bioinnovel Chapter 368 Return to the Ruins
Chapter 368 Return to the Ruins
Su Fan sat on the city bricks, his left hand resting on his knee.
The dark gold scab from the third incision shimmered slightly between my fingers.
Sun Wukong jumped down from the roof ridge, slammed his golden cudgel into the ground, and the end of the cudgel wedged into a crack in the city bricks.
He squatted down opposite Su Fan, his monkey-like eyes fixed on the three knife wounds on Su Fan's left hand, counting them from left to right.
"Three paths. Each one is deeper than the last."
Sun Wukong placed his staff across his lap.
"Pangu only cleaved the heavens and earth with one axe. You, on the other hand, chopped yourself three times."
Su Fan turned his left hand over so that his palm was facing up.
The three cuts have completely different directions.
The first cut is at the base of the thumb, a diagonal cut. The second cut is at the wrist, a horizontal cut. The third cut is at the center of the palm, a vertical cut.
The three scars overlapped, forming a crooked "人" (person) character in the palm of his hand.
"The first step is to feed Pangu's axe with blood. The second step is to show sincerity to that guy at the bottom of the well. The third step is to remove the curse from the primordial world. Three scars in exchange for sealing a well—it's worth it."
"Worthless my foot," Sun Wukong spat. "Have you ever counted how many bones you have broken?"
"Two ribs. Fractured left shinbone. Dislocated left forearm, but it's been pushed back in. Six cracks in the left metacarpal bone. Less than ten in total. Still able to fight."
Nezha walked over from the edge of the battlements, carrying his Fire-Tipped Spear on his shoulder, with dried ash still clinging to the tip.
He glanced down at Su Fan's hand, then at Su Fan's leg.
"You're sitting with a fractured leg. Doesn't it hurt?"
"pain."
Su Fan straightened his right leg and pulled up his trouser leg.
A dark golden bulge appeared on the outside of his calf; it was a hard scab formed on the outside of the bone fracture after the golden blood had congealed.
He bent his finger and tapped the hard scab, making a dull sound.
"The will of all beings has filled in the fractured bone. It's not a complete healed fracture, but rather a temporary fixation. He can walk and stand, but he can't kick."
"As long as it can be cut down."
Nezha stuck his spear into the ground and sat down on the city brick next to Su Fan.
Tell us about what happened at the bottom of the well.
Su Fan pulled the Pangu Axe out of the city bricks and placed it at his feet with the blade facing down.
"There's something sealed at the bottom of the well. It's not a god, not a demon, but the remnant left after Pangu split Chaos apart. Thirty thousand years ago, Pangu shattered it with seven axes and sealed it at the bottom of the well. Its fragments scattered and formed the Dao of Cause and Effect. Those extraterrestrial gods we fought on the city wall were all its guardians. They poured foreign laws into the well not to replenish its power, but to strengthen the seal."
Qingfeng walked over, leaning on his broken sword.
His right leg was still bleeding from the wound inflicted by the bone spur, leaving a bloody footprint on the city bricks with every step he took.
He walked up to Su Fan and stopped.
"Then why does it still attack us? It's sealed and suppressed, and the extraterrestrial god is its guardian. It should hate the extraterrestrial god."
"The seal is almost worn through."
Su Fan pointed to the vertical cut on the palm of his left hand.
"Two hundred and ten Pangu axe marks have been worn down by it over thirty thousand years, leaving only a few intact ones. In another three thousand years, it will be able to crawl out on its own. At that time, whether it's extraterrestrial gods or the primordial world, they will all have to be buried with it."
"It gambled with me. I severed the main causal chain, and it reclaimed all the fragments of law and sank into the depths of chaos. I withstood the collapse wave and the curse, and it left. If I couldn't withstand it, I would sit at the bottom of the well for it for 30,000 years."
"You held on," Qingfeng said.
"We held on. But it wasn't all by myself."
Su Fan looked at Qingfeng.
"When your right leg was cut open by a bone spur, did the blood flow onto the edge of the wall?"
Qingfeng looked down at the wound on his right leg.
"It leaked. Quite a bit."
"Your blood flowed on the crenellation, the Heavenly Dao Repair Technique collected the fragments, and the fragments shattered on the axe blade. When that axe cleaved into the main causal chain, your blood was in it too. Not just his. Your blood is all there."
