The Ancient Formation Opens Its Eyes; Even Half-Step Tenth Rank Must Kneel

“The Soul-Sealing Ancient Nail!”

“That thing actually exists!”

“Fall back! Everyone, fall back another three hundred li!”

Too late. The Imperial Array had already awakened.

The array patterns spiraled, killing intent surging sky-high.

The moment the ancient nail rose, countless pale array glows latched onto it like hands reaching up from beneath the earth, dragging it slowly out of its slumber.

At the same time, the half-step Tenth Step horror’s colossal maw finally sank its teeth into the edge of the Imperial Array.

BOOM!

The entire abyss shook with violent force.

Countless rocks, shattered mountains, black mist, and bone fragments exploded together.

But the next second, those Imperial Array patterns didn’t collapse. Instead, as if alive, they burrowed into its fangs, tentacles, and flesh, madly drilling into its body.

“ROOOAR!”

The half-step Tenth Step horror let out a scream unlike anything it had ever made.

Its black flesh withered at a visible speed.

Those flesh tendrils that could devour everything were now being severed, crushed, and burned away inch by inch by the counterattacking array patterns.

“It’s working!” Han Shanyue’s eyes lit up. “Your Majesty, the array is devouring it in return!”

“Not devouring,” Wang Hao said, calm to the point of cold-bloodedness.

“The ancient array is using it to patch its own gaps.”

“It tried to swallow the array. The array decided to swallow it instead.”

“Whoever wins, lives.”

The Heavenly Sword hacked through a massive wave of writhing dead flesh, its voice excited beyond measure: “Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant, Your Majesty! This array is nastier than any man—it dares to eat a horror alive!”

Wang Hao’s gaze locked onto the Soul-Sealing Ancient Nail rising from the heart of the abyss. His tone was quiet, but carried an unshakable command.

“Not enough.”

“Keep pressing.”

“Push it beneath the nail.”

“I want this ancient array to nail it shut with its own hands.”

As he spoke, his hands formed seals, and the qi and blood in his body erupted in full. Dragon blood, divine bone, imperial destiny, slaughterous murderous intent—all of it ignited in that single moment.

A golden dragon phantom erupted from behind him, soaring into the sky with a heaven-shaking roar.

Dragon might suppressed all directions.

The half-step Tenth Step horror, already wild beyond control, visibly faltered for a single instant under that pure, absolute pressure of sovereign might.

That single instant.

Was enough.

Wang Hao took one step forward, turning into a beam of golden light that pierced heaven and earth, and charged straight into the heart of the Myriad Ruins Abyss.

“Your Majesty!”

“Wang Hao, are you out of your mind!”

“Stop him!”

The powerhouses of the Central Province scattered in panic, their souls nearly leaving their bodies.

Even they didn’t dare descend to that place—yet Wang Hao had plunged straight into the core of the Imperial Array!

But Wang Hao showed no hesitation.

Around him, system prompts flashed endlessly, predicting every lethal trap, pointing out every path of survival.

Even though killing lights filled the array, even though the void threatened to shatter at any moment, he kept forcing his way down.

Where he passed, the array patterns made way. The killing intent dispersed.

Not because the Imperial Array feared him.

But because, at this moment, the Imperial Array had come to regard him as “a living being it could make use of.”

“The Soul-Sealing Ancient Nail is thirty zhang ahead. A drop of Martial God True Blood on the array core will activate it,” the system’s voice rang in his mind.

Wang Hao’s eyes turned cold.

“Here we are.”

Ahead, the Soul-Sealing Ancient Nail floated at the center of the abyss, countless ancient runes on its surface lighting up inch by inch, like chains binding toward the half-step Tenth Step horror.

And that monster was now completely frenzied, its body expanding endlessly, as if trying to break free through self-destruction.

“It’s going to explode!”

“Get back!”

“If something of that level detonates inside the ancient array, the entire northern region of Central Province will collapse!”

Screams erupted from the experts above.

But in that instant, Wang Hao raised his head, his gaze frozen with chilling intensity.

“Explode?”

“You think you’re worthy?”

