Rushing to the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins, I Add Another Flame to the Central Province

In the northern region of the Central Province lay the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins.

The place was perpetually shrouded in rolling mist, its earth-veins fractured, mountains snapped as if broken by some unimaginable force, forming a colossal natural rift that stretched across ten thousand miles.

From deep within the abyss, an ancient, low rumble would occasionally echo out—like some entity that had slumbered for eons turning over in its sleep far beneath the earth.

Every one of the Sixteen Holy Lands knew of this place.

But none had ever fully mastered it.

Because deep within the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins was sealed the remains of an ancient imperial formation—its patterns long faded, yet its killing intent not entirely spent.

Throughout the ages, every Holy Land had sought to claim it, but every expedition sent below either perished within the broken formation or was devoured without trace by the abyss's ghostly mists.

And so, the place had become a festering wound in the heart of the Central Province.

Now, Wang Hao had set his eyes on it.

The Ten-Thousand-Mile Star-Chasing Vessel tore across the sea of clouds, its hull's star-patterns blazing at full intensity, its speed like a meteor streaking through the sky.

Behind it, that half-step tenth-tier abomination had been driven into utter frenzy—black gore, writhing flesh, and twisting tentacles flailing wildly, smashing countless peaks and altar-platforms in its path.

From the borders of the Central Province to the northern region, strong warriors of the Holy Lands had tried to intercept, only to be beaten back one after another by Wang Hao and his forces.

"Your Majesty, the northern region is just ahead!" Han Shanyue was drenched in battle-blood, clearly caught up in the fever of the fight. "Are you really going to drive this thing into the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins?"

"Not drive it in," Wang Hao said calmly, gazing at the endless chasm before him.

"We're going to make it break open that ancient formation's remains for us."

The others froze.

"The ancient formation's remains?" The Demon Lord's pupils narrowed. "Your Majesty intends to use the ancient killing array in that place to trap it completely?"

"Trap it? That would be too kind." Wang Hao's voice was low. "What I want is for the Holy Lands of the Central Province to witness for themselves—the place none of them could ever conquer is being used by me today as a slaughterhouse."

"It likes to devour, doesn't it?"

"Then let it devour to its heart's content."

"The more it swallows, the faster it dies."

The New Emperor Sword, while cleaving apart the tentacles surging from behind, cackled wildly: "Wang Hao, your tactics grow more and more to my liking. Driving the enemy into someone else's ancestral burial ground and letting them clean up the corpses—brilliant!"

Wang Hao shot him a glance. "Enough flattery. Once we enter the abyss, you take point."

"No problem!"

Above the northern border, reinforcements from every Holy Land had already gathered in force.

The Heavenly Wheel Holy Land, the Azure Cloud Holy Land, the Mystic Firmament Holy Land, the Crimson Sun Holy Land… one Martial God after another hung suspended in the air, their faces darker than the other.

They hadn't expected Wang Hao to actually dare drive this monster toward the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins.

"It must not enter!" one of them barked.

"If the ancient formation's remains within the abyss are activated, the consequences will be catastrophic!"

"Stop Wang Hao!"

But Wang Hao paid them no heed.

He merely lifted his head, glanced at the mouth of the abyss taking shape on the distant horizon, and spoke softly:

"You want to stop me now?"

"Too late."

With that, he slapped his palm against the prow of the vessel.

"Full speed. Crash through."

The Ten-Thousand-Mile Star-Chasing Vessel shot forward like a divine shuttle driven to its absolute limit, piercing straight through the Holy Lands' blockade and slamming into the outermost barrier of the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins.

Boom!

The barrier detonated instantly, tearing a rift hundreds of miles long through the entire mountain range.

"Wang Hao!!"

"How dare you!!"

The Holy Land warriors roared in fury as multiple Law Manifestations descended simultaneously in suppression.

But Wang Hao simply raised his blade and struck.

The New Emperor Sword transformed into a black-gold rainbow, its sword-intent surging as it hacked into three oncoming Law Manifestations and sent them reeling.

"You want to block us?" the New Emperor Sword bellowed. "Ask my blade first!"

The half-step tenth-tier abomination, driven relentlessly this whole way, was already wounded to the point of madness.

Now, sensing the dense killing aura and broken-array presence rising from the abyss ahead, a primal greed stirred within it.

It wanted to devour.

It wanted to use the ancient energy of the chasm to recover.

Wang Hao caught the shift in its emotions in an instant, and the corner of his mouth curled upward.

"Bitten."

"It wants to go in."

"Then let's stoke the fire."

He flicked out his final Ninefold Annihilation Ghost-Bane Talisman.