The human warrior used his broken sword to prop himself up and crawled forward half a zhang.
He had no legs, and his trouser legs dragged loosely on the city bricks.
He crawled to Su Fan's feet and tapped Su Fan's boots with the back of his knife.
"Is my blood also there?"
"Yes. When you were nailed to the city wall by the Spider-Leg Extraterrestrial God, a hole was pierced through your shoulder blade, and blood flowed down your back and into the cracks between the bricks. The Heavenly Dao Repair Technique collected that batch of blood."
The human warrior nodded.
He turned the broken knife over, blade facing up, and looked at the dried bloodstains on the blade.
"Then my life wasn't lost in vain. My leg is gone, but the blood is still there. The blood was cut into the bottom of the well, so it was worth it."
Gongsun Bao returned from the flank.
The axe in his hand was chipped and full of nicks.
He threw the axe onto the city bricks with a dull thud, then pulled out a water pouch from his waist, tilted his head back and took a gulp, before handing the pouch to the wounded soldier next to him.
"Before the man in black died, he said there was still a thorn in the Heavenly Dao. What thorn?"
Su Fan stood the Pangu Axe upright, with the blade pointing upwards.
The dark gold on the axe surface is slowly fading, revealing the triple light beneath: white light, blue light, and golden patterns.
The three beams of light flowed across the axe's surface, but upon closer inspection, one could see that each of the three beams was pierced by an extremely thin, dark red thread.
The thread stretched from the axe blade all the way to the handle, disappearing into his palm.
"The Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World has been leaking since its inception. It was caused by the causal curse that the guy at the bottom of the well placed before he died. Just now, I pulled out that curse thread in the consciousness space, and the Heavenly Dao no longer leaks."
"But the man in black robes said that the wounds within the Heavenly Dao are not limited to this one place. The causal forces from beyond the realm entered from the outside, and some even grew out from within."
"It grew from inside." The voice of the Primordial Celestial Venerable came down from the spine.
Su Fan looked up.
Laozi was still sitting on the ridge, his whisk resting on his lap. All 108 runes had long been burned, leaving only a few gray whisk strands fluttering slightly in the wind.
His face was very pale, and there were still dried bloodstains at the corners of his mouth, but his forehead was brighter than before.
After the Heavenly Dao Repair Technique was exhausted, a very faint blue light appeared within his body. This was the primordial essence that the Heavenly Dao was replenishing within him after it stopped leaking.
"Can you feel it?"
"I sensed it. The Heavenly Dao has stopped leaking. The sounds of laws cracking that the Dao Heart heard have all stopped. The leak that had been going on for millions of years since the beginning of time has suddenly become quiet."
In the stillness, Yuanshi Tianzun heard a fetal movement, which came from the deepest part of Guixu, passed through the newly repaired layer of laws, and struck his Dao heart.
He switched the whisk to his left hand and placed his right hand on the glazed tile on the ridge. The tile was cold, but the temperature of his palm was even colder than the tile.
"The Heavenly Dao of the Primordial World is no longer leaking. The movements that were originally concealed by the wind have now all surfaced. When that sound rang out, the old Daoist's heart skipped a beat. The Void is the bottom of the Primordial World."
"When the Heavenly Dao leaked, the Void was empty. Now that it no longer leaks, there is something breathing inside the Void."
"That's not something new; it's dregs that should have been expelled by the Heavenly Dao long ago. It's been blocked by the laws of the outer realms for too long, and now that it's finally cleared, it has awakened."
Sun Wukong took the golden cudgel off his knees, a cold glint flashing in his monkey eyes.
"The Ruins of Return. I, Old Sun, know that place. Back then, I was suppressed under the Five Elements Mountain for five hundred years, and the Ruins of Return were underground. I listened for a long time at the edge of the Ruins of Return, but there was no sound from there. It's completely dead."
"There's sound now."
Su Fan stood up and tucked the Pangu Axe into his waistband.
"Before the man in black robes died, he said that the wounds inside the Primordial World were deeper than those outside. The internal wounds he was referring to should be the commotion beneath the Ruins of Return."
