THE KING OF STARS Chapter 64: THE BLACK BELOW

Run.

That single instinct exploded through Yun's mind the mont the black light touched the surface world.

Not spiritual pressure.

Not murderous aura.

Consumption.

The darkness rising from beneath the ruin felt like existence collapsing inward. The air distorted around it. Formation lines lted. Ancient inscriptions that had survived for millennia peeled apart from the walls like burning paper.

The silver-armored figure stepped backward for the first ti.

"The breach reopened…" it whispered.

Its dead voice finally carried fear.

Then the abyss moved.

Not physically.

The darkness simply appeared closer.

A tide without distance.

The corridor behind Yun vanished silently as black fractures spread across the stone. Wherever they passed, matter dissolved into drifting ash-gray particles.

Xie Ren grabbed Yun's arm imdiately.

"Move!"

They retreated at full speed.

Shen Yu followed half a step behind, golden scripts rotating around his body while the Restriction Brand across his chest pulsed violently beneath his robes.

The ancient ruin was collapsing around them.

No.

Worse.

It was being erased.

Entire sections disappeared into black distortion without impact or sound. The geotry of the corridors began changing unnaturally, angles bending into impossible shapes.

Yun nearly stumbled as his vision split again.

Threads.

Thousands of them.

The black light carried no ordinary trajectory. It devoured causality itself. Every thread it touched simply ceased to exist.

No continuation.

No future.

Nothing.

His stomach twisted.

"What is that thing?!" Xie Ren shouted.

The Custodian appeared beside them instantly, moving without movent through the crumbling passage.

"A failed answer."

Not helpful.

Very helpful.

Yun almost laughed despite the situation.

Another violent tremor shook the ruin.

Behind them, the silver-armored entity turned toward the rising darkness and raised its remaining arm.

Ancient symbols ignited across its crystallized body.

For the first ti since awakening, its voice beca powerful.

"Authority sequence: Ninth Wall."

The ruin shook.

An enormous lattice of silver constructs unfolded across the abyss beneath them, layer upon layer of geotric barriers descending into the darkness like a collapsing heavenly gate.

For one breath—

The black tide stopped.

Then a hand erged from within it.

Human-shaped.

Endless.

Made entirely from shifting darkness.

The silver barriers shattered instantly.

Not broken.

Unmade.

The armored figure froze.

"The Devourer retained form…"

Its voice cracked.

Then the black hand closed around it.

The ancient entity did not even have ti to scream.

Its body fragnted into silver dust and vanished into the dark.

Gone.

Completely.

Yun's heart nearly stopped.

That thing had survived from an ancient civilization capable of wounding the heavens themselves.

And it had died effortlessly.

"FASTER!" Shen Yu roared.

Golden chains exploded behind them, sealing corridor after corridor to slow the spread.

Each barrier lasted barely seconds.

The darkness consud everything.

Yun's synchronization perception spiraled violently out of control.

He saw fragnts.

Impossible fragnts.

Cities floating beneath shattered stars.

Cultivators kneeling before black suns.

The heavens themselves bleeding across an endless void.

And standing at the center of it all—

A tree.

Not the Root.

Sothing vastly larger.

Its branches pierced reality itself.

Most of them were burning.

Yun gasped.

The vision vanished instantly.

Xie Ren noticed imdiately.

"What did you see?"

Before Yun could answer—

The black light surged.

A wave of annihilation tore through the corridor behind them.

Shen Yu stopped moving.

Yun turned sharply.

"Shen Yu!"

Golden symbols covered Shen Yu's entire body now.

The Restriction Brand had spread upward across his throat and jaw like molten chains.

His breathing was uneven.

The laws suppressing him were losing control.

Or he was losing patience with them.

"I'll hold it," Shen Yu said calmly.

"No."

Xie Ren answered imdiately.

The two stared at each other.

Neither moved.

The ruin scread again around them.

Shen Yu's gaze shifted toward Yun.

"You're the priority now."

Yun hated those words instantly.

"We leave together."

"That may no longer be possible."

The black tide advanced again.

Closer.

Closer.

Every instinct Yun possessed scread that once the darkness reached them, death would beco a rcy.

Then the Root reacted.

Deep below the ruin, a pulse spread outward.

Silver.

Pure.

Ancient.

The advancing blackness halted briefly.

A narrow pathway of light opened through the collapsing corridors ahead of them.

The Custodian looked toward it imdiately.

"The Root is creating an exit."

"For us?" Xie Ren asked.

The Custodian's pale gaze shifted toward Yun.

"No."

The answer chilled him more than the darkness.

"It is creating an exit for him."

The corridor ahead began collapsing rapidly.

They had seconds left.

Yun looked between Shen Yu and Xie Ren.

"No splitting up."

Xie Ren smirked faintly despite the situation.

"Agreed."

Shen Yu closed his eyes briefly.

As if tired.

Then he exhaled.

"Fine."

The three moved together.

At full speed.

The pathway created by the Root twisted unnaturally through the ruin, bypassing collapsing sectors as though space itself were rearranging around them.

But Yun noticed sothing horrifying.

The pathway was alive.

The light beneath their feet behaved like flowing veins.

The Root was not rely guiding them.

It was watching.

Another pulse echoed behind them.

The darkness adapted.

Faster now.

Learning.

The black tide suddenly condensed inward and launched through the ruin in streams resembling spears.

One nearly pierced Yun's chest.

Xie Ren intercepted it instantly.

His blade collided with the darkness—

And shattered.

The broken fragnts exploded across the corridor.

Xie Ren's eyes widened.

That sword was a spirit-grade artifact.

The black spear continued forward.

Yun reacted instinctively.

His hand moved before thought ford.

Threads appeared around his fingers.

Silver.

Burning.

He grabbed the darkness directly.

The world stopped.

Pain beyond comprehension tore through his arm as the black spear writhed like sothing alive.

Then the threads inside Yun ignited.

The darkness recoiled violently.

As though afraid.

Yun stared.

So did everyone else.

Even the black tide paused.

For one impossible mont—

The abyss recognized him.

Then every surviving formation inside the ruin activated simultaneously.

A single sentence thundered through the collapsing structure in an ancient language Yun sohow understood.

THE ROOT HAS FOUND AN HEIR.