The Demon with Holy Radiance

’Not sure... I’ll take another look!’

Yang An once again triggered the ripples at his feet. They spread out, one after another, and the faint light they produced grew brighter.

As the ripples swept over the statue again, he finally confirmed that he hadn’t been mistaken. His breath quickened.

The statue in the Forbidden Land Core was identical to the winged eye he had seen before!

Back when he was in Dingzhou, outside the continent, Yang An had seen a strange, eerie statue in the Ding Chong Daoist’s cave-dwelling on Wuwei Peak.

The statue had been covered in countless, densely packed winged eyes.

It was as if one of those eyes had entered his mind, and he had been unable to shake the image ever since.

From that moment on, Yang An discovered that the eye would appear in his consciousness under certain conditions, even granting him a special ability that allowed him to see things far beyond his reach.

For instance, in the Xiyue River Ancient Collection, he had been on the Fifth Floor but saw Miao Ye on the Seventh Floor.

Or on the Earth Spirit Stele, he had seen portions of a Cultivation Technique that were beyond the limits of his Cultivation Level.

But Yang An never would have imagined that he would see this thing here, in the core of the Forbidden Land.

’What on earth is this? Why is it here? This is a Forbidden Land... could this thing be directly related to a Forbidden Artifact?’

Instantly, countless questions flooded Yang An’s mind.

’Besides, this is the Deep World of the Xian Origin Land. If I’m not mistaken, Lower Hu represents a period of time in the Origin Realm’s past. So how did this thing end up on Wuwei Peak in Dingzhou?’

’Or could it be that, while they look the same, they aren’t actually the same object?’

’I wasn’t able to learn its true nature through appraisal on Wuwei Peak back then, but maybe now I can...’

Yang An looked up at the statue. It seemed to possess some kind of magical power, but what he truly wanted to know was what secrets it held and whether he would be affected by it.

He slowly extended his hand. His fingers reached out tentatively, and when nothing unusual happened, he touched the statue as if guided by an unseen force.

The next moment, an information box suddenly popped up before Yang An’s eyes.

[Eye of the World]: This item is restricted by the current world. Complete information cannot be obtained.

The message in the information box was incredibly brief. It was the first time Yang An had ever seen one so short.

It didn’t even show what abilities it had or what price was required to use them.

After reading the contents, his brow furrowed even tighter.

’Restricted by the current world?’

’Does "current world" refer to Lower Hu? Or the Origin Realm in reality?’

Just as he was pondering this, the statue his finger was touching trembled slightly. Yang An instinctively tried to pull his hand back.

But to his surprise, his hand felt like it was glued to the statue; he couldn’t pull it away no matter how hard he tried.

At that moment, his gaze fell upon the statue. In that single glance, the petrified sculpture seemed to come to life, its pair of wings suddenly beginning to flap rapidly.

In Yang An’s eyes, the entire world seemed to be falling away. With him at the center, his perspective continuously soared higher and higher.

He saw himself standing before the statue in a boundless darkness, like a devout believer.

Then he saw the entire Forbidden Land. Strange phenomena appeared across its thousand-mile radius, and from the countless small areas where the Rules were manifest, colorful lines shot straight into the sky.

Then he saw the entire world shrink to the size of a fist, forcibly pressed into a phantom Stone Stele by countless hands as heaven and earth trembled.

After that, he saw an even larger, identical world merge and collide with another, phantom world.

He recognized one as the Origin Realm, while the other phantom world was a blue planet that looked incredibly familiar to him.

In the blink of an eye, the phantom world crumbled, collapsed, and exploded, ultimately vanishing without a trace.

The landmasses of the Origin Realm began to break apart, and cataclysmic floods raged, only to become calm again just as quickly.

But after the waters calmed, the world’s continents had fractured, ultimately forming what looked like a giant eye.

The ring-shaped landmass, split into four huge regions along with countless smaller ones, formed a massive eye socket.

A sparkling blue ocean in the middle became the eyeball.

And the area at the very center, shrouded in endless black fog, became the pupil.

This familiar scene immediately made Yang An think of the Real World: the layout of the Outer Continent and Central Continent, and the vast Forbidden Sea that separated them.

His perspective shifted again, rising higher still, and a hand of unimaginable size appeared. It was larger than the entire world, which looked like a small rubber ball in its grasp.

The hand was holding a black pearl. It gently dropped the pearl, and it collided with the world below.

The black pearl instantly atomized, dispersing into a thick black fog that began to rapidly envelop the entire world.

Upon seeing this, although Yang An felt an immobilizing sense of confinement, as if he couldn’t control his own body, his consciousness was still free.

Through this thing called the Eye of the World, he seemed to have witnessed the ultimate secret of this world.

All of this happened in just a few breaths, evolving from his own position. He had even seen what was polluting this world and where it came from.

It was that hand!

A hand that reigned over the entire world, existing beyond it!

At this moment, he didn’t even dare to breathe, afraid that the slightest sound would draw the hand’s attention. His Heart was pounding so hard it felt like it would burst from his chest.

But what he never expected was that just as the hand, having dropped the pearl, was about to withdraw, it suddenly paused.

’Why did it stop?! Why did it pause?!’

A terrible premonition suddenly arose in Yang An’s mind. It felt like he was a spy hiding in the shadows who had just stuck his head out and met the gaze of someone looking his way.

’It noticed me!’

The massive hand suddenly pressed down toward his point of view, and everything in Yang An’s vision rapidly dimmed.

But just then, the solid feeling beneath his feet vanished, and his perspective began to plummet.

In less than a ten-thousandth of a second, his viewpoint returned to the Forbidden Land Core. Everything before him rewound at lightning speed, back to the winged eye.

An extremely intense wave of nausea and dizziness suddenly flooded Yang An’s mind. As he wrenched his hand back from the statue and clutched his aching head, the statue instantly disintegrated into dust.

Countless motes of dust fell to the ground, creating a series of dense ripples, like a meteor shower crashing down.

Within the dark Forbidden Land Core, the faint light began to grow brighter.

When Yang An came to and opened his eyes, his brain was still throbbing with pain.

But when he saw the scene before him, he had no choice but to take it seriously, focusing all his attention and spirit.

Everything around him seemed to have silently transformed into an endless, barren field.

A great sun hung high in the sky. Beneath the scorching sunlight, he stood in an empty space, looking out at a field bristling with countless weapons.

’Where is...?’

He carefully recalled everything that had just happened, his heart still pounding with residual fear. Who could have predicted such an unbelievable event would occur upon entering the Forbidden Land Core?

Fortunately, he was still safe and sound, with no major injuries.

Yang An tried to call out to the Bow Lady in his mind, wanting to know what had happened while he was unconscious, but he received no response.

Looking at his surroundings, which seemed normal for the moment, Yang An had no choice but to first focus on recovering his throbbing mind.

Once he finally felt better, he reassessed his surroundings.

He seemed to remember that after his perspective returned, the statue of the winged eye had shattered. He didn’t know what happened after that.

’But since everything has changed, looking on the bright side, could this be the place where one can truly comprehend the Power of Rules?’

Yang An looked at the weapons scattered everywhere around him. There were all types, lying about in a disorderly fashion, some stuck in the ground, others simply lying flat.

Sabers, swords, spears, halberds, axes, hooks, and forks... There were even all sorts of strange objects that looked like jewelry or everyday items.

The place looked like a junkyard filled with scrap, but also like a treasure trove filled with all kinds of rare and precious artifacts.