bioinnovel Chapter 367 The Sealing of the Lord at the Bottom of the Well
Chapter 367 The Sealing of the Lord at the Bottom of the Well
The Lord of the Well spoke, his voice flat and slow, but each word was interspersed with the noise of fragments of laws shattering.
"This is not the power of the Pangu Axe. I have absorbed the power of the Pangu Axe for 30,000 years, and I cannot be mistaken. What you punched into the axe handle is not within any law system of the past 30,000 years."
"The blood of mortals. This blood was shed by ten thousand soldiers on the city walls. The Heavenly Dao Repair Technique collected their blood into fragments before the white light dissipated. You have devoured the will of the Dao of All Beings, but you have never devoured the blood of mortals."
"You can digest willpower, but not blood, because blood contains what they want to protect. If you want to swallow it, you have to accept all the rules of the complete flesh and blood body, and you are just a polymer of the laws."
Su Fan straightened up, gripped the axe with both hands, and lifted it upwards, pulling the axe blade that was stuck in the gap out of the three layers of causal chain.
As it was pulled out, a wisp of dark red core marrow fluid was also drawn out.
The fluid splashed onto the well wall, scorching a deep hole in the stone.
The master of the well fell silent.
The frequency of the core pulsation decreased, and the cracks on the dark red torso spread from the size of a pinhead into a spider web.
It retracted its core, and its body shrank.
"What you said is true. When I swallowed that drop of blood, a layer of my causal chain was dissolved. It wasn't a conflict with the laws, it was rejection."
Yang Jian's message rang in Su Fan's mind for the last time, the voice so weak it was almost inaudible.
"The third weak point. Directly below the core. That causal chain connects to all the remnants of the extraterrestrial gods in the outer realms; it is its main causal chain. Sever it, and its time stop will be interrupted, the fragments of law will dissipate, and the core will detach."
Yang Jian's voice trailed off.
The fragments of the rune array exhausted their last bit of energy, leaving only an empty buzzing in their sea of consciousness.
Su Fan did not respond, and pulled the Pangu Axe out of the gap and switched it to his right hand.
His palms, backs of hands, and the base of his thumbs were all cracked, and golden blood flowed down the axe handles onto the axe blades, turning them a dark gold color.
Golden blood, ground from flesh, layered over the axe blade's original triple light.
He raised his axe, aiming the blade at the thickest causal chain directly below the core of the well.
The surface of the main causal chain is covered with dark green runes, each rune being a seal formed from the foreign laws poured into the well by the extraterrestrial gods over the past 30,000 years.
This chain not only connects all the remnants of the extraterritorial territories, but also carries the causal fate of the black-robed man and all the extraterritorial gods.
"With this axe strike, your fragments of law will shatter, and all the extraterrestrial gods outside will lose their causal cores. Are you going to gamble your life on this main chain, or is the bet still valid?"
Su Fan asked.
All the marks on the body of the master at the bottom of the well lit up for a moment at the same time.
It did something it hadn't done in 30,000 years—its torso contracted, and its core descended, dropping from the wellhead to a position level with Su Fan's eyes.
The dark red core was located three feet directly in front of Su Fan, its pulsation synchronized with Su Fan's heartbeat.
Each pulse emitted a faint, dark red ripple that struck Su Fan's chest, causing no burns, only a light touch.
"Your heartbeat resonates with my core. You're the first primordial being who can make me feel your heartbeat. The bet is still valid. But I want to add one more thing."
For the first time, the Lord of the Well's calm and slow voice paused.
"you say."
"After you sever the main causal chain, I will lose all causal connections with the extraterrestrial gods. However, the moment the main causal chain breaks, a law collapse will be released, with the collapse area extending from the bottom of the well to the top."
"If you can withstand this collapse, I will completely scatter the fragments of the laws and sink into the deepest part of chaos with the core. If you cannot withstand it, the core will automatically be absorbed into you, and you will bear the seal for 30,000 years in my place."
Su Fan remained silent for a moment.
He looked at the dark red core before him, the last few layers of causal chain fragments on the core's surface slowly peeling away.
The fragments made a slight cracking sound as they fell, echoing in the cavity, mixed with the low-frequency rumble rising from the depths of the well.
"I'll take it. But I have a question."
"ask."
"When Pangu shattered you 30,000 years ago, did you retaliate?"
The core beat frequency suddenly slowed down.
It moved so slowly that the entire void seemed to freeze for a moment.
