The jump from the Fourth Palace to the Fifth Palace kept Jiang Chen's mind occupied with thoughts of the Mad Old Freak.
When he had first entered the Fourth Palace, he had found the Mad Old Freak utterly incomprehensible. But now, having calmed down, he felt a vague sort of understanding toward the man.
From ancient times to the present, the Mad Old Freak had been stationed here, guarding the Six Heritage Palaces — never seeing daylight, never enjoying freedom. And on top of that, he had to endure the pain of losing his wife and his younger sister.
Such crushing despair might be bearable for a day or two. But from the ancient era until now, that meant at least over a hundred thousand years.
To endure for that long — truly, it was an extraordinarily difficult thing.
In that moment, Jiang Chen was overcome with emotion.
The Mad Old Freak's fate reminded Jiang Chen of his father, the Heavenly Emperor, from his previous life. He wondered how his father was doing now.
If the Calamity of the Myriad Realms truly erupted, even the dignity of a Heavenly Emperor might not guarantee safety.
So where could his father have gone now?
No pain could compare to being separated from one's closest kin.
As his cultivation continued to rise and the strata he came into contact with grew ever higher, Jiang Chen's desire to unravel the mysteries of his previous life only intensified.
"The Divine Dao. Once I enter the Divine Dao, the secret within my sea of consciousness will finally be revealed. And when that happens, whatever clues my father left behind will surely come to light."
Jiang Chen's heart was filled with anticipation.
In the blink of an eye, the Fifth Palace arrived.
The moment he stepped inside, Jiang Chen was immediately greeted by an entirely different world.
The Fifth Palace was like a miraculous pocket of space — a realm of ethereal vagueness where no buildings could be seen, no signs of habitation. It was as though nothingness itself stretched in every direction, without so much as a trace of airflow or energy fluctuation.
It felt like a world that had come to a complete standstill.
"Hm? What's going on?" Jiang Chen surveyed his surroundings. Everything was void, completely isolated from the outside world, with not a single ripple of energy to be found.
It was a world quieter than death itself.
Jiang Chen swept his gaze in a full circle, unleashing his divine sense at full strength, probing this eerie stillness.
"Is this really the Fifth Palace?" He couldn't help but feel a flicker of doubt. This world seemed frozen to an impossible degree.
Jiang Chen found it extremely peculiar.
"No — even a void space cannot truly be perfectly still. This has to be an illusion. It must be an illusion!"
He kept reassuring himself.
Right at that moment.
Dong!
A solemn and majestic bell toll suddenly rang in Jiang Chen's ears.
The next instant, the world before his eyes underwent a dramatic transformation. Bizarre images began to surface from every direction — from before him, beneath him, behind him, all around him.
In the next moment, the entire void seemed filled with strange characters, drifting through the emptiness like wandering ghosts, giving the whole scene an eerie, spectral quality.
Jiang Chen opened his dharma eyes, his expression turning grave. Watching these characters leap and dance like tadpoles, a realization suddenly struck him.
"Void runes?" Jiang Chen was startled.
In the martial world, there existed a highly advanced Divine Ability. It required no talisman materials whatsoever — instead, one could inscribe talismans directly upon the void itself. Using the brushwork of talisman-crafting and the void as a medium, one could trace out terrifying talisman patterns that interwove through the empty space to form a talisman array.