Chapter 240: The Destruction of the Version Fragment and a New Permission

Although Davis had only spoken the words Longevity Heaven without revealing any further detail, an unexplainable premonition surged in Lu Yan’s heart—this had to be the work of the Longevity Heavenly Venerable.

He had only entered the Great Collapse Realm for about a month and had interacted solely with the Nation of the Gods and the Mechanized City. Even the Mechanized City, the direct victim, hadn’t managed to block his exit from the fragment in time—how could other unrelated factions have reacted so quickly?

Yet, the future shown by the Probability Cloud clearly revealed that the ambush beyond the version fragment’s border had been premeditated. The attacker not only arrived early but could even resist the core rules of the Mechanized Version Fragment. With a name that included the word “Longevity,” Lu Yan couldn’t imagine any explanation other than the Longevity Version.

Davis wore a look of confusion, clearly unaware of what the Longevity Version truly represented. But all the ghost generals and even Giant Spirit God shared a uniformly grave expression.

Staring grimly at the ever-shifting Probability Cloud above, Lu Yan muttered to himself.

“The Longevity Heavenly Venerable and Jiang Zhiwei are old acquaintances. He is very likely one of the ‘this world’s sole existences’ who once participated in the Version War. It’s not surprising for the Longevity Version to appear in the Great Collapse Realm.

“But the real question is—how did the Longevity Heavenly Venerable interfere with this realm to lay such a trap?

“How many experts from Longevity Heaven are lying in wait outside the fragment?”

With that thought, Lu Yan turned to Davis and asked, “How much do you know about this Longevity Heaven?”

Davis thought for a moment, then replied, “Longevity Heaven is a faction that existed since the creation of the Great Collapse Realm.

“However, top-tier forces like the Alliance of Immortals, the Nation of the Gods, the Seven Gods Church, and the Tenfold Martial Path all seem to bear hostility toward it. Longevity Heaven has always been reclusive, hiding deep within the core version territories, with nearly no channels for external contact.

“Though Longevity Heaven is not widely known, the ancient logs of Mechanized City have recorded instances of its experts in action.

“The top figures within Longevity Heaven are on par with the peak demigods of the Nation of the Gods and the living saints of the Seven Gods Church.

“But these experts seem to bear some kind of unique pollution, which limits them across various versions. Thus, very few records of their actions exist.”

At the mention of this “unique pollution,” Lu Yan immediately thought of the Demonic Version, where demonic cultivators practiced twisted Daoist methods, gazing into warped great paths that brought pollution.

The black-scaled hand shown in the Probability Cloud also bore some resemblance to the demonic cultivators.

With all this combined, Lu Yan became certain—Longevity Heaven was indeed the faction corresponding to the Longevity Version.

He cleared away the distractions in his mind and focused on the current predicament.

The Probability Cloud’s future display and the ambush set at the version border revealed that although the experts of Longevity Heaven could use the Longevity Seal to resist the Ninefold Shackles, that resistance couldn’t last long.

If they could truly ignore the core rules, they would have stormed in by now. Instead, they had to lie in wait at the edge of the fragment.

“Their goal is either to ambush me during my exit or to trap me inside the fragment.

“They can’t enter the fragment due to the core rules, but the Mechanized City’s army and the Prophet Mechas are on their way. Once the army regroups, they’ll march straight in. By then, it’ll still be a death sentence.”

Lu Yan couldn’t help but feel a headache forming. Just as he resolved the crisis with the Mechanized City, something even worse had shown up.

“No wonder they’re the disciples of the Longevity Heavenly Venerable. Their boss-level gatekeeping is a perfect copy!”

He cursed aloud.

Pacing back and forth, Lu Yan finally calmed his mind and turned a chilling gaze toward the border of the version fragment.

“If you love blocking doors so much, then let me gift you a surprise!”

Outside the version fragment, within a hidden void, four terrifying presences occupied the surrounding space.

There was the Bone Buddha soaked in foul corpse water, the Thousand-Eyed Shaman Ancestor with a bronze ritual mask and countless compound eyes, the Three-Headed Evil Dragon with nine claws and triple heads, and the Swarm Mist formed by innumerable bizarre gu bugs.

These four demons had long shed their humanoid forms. Their twisted shapes exuded power at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm.

The Bone Buddha gazed toward the fragment’s entrance. A hoarse voice drifted from the depths of the murky corpse water.

“I sense a shift in the future.”

The other three demons glanced his way. The Thousand-Eyed Shaman Ancestor sneered.

“With that half-baked manas? Just because you devoured half a Buddhist Nation doesn’t make you a true Buddha.

“If not for the Heavenly Venerable’s blessing, you’d never touch the Great Dao in this lifetime.”

But the Three-Headed Evil Dragon disagreed.

“This mission involves the Venerable’s decree. Every possibility must be accounted for. We must prepare for all contingencies.”

“I mean no disrespect to the Venerable,” the Shaman Ancestor snapped, “but the fate of that insect has already been decided. He only fooled Mechanized City with tricks. Against us? He’s nothing.”

While the demons quarreled, a shift occurred at the fragment’s edge.

A figure had appeared, flying toward the border.

“He’s here already?” the Thousand-Eyed Shaman Ancestor mocked.

The Three-Headed Evil Dragon remained silent, while the Bone Buddha’s dark hollow eyes flashed, deep in thought.