"I retaliated. When Pangu unleashed his seventh axe strike, the core had already shattered. But before I shattered completely, I released a final causal curse. The target of this curse was not Pangu, but the world that Pangu created. Can you guess what the curse contains?"
Su Fan lowered the Pangu Axe from mid-air, the blade hanging down and the handle resting on the ground.
"You have cursed the very Heavenly Dao of the primordial world."
"Yes. So the Primordial Heavenly Dao has been leaking since its inception. Pangu knew this, so he sealed me at the bottom of the well for 30,000 years and used extraterrestrial gods to continuously reinforce the seal, all to prevent the curse from completely erupting."
"But the curse has already been planted in the Heavenly Dao. The moment you sever the main causal chain, my curse will surge into the primordial world along with the collapse wave. Can you withstand this wave of curse?"
Su Fan did not answer the question.
He raised the Pangu Axe again, aiming the blade at the main causal chain.
"I accept it. No matter how flawed the Heavenly Dao is, or how shattered the Dao of all living beings is, I stand here to accept your curse. If I can't accept it, I'll bear it; if I can't bear it, I'll shatter. Even if I shatter, you will still be sealed. Pangu could seal you 30,000 years ago, and there are plenty of others in the primordial world 30,000 years from now who can seal you."
He chopped down.
The axe blade struck right in the center of the main causal chain.
The moment the main chain broke, the entire void fell into absolute stillness.
The laws of time were completely halted at this moment.
The churning well water at the bottom of the well stopped in mid-air, the shattered fragments on the stone wall were frozen in their flight paths, and the shockwaves of the laws that exploded on the dark red dome solidified into still light patterns.
Only Su Fan's hand holding the axe was still moving.
The axe blade cuts into the second layer of the main causal chain.
A narrow crack then appeared inside the chain, and the collapse began from this crack.
All the laws around the break point of the main causal chain collapsed toward the center point. The dark green foreign laws that were originally bound by the chain, the fragments of old causality, and the causal liquid accumulated over 30,000 years all contracted toward a single origin point.
The suction force generated by the contraction pulled Su Fan to the bottom of the well, and his feet plowed two gravel furrows in the ground.
Su Fan used the axe handle to wed the broken stone wall at the edge of the well.
He loosened the axe handle with his left hand and grasped the 210 ancient Pangu axe marks around the well opening with his bare hand.
Five fingers dug into the axe marks, fingernails peeled off, finger bones directly gripping the stone.
Golden blood stained the entire circle of axe marks gold.
"You want to drag me to the bottom of the well with your collapse? I have no intention of going down there. You've been sealed at the bottom of the well for 30,000 years; this well is your territory. These axe marks are Pangu's territory. I'm using Pangu's territory to receive your collapse; it's fair."
Su Fan's voice was exceptionally clear in the absolutely still emptiness.
The master of the well did not answer.
The core began to accelerate its pulsation from absolute stillness, with the pulsation frequency reaching three times that of before.
Each pulsation draws back a fragment of past cause and effect from the break in the main causal chain; with each fragment drawn back, the core shines a little brighter.
A dark red light emanated from the core, forming 360 complete causal imprints on its surface.
When the imprints were fully revealed, the form of the Lord at the bottom of the well changed.
No longer a dark red torso and an irregular core, it solidified into a human form.
The humanoid figure is blurry, and the facial features and details are not clear. It can only be seen that it is standing, with a head, shoulders and limbs.
The humanoid figure stood in the center of the well, directly facing Su Fan above.
Even though I couldn't see his eyes, the feeling of being watched was sharp and tangible.
When those unseen eyes touched the golden light on Su Fan's body, the golden patterns on Su Fan's right arm uncontrollably flowed back to his palm, and the golden blood flowing from the broken finger bone wound on his left hand also began to darken.
"I once had a form. This form was what I looked like before Pangu shattered me. Thirty thousand years later, you've forced me to this point, so I'm showing you my final form. The collapse has begun. Be prepared."
The voice of the Lord at the bottom of the well was no longer flat and slow; its tone became as clear as that of the human figure.
The break in the main causal chain caused fragments of the law to collapse towards it, and all the old causal events that had been deposited at the bottom of the well for 30,000 years were sucked back into the core.
The core pulsed one last time, then exploded.
What exploded wasn't fragments, but waves.
A dark red shockwave crashed upwards from the bottom of the well, shattering the stone walls into dust wherever it passed.
At the same instant, all 210 Pangu axe marks on the wellhead lit up with a blue light, and the blue light and the dark red shock wave collided head-on at the edge of the wellhead.
