bioinnovel Chapter 359 Ants' Backlash
Chapter 359 Ants' Backlash
When the first golden stripe cracked open, all the sounds inside the cage ceased.
The pattern on the dark law layer was very fine. As fine as a strand of hair.
But for every inch it extends forward, one of the surrounding causal chains snaps, and the snapping sound is crisp.
Qingfeng stood on the outermost edge of the battlement. The white light from the broken sword illuminated the golden pattern on it. His bare hand gripped the hilt tightly, his knuckles white.
"Laojun, what is that?"
The Primordial Celestial Venerable sat cross-legged with his back straight. One hundred and eight runes were still flying around him. His whisk was not raised, but hung down in front of his knees, and his white beard fluttered slightly in the wind.
"The backlash of the Dao of All Beings." The voice of the Primordial Celestial Venerable was not loud. "That golden pattern is not a primordial law. It is the third rule that Su Fan stuffed into a cage after twisting the Dao of Ten Thousand People together. The extraterrestrial gods can swallow the primordial light, gravity, and temperature. But they cannot digest this third rule."
"What happens if it can't be digested?" Qingfeng asked.
"He ruminates." Yang Jian leaned against a pillar, his third eye on his forehead already closed. Dried bloodstains still clung to his eyelids. His voice was calm.
What does "rumination" mean?
Yang Jian opened his eyes. His ordinary eyes reflected the increasingly dense and numerous golden patterns within the cage.
"Rumination is them spitting out the primordial rules they've swallowed. If they don't, the chain of cause and effect will be broken by the golden patterns. If they do spit it out, the cage will be useless."
Nezha pulled the gun from the ground. Fragments of gray law were still stuck to the tip of the gun.
"Then why are they still holding back? They should just throw up."
"I can't vomit." Peng's voice came from the top of the cage.
A pure white outline of the law hovered in mid-air. Peng's voice was different from before.
It's no longer the hoarse sound of stones rubbing together. Now it sounds hollow.
"They used the suction cups of the primordial rules to devour them. Each extraterrestrial god has three thousand suction cups. What is swallowed can only go in and cannot come out. The structure of the suction cups is unidirectional. To spit it out, you have to remove all the suction cups."
"What will happen if I pull it out?" Nezha looked up at Peng.
"Removing one suction cup reduces the layer of the extraterrestrial god's fundamental laws. If all three thousand suction cups are removed, he will be nothing but an empty shell."
The man in black robes stood three hundred feet away. He heard Peng's words. His pure black eye sockets were fixed on the white outline of law in mid-air, and the causal runes on the edges of his eye sockets began to spin faster.
"Peng," the man in black robes spoke.
His voice was no longer hoarse. Now it was steady and even. Every word landed precisely on the Southern Heavenly Gate.
"When your spine was shattered by Pangu 30,000 years ago, it was my comrade who caught you."
Peng's white silhouette paused in mid-air for a moment.
"You're mistaken," Peng's hollow voice descended. "It was Kun that caught me. Not you. You merely picked up the fragments of Pangu's Axe from Kun's corpse after it died."
"That was the corpse I collected for you."
"The Kun doesn't need you to collect its corpse."
Peng's voice suddenly sharpened. The sound waves cleaved through the gray mist within the cage like blades. All the extraterrestrial gods inside the cage paused for a moment simultaneously.
The man in black robes fell silent.
Seventeen more cracks appeared in the golden pattern.
The dark law layer is now covered with golden patterns. They crisscross and intertwine, like a net.
The center of the net was the axe that Su Fan had swung into. The four corners of the net extended to the law layers on the four walls of the cage.
Every golden vein was glowing. Light seeped out from the veins, shining on the body of the extraterrestrial god, burning out wisps of white smoke.
A human warrior stood at the city gate. His bare legs trod on the city bricks, a broken sword held horizontally in front of him. He stared at the smoking extraterrestrial gods in the cages, and suddenly spoke.
"Didn't the boss say that the Dao of All Beings is a primordial world where everyone is a rule? So, are we considered rules now?"
Yang Jian turned his head and glanced at him.
"Yes," Yang Jian said. "The will of each of you is part of the path of all living beings. As long as the will exists, the rules will exist."
