bioinnovel Chapter 375 The Heaven-Opening Axe
Chapter 375 The Heaven-Opening Axe
The moment the Golden Cudgel collided with the Demon Ancestor's Devouring Heaven Law Orb, all the chaotic gray mist surrounding the Tai Sui Crack was swept away by the shockwave.
No sound.
The collision of laws at the center of the explosion exceeded the medium limit of sound propagation, and after the gray fog was completely evaporated, a pure void was revealed.
Only two things were moving in the void.
It was still the same golden cudgel, but all the chaotic law patterns on the surface of the cudgel were activated, and the power to stabilize the sea surging from the depths of the patterns became entangled with the aftershocks of the great calamity.
White electric arcs surged along the rod into the sphere, and with each inch of electric arc, a piece of the dark purple law layer on the sphere's surface shattered.
Another thing was Sun Wukong's hands. The two hands that gripped the handle of the staff had all the old wounds on their tiger's mouths reopened, and golden blood flowed down their wrists onto the staff. The high temperature of the aftermath of the great calamity instantly evaporated the blood, leaving behind a very thin golden mark.
The ancient remnant soul fragments that had been suppressed inside the sphere for 30,000 years all went out of control the moment the golden cudgel pierced through the sphere's wall.
Fragments gushed out from the breach, each fragment representing the last wisp of divine consciousness of an innocent person who had been devoured by Rahu.
They have been sealed within the laws of the Demon Ancestor for too long, so long that they have forgotten who they once were, leaving only the most primal impulses.
Some fragments rushed towards the Tai Sui