The richly dressed young man dropped to one knee.
"Royal Father."
The newly arrived man gave a slight nod.
He did not ask what had happened.
He simply placed one hand lightly on his son's shoulder.
The gesture was ordinary.
Almost gentle.
Yet amid the white mist still trembling from battle, it carried a kind of authority that made breathing itself feel inappropriate.
His gaze moved forward.
The gray-robed middle-aged man was still gripping his horsetail whisk, barely holding off the two Blood Bats.
White threads burst outward, snapped, and reformed into nets.
Blood-light and black wind alternated through the void, tearing layer after layer of mist apart.
The king watched for a moment, his voice remaining calm.
"One at mid-stage Tribulation Transformation. One at late-stage Tribulation Transformation. Wandering Blood Bats of the void. To reach this realm is not bad."
He spoke as though explaining a simple lesson to his son.
Nothing in his tone suggested he was standing before two creatures that had just killed his guards.
"Remember this. Only battles fought on the boundary between life and death can temper true strength.
"Sitting safely inside a cave dwelling and piling resources upon your cultivation does not make you powerful."
The young man lowered his head.
"This son will remember."
His father continued,
"When traveling between worlds, your identity will not save you.
"Your treasures may not save you either.
"If your strength does not match what you carry, those possessions will only give others more reason to kill you."
He paused.
"Do you understand?"
"This son understands."
"Then watch carefully."
The king raised his right hand.
His five fingers slowly curled inward.
There was no dazzling light.
No explosion.
No grand display of technique.
Yet the entire region of space before him immediately folded inward.
Light distorted.
White mist contracted.
The small fractures in space bent under pressure, as though an invisible hand had seized the void itself and begun squeezing.
The gray-robed middle-aged man's expression changed drastically.
He immediately withdrew his whisk and retreated toward the young prince.
Tens of thousands of white threads coiled around him, forming a protective layer.
Even so, the shock in his eyes could not be hidden.
The two Blood Bats were pinned in place.
Their white and black wings beat madly.
Layer after layer of blood-light erupted.
Black wind tore outward in streaks.
Everything was forced back inward.
They could not advance.
Could not retreat.
Not even a fingertip could move.
For the first time, true fear appeared on the face of the white-winged Blood Bat.
"Senior..."
His mouth opened.
But the sound was crushed the moment it formed.
The black-winged Blood Bat roared without sound.
His eyes blazed red.
His wings beat so violently that the bones beneath the glossy black skin became sharply visible.
It was useless.
The king's fingers continued to close.
The two bodies began shrinking.
Wings.
Bones.
Blood.
Flesh.
Blood-light.
Black wind.
Everything was compressed toward a single point.
Blood that burst from their bodies did not even have time to scatter.
It was pulled backward by the invisible force and forced into the red-black mass contracting in the void.
Their humanoid forms became two distorted shapes.
Then two tiny red-black points.
Then even those points went dark.
Nothing remained.
No corpses.
No blood.
No screams.
Not a single trace proving that two beings powerful enough to drive the group into danger had existed there moments before.
It had taken only a few breaths.
Inside the Cosmic Ark, Hao Nhien stood with his mouth slightly open for a long time.
He had just watched two terrifying beings be erased.
Not defeated.
Not killed in any ordinary sense.
Erased.
As casually as someone brushing two specks of dust from a sleeve.
A freezing horror crawled down Hao Nhien's spine.
But beneath that fear, another thought rose uncontrollably.
Power… can reach this level?
One closing of a hand.
Life and death decided.
The king lowered his hand.
His expression had not changed at all.
It was as though he had completed some insignificant task.
"Finish what you came to do and return quickly."
He spoke to the young prince.
"I still have guests waiting at home."
The young man bowed deeply.
"This son obeys."
Only then did the king turn his head toward the distant mist.
Toward the place the Ark Spirit had said was Hao Nhien's world.
His gaze lingered for a moment.
"Oh."
His voice was very soft.
"It really is a world in collapse."
The young prince immediately replied,
"Yes, Royal Father. This son could only see a small number of living beings remaining on that planet. Everything else is dead fragments.
"The spiritual qi is extremely thin and still declining. The world boundary has almost vanished entirely, and energy is continuously leaking away.
"If this continues, it will not be long before this becomes a completely barren world."
The king nodded faintly.
His gaze passed over the distant planet once more.
No pity.
No regret.
No disgust.
It was simply the look of a traveler noticing an old house on the roadside that was about to collapse, confirming its condition, then losing interest.
"A weak little world whose foundations have already decayed.
"Life still remains, but it no longer possesses enough strength to maintain its own equilibrium."
The young prince rose and looked in the same direction.
"Royal Father, can it still be saved?"
"Saved?"
The black-robed man gave a quiet laugh.
Not a loud laugh.
Not openly mocking.
Only a short sound, as though the question itself had used the wrong word.
"It has no value worth saving."
The sentence fell lightly.
Almost casually.
Yet Hao Nhien felt it weigh more heavily than all the killing he had just witnessed.
The black-robed man continued,
"The boundary has ruptured. Energy has leaked away for too long.
"Life may have emerged, but its foundation is too weak.
"Weak bodies.
"Weak souls.
"Short lifespans.
"Perception confined to crude material existence.
"Even if this place were given another thousand or ten thousand years, it would struggle to produce a being qualified to enter the greater current of the universe."
He spoke slowly and clearly.
No anger.
No hatred.
No pleasure.
Like someone evaluating exhausted farmland.
A flawed structure.
A seed that had grown crooked outside the planned garden.
That was exactly why it felt so cold.
The young prince remained silent for a moment.