The human warrior was silent for a moment. Then he raised his broken sword, the tip aimed at the giant eye in the cage.
"If I cut it once, does that count as cutting it according to the rules?"
"Calculate."
"OK."
The human warrior stepped out of the city gate. His bare legs trod on the void, where there were no bricks or stones beneath his feet, yet each step was firm and steady.
The bare legs conjured by the Heavenly Dao Repairing Technique left white ripples in the void as he stepped. He walked step by step toward the giant eye.
Qingfeng shouted from the top of the battlements, "Your cultivation level isn't high enough!"
The human warrior did not turn around.
"I've lost both my legs, and you're still talking to me about spiritual realms."
He walked up to the giant eye.
The giant eye's spiraling pupils were fixed on him. The black spirals spinning within the pupils grew faster and faster.
A hoarse, grinding sound exploded within everyone's skulls. Two streams of blood flowed from the human warrior's nostrils. The blood was red, trickling down his chin from the corner of his mouth.
He didn't wipe it.
He raised the broken sword above his head.
The white light of the Heavenly Dao Repair Technique on the blade was still there. The white light spread along the blade and enveloped the entire broken sword.
The human warrior looked up at the gray eyeball three times his size and spoke a sentence.
"Am I not the rule?"
The broken blade cleaved down.
The blade struck the giant eye's pupil. The blade broke. The broken blade shattered in the middle, the front half flying out and disintegrating into powder within the swirling dark storm of laws within the cage.
However, before the broken blade shattered, it left a cut on the giant eye's pupil.
The opening was tiny, only about the size of a fingernail. Grayish-white fragments of law poured out of the opening. As the fragments poured out, golden patterns drilled into the opening.
One, two, three. Seventeen golden veins simultaneously burrowed into the giant eye's pupil. The giant eye began to convulse violently. The spiral patterns within the pupil became completely disordered. The hoarse, grinding sound turned into a piercing scream. The scream pierced the eardrums of everyone in the cage.
The human warrior was sent flying backward. The storm of laws tore him off his feet. His bare legs shattered into white light in mid-air. He crashed onto the city wall, his back slamming against the crenellations. His mouth was full of blood and foam.
A gentle breeze pulled him up. The human warrior wiped his mouth; his hands were covered in red blood. He looked down and gave a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth.
"That strike... could it be considered part of the path of all living beings?"
Ten thousand and fifty people on the city wall responded simultaneously.
"Calculate!"
Su Fan stood in the very center of the city wall. He held the Pangu Axe in his hand. The white light on the axe blade dimmed slightly.
But the golden patterns were even brighter. The patterns extended outward from his palm, into the axe handle, and wrapped around the axe body.
The Pangu Axe is no longer white. Now it is entirely golden. The light on the axe blade has also turned golden.
He turned and glanced at the human warrior. The human warrior leaned against the battlement, both legs gone, his bare legs shattered into white light. Blood was still spitting from his mouth. But he was smiling.
Su Fan withdrew his gaze and refocused on the battle within the cage.
The giant eye shattered. After the golden veins burrowed into the pupil, it began to crack from the inside out.
It wasn't the outer shell that shattered; it was the very essence of the law itself that broke. The spirals in the pupil burst open. The gray marrow sealed within the white of the eye gushed out.
The giant eye's outer shell seemed to have had its supporting frame removed, and the entire eyeball gradually collapsed, creating a depression, and quickly shrank.
Dark fragments of the law spilled out from the collapsed outline and fell to the bottom of the cage.
The first extraterrestrial god died.
He died from the backlash of the path of sentient beings.
The man in black robes stared at the giant-eyed corpse. For the first time, an expression appeared on that paper-white face; the corners of his eyes furrowed, and his brows tightened.
"This is the first one."
The voice of the man in black robes echoed in the cage.
"In the primordial world, birth and death occur repeatedly. Among the great worlds that have been ravaged by my comrades, there has never been a precedent of rules turning against external laws."
He clenched his right hand and dispersed a wisp of black mist in his palm.
"Where did you create this way?"
Su Fan did not answer.
The Pangu Axe lay horizontally in his hand. The golden light on the axe blade shone again, making the city wall appear as if it were cast in gold.
"You just said that all living beings in the primordial world were like ants. What about now?"
