The darkness of the Second Layer was not an absence of light; it was a physical, oppressive force. At twenty times normal gravity, even drawing a breath felt like inhaling liquid lead. But the true danger was not the physical strain—it was the Ancestral Intent.
Twenty-five pairs of silver eyes floated in the absolute blackness, encircling the Trinity. These were the echoes of the Yu Clan's greatest patriarchs and matriarchs, the ones who had perfected the "Unmoving Mountain" to cage the Void within their blood.
"You bring outsiders into the Abyss," a voice boomed, resonating not in the air, but directly against their skulls. The sheer pressure of the voice forced Dugu Yan to one knee, her jade scales scraping against the obsidian floor. "The Gatekeeper's burden is solitary. To rely on others is to invite the Void to consume them."
"Wrong," Yu Chen rasped, fighting the pressure to stand perfectly straight. His Void-Heart Star pulsed violently in his chest, working overtime to neutralize the crushing gravity around him. "You isolated yourselves because you feared the power you held. You turned yourselves into stone. I am not stone."
Dugu Yan gritted her teeth. The pride of the Poison Douluo's granddaughter would not let her bow. With a piercing cry, her Jade-Void Dragon wings snapped open. The translucent, spatial wings didn't just flap; they cut through the gravitational field. "Spatial Flight!" she shouted, creating a ten-foot dome where the gravity dropped from 20x to a manageable 5x.
Ye Lingling did not waste a fraction of a second. Her newly acquired 18,000-year black ring flared to life. "Fourth Spirit Skill: Abyssal Drain!"
She thrust the Nine-Heart Begonia into the ground. Instead of siphoning a beast, she began to siphon the ambient Ancestral Intent filling the room. The crushing spiritual pressure was dragged into her flower, converted into pure, stabilizing stamina, and fed directly into Yu Chen and Dugu Yan.
"Insolence!" another ancestral voice roared. The silver eyes flared, and the gravitational pressure doubled. The obsidian floor began to spiderweb with massive cracks.
"They are testing your philosophy, not just your muscles, Chen!" Dugu Yan warned, her wings trembling under the 40x localized gravity.
Yu Chen closed his eyes. The ancestors were projecting the ultimate manifestation of the "Unmoving" law. To beat them, he couldn't push back with force. He had to use the logic of the Void. He had to unmake their weight.
"You ask me to hold the sky," Yu Chen whispered, his voice suddenly echoing with the chilling, dual-tone resonance of the true Sovereign. "But the Void does not hold things. It swallows them."
He released his three spirit rings. Purple, Purple, Black-Silver. But he didn't stop there. He pushed his spirit power to the absolute limit, reaching the absolute peak of Rank 39. The bottleneck of Rank 40 was right there, but there were no spirit beasts to hunt in this grave.
"If there are no beasts to grant me a ring," Yu Chen commanded, opening his eyes, which now burned entirely silver, "then I will forge one from your stubbornness!"
He raised his hand toward the twenty-five pairs of eyes. "Third Spirit Skill: Elemental Dragon's Roar!"
But he didn't aim it outward. He aimed it inward, creating a localized singularity. He used the Void's gravitational pull to devour the spiritual pressure the ancestors were projecting. The raw, ancient intent of twenty-five Super Douluos was dragged into the vortex hovering above his palm.
The silver eyes widened in collective shock. The boy wasn't resisting their pressure; he was eating it.
The vortex condensed, spinning faster and faster until the sheer density of the absorbed intent ignited. With a deafening crack that shook the entire Starfall Peaks, the vortex collapsed into a perfect, solid circle.
A Black Spirit Ring descended upon Yu Chen. But unlike a standard 10,000-year ring, this one was etched with twenty-five glowing silver runes—one for each founder whose intent he had conquered.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Ancestral Trial Phase 2 Complete.]
Yu Chen: Rank 40 (Spirit Ancestor).
Acquired: Self-Forged Ring (Estimated Age: 25,000 Years).
New Skill: Gatekeeper's Domain (Initial Stage) - Nullifies external elemental and gravitational laws within a 30-meter radius.
As the ring settled over him, the crushing gravity vanished instantly. The twenty-five pairs of silver eyes slowly closed, their voices whispering a single, unified word before fading into the dark: "Sovereign."
A thousand miles away from the Starfall Peaks, a woman in a magnificent golden gown sat upon an ornate throne. Her beauty was flawless, but her eyes held a cold, terrifying authority. This was Bibi Dong, the Supreme Pontiff of Spirit Hall.
In her hand, she held a shattered golden petal—the life-slip of the Silent Petal, Rank 89.
Kneeling before her was Ghost Douluo, his form shifting nervously in the shadows. "Your Holiness... the Silent Petal was erased. The God-Observation Tool's lens over the Heaven Dou borders has also cracked. The technicians say it wasn't a physical attack. The tool was fed a logical paradox that burned out its core."
Bibi Dong slowly crushed the golden petal into dust. "A logical paradox. The Sunset Forest Anomaly." She stood up, her immense, twin-spider aura subtly leaking into the throne room, making the air freeze.
"The Unmoving Mountain has finally decided to move," she murmured, her eyes narrowing. "They think they can hide behind Dugu Bo's poison. Ghost, tell the Hall of Elders to prepare the Judgement Angels. If the Yu Clan wishes to play with the Abyss, we will bring them the Sun