His right hand seized the Heavenly Sword, then drove the blade straight into his own palm.

Blood flowed instantly.

Let me add some fire for you. Martial God True Blood splattered across the array core.

The array patterns of the entire Myriad Ruins Abyss surged to life at once.

The Soul-Sealing Ancient Nail awakened fully in that moment, letting out a shriek that pierced through ten thousand ages, then slammed downward with crushing force.

In that split second, the colossal body of the half-step Tenth Step horror seemed to be pinned down by heaven and earth itself, freezing mid-air.

The next instant, the ancient nail drove through.

“THUD!”

Black blood erupted skyward.

The half-step Tenth Step horror let loose a horrible cry that didn’t sound like any living being, its entire body impaled from head to tail by that single nail, nailed deep into the core of the Imperial Array.

In the abyss, hundreds of millions of array patterns tightened at once.

Like an ancient net that had finally snapped shut.

Wang Hao stood at the center of that sea of blood and light, hair wild, robes snapping in the wind—yet there was no trace of relief in his eyes. Instead, his gaze plummeted.

Because in the moment that horror was nailed down, he saw something beneath the Soul-Sealing Ancient Nail. A fragment of a stone stele, previously hidden by the black mist of the abyss.

On the stele, only half an ancient inscription remained.

It looked as though someone had forcibly erased half of it, leaving only four faint ancient characters.

Wang Hao’s pupils constricted sharply.

Before he could make out their meaning...

The entire ancient array shuddered once more.

But this time, it wasn’t because of the half-step Tenth Step horror.

It was because beneath the stele, something else had been thoroughly awakened.

A presence older, more deathly still, more bone-chillingly dreadful than the half-step Tenth Step horror—was slowly opening its eyes in the deepest darkness of the abyss.

Wang Hao snapped his head up, his expression shifting for the first time. Truly shifting.

“There’s something else alive down there?”

“No way.”

“I’ve already lifted the entire ancient array—how is there one more thing hiding underneath?”

The next moment, a whisper arose from the abyss below, as if it had traveled from the end of the ancient era itself.

That voice belonged to no human. No horror. No known being of any kind.

It sounded like something that had been dead for a long, long time—yet should never have woken—speaking slowly from the darkness:

“Who... touched this seat’s nail?”

Wang Hao’s gaze turned glacial.

“Trouble.”

“This time, it might not be one.”

“It’s two.”

“Who... touched this seat’s nail?”

The moment that whisper sounded, the entire Myriad Ruins Abyss seemed to be pried open from the middle by an invisible hand.

It wasn’t loud.

It was that ancient pressure crawling out from the deepest abyss of time, crushing through everyone’s sea of consciousness in an instant.

The half-step Tenth Step horror was nailed dead by the Soul-Sealing Ancient Nail, struggling in frenzy, black blood pouring like waterfalls, tendrils snapping, screams shattering miles upon miles of cloud cover above.

But now, no one was paying attention to it anymore.

Because there really was something else alive at the bottom of the abyss.

And it was clearly far more terrifying than the half-step Tenth Step horror.

“What is that voice...”

“How could anything still be alive in the abyss?”

“Just what has Wang Hao unleashed?!”

In the sky above, the heavyweights of all the sacred grounds in Central Province had faces drained of color, barely able to speak.

They had thought Wang Hao was driving the half-step Tenth Step horror into the Myriad Ruins Abyss, planning to nail it dead with the broken Imperial Array, and force the various sacred grounds to reveal their trump cards under duress.

But no one had expected that beneath the ancient array, an even older entity was buried.

The old white-haired woman staggered half a step back, her voice trembling: “Could it be... is this what the Myriad Ruins Abyss was truly sealing away?”

The crimson-robed War God's eyes were filled with shock. "Impossible! The archives on the Abyss of Ten Thousand Ruins never recorded a second seal beneath the first!"

"Archives?" Reverend Bai Xuan of the Heavenly Wheel Holy Land's face was so grim it could drip water. "Archives are written for the living. Whatever is truly buried down there—who would dare put it in writing?"

At those words, utter silence fell around them.

Indeed.