The black-robed man's pure black eyes were fixed on Su Fan.
"Still an ant. Only now, the ant has learned to bite."
"Then keep biting."
Su Fan raised the axe.
The axe blade pointed to the sky. Golden light shot out from the axe blade, straight into the top of the cage, and struck the pure white outline of the Peng's laws.
The roc let out a cry. With the cry, golden rain fell from the top of the cage. The raindrops landed on the dark layer of laws. Each drop created a new golden pattern.
The dark layer has started to crack.
Eight hundred golden lines extended simultaneously, and the entire inner wall of the cage was covered with cracks, like an eggshell that had been knocked open.
Fragments of law bursting from the cracks fell from the top, crashing into the bottom of the cage and creating a large cloud of grayish-white smoke.
The layers of laws that had been congested at the bottom of the cage began to loosen. The primordial rules that had been swallowed by the extraterrestrial gods were seeping outwards along the cracks in the golden patterns.
The sunlight seeped back in bit by bit.
The knuckles of Qingfeng's bare hand were already translucent from the excessive force he had used.
"Rumination of the Laws, first wave," Yang Jian said softly.
Nezha slung the gun over his shoulder.
"My turn." Flames erupted from the wind-fire wheels beneath his feet, and before Su Fan could give the order, he had already transformed into a streak of fire and rushed into the cage.
The remaining eleven extraterrestrial gods all sprang into action.
The rune-inspired humanoid aggregate met Nezha, and the runes suddenly spread out, transforming into a giant net.
The ink-black palm print quickly closed its five fingers and struck Nezha's back from the side.
Without turning his head, Nezha thrust the butt of his spear backward, piercing the gap in the palm print. With a twist of the spear shaft, he severed the index and middle fingers of the dark palm print.
The fiery wheels left two trails of flame as they stepped onto the giant rune net, creating two large holes in the net.
Flames poured into the giant net of runes from the opening, causing the Fire Law and the extraterrestrial runes to collide and explode in a chain reaction, scattering rune fragments everywhere.
Qingfeng leaped out from the crenellation, his broken sword, adorned with golden patterns, slashing at an extraterrestrial god that hadn't yet transformed.
Just as the thing was about to transform from its iron hook form back into its original form, the broken sword chopped it in at the hook hilt, and golden patterns flowed along the blade into the iron hook's interior.
The black law patterns on the surface of the iron hook rapidly disintegrated, and grayish-white law fragments gushed out from the cracks in the hook body, as fast as squeezing out pus.
The extraterrestrial god exploded from within.
the second.
Sun Wukong somersaulted in mid-air.
The golden cudgel split in his hands, then into four, then into eight, its shadow covering most of the cage.
His body simultaneously split into seventy-two transformations, each of which forcibly connected to the extraterrestrial causal chain.
The causal chains of the extraterrestrial god twisted into a tangled mess behind him, with three chains simultaneously tightening in opposite directions against his comrade, deeply embedding themselves within the other's outer shell of laws.
The three extraterrestrial gods' bodies, bound by the laws of the chains, cracked open, creating large fissures in their laws.
The man in black robes broke his silence.
He deliberately retreated, all the way to the edge of the archway. The three chains of light were still clinging tightly to the archway frame.
He glanced down at the chains of light on the doorframe. Seven golden lines were crawling along them. He reached out and grabbed one of the chains with his right hand, slowly closing his fingers.
"The foundation of your path of all beings lies in the Heavenly Dao that existed in the primordial world. But the Heavenly Dao is flawed—if every rule is flawed by an inch, your path of all beings will be weakened by a fraction."
The man in black robes exerted force with his palms, his fingertips weaving into the gaps in the light chain, and pulled it outwards with his hands.
The three light chains emitted a metallic, shrill sound simultaneously, which startled the entire cage.
The Primordial Celestial Venerable sat cross-legged with his back straight, his whisk resting flat on his lap, and a trickle of blood silently seeped from the corner of his mouth.
"Peng," Su Fan called out.
"I know." Peng's voice came from the top of the cage, and his pure white silhouette swooped down from the rain.
The roc spread its wings, covering the entire top of the cage.
"I will use the last primordial rule to fill his causal throat."