Su Fan's feet were planted firmly on the edge of the well, his legs sinking into the stone wall above his knees.
The sound of bones breaking came from the two lower leg bones, and the golden blood seeping from the fractures formed a small pool behind the feet.
He held the Pangu Axe horizontally in front of him with both hands, the axe face towards the bottom of the well.
Golden blood seeped from under the skin of his abdomen, chest, and back, staining his robes gold.
The first shockwave struck the surface of Pangu's axe.
The axe blade hummed, and the sonic waves shattered the axe marks on the three wellheads.
The second shockwave followed immediately, striking the 210 axe marks at the wellhead. The axe marks collectively glowed, compressing the shockwave inside the wellhead.
The third shockwave is a curse.
The last causal curse released before the primordial causality shattered 30,000 years ago surged up from the core of the shockwave, passed through the vacuum layer on the axe surface, and crashed directly into Su Fan's chest.
The moment the curse entered his body, Su Fan's consciousness was pulled into another space.
It was not at the bottom of a well, not in foreign lands, not at the Southern Heavenly Gate; it was a completely unfamiliar world.
The sky was filled with silver-gray star trails, and hundreds of millions of runes were moving erratically, colliding and crushing each other, with debris constantly falling to the ground.
Overhead, a massive, curved boundary pressed down, with endless tearing and healing surging within and without, each surge echoing back with a dull thud from afar.
Beneath their feet lay an endless, purplish-black wasteland of laws, the earth covered with intricate patterns and deep, bottomless ravines and fissures, from which tiny, remnant particles of laws slowly seeped outward.
A humanoid silhouette is visible within the silver-gray star trails. Each fragment of the star trail scratches its edges, and dark red embers of law constantly burst forth from the wounds, burning deep holes into the earth.
The humanoid figure was exactly the same as the humanoid figure formed by the Lord of the Well.
As the humanoid was repeatedly suppressed by the star trail, it condensed its shattered parts into an extremely thin causal line, which pierced into the interior of the boundary layer in the opposite direction.
It is this curse.
Su Fan stood on the wilderness, looking up at the human figure cracked and scorched by star trails.
Part of the humanoid form was not yet fully formed, and the star trails were still peeling off fragments from it.
But when that thread of cause and effect fell from His hand and pierced the primordial sky, the entire wasteland emitted its first muffled hum.
That was the first crack that appeared when the Heavenly Dao was cursed and anchored.
Within this crack, Su Fan sensed the echo of all laws breaking, the same vibration that resonated in the bricks of the Southern Heavenly Gate when the Pillar of Calamity struck.
"What you are seeing is the process of my curse seeping out from the bottom of the well over the 30,000 years after Pangu shattered me. This causal line has already taken root in the foundation of the Primordial Heavenly Dao."
"You severed the main causal chain, and the fragments of my laws scattered, but this thread cannot be dispelled; it will remain in the Heavenly Dao. If you wish to accept the curse, pull out this thread."
"If you can pull it out, the Primordial Heavenly Dao will be complete and will no longer leak; if you can't pull it out, the contract you just severed in exchange for the main cause and effect will still be valid, and I will still sink into the deepest part of chaos. But the Primordial Heavenly Dao will no longer be complete. Will you pull it out or not?"
The voice of the Lord of the Well echoed in this unfamiliar space, no longer deep and resonant, but simply a straightforward statement.
Su Fan stood in the wilderness.
He didn't look down at his feet, but stared at the human figure beneath the star trail and the causal line piercing into the ground.
Suddenly, he used the Pangu Axe to slash at his left palm; this was the third cut.
Six fine cracks were exposed on the metacarpal bone, and blood flowed along the palm lines onto the cracked soil of the wasteland, seeping into the bottomless ravines of the fracture.
After it seeped in, some dim, fragmented light appeared at the bottom of the ravine.
Those shards of light were not ignited by golden blood, but were the fragments of the Heavenly Dao scattered throughout this wilderness responding to the situation.
These fragments shattered and scattered when the curse invaded, and have never been activated in 30,000 years, but they still remember the warmth of blood.
"You just said that before you were sealed into the well, you had a form. Thirty thousand years ago, you were shattered and sealed into the well, and thirty thousand years later, your curse is still nailed to the primordial Heavenly Dao. You said you were whole before, what were you when you were whole?"
Su Fan's voice was calm.
The humanoid figure of the Lord at the bottom of the well fell silent.
It raised its arm, which was being constantly cut by star debris, and slashed forward with the broken end of its wrist.
A shattered, chaotic cloud wall rose from the edge of the silver-gray law wilderness.