Then asked,
"Then how should it be handled?"
The king reached out and produced a transparent object.
At first glance, it looked very similar to the ancient abacus in the prince's hand.
But its aura was completely different.
Thin as crystal, its surface held no beads, only small square cells glowing with silver light.
He flicked several points of light with one finger while explaining to his son,
"This is a special time-attribute spiritual treasure.
"Recently, while traveling through a new universe, I obtained it by chance."
The richly dressed young man looked at the object with both curiosity and reverence.
"Royal Father, what does it do?"
The king looked toward the distant planet in the mist.
His voice remained calm.
"It can borrow the residual energy of this world to reverse the world's own flow of time and return everything to its primordial state."
He paused.
His finger moved several more times.
The glowing squares lit and faded one after another, as though calculating something unimaginably complex.
"According to the deduction, the reversal will require approximately one thousand years.
"I will anchor this treasure within this spatial region.
"Once it activates, we must leave before the temporal flow begins to reverse.
"Once caught within it, no one can resist its influence.
"Not even me."
The prince's expression shifted slightly.
"Even Royal Father cannot?"
"No."
The king answered without hesitation.
"Time is one of the most fundamental laws.
"It may be borrowed.
"Guided.
"Its gaps may be exploited.
"But one cannot simply oppose it through physical strength."
He looked at his son, his voice slowing.
"One thousand years from now, once the reversal has completed, the remaining energy of this world will also be nearly exhausted.
"At that point, the temporal treasure will stop naturally.
"You may return then and refine the newborn world."
The young prince remained silent for a moment.
Then asked,
"Then… what happens to everything that exists here now?"
The king did not hesitate.
"Everything returns to its original energetic state."
The young man raised his head.
The king looked toward the planet and spoke as though explaining a perfectly ordinary principle.
"A collapsing world has already lost the ability to sustain itself.
"If left alone, it will continue dispersing until only dead fragments remain scattered through the void."
The king glanced toward his son.
The prince gave a slight nod, though some hesitation remained in his eyes.
The king continued calmly.
"There is nothing here worth regretting.
"Nothing worth preserving or carrying away.
"And even if I wished to, not even I could take physical matter from this world through the temporary passage back to ours.
"The laws on both sides are incompatible.
"The weak matter of this place would disintegrate the moment it left the foundation of its world."
Inside the Ark, Hao Nhien stood frozen.
Every word entered his consciousness colder than the wind of the void.
Reverse time.
Return everything to its original energetic state.
One thousand years.
Refine the newborn world.
The man spoke those words with unbearable calm.
No killing intent.
No madness.
No hatred.
That calmness was what chilled Hao Nhien to the bone.
To that man, Hao Nhien's world was not a homeland.
Not a place where billions of living beings were breathing, loving, suffering, and struggling through each day.
It was merely a damaged object.
A failed foundation.
A mass of energy waiting to be recycled.
Hao Nhien felt his chest tighten.
He had contemplated impermanence before.
He had reminded himself that all things arose, remained for a time, decayed, and passed away.
Nothing lasted forever.
A human life.
A city.
A civilization.
Even a planet would eventually reach its end.
But that was natural decay.
What stood before him now was different.
Someone intended to interfere.
To erase everything simply because this world had "no value."
Hao Nhien thought of streets near the end of the year.
Warm yellow light glowing behind windows.
People hurrying through fine rain.
Children laughing.
Cars passing.
A mother calling her child home for dinner.
He thought of simple messages sent during a winter night far from home.
Have you eaten yet?
Don't stay up too late.
Things so small they could never be placed on the scales of the universe.
Yet to the people living inside them ...they were an entire life.
He thought of a homeless man curled up against a street corner.
A woman pushing a stroller through snow.
A child grinning after receiving a piece of candy.
People he had passed without ever learning their names.
Weak.
Ordinary.
Without spiritual qi.
Unable to fly through the heavens or burrow through the earth.
But they were still living beings.
Still alive.
Still struggling to remain standing through suffering.
Through illness.
Through loneliness.
Through all the days when no miracle ever came.
And yet from that man's mouth, all of it became
There is nothing worth regretting.
A slow anger began rising inside Hao Nhien.
Not the hot anger that wanted to kill.
Something heavier.
A deep sense of injustice, as though countless small voices were choking inside his chest.
He knew he was weak.
So weak that the man before him might be able to shatter his consciousness with a single glance.
But he still wanted to step out.
He wanted to ask what right that man had to judge an entire world.
He wanted to say that a living being did not need to become one of the universe's elite before earning the right to exist.
He wanted to place his own small, weak, almost meaningless body between that man and his home.
Between him and the snow-covered rented room.
The streets at year's end.
Anh Nhien.
Every ordinary thing Hao Nhien had complained about countless times—
yet had never once truly wanted to lose.
"Old Ark."
His voice sounded in his mind, hoarse and heavy.
"Let me out."
The Ark Spirit turned toward him.
"Master."
"Let me out."
"If you step outside, you will die for nothing."
"Then what am I supposed to do? Stand here and watch them erase my world?"
The Ark Spirit fell silent.
That silence only deepened Hao Nhien's anger.
In the distance, the black-robed man placed his hand upon the Time Disc.
The points of light within the spiritual treasure began slowly rotating, like the first gears of some ancient machine awakening.
Hao Nhien stared at it.
There was no Columbus left in his mind.
No meditation.
No curiosity about other worlds.
Only one thought remained.
No.
Absolutely not.
The concealment around the Cosmic Ark trembled.
Very slightly.
As faintly as a spark flaring to life within an endless sea of mist.
But in a place like this even the smallest spark could be noticed by those who stood above the heavens.