The talisman shot forth and unraveled into nine chains of crimson-gold flame, snaking around one of the abomination's forelimbs and hauling it bodily toward the chasm.

"Get down there!"

Boom!

Between Wang Hao's push and the vessel's pull, the colossal corpse of the abomination was dragged, inch by inch, toward the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins.

And then, from the very bottom of the chasm, there came a sound—primordial, glacial, bone-deep.

It was not the sound of an abomination.

Nor was it human.

It was the sound of an Imperial Formation that had slumbered for countless eons, suddenly triggered, slowly opening its eyes.

A single beam of pale, pristine array-light erupted from the depths, shooting straight into the heavens.

"The ancient formation… it's awakening!" someone screamed in terror.

But there was no surprise in Wang Hao's eyes. Only a cold, near-euphoric gleam.

"Finally."

"This is the awakening I've been waiting for."

He stepped forward, standing at the prow of the vessel, the Emperor Sword aimed straight at that ancient light rising from below.

"Go."

"Let it enter the formation."

"Then—"

"Close the door."

Deep within the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins, the remnants of the Imperial Formation blazed to life for the first time.

And the half-step tenth-tier abomination, chased all the way here, finally crashed into that death-trap that had slept for ten thousand ages.

The moment that pale array-light shot skyward from the bottom of the abyss, the entire northern region felt as though an invisible giant hand had clenched around it.

Heaven and earth fell silent.

Mountains and rivers stood still.

Even the Holy Land warriors hovering high above felt a chill that pierced straight to their marrow.

It was not mere killing intent.

It was an ancient savagery—one that had been suppressed for too long, starved for too long, and now, with outside force finally touching it, had woken with a hunger.

"The great formation is truly awake…"

"Damn it, Wang Hao, what have you done!"

"Fall back—everyone, fall back now!"

Shouts of alarm and fury rippled across the sky, but retreat had already become impossible.

The pitch-black void at the bottom of the abyss began to light up, inch by inch.

One line.

Two.

Ten.

A hundred.

Countless array-patterns—each as fine as silk yet honed to a razor edge—surged forth simultaneously from the stone walls, broken cliffs, ruined towers, shattered steles, and fractured pillars lining the chasm, like an ancient giant slowly forcing its eyes open.

Each time a pattern lit, the void collapsed by another layer.

The Martial God Law Manifestations that had been pressing close to the chasm's edge were shoved backward by miles, their breathing turning labored.

"This is wrong!"

"Damaged formation should not react this violently!"

"Unless…"

An elderly woman with white hair went pale, realization hitting her like a thunderbolt—her voice trembling.

"Unless this is no ordinary imperial formation remnant. This one has a formation spirit!"

At that word, silence fell like a shroud over the entire sky.

Formation spirit.

The moment it left her lips, every old monster present felt their blood run cold.

An Imperial Formation with a spirit was a completely different beast.

It meant the formation, though shattered, still retained some semblance of will.

It could kill.

It could devour.

It held grudges.

And it chose its prey.

Right now, the half-step tenth-tier abomination—dragged here from the southern seas by Wang Hao—had just stumbled into the formation's freshly hungry state.

"ROOOOAR—"

The Half-Step Tenth Tier Abomination also sensed the danger. Its colossal black flesh writhed madly as hundreds of tentacles curled back in unison, desperately trying to retreat from the edge of the Emperor Formation.

But getting in was easy. Getting out was another matter entirely.

Because Wang Hao was already standing exactly where the creature least wanted him to be.

Above the abyss.

The Ten-Thousand-Mile Star Boat pressed down upon the heavens, its hull carved with star patterns blazing with blinding green light, like an inverted heavenly bell, sealing off half of the creature’s escape route.

Wang Hao held one hand behind his back, the other resting on the New Emperor Sword, his expression terrifyingly calm.

“Since it’s awake, don’t let it wake for nothing.”

“Sword.”

“Here.”

“Seal the upper opening.”

The New Emperor Sword immediately shrieked in protest: “Wang Hao, you’re planning to lock this thing in with the old formation? This is a vestige of an ancient formation—if this goes wrong, even I might get buried with it!”

Wang Hao gave it a faint glance.

“Scared?”

“Me? Scared?” The New Emperor Sword bristled at once. “I’m scared we won’t have enough fun fighting!”

Despite the bravado, the blade had already swelled to a thousand zhang in a thunderous hum, its black-gold sword light coiling like a dragon spanning the sky, slamming into the formation nodes at the edge of the abyss.

In that instant, the Emperor Formation ignited as if set ablaze.

Buzz!

The entire Ten-Thousand-Abyssal Depths blazed bright as day.