Yang Jian leaned against a pillar; his Heavenly Eye had been burned away, leaving only a charred vertical mark on his forehead.
He covered his forehead with a towel, his voice hoarse.
"The last thing I saw before the Heavenly Eye burned down wasn't a foreign territory, nor the bottom of a well. It was the Ruins of Return. Before I could shut it down, the Heavenly Eye forcibly tore open a veil of laws, revealing a scene deep within the Ruins of Return. There was a city there."
"What city?" Su Fan asked.
"It's not a city. It's ruins. Larger than the Southern Heavenly Gate, completely buried in the silt at the bottom of the Ruins. In the very center of the ruins is an altar, and on the altar lies a skeleton. The skeleton is human-shaped, curled up, with its arms wrapped around its knees. Just like a fetus in the womb."
Yang Jian removed the towel from his forehead.
The towel was soaked with blood and the remnants of the law; he wrung it out, and the grayish-red liquid dripped onto the ground.
"The skeleton moved. It had been curled up for 30,000 years, and today, for the first time, it stretched out even a finger. Something in the silt around the altar moved as well. The Heavenly Eye didn't even have time to see it clearly before it was burned by the backlash."
Silence reigned on the city wall.
Nezha was the first to break the silence.
He pulled the fire-tipped spear from the ground, and tapped the tip against the city bricks, shaking off the dried ash from the spear tip.
"A slag heap at the bottom of the well almost swallowed up the primordial world. Now another slag heap has emerged from the Ruins of Return. How much leftovers did Pangu leave behind when he split the chaos?"
"Not much. But each sip is enough for the Primordial Era to devour a whole pot."
Yuanshi Tianzun stood up from the back of his spine.
He moved slowly, and after standing up, he swayed slightly, only managing to steady himself by using the handle of his whisk to support himself against the glazed tiles.
"The one at the bottom of the well is the residue left over from when chaos was split open. The one at the bottom of the Ruins, the skeletal fetus, is the sediment that was expelled during the first operation of the Heavenly Dao when the world was created. The Heavenly Dao leaked for 30,000 years, and the sediment was suppressed by the laws of the outer realms. Now that it has stopped leaking, the sediment has floated to the surface."
"To put it simply," Sun Wukong said, hoisting his golden cudgel onto his shoulder.
"When the laws of Heaven leaked, the primordial world was like a leaky bucket. There was a hole at the bottom of the bucket, so water flowed out and the mud that had sunk to the bottom couldn't rise. Now that the hole is plugged, the water has stopped flowing, and the mud has floated up."
"What can you do with the floating mud?" Sun Wukong asked.
"It can fill the entire bucket. Guixu is the bottom of the primordial world. If that skeleton fully awakens, Guixu will rise upwards. The Southern Heavenly Gate will collapse first, and then the Nine Heavens will fall down layer by layer."
"After the fall of the heavens, the entire framework of the laws of the primordial world was impacted. The paths of all living beings will shatter. Not by being shattered by the laws of the outer realms, but by being crushed from the very foundation."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Sun Wukong put his golden cudgel down from his shoulder and slammed it on the ground. "Go down and fight."
"How do we fight?"
Yang Jian spoke with his eyes closed; his voice was still hoarse, but his pace had returned to normal.
"At the bottom of the well, there are traces of Pangu's axe, a seal, and a contract that can be negotiated. The Ruins of Return have nothing. The Heavenly Dao was just completed, and the things at the bottom of the Ruins of Return share the same origin as the Heavenly Dao. The power of Pangu's axe has no effect on it."
"White bones are the excrement of the Heavenly Way. If the Heavenly Way doesn't expel them, they will remain within it. If you chop them with an axe, it's the same as chopping the Heavenly Way itself."
Sun Wukong fell silent.
He slammed his golden cudgel on the ground, squatted down, and the remaining firelight on the city wall was reflected in his monkey eyes.
"Then I, Old Sun, won't chop it up. I'll go down and chat with it."
"What's the point of talking to a skeleton?" Nezha tilted his head and looked at him.
"Let's talk about why it shrank in the womb for 30,000 years. I, Old Sun, spent countless years inside a stone, where it was dark and stuffy. It shrank on the altar even longer than me, so I know what that was like."
Sun Wukong spoke calmly, without laughing or baring his teeth.