Which one?
"The Great Dao is silent. Once this rule is in place, none of the twelve extraterrestrial gods will be able to issue commands."
After saying this, Peng violently shook his wings and shattered one of his feathers.
As the pure white fragments of the law swirled down, an invisible rule was extracted and merged into the causal core of the extraterrestrial gods.
All the extraterrestrial gods inside the cage were simultaneously rendered speechless. The resonant incantation collapsed in unison.
The black-robed man's fingers, gripping the light chain, froze. His command was swallowed back down his throat before it could even be uttered.
Su Fan stepped through the archway.
Pangu's axe was raised, and the scorching heat from the axe blade traveled from his palm to his entire right arm.
For the first time, a clear, cold glint appeared in the black-robed man's pure black pupils.
The three black stars outside the cage pressed down again. The runes on their surfaces lit up simultaneously, and the twelve causal singularities burned through the three archways on the cage walls, each archway connecting to the core of the black stars' laws.
Black Star shed its outer outline and surged into the cage. A storm of laws swept across the ground, swirling the dark law layer mixed with golden patterns into a vortex.
Yuanshi Tianzun opened his eyes.
His white beard was stained with his own blood. He looked at the three black stars and slowly raised his whisk.
"Yang Jian".
"Disciple is here."
"What do you see with your third eye?"
"The third causal layer, twenty-six traces of laws. Depth unknown." Yang Jian's voice remained calm, but fresh blood seeped from his eyes.
Yuanshi Tianzun flicked his whisk, and 108 talismans shot out as white light, circling around Yang Jian's third eye and forming an outer talisman array to block some of the law's erosion.
"Look deeper. Until you see the core of Black Star."
Yang Jian's third eye was fully open.
The celestial eye pierced through the extraterrestrial storm, reaching the core of the black star.
Golden light and black laws clashed fiercely on the forehead, and scorching marks from the laws burned across the edges of the eyelids and flowed down the cheekbones on both sides.
The Heavenly Eye pierced through the outer layer, tore open the first layer of laws, and saw what was wrapped inside the Black Star.
Yang Jian's breath caught in his throat for a moment.
"They are not extraterrestrial gods." Yang Jian spoke each word with extreme slowness, as if striking the ground. "Within each black star, the first seven extraterrestrial gods who descended thirty thousand years ago are sealed. They are using the corpses of their comrades as their vanguard."
A sudden silence fell outside the cage. Even the storm of laws slowed its rotation. It was a vacuum created when everyone simultaneously had the same thought.
Those who reaped the primordial wilderness were merely the corpses of extraterrestrial gods. No one has ever seen a living extraterrestrial god.
Su Fan held the Pangu Axe horizontally, the golden light from its surface reflecting on his face as he calmly surveyed the entire city.
"Whether it's a corpse or a living god, the Primordial World will not collect corpses today."
Sun Wukong simultaneously withdrew all seventy-two transformations into his true form, squatted on the pile of bricks, and tapped the wall bricks with his golden cudgel.
"Well said. I hate collecting corpses more than anything else in my life."
Nezha swept away the last fragment of law beside him with the tip of his spear, and slammed the Fire-Tipped Spear to the ground.
The fiery tails of the Wind and Fire Wheels were pulled backward in the dark storm, like two comets moving in reverse.
"Sew the corpse back together, I'll tear it apart and shoot him a few more times."
The roar of Gongsun Bao and his ten thousand soldiers, mixed with the white light of their weapons, were all tinged with a layer of the golden light of the Dao of All Beings in the storm of laws.
Su Fan stepped out of the archway and stood in front of Lao Jun.
"Great Sage, how many more times can you transform?"
Sun Wukong placed the golden cudgel on his lap.
"The Seventy-Two Transformations is the ultimate in the changes of fate. Another two hundred and thirty transformations would touch upon the Chaos Calamity. But I, Old Sun, have always disliked waiting for the calamity to come to me."
"Then let's invite calamity." Su Fan's voice was very soft. So soft that only Sun Wukong could hear it.
The monkey's ears perked up, and then he grinned.
"You really don't value my life at all?"
Golden light spilled over every brick of the South Heavenly Gate, and the golden patterns on the cage walls cracked densely amidst laughter.