If such an existence truly dwelled below, no one would even dare speak of it, let alone record it.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the abyss.

Wang Hao stood at the center of the imperial formation, his feet upon a sea of surging pale-white formation runes. Before him was a half-step tenth-rank aberration impaled through its entire body by soul-suppressing ancient nails, and farther off, the shattered stone stele.

He did not move.

His gaze merely drifted slowly from the four ancient characters on the stele—mostly erased—toward the deeper darkness beyond.

The system's alert pulsed urgently in his mind.

[WARNING: Unknown high-threat target detected, exceeding current combat tier.]

[WARNING: Target is in a dormant state and is being awakened by the ancient formation's recovery fluctuations.]

[WARNING: If the target fully awakens, host survival probability drops significantly.]

Wang Hao's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Exceeding my current combat tier?"

"You rarely put it so bluntly."

"So it seems whatever's down there isn't simple after all."

The Heavenly Sword, too, had dropped its usual flippant tone. The blade hummed low, as if suppressing an instinctive tremor.

"Your Majesty..." it said in a grave voice. "This aura... it's not right."

"It's not an aberration."

"Not a corpse puppet either."

"It feels more like... an ancient corpse that has been sealed beneath this imperial formation for countless years."

Ancient corpse.

The moment those words left the blade, a flicker of genuine gravity finally appeared in Wang Hao's eyes.

For the Heavenly Sword to utter the words "ancient corpse," whatever lay below was far beyond the scope of ordinary evil spirits, alien breeds, or fiendish monsters.

"Can you tell what it is?" Wang Hao asked.

The Heavenly Sword was silent for a moment, then answered: "I can't see clearly."

"But this blade can sense the aura of transcendence on it."

"Not the so-called half-transcendence of these present holy lands, but true transcendence from the ancient era."

Wang Hao's gaze turned cold.

"The ancient era..."

He suddenly recalled the half-destroyed ancient text on the stele.

The parts that had been erased—those very passages likely held the true answer.

Just then, from the darkness of the abyss, another faint "crack" sound echoed.

Like a bone, forced to move after too long a slumber.

Then, from the depths of the darkness, a pale hand—devoid of any trace of blood—slowly reached out.

The hand was enormous. Its fingers were long, its bones clearly defined, and its fingernails were black as ink, as if stained by some heavy resentment over countless years.

It merely extended itself slightly, and the imperial formation's runes around it twisted in great swaths.

"That hand... is it human?"

"Whose corpse is buried at the very bottom of the abyss?"

"Is that thing still alive?"

Someone cried out in shock, their voice turning shrill.

The next moment, that pale palm pressed forward.

In an instant, the imperial formation runes that had been carving into the half-step tenth-rank aberration's flesh came to a halt under that single press.

Everyone witnessed the colossal monster—which had just been writhing and screaming in agony—stiffen for a moment, as if commanded by some existence of far higher standing.

And then, it actually—

Lowered its head on its own.

Not in submission.

More like... instinctive terror.

"It's afraid?" Han Shanyue's eyes went wide.

"How is that possible! That's a half-step tenth-rank aberration!"

"For it to be this terrified, what level is that ancient corpse down there?"

No one answered.

Because from the darkness, a voice—deeper, colder, and hoarser—slowly emerged:

"The ancient formation... is still here."

"You... have finally... awakened it."

This time, everyone heard clearly.

The voice was fragmented, as if it hadn't spoken in many years, each word dragging through rust-stained difficulty.

And that was precisely what made it all the more chilling.

It was using the word "you."

Which meant it hadn't just woken up as a lifeless corpse.

No—it had long known someone was out there.

It had been waiting all along.

Wang Hao suddenly smiled. A faint smile.

"It seems, then, that I am the one who woke you from your slumber."

From the depths of the darkness, the voice paused for a moment, then seemed to sense his position.

"You... your body carries the aura of an emperor."

"Your constitution... is no ordinary one, either."

"Interesting."

"It's been so many years... and finally, a living man dares to stand before this seat again."

Wang Hao's eyes narrowed.

"This seat?"

"You talk big."