Su Fan glanced at Sun Wukong.
The monkey squatted on the ground, its golden cudgel resting on its knees, its expression indifferent.
He didn't continue the topic and turned to look at Yuanshi Tianzun.
"Laojun, the price for the complete restoration of the Heavenly Dao is the Great Resurrection of Guixu. Can we choose this price?"
"I can't choose."
Lao Tzu looked up at the sky.
The dark red mist above the South Heavenly Gate had dissipated, revealing the blue sky once more. A very clean blue.
But deep within the blue expanse, a star glows red. It is not a black star, nor an extraterrestrial god, but an ancient star that originally belonged to the primordial star map.
"That star is called Yinghuo. Yinghuo guarding the heart is an ominous sign. It has been shining for 30,000 years, suppressed by the laws of the outer realms, so we cannot see it. Today the fog has lifted, and it has been revealed. The law region corresponding to Yinghuo is the Ruins of Return. Its brightness means that at least part of what lies beneath the Ruins of Return has awakened. There is no choice."
Su Fan looked at the red star on the horizon.
It is not large, even dimmer than some of the surrounding main stars. But its red light is steady and awe-inspiring, without flickering or wavering.
"Then let's go down. We won't go to the South Heavenly Gate; we'll go straight to the Ruins of Return."
Qingfeng pulled the broken sword out of the city bricks.
"Wherever you go, I'll go."
The human warrior tapped a brick with the back of his broken sword.
"I've lost my legs, so you'll have to carry me down to Guixu."
Gongsun Bao picked up the axe from the ground and touched the dull blade.
"How many more times can this axe be used?"
Nezha looked at Su Fan and spoke calmly.
"Explain yourself clearly. How do you want to fight?"
Su Fan picked up the Pangu Axe and tapped the location of Guixu on the map.
"The city beneath the Ruins of Return is the sediment expelled from the first operation of the Heavenly Dao in the primordial world. Yang Jian said that there was a skeleton lying on the altar, in the position of a fetus. A fetus means that it has not yet been born and is still in the gestation period. Before it is born, there is something else that does not exist—self-awareness."
He put away the axe.
"A fetus in the womb has no independent consciousness. Its movement is an instinctive reaction. When the Dao of Heaven is complete, the pressure of the laws changes, and it senses the change, so it moves."
"But it doesn't know it's moving, it doesn't know who it is. This period of emptiness won't be too long. Once the Heavenly Dao is complete, the re-filling of the primordial origin will accelerate its awakening."
"We must get to the altar before it opens its eyes. Before it develops ego, we must find out where it came from."
"And then what?" Nezha asked.
"If we can talk, we will. If we can't talk—if Pangu's axe can't split it, we'll suppress it with the Way of All Beings. The Way of All Beings is formed by the combined will of ten thousand people. It has no ego, so you can't suppress it by force, but you can stuff things into it."
"Each of ten thousand people inserts a sentence into its nascent consciousness, into the ten thousandth voice it hears after opening its eyes. If the white bones of the Void condense into a form, its spiritual consciousness will be the first to touch the collective declaration issued by all things in the primordial world for the first time. That declaration will let it know that it has always been a complete part of the Heavenly Dao, not a piece of sediment."
Nezha stared at Su Fan for a long time, then suddenly stuck his Fire-Tipped Spear into the ground.
"You're crazy."
"He's not crazy."
"If you force the will of ten thousand people into it, what will happen to the person who was forced in? You are the fundamental vessel of the path of all living beings, and you yourself will be the first to be devoured and shattered."
"Maybe. Maybe it won't break. How will we know if we don't try?"
Sun Wukong jumped off his golden cudgel and landed in front of Su Fan, his monkey eyes looking directly into Su Fan's eyes.
His tone was calm to the point of being indifferent.
"I, Old Sun, disagree. Guixu is a place I, Old Sun, have lived in. When the Five Elements Mountain pressed down on me, I listened for a long time. The things inside have no consciousness, only instinct. The white bones can move; I don't believe it's just unconscious instinctive movement. It might be waiting. Waiting for someone to go down and die. That person can't be you."
"If you won't let me go, you'll go by yourself?"
"Yes. I'll go myself."