There are murals on the cloud wall, with primitive brushstrokes and shallow engravings. Each engraving has been worn away by the winds of the wilderness for 30,000 years and is almost blurred.
The inscription is simple, recording a group of chaotic beings opening their eyes in the chaos, wandering, and devouring.
The middle section of the engraving depicts the beginning of the differentiation of these beings: one group begins to use their hands to split the chaos and create the world; the other group begins to devour other chaotic beings and feed on chaos itself.
A well is carved at the edge of the boundary. The well is upside down, with its mouth facing down and its bottom facing up.
All the fragments of the laws of the devourer and the devoured merged into a single core at the bottom of the well, transforming into a dark red, twisted line without hands, feet, or face.
This core is the master of the well.
It was not initially formed from the devoured; rather, it was an aggregate that was forced to solidify after the residue of those devoured settled and fermented at the bottom of the well.
"I have no name. Pangu split the chaos to create the world, and I am formed from the residue left after the chaos was split. When you split the chaos in two, one half rises to become the sky, and the other half sinks to become the earth. That clump of residue that can't be washed away in the middle is me."
For the first time, the voice of the Lord of the Well carried no oppressive force of laws, only a statement.
Su Fan looked up at the human figure being constantly crushed and peeled away by the star trails, and remained silent for a few seconds.
Then he stuck the Pangu Axe into the ground, loosened the handle, and freed his right hand to pull out an arrow.
He pulled the fragment of the iron arrowhead that had been embedded in his sleeve from the wound on his palm, pulling out a small piece of flesh along with it.
He inserted the arrow fragment into the widest trench in the wasteland. The residual light of the Heavenly Dao Repair Technique on the arrow touched the bottom of the trench, and a fragment of the Heavenly Dao buried at the deepest point suddenly flashed.
"You call yourself trash, then I'm trash too. I, Su Fan, am not the reincarnation of any great god from the primordial era, nor am I recognized by the Heavenly Dao. I'm just one of the ten thousand remaining soldiers still standing on this city wall."
"Scum against scum, I respect your 30,000 years of pain, and I will uproot your 30,000 years of roots. After uprooting, you take your territory and sink into the depths of chaos, while I take the complete Heavenly Dao and return it to the primordial world. If you have any grievances or pain, throw them at me."
He pressed the arrowhead fragments into the soil where the main causal line extended.
The causal lines vibrated violently, and all the runes above the silver-gray star trails simultaneously turned, locking onto Su Fan.
The causal star orbit began to collapse, and a large number of rune fragments fell from the sky, crashing towards Su Fan.
Su Fan gripped the causal thread with his left hand and pulled out the Pangu Axe with his right, slashing the blade at the falling rune fragments.
The shattered fragments collided head-on with the golden Dao energy swirling from Pangu's axe blade, and the resulting bursts of light tore scorch marks into the cracked ground of the wasteland.
The causal lines began to disintegrate at the fine cracks in Su Fan's left hand metacarpal bone.
A dark red law, visible to the naked eye, seeped from the old wound, extending forward along his wrist, attempting to drag his entire forearm into the causal line to escape the final backlash before it could break free.
Amidst the collapsing shockwaves, countless indistinct, hoarse whispers echoed. These were not the voices of any one person, but rather the various laws of the torn star trails, each speaking the same sentence at a different frequency.
"The debt owed by the primordial era. How will you repay it?"
Su Fan used the Pangu Axe to support his body, his broken ribs pressed against his skin, and blood from his feet flowed along the cracks in the rubble into the depths of the wasteland.
He braced his severed left forearm on his knee and pushed hard. The instant the bones were put back in place, the excruciating pain caused the star trails and the earth in his vision to distort for a moment.
"The debts of the primordial world shall be repaid with the bones of the mortals of the primordial world."
He fixed his gaze and said.
The humanoid form of the Lord at the bottom of the well trembled under the crushing force of the star trails, emitting a low, bitter laugh.
Instead of speaking directly, it used the remaining ancient causal resonance within its core to blend its voice with all the whispers.
"Your bones aren't worth that much."
"If one isn't enough, use two; if two aren't enough, use the whole body. Human bones are worthless; what's valuable is what I say."
Su Fan pressed down on the cracks in his leg bone, and the dark gold threads formed from the solidified golden blood wrapped around the bone seams layer by layer.
He looked at the Lord at the bottom of the well and spoke the contract to the dark red core.
"I, with the bones of Su Fan, make a pact with you. You withdraw from the Primordial World, and the Primordial World will not pursue you. Chaos is my witness."
