Ye Xiu raised his hand.
With a casual motion, he sliced through the air.
A crack appeared in the void.
There was no explosion, no distortion of light or sound. Space itself simply parted, revealing an endless darkness beyond. Ye Xiu stepped forward and vanished into it.
Inside was nothing.
No sky.
No ground.
No light.
No darkness.
There was no time flowing here, no spatial direction, no laws to anchor existence. This was an independent space, severed entirely from the dimension of existence.
Ye Xiu sat down cross-legged in the emptiness.
His expression was calm.
When he had descended into the lower dimension, his true power had been too great. To avoid collapsing worlds and attracting unwanted attention, he had sealed himself layer by layer.
Billions of seals.
He releases his power forcefully outside his body as soon he does the seal starts to broke like glass .
Above Ye Xiu's head, the void began to change.
A vast galaxy-like vortex of energy slowly took shape, rotating in silence. Countless streams of light spiralled inward, shining like stars scattered across the emptiness. Each rotation carried the weight of origins, laws, and forgotten epochs.
It was beautiful.
And terrifying.
Ye Xiu remained seated beneath it, unmoving.
He entered a deep state of meditation, his breathing steady as his consciousness sank inward. At that moment, he no longer perceived the void around him.
He perceived himself.
To break through into the Infinite Stage, one could not rely on cultivation alone.
Nor on energy.
Nor on laws.
At that level, power was meaningless without existence.
One had to merge they're very being with their Origin.
Not borrow it.
Not control it.
But become it.
Ye Xiu guided his soul forward.
His Origin emerged from the depths of his existence, vast and boundless, carrying the imprint of everything he was and everything he had ever been. As the galaxy above spun faster, threads of starlight descended, wrapping around his soul and Origin alike.
Slowly.
Irreversibly.
They began to merge.
There was no pain.
No resistance.
Only a profound stillness, as if all definitions of self were dissolving into something purer.
Past.
Present.
Future.
Cause and effect lost meaning.
If he succeeded, Ye Xiu would no longer be merely a cultivator bound by realms.
He would become an anchor of existence.
A being whose presence alone defined reality.
The vortex above brightened, stars collapsing inward one by one—
As Ye Xiu stepped closer to the Infinite Stage.
Stars ignited.
Galaxies were born.
Then, just as swiftly, they collapsed into nothingness.
Within the void, countless celestial bodies formed and dissolved in endless succession, as though an entire cosmos was being simulated around Ye Xiu. Space twisted, stretched, and layered upon itself, gradually stabilizing into the vague outline of a universe.
At its centre—
Ye Xiu.
The galaxy-like vortex above him reached a blinding brilliance.
Then—
A violent surge of Origin power erupted.
There was no scream.
No struggle.
Ye Xiu's body shattered.
Flesh, bone, blood—every trace of physical existence tore apart, exploding into innumerable particles of pure energy. Each fragment carried a piece of his will, his laws, his identity, scattering across the newborn universe like sparks from a dying star.
Silence followed.
For an immeasurable span of time, the void held nothing.
No form.
No presence.
No consciousness.
Then—
From absolute nothingness, a single point of light appeared.
Darkness gathered around it, not as absence, but as substance. Light and shadow intertwined, spiraling together, shaping something new.
Slowly, deliberately, a humanoid figure began to take form.
Not reconstructed.
Rewritten.
Energy condensed into structure. Concepts solidified into flesh. What emerged was no longer bound by the definitions of a mortal body, nor limited by the laws of cultivation.
This was existence refined.
As the final contours stabilized, the surrounding universe stilled, as if holding its breath.
His body reshaped itself.
Not from flesh.
Not from bone.
But from nothingness itself.
At the Eternal Stage, Ye Xiu had possessed overwhelming power, yet it had always been imperfect. His existence was too vast for his control. Whenever strong emotions surged, his power would leak outward uncontrollably, affecting everything around him.
Destruction without intent.
But the Infinite Rank was different.
At this stage, power no longer spilled unconsciously.
It obeyed choice.
He could decide which existence to affect…
and which to spare.
That was the true meaning of Infinity.
As the final trace of Origin settled, Ye Xiu opened his eyes.
The independent space dissolved soundlessly.
He stepped forward and returned to the lower dimension.
Outside, dawn was breaking.
The sun hovered at the horizon, casting a faint golden glow across the city. Ye Xiu stood in his room, feeling the quiet stability of his new existence.
He glanced down.
Then paused.
Slowly, he looked himself up and down.
"…Hm."
Only then did he realize—
He was wearing nothing.
His body, newly forged from nothingness, had not bothered with such trivial concepts.
Before he could react—
The door opened.
Wu Shuang stepped inside.
She froze.
Time seemed to stop for half a heartbeat.
Ye Xiu's eyes narrowed slightly.
Wu Shuang's mind went blank.
She stopped.
Her eyes met Ye Xiu's.
For a brief moment, neither of them moved.
The morning light spilled into the room, soft and pale, illuminating a scene neither had expected.
Wu Shuang realized first.
Her gaze dropped for half a second.
Then she froze.
Her breath caught, and she immediately turned away, her back stiff.
"I— I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't know you were in this kind of things—"
Ye Xiu reacted instantly.
He grabbed the nearest clothes and pulled them around himself, turning aside as he spoke, a rare edge of fluster in his voice.
"What… what kind of things are you saying?"
"And who enters without knocking?"
Wu Shuang froze.
The tips of her ears turned red, then her whole face followed. She lowered her head, mortified, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
"I— I'll wait outside."
Before Ye Xiu could say anything else, she slipped out of the room and closed the door behind her, a little too quickly.
Silence returned.
Ye Xiu exhaled, steadying himself, then finished dressing. When he stepped out a short while later, the scent of food greeted him.
The table was already prepared.
Wu Shuang stood nearby, pretending to focus very seriously on arranging the dishes.
Ye Xiu glanced around. "Where is Ye Xuan?"
Wu Shuang paused, then replied, "I don't know. She said she wanted to go to the mountain and that she'd be back by noon."
Ye Xiu's brows furrowed.
"The mountain?" he said slowly. "Didn't she only wake up from a coma yesterday? Her body should still be weak."
Wu Shuang hesitated, then added quietly, "She looked… very determined."
An awkward silence settled between them.
It stretched.
Uncomfortable.
Too noticeable.
Ye Xiu cleared his throat.
"Why did you come into my room so early?" he asked, his tone calm but a little stiff.
Wu Shuang flinched slightly.
"Eh— ah…" She looked away, rubbing her fingers together. "I wanted to ask you about the box you gave me yesterday."
Ye Xiu glanced at her. "The box?"
She nodded quickly. "Yes. Where did you get it?"
"Oh." He paused, then added casually, "That's a pill."
Wu Shuang blinked.
"…A pill?"