves of obstacles with ease, and they got within a hundred meters of the Truelord Destined.
The battle changed to close-range, fierce, and deadly, and it didn't take long for the Truelord Destined to have his head shattered by a planet-destroying fist. His headless corpse fell, completely lifeless. Unlike Ascended beings, if a mortal lost their head, the result was none other than instant death.
The three Starlords had tattered robes littered with sword scars. Their eyes glinted coldly as their lives faded. They also fell. They had exerted a terrifyingly powerful self-damaging method that ignited their Star Cores and Lifeforce.
Their corpses followed shortly after, but then a faint sound resounded from their corpses and they scattered into black dust that exuded a turbid deathly aura. If Wei Wuyin was here, he would instantly recognize it as remnants of Necro Energy!
They completely disappeared as the dust became as tiny as particles of air. These particulates flowed back to the entrance of the pathway and flowed into the Shadow Eggs that were stationed outside.
After a day, three Starlords with similar auras rushed out and re-entered the passageway. Their auras were vibrant, and full of life, and their cultivation bases were stable. The killing intent they exuded was endless.
When they entered the pathway, the trio shouted with manic vigor: "For Trueborn!"
And they flew until they found new targets.
To the Destined defending the passageways, it seemed as if the enemy had a seemingly endless army that was fueled by the belief in a single mission. It shook the hearts of these Destined, but they too had their own beliefs, beliefs that they were willing to give their life for.
Due to the Sealing Array's design, the Mobile Spatial Pathways prevented Ascended beings from entering without being forcefully suppressed and outright killed. This was to prevent any type of damage to the pathways, and it was unforgiving for any side. Those beneath that were merely supposed to act as guards, maintenance workers, and inspectors; therefore, the only cultivators in the passageways were Astral Core Realm cultivators.
Those at the Ascended being level guarded the World Realms directly.
Near the entrance to the World Realm, hundreds of miles away, a female Unyielding Destined with the rank of a Commander used her cultivation base at the Star Core Phase of the Astral Core Realm to unleash an explosive shout that traversed through the hundreds of pathways that led to this location.
"We can't let them near the entrance! No matter what!" The Unyielding Destined had the tensest of eyes. If these cultivators made it to the entrance, they'll once again set up their Spatial Formation and allow Ascended beings to bypass the Pathways restrictions. They'll invade the World Realm!
She was extremely tense. For the last few years, they've defended the pathways with tremendous vigor. At first, they thought this was an excellent opportunity to train, but during the recent year, these attackers were like rabid dogs, completely endless and ravenously seeking to get here.
"We can't let them get here. We absolutely can't." She reminded herself of her mission, renewed by a sense of purpose. Furthermore, the Mystic Ascendant Realm experts within were all prepared to defend against the incoming attackers, including planning various measures to disrupt the Spatial Formations that could be set up to bring forth stronger enemies.
However, while the static pathways were filled with endless figures, in an area within the Grand Cyclic Stellar Region, extremely close to the Aeternal Sky Starfield, three Shadows Eggs were roaming a devastated and lifeless Starfield. They were flying about erratically, sending faint vibrations throughout the Dark Void and disturbing the chaos mana.
