"Elder! We cannot access the inner realm!" the junior elder shouted. "The entrance portal is gone! It's completely blocked off! I've tried everything; communication, linking talismans, even spatial jade markers... they're all unresponsive!

What do we do? All the disciples... The Spear and Sword Peak Heads... They're all inside!"

The older man turned sharply, disbelief etched across his weathered face. "What do you mean blocked off? It cannot be!"

"It's as if the entire inner realm has vanished," the younger elder said, his voice trembling. "We can't sense it at all. It's as if it no longer exists in this world!"

"What about the Beast Peak head? He stayed back just in case something unexpected happened." The Senior Elder asked.

"We don't know. Communication jade slips are not working due to the turbulent qi. We've tried everything. Even the Emergency Sect Beacon isn't working. We can't get word to the sect."

The senior elder's eyes widened in horror. He turned his gaze toward the direction of the tomb. The faint shimmer of the portal that had once been visible was now gone, replaced by a churning mass of distorted space.

He exhaled slowly, his shoulders heavy with despair. "Heavens save them," he whispered.

BOOOOMMMM

But before anyone could respond, a deafening roar erupted from the distance.

The ground convulsed violently as massive fissures tore across the land. They spread outward in every direction, bright veins of light etching across the ground, the sky, and the very air.

The campgrounds, the forests, even the mountains in the distance, everything was caught in the sweeping force.

And then, without warning, the fissures expanded.

The sky twisted, the air screamed, and an invisible force pulled everything inward.

Disciples, elders, tents, weapons, beasts... everything was sucked into the gaping cracks as if the world itself was devouring them. The sound was indescribable, a blend of thunder, roaring wind, and tearing stone.

In seconds, the land within a hundred kilometers was swallowed whole. The earth folded upon itself, and the remaining fissures pulsed with red light before spreading even farther outward.

Inside the collapsing Inner Realm, Han Yu stood beneath a sky filled with shattering light.

He had fallen to his knees again, staring in disbelief as the cracks widened above him. What had once been the illusionary sky of the realm now looked like a dying world, its very existence tearing apart.

The sky was no longer one solid surface. Great gaps had opened, revealing swirling darkness beyond. Within those gaps, faint glimpses of the Lesser Void flickered; vast, colorless emptiness stretching into infinity.

But it was not only the sky that was fracturing.

The ground itself was breaking open, revealing glowing rifts of distorted space. The forested hills around him were being torn apart, fragments of earth lifting into the air, suspended briefly before being pulled upward into the widening cracks.

Han Yu stumbled backward, gripping his halberd tightly. He could feel the space around him warping. His Qi reacted violently, the flow within his meridians becoming erratic.

"This… this can't be real," he muttered, his voice hoarse.

Then he froze.

Something was falling from the sky.

At first, it was a blur. Dark shapes tumbling through the glowing fissures. Then he heard it. The unmistakable sound of screaming.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

People were falling through the cracks.

Han Yu's eyes widened as he saw cultivators plummeting from the shattered sky. Some were caught in midair by turbulent spatial currents, their bodies twisting unnaturally before vanishing again. Others managed to slow their descent using Qi, but most were helpless, flailing as they dropped.

"What in the…" Han Yu's words trailed off as another wave of distortion rippled through the air.

The cracks on the ground began to shimmer. Suddenly, bursts of light shot upward from them, and out of these glowing fissures came more people; disciples, elders, and even entire portions of land.

Patches of earth emerged like bubbles rising to the surface of water. Tents, trees, even fragments of mountain peaks appeared where there had been none moments ago.

Han Yu could only stare, utterly lost.

A cluster of cultivators fell near him, slamming into the ground with heavy impacts. He recognized none of them, but their robes bore insignias of sects from the outside world, probably an unorthodox sect.

The nearest man groaned, his arm twisted at an unnatural angle. "My arm!!!"

Another one shouted, his voice panicked. "Where are we? What happened!?"

Han Yu wanted to answer, but no words came. He was just as confused as they were.

The sky cracked again, and another surge of energy rippled across the land. It was as if the world were merging and unraveling at the same time.

In some spots on the ground, the spatial cracks split the earth apart, creating vast chasms, but then in the next moment, those chasm were filled as if magic. Replacing these chasms were vast patches of earth ripped from the real world outside.

Han Yu recognized some of the new landscapes that had appeared. Some were part of the forest around the camp, some containing the campground itself, and some seemed like segments of marshes ripped from the Southern Marshes themselves.

This process happened simultaneously everywhere across the entire Inner realm, the pattern utterly random.

Han Yu could feel the hairs on his arms standing on end. The space around him shimmered faintly, and for a brief second, he saw overlapping images of the real world; mountain ranges, sect camps, rivers, all flickering in and out of existence.

The inner realm was collapsing into the outer world, and the barrier between them was being torn apart piece by piece.

The air vibrated, filled with distant screams and roaring energy. Han Yu gripped his halberd tightly, looking at the chaos around him.

"Just what in the heavens have I gotten myself into now…" he whispered, his voice trembling.

Above him, the cracks widened even more, and the red light from the tomb grew so bright it illuminated everything in crimson.

And in the distance, beneath that blood-colored glow, the tomb began to open.