Countless fragmented ancient patterns crawled up from beneath the abyss, splicing, reweaving, tangling together to form ancient war arrays stacked upon each other.

Some shaped like cauldrons.

Some like wheels.

Some like swords.

Some like towering mountains.

And more still, like countless pairs of indifferent eyes, opening wide within the abyssal darkness to gaze down upon the intruders.

“Heaven-Sealing Earth-Locking Formation!”

“Soul-Severing Mind-Erasing Formation!”

“Nine Abyssal Reincarnation Killing Formation!”

“Heaven-Pillar Prison-Suppressing Formation!”

One by one, names of long-lost ancient arrays were uttered with trembling voices from the ancient monsters of the Central Plains who had lived for untold millennia.

The more they saw, the more their scalps crawled with dread.

Because these formations were not merely the residual power of ordinary broken arrays.

Rather, they were being externally stimulated, automatically piecing together a fragment of the former Emperor’s formation’s divine might.

“It’s restoring itself!”

“It’s using the aura of that Abomination to repair itself!”

“This thing is turning into a living formation!”

A living formation.

When the Central Plains experts heard those two words, their hearts froze solid.

A “living formation” referred to a state where an Emperor Formation, after losing its original caster, had absorbed enough worldly spiritual energy, blood qi, resentment, and Dao rhythm to achieve an almost self-sustaining state of operation.

No longer inanimate.

It could judge friend from foe. It could pursue. It could hunt.

Even a fragment of a formation, once alive, was more than enough to ensure a death without burial for anyone below the late Martial God realm.

And now, this Emperor Formation in the Ten-Thousand-Abyssal Depths had been brutally fed alive—by Wang Hao and the Half-Step Tenth Tier Abomination!

“Hahahahaha!”

At that moment, the Abomination let out a twisted, distorted laugh.

It too realized that escaping was not immediately possible, and so it stopped fleeing altogether. Instead, it wrenched open a colossal maw made of countless flesh tendrils and bone spurs, and bit down hard on the residual formation patterns below.

“It’s trying to devour the formation!”

“Stop it!”

“Do not let it swallow the Emperor Formation!”

The Central Plains experts cried out in alarm.

But Wang Hao looked as though he had been waiting for exactly this. A cold flash crossed his eyes.

“Devour?”

“Can you even stomach it?”

His right hand clenched into a fist, and a thunder-crack boomed through the void.

The next moment, a system notification flashed in his mind:

[INTEL UPDATE: Three thousand zhang beneath the formation core lies a “Spirit-Suppressing Ancient Nail” not yet fully decayed. It can be forcibly awakened by channeling the impact force of the Half-Step Tenth Tier Abomination.]

Wang Hao’s gaze darkened.

“Spirit-Suppressing Ancient Nail?”

“So the old formation still has that thing.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, he raised a finger and barked:

“Keep pressing!”

“Press until that ancient nail wakes up!”

The New Emperor Sword hacked off a wave of incoming tentacles while cackling: “Your Majesty, your tactics are too ruthless. Making it ram the formation, but not letting it die cleanly—you’re forcing it to dig up the old bones beneath the earth for you.”

“Enough chatter.” Wang Hao’s expression did not change. “I want it to ram.”

“If it doesn’t ram, the Emperor Formation won’t truly awaken.”

“If the formation doesn’t awaken, how do we kill it?”

“And if it doesn’t die, how do we bleed those old bastards of the Central Plains dry?”

One sentence laid bare his intent—kill, scheme, and ruthlessness in plain sight.

Not just toward the Half-Step Tenth Tier Abomination.

But toward every sanctum powerhouse of the Central Plains watching from above.

In that moment, everyone finally understood: Wang Hao had been retreating from the Southern Sea all the way here—he was never running.

He was borrowing blades.

The blade of the Abomination. The blade of the Emperor Formation. And the blade of the Central Plains’ own hands—all to pry open an ancient slaughter-system that no one dared to approach lightly.

“A madman...” the white-haired crone murmured, a deep-seated dread surfacing in her eyes for the first time.

“It’s not just audacity.”

“He’s using the entire Central Plains as his chessboard!”

“You’re only realizing this now?” A crimson-robed Martial God beside her said through clenched teeth. “It’s already too late.”

Too late, indeed.

Because at that very moment, a muffled, bone-deep crack erupted from the very bottom of the abyss.

Like some seal shattered by force.

Then—a pitch-black, immense nail covered in ancient cracks rose slowly from the depths of the abyss.

The moment that nail appeared, every formation pattern in the entire Ten-Thousand-Abyssal Depths trembled as one.

As if paying homage.