You looked at the black mist spreading before you. You knew that once you passed through this layer of black fog, you would enter the Desolate Deathlands.
When Chu Wudi saw your figure disappear into the black mist, he gritted his teeth and ultimately gave up on entering the Desolate Deathlands.
No one knew how long the Desolate Deathlands had existed in the Canglan Realm. There were even rumors that it had been born before the Canglan Realm itself.
From ancient times until now, whether human or Bizarre Insect, not a single being that entered had ever come out alive.
Watching the Taixu Sword fragment that was practically within his grasp fly away just like that, Chu Wudi threw back his head and roared in fury.
Still unwilling to give up, Chu Wudi steeled his heart and flew straight into the black mist. He was gambling that you did not actually dare enter the Desolate Deathlands, and were merely hiding within the fog.
You did not know how long you had flown through the black mist. It was not until you felt your cultivation being suppressed, from Late Deity Transformation all the way down to Nascent Soul Great Perfection, that you opened your eyes.
Only then did you realize that the black mist before you had disappeared.
You had already entered the interior of the Desolate Deathlands.
What appeared before you was a dead mountain. The soil beneath your feet was as black as ink, and a deathly aura drifted across the ground.
At that moment, Chu Wudi's terrified voice came from behind you.
"My cultivation! Where is my cultivation?!"
After passing through the black mist, Chu Wudi stared at his own body in horror, then furiously shouted at you.
"Ant, do you think you can defeat me just because we are in the same realm now?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Chu Wudi mobilized all the spiritual energy in his body, preparing to use a divine power.
Seeing this, you were just about to draw the Taixu Sword and counterattack when you noticed something bizarre.
A moment ago, Chu Wudi's hair had still been completely black.
But in only an instant, a tenth of it had already turned white.
Chu Wudi also sensed the abnormality in his body. He immediately gave up on attacking, threw out one final sentence, and flew in panic toward the black mist.
"Ant, I will wait for you outside. If you have the ability, then do not come out."
For the time being, Chu Wudi gave up on killing you and turned around to flee this land of death.
Seeing this, you frowned tightly. By the time Chu Wudi vanished from your sight, all of his hair had already turned completely white.
So you tried circulating spiritual energy and preparing to use the Great Void Technique.
But the moment you started mobilizing spiritual energy, you felt your lifespan draining away at an astonishing speed.
A strand of your black hair also turned white.
Inwardly, you thanked your luck that you had cultivated the Azure Emperor Longevity Art. Your lifespan was more than ten times that of an ordinary Deity Transformation cultivator.
Even so, with the current rate at which lifespan was draining inside the Desolate Deathlands, you still would not be able to endure for long.
The only way to slow it down was not to use spiritual energy.
But then another problem arose.
If you did not use spiritual energy, there was no way you could fly back out through the black mist.
Just earlier, after flying only a short distance, you had already seen all of Chu Wudi's hair turn white, with nearly all his lifespan drained away.
Now you had fallen into a dead end.
If you turned back, you might die of exhausted lifespan halfway through the flight.
If you kept going forward, you had no idea what dangers awaited within the Desolate Deathlands.
After weighing the pros and cons, you decided to head deeper into the Desolate Deathlands.
At last, you understood why almost no one had ever left this place alive over the years.
Even though Chu Wudi had only just stepped in, under the rules of this place it would still be difficult for him to make it back out alive.
Since death awaited you either way, you felt you might as well press onward and take your chances.
You began heading toward the dead mountain not far away.
Within the Desolate Deathlands, you lost all sense of time.
There was no day and no night here, only eternal gray gloom.
You walked through the Desolate Deathlands for a full ten years before finally reaching the dead mountain you had seen in the distance.
Yet you had no idea ten years had already passed there. To you, it felt as though only a few months had gone by.
Looking at the dead mountain before you, you stepped into it without the slightest hesitation.
What you did not notice was that even more of your black hair had started turning white.
Another ten years passed.
Although you could not use spiritual energy within the Desolate Deathlands, this allowed you to fast for long periods of time.
After walking mountain paths for ten years, you had not even reached the halfway point up the mountain.
But then you discovered that behind this dead mountain stood more dead mountains of varying sizes, all linked together into a mountain range.
By the fiftieth year since entering the Desolate Deathlands—
your appearance had already grown old. Your beard was unkempt, and your head of black hair had completely turned white.
Yet you noticed none of it.
Your eyes were clouded and murky, and only a single belief remained in your mind.
Keep walking. Find a way out of the Desolate Deathlands.
As for what exactly you were searching for, and what that way out was, you no longer knew.
You only continued forward blindly, like a walking corpse.
Another fifty years passed.
This was your hundredth year inside the Desolate Deathlands.
By now, you had forgotten who you were and what you were looking for. After inhaling vast amounts of deathly aura, you had completely become a corpse yourself.
On this day, you walked up to a gigantic bronze ancient coffin and stared at it with lifeless eyes.
At that moment, a fluctuation came from within the bronze ancient coffin.
Your eyes instantly regained clarity.
You stared at the scene before you in utter shock, your eyes filled with disbelief.
You had no idea how you had ended up here.
You remembered being pursued by Chu Wudi and being forced to flee into the Desolate Deathlands.
Then, in order to escape, you had kept heading deeper inside the land of death.
After that, you remembered nothing at all.
When you turned around and tried to flee this place, you discovered that your body no longer obeyed you.
You lowered your head and looked at your shriveled hands.
The skin on your arms was wrinkled beyond recognition.
They did not look like the hands of a young man at all, but rather those of someone whose oil had run dry and whose life was about to end.
The moment you saw those hands, a terrible feeling rose in your heart, and you quickly took out an ancient mirror.
In the reflection, your eyes were sunken, your sockets hollow, and your face deathly pale.
Your once pitch-black hair had turned snow-white.
"How did this happen? Do I not have the Azure Emperor Longevity Art?"
"How long have I been inside the Desolate Deathlands? Why is my lifespan almost gone?"
Bang!
Another tremendous sound came from the bronze ancient coffin before you.
In the next moment, everything went black before your eyes, and all life left your body.
You died!
Ding! The simulation has ended. Please choose one of the following rewards.
1: Late Deity Transformation cultivation from this simulation
2: Fourth-grade alchemist attainment
3: All remaining spirit stones from this simulation
4: All true insights from this simulation
5: The talent from this simulation: Swordsmanship Mastery
6: Taixu Sword Fragment ×1
7: Unity of Man and Sword realm!
...