In front of the exploded ruins, Mr. Duan paused in place for a moment.

Mr. Duan's abyss-deep eyes swept across the messy ruins all over the ground, as if carefully confirming every trace of energy fluctuation remaining in the air.

Finally, he shook his head with contempt.

"What a boring ending."

He whispered, and his tall figure rippled like water waves, instantly disappearing from the spot.

The next second, he appeared in another place in Donghai City.

The Evernight Guild base.

This was Zhou Huai's base camp, and the outer periphery of the base was covered with high-tier defense Formations built at a huge cost.

Mr. Duan's figure appeared without warning outside the main gate of the base.

He raised his head, and his deep, calm eyes swept calmly across the high-tier city-protecting Formation before him that was enough to withstand the full-force bombardment of an SS-Rank Expert.

There was no pause.

There was no gathering of power.

He just walked with his hands in his trench coat pockets, stepping forward with a composed expression.

"Pop—"

A light sound like a water bubble bursting.

The Formation barriers outside the base, which had consumed countless rare materials and were inscribed by top Formation Masters, melted and receded silently the moment they touched his body, just like early snow meeting a raging fire.

It did not trigger any alarms, nor did it cause the slightest bit of energy backlash.

This was the power of a Transcendent, a destroyer of rules who disdained to follow any established Law of this world.

"Da, da, da..."

The crisp sound of leather shoes echoed in the empty first-floor lobby.

Mr. Duan stopped, raised his head slightly, and closed his eyes, as if sensing something.

A moment later, a faint arc curled up the corner of his mouth.

He slowly raised his gloved right hand and gently beckoned toward the third floor.

"Come."

A simple word.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz—!"

Accompanying a crisp vibration, the Pendulum of Life in a room on the third floor suddenly sensed something.

That ancient Divine Artifact exuding majestic life energy seemed to hear its master's call, buzzing violently, turning into a stream of golden light that directly penetrated the thick ceiling and obediently flew into his palm.

His left hand flipped gently, and the black Heaven-Suppressing Seal capable of suppressing the Law of heaven and earth also emerged.

"Heaven-Suppressing Seal, Pendulum of Life..."

"They are all keys to opening the door to the new world."

"Since all the puzzle pieces have been collected, I cannot continue to waste time here."

After finishing all this, he put away the Divine Artifact and just prepared to turn and leave, but suddenly stopped his steps.

He turned his head to look in the direction of the third floor, a trace of doubt flashing in his eyes.

"To think there is still a stray lamb left behind here?"

With a flash of his figure, he directly disappeared from the first-floor lobby.

The next second, Mr. Duan appeared out of thin air in a tightly sealed bedroom on the third floor.

Inside the room, the lights were dim.

On the large bed, a slender figure was sitting upright.

It was none other than "Ye Xi", who had been forcibly brought back by Zhou Huai and locked up with the demon-forbidding chain.

At this moment, she had already awakened from the forced coma caused by Great Sage Li Er's Words Become Law.

She was lowering her head, her cold and peerlessly beautiful face filled with irritability and humiliation, desperately tugging at the chain exuding a dim blue light on her ankle.

"Damn lowly creation! How dare you lock this seat with such a thing!"

She growled through gritted teeth, trying to mobilize the magical power within this A-Rank Holy Light caster's physical body.

However, the runes circulating on the demon-forbidding chain firmly suppressed all her energy fluctuations.

At this moment, apart from the terrifying spiritual pressure belonging to the Ancient Awakened Ones, the power of her physical body was not even as good as an ordinary person who exercised regularly.

She was completely helpless against this specially-made chain.

At this moment, Mr. Duan abruptly appeared in the center of the room.

The two people's gazes briefly intersected in the dim room.

"Ye Xi"'s movements suddenly stiffened. She was stunned for a moment, staring intently at the middle-aged man in front of her wearing a retro gray trench coat.

In those clear eyes that originally belonged to a young girl, there now revealed a depth and sharpness tempered by the vicissitudes of life.

"It's you?"

She stopped struggling and glared through gritted teeth at the gray-clothed man in front of her.

"The current situation seems completely different from what you promised us back then!"

"What kind of place is this? Why is the Aptitude of this physical shell so inferior?"

Facing her angry roar, Mr. Duan's face didn't have the slightest ripple; he just looked at her calmly.

"Plans can never keep up with changes, and the situation has experienced a slight deviation."

"Deviation? You call this a minor deviation?"

"Ye Xi" laughed out of extreme anger, her eyes filled with fury: "I am the dignified Extreme Ice Empress, an existence who once covered the sky with one hand and turned the earth over with the other! To think I am now locked here by a broken chain forged by a mere Lower Realm ant! If this is what you call 'Dawn', you are simply insulting us!"

"Calm down first."

Mr. Duan's voice remained unhurried: "This was not my original intention. It's just that the speed of version updates is much faster than I anticipated."

"The erosion of the abyss is already irreversible, and the underlying logic of the world is collapsing. If I don't make a forced move, even your qualifications to sleep will be stripped away, and you will be completely annihilated under the obliteration of the rules."

Mr. Duan paused, looking at her with deep eyes: "I had to awaken you ahead of time. The price of hasty awakening is that a portion of people, like you, cannot accurately descend upon the origin sacred tree, but instead, like rootless duckweed, randomly attached yourselves to the physical shells of these low-level creatures in the present world."

"The origin sacred tree?"

"Ye Xi" keenly caught this word, the anger in her eyes subsided slightly, replaced by a hint of hope: "That tree... did you really succeed in cultivating it?"

"Of course, as long as there is enough nourishment, it grows even more luxuriantly than I imagined."

Mr. Duan finished speaking calmly, and gently tapped his fingertip against the demon-forbidding chain on "Ye Xi"'s foot.

With a crisp "crack" sound.

That indestructible chain that left Ancient Awakened Ones helpless snapped at the sound, just like corroded rotten wood, turning into a pile of powder all over the ground.

"Let's go."

Mr. Duan turned around, putting his hands back into his trench coat pockets: "Since I found you by a twist of fate, come back to the sacred tree with me. I still have a lot of things to do, and I don't have time to stay here and reminisce about the past with you."

After saying that, he turned around and went out the door without looking back.

"Ye Xi" looked at his tall yet cold back, remaining silent.

She rubbed her ankles marked with red imprints, took a deep breath, and finally stood up, dragging the physical body that she hadn't fully adapted to yet, and obediently followed him out the door.