"How are you going to talk to it? You can't bear the weight of all living beings. Are you going to use the aura of a Great Sage to suppress it?"
"I won't press it down. I'll reminisce with it. I've been squatting on the edge of the Ruins of Return for five hundred years, and I've counted how many stones are under the Ruins of Return."
Su Fan took the Pangu Axe off his shoulder. The axe blade hung down, and the handle rested against the center of Sun Wukong's chest, where the Ruyi Jingu Bang usually lay horizontally.
"You've been squatting on the edge of Guixu for five hundred years. I've only been squatting on the South Heavenly Gate for a little over three hundred days. You're more senior than me, but I'm the one who established the Path of All Beings. I don't know if we can negotiate with that thing under Guixu. But if we're going to fight, using the Path of All Beings is the most effective way."
Su Fan loosened the axe handle that was pressed against Sun Wukong's chest, letting the axe fall to the ground naturally.
The axe blade wedged into the city brick an inch, producing a muffled thud.
"You go in my place. You also use the Golden Cudgel. Are you sure it will work against the stagnant Heavenly Dao?"
Sun Wukong remained silent for two breaths.
He put the golden cudgel down from his shoulder, touched the ground with the tip of the cudgel, and somersaulted, landing beside Su Fan.
"You come when I'm useful. I'll come when you're useful."
"OK."
Su Fan turned to face the ten thousand soldiers on the city wall.
A third of the city wall had collapsed. The ruins were piled with empty shells of the laws of the extraterrestrial gods, with broken knives, broken swords, broken spear shafts, and empty quivers full of arrows stuck in the gaps between the shells.
More than half of the ten thousand soldiers were wounded; the seriously wounded leaned against the battlements, while the lightly wounded stood supporting themselves against the broken walls. All eyes were on him.
"The battle beyond the realms is over. There's still one more in the Ruins of Return. You all heard what I just said. The Heavenly Dao is settling, the skeletons and unborn children are on the altar, the ancient city is on the battlefield. I need your lives to fight this battle. Ten thousand and fifty people. If even one is missing, the path of all living beings will be weakened by a fraction."
Qingfeng stood up.
"Ten thousand and fifty. Not one less."
The human warrior sat up straight, supporting himself with his broken sword.
"Even if I have no legs, I'll crawl down. Guixu isn't far. It's right below the South Heavenly Gate."
Gongsun Bao slung the dulled axe over his shoulder and shouted in a hoarse voice.
"The soldiers of the primordial world have been cut down by the gods of the outer realms, and even by the white bones of the Void. If we can't defeat them, then let them trample over our bones."
Su Fan nodded to the remaining soldiers in the city.
He pulled the Pangu Axe from the ground and walked to the very edge of the ruins of the South Heavenly Gate, where the chaotic gray mist was receding into the abyss beneath his feet.
Looking down, after the chaotic gray mist dissipated, the entrance to the Ruins of Return was revealed.
A dark, deep crack stretched between the bottom of chaos and the foundation of the primordial earth.
At the edge of the crack were remnants of the collapsed Five Elements Mountain, covered with seal marks made of a mixture of runes and primordial talismans. That was the foundation of the Five Elements Mountain that had imprisoned Sun Wukong.
"The Five Elements Mountain is where you are suppressed, and the entrance to the Ruins of Return is sealed beneath its base. The Jade Emperor used you as a cover for the mountain back then."
Sun Wukong squatted at the edge of the crack, looking down at the talisman traces on the mountain base that were almost blurred by time.
"I always thought that being imprisoned in the Five Elements Mountain was the destiny of Heaven. Later I learned that it was a scheme set up by Buddha. Now I realize that Buddha used me to block the entrance to the Void. I, Old Sun, slept in the stone for tens of thousands of years, and when I woke up, I was used as a stopper for hundreds of years."
Nezha stood to the side, carrying a gun, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"Great Sage, you once kicked over Laozi's alchemy furnace. How about kicking over the Ruins of Return this time?"
"I won't kick it. I want to go down and see if those stones are still there."
Sun Wukong leaped down.
The golden armor drew an arc of light as it scraped along the edge of the crack.
Su Fan followed closely behind. The three lights on the Pangu Axe were relit.