The humanoid figure of the Lord at the bottom of the well stopped trembling.
It actively absorbed all the remaining embers of the laws stripped from the star trails into its core, and then gently tapped the faceless head of Su Fan.
The contract used the blood dripping from the third cut on Su Fan's palm as a catalyst to burn into all the falling fragments of cause and effect in the desolate void.
Where the fragments swept, the cracks in the earth slowly healed; the silver-gray star trail runes above, which had closed, dimmed and receded layer by layer from the edges.
The entire causal boundary that was originally suspended between the primordial chaos and the primordial era has been restored to its original position.
The dark red glow of the Lord of the Well, stained with the karma of the past, began to fade at this moment.
The cracking of the stone walls at the bottom of the well stopped.
The collapse wave dissipated naturally before reaching the wellhead, turning into a ring of dark red mist that slowly sank into the depths along the well wall.
The Lord of the Well retrieved the fragments of the Law, and its core descended back into the well.
The well water silently submerged the dark red trunk, and submerged the core that had been beating for 30,000 years.
"After I leave, how long the Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World can hold out depends on yourselves, mortals."
The last thing that came from the bottom of the well was a very low voice.
Su Fan stood at the edge of the well.
He switched the Pangu Axe from his right hand to his left and glanced back towards the direction of the South Heavenly Gate.
The clash between the aftershocks of the great calamity and the laws of the outer realms on the hollow dome had ceased, and through the receding red mist, he could vaguely see the ruins of the Southern Heavenly Gate.
A third of the city wall has collapsed, but its outline is still visible.
The remaining 10,050 people. No, it can't be counted as 10,000 anymore; he couldn't see the exact number, but he knew they were still standing, their eyes shining with the same color as the blood that had just been poured into the Pangu Axe.
He shoved the Pangu Axe into his back, turned around, and walked towards the well opening.
With each step, the dark red mist barrier of the collapsed area of the outer territory beneath their feet receded by one foot.
As they retreated to the third step, a figure emerged from the fog ahead.
The man in black robes stood at the edge of the mist barrier. Most of his law-based body had been peeled away, leaving only a fragmented outline, with powder formed from causal fluid still falling from the edges.
He stood ten steps in front of Su Fan, not blocking his way, but calmly spoke.
"This body of mine can hold out for the time it takes to say one more sentence. You made a pact in the well, and the people at the bottom of the well acknowledged it. All the causal imprints left by the extraterrestrial gods on the edge of the primordial world have been erased with the break of the main causal chain."
"I've come to deliver one last message. The internal backlash accumulated by the Primordial Heavenly Dao over the past million years is far more severe than the karmic consequences from beyond the realm. You've patched up the external threats, but the internal troubles remain. Don't rush back to your city walls yet."
After saying this, the black-robed man's physical body shattered into ashes.
The last layer of mist over the outer territory dissipated before Su Fan, completely exposing the ruins of the Southern Heavenly Gate.
The Primordial Celestial Venerable still stands on the ridge, his whisk now gray.
Yang Jian leaned against a pillar, his entire body soaked in blood, half of his armor stained.
Nezha, carrying a spear, stood guard on the outermost edge of the crenellation, with the remains of extraterrestrial gods piled up at his feet, more than three times his height.
Qingfeng, the human warrior, and Gongsun Bao propped themselves up on the broken bricks of the city wall, their wounds still bleeding, but they were all awake.
Sun Wukong squatted at the highest point, his golden cudgel resting on his knees, his monkey eyes fixed on Su Fan.
"The light from that axe on your back just now was so bright, I, Old Sun, have rolled around three times in the Great Calamity and never seen anything like it. Where is that thing at the bottom of the well?"
"They've withdrawn."
Su Fan took the Pangu Axe off his back and smashed it into the last intact city brick at his feet.
The axe blade was driven three inches into the brick.
He sat down on the edge of the city bricks and looked down at his left hand.
The edge of the third cut had already formed a dark golden scab, and bloodstains still remained between the fingers.
"The well is sealed. The outer territories have all collapsed. The black-robed man and his comrades have all returned to the origin of the laws. The primordial world is whole again. But what Laozi just heard was true: there is another thorn embedded in the Heavenly Dao, deeper than the outer territories. The next battle will be within the primordial world."
The fetal movement of the demon ancestor, originating from the deepest part of the Ruins of Return, traveled along the newly repaired layers of laws and was clearly transmitted for the first time to the foundation of the ruins of the Southern Heavenly Gate.