But to their surprise, Lu Yan halted just before crossing the fragment’s threshold.

The four demons immediately felt a sense of foreboding.

“Did he notice us?”

“Could something have gone wrong?”

Their unease grew. Though they could trap Lu Yan inside and wait for the Mechanized Army to return, even demons understood the dangers of delay.

One shared glance was all they needed.

“Strike now!”

“With the Longevity Seal, we can resist the core rules for a quarter hour—long enough to kill him!”

The four demons were not ones to hesitate. In a flash, four dreadful auras erupted, shredding the hidden void like primordial beasts awakening.

The Bone Buddha’s massive form of countless white bones emerged from the shadows, his every step releasing torrential corpse water laced with eerie Buddhist chants.

The Three-Headed Evil Dragon’s outer heads roared, while the central human head opened its eyes—its pupils twisted with manic agony.

The Thousand-Eyed Shaman Ancestor’s countless eyes snapped open simultaneously, each reflecting a different image of Lu Yan.

The Swarm Mist transformed into a black-purple miasma, teeming with bizarre bugs writhing as if to devour the heavens.

The four demon auras merged, forming a net that threatened to tear the fragment asunder as it descended on Lu Yan.

Sensing the incoming doom, Lu Yan’s figure turned into a stream of light fleeing into the distance.

The demons’ twisted Daos flared, slashing through the boundary like divine blades.

A massive hand covered in black scales tore through reality and plunged into the version fragment. The surrounding space trembled, nearly shattering from the violent intrusion.

The invasion triggered the core rules—nine shackles descended from the sky to suppress the alien presence.

But then, from the scaled hand emerged an ancient glyph. The Longevity Seal blossomed into a heavenly dome filled with stars and phenomena, holding off the Ninefold Shackles.

The demonic hand still struck, collapsing a massive area into nothingness.

Yet in that instant, Lu Yan’s body dispersed into starlight—merely a projection from his One Dream Myriad Worlds Technique!

The true Lu Yan had already fled.

As the fake vanished, a purple vortex flowing with countless Daos emerged from its core.

“What is that?!”

Within the dissipating vortex, a massive grindstone formed from intertwining yin and yang energies appeared.

Each rotation twisted space and time, triggering dimensional collapse.

“Idiot! Throw it away—now!” the Bone Buddha roared.

Too late.

Without suppression from the Gate of Mystery Womb or the void of the Null Clock Pendulum, the grindstone fully revealed the terrifying nature of the Destruction Rule.

Dimensional boundaries collapsed. Disordered time fragments drifted in the void, each carrying shadows of different timelines. The wave of destruction surged like an unstoppable flood.

The black-scaled hand couldn’t withstand it. The Three-Headed Evil Dragon’s protective scales peeled away, revealing warped flesh beneath. In an instant, the destructive power consumed his body.

Without matching rank, touching the Destruction Rule meant certain death—even peak Nascent Soul demons were mere ants, erased without time for a final cry.

The entire version fragment began to collapse like a shattered mirror. The Longevity Seal’s sky crumbled in mere breaths, along with the Ninefold Shackles.

Reality howled in despair. Every inch of space marked by the Destruction Rule was mercilessly consumed.

The surviving three demons abandoned all thoughts of hunting Lu Yan and fled in terror.

The Bone Buddha’s massive skeletal body had crumbled by half. He summoned a tidal wave of corpse water, where tens of thousands of skeletal monks chanted the Afterlife Sutra, aiding his escape.

The Thousand-Eyed Shaman Ancestor fared worse. His countless eyes turned hollow upon gazing into the Destruction Rule, losing even the concept of vision.

His bronze mask cracked and finally shattered—beneath it was only void, torn open and stripped of mystery.

As if some unseen rule had broken, his aura plummeted. Barely holding his body together, he fled.

The Swarm Mist suffered first. Most of its bugs disintegrated under the rule’s pressure, leaving only a few elite bugs carrying its will to flee into the heavens.

The remaining demons dared not linger, fleeing at top speed.

Behind them, the origin of the fragment became a gaping void—hundreds of miles reduced to nothing by the grinding wheel of yin and yang.

But as the Destruction Rule spread, the Great Collapse Realm’s order descended.

The rule could destroy version fragments, for they were inherently incomplete.

Yet the realm itself, though lacking a full Heavenly Dao, had stable order that could resist a mere strand of the Destruction Rule.

Order began to restore the destroyed reality. Space crushed by the rule was compressed. Land reformed under the realm’s influence—even the shattered fragment was patched.

The void shrank. As the last trace of the Destruction Rule was about to be erased—

A black-gold banner appeared.

From within the rippling space, Lu Yan stepped out from the miniature world of the Human Emperor Banner.

Though terrifying, a single strand of the Destruction Rule could not overcome a Heavenly Dao Merit Artifact.

Lu Yan had hidden within the banner’s inner world, safely enduring the destruction.

As order prepared to erase the final trace, Lu Yan summoned the Gate of Mystery Womb and reabsorbed the Destruction Rule into it—preserving it.

Afterward, he glanced around at the restored world and exhaled in relief.

But just then, a system interface suddenly popped up in front of him.

A line of text appeared:

[Repair of the Great Collapse Version: External Fragment neutralized. Permission Reward Granted.]

[Current Progress: 10%]

(End of Chapter)