Nezha was the third to jump. Qingfeng, leaning on his broken sword with one hand and supporting his injured leg with the other, followed closely behind him. The human warrior lay on Gongsun Bao's back, his broken sword tucked into his waistband.
The remaining 10,000 soldiers lined up in two columns and silently and orderly descended the remaining rubble steps of the Five Elements Mountain base.
The crack at the entrance to Guixu slowly closed after the last soldier entered.
Above, the first rays of sunlight shone down on the ruins of the South Heavenly Gate after the dark red mist had dissipated. The sky was blue, a very clean blue.
In the deepest blue, the red light of Mars is fixed directly above the Southern Heavenly Gate, its brightness alternating with its darkness, as even as fetal movement.
Yuanshi Tianzun stood on the ridge and did not follow.
The duster has turned gray.
He looked at the closed crack and whispered.
"I have guarded the Heavenly Dao my entire life. When those from beyond the realms come, I will block them; when the Heavenly Dao leaks, I will mend it; even when the art of mending is exhausted, I can still hold on. Now you are going down to the Ruins of Return, but I will not go down. I will wait for you at the Southern Heavenly Gate. I will wait for you to return and guard this gate for you."
He placed his whisk on the glazed tile on the ridge, lifted his blood-stained robe, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes.
The last ray of clear light from the South Heavenly Gate clung to the gray silk threads of a whisk, slowly sweeping across the ruins.
Beneath the crack, Su Fan's foot stepped onto the first stone of Guixu.
The Ruins of Return are not black. They have light. A dark red light that shines up from the deepest part of the earth, brightening and dimming every three breaths.
One light, one dim, perfectly synchronized with the blinking frequency of Mars.
"The light is emanating from the altar. The ruined city beneath the Ruins of Return is entirely constructed from sediment expelled by the Heavenly Dao. This sediment, forgotten for millions of years in the Wilderness of Laws, is being illuminated for the first time by the Primordial Origin, and it begins to glow on its own."
Yang Jian leaned against Qingfeng's back, closed his eyes, and used his remaining senses to scan the distribution of laws deep within the Ruins of Return.
Su Fan placed his hand on the stone at his feet.
The stone is warm; it has body temperature.
There are no living beings in the Ruins of Return, but this area breathes autonomously with each flicker of light.
"It is absorbing the laws of the primordial origin and resonating with Mars. As soon as the Heavenly Dao was complete, it began to mimic the rhythm of fetal movement. The White Bone instinct awakened once, and its fingers moved. It awakened again, and its whole hand might stretch out. It awakened a third time, and opened its eyes. We don't have much time."
Sun Wukong squatted on the foremost remnant of the Five Elements Mountain. His golden cudgel rested on his lap, his monkey eyes fixed on the depths of the Ruins of Return.
The dark red light flickered, casting shifting shadows on the monkey's face.
"Back when I, Old Sun, was squatting on this spot, there was no light underneath. Now, not only is there light, but there's something breathing in the light. I, Old Sun, hate ghosts breathing the most. If you want to fight, stand up straight and honestly."
He slammed the golden cudgel onto the ground.
The sound of the stick traveled deep into the stone wall of Guixu, hitting something and bouncing back.
What returned was not an echo, but a heartbeat.
Thump. Thud.
The dark red light that pulsed in sync with Mars came from the deepest altar.
The sound of heartbeats struck the stones beneath the feet of thousands, each beat causing the stone surface to arch slightly upwards.
Su Fan unfastened the Pangu Axe from his waist and gripped it tightly. He turned around and looked at the 10,000-strong army winding its way down behind him.
"As I said on the city wall earlier, the next battle will be inside the primordial wilderness. Right here."
He turned and walked into the depths of the Ruins. Every seven steps he took, the dark red light beneath his feet flickered once.
The rhythm of the light flashing increased. Seven steps per flash became five steps per flash. Five steps became three steps. Three steps became one step.
We've arrived. The ruins of the ancient city are just a hundred paces ahead.
The red light of Mars pierced through the final layer of silt in the Ruins of Return. The entire altar of bones was clearly visible.
In the very center of the altar, the curled-up skeleton had already extended its second finger.
As the sound of ten thousand footsteps echoed against the Guixu Stone Wall, the third finger of the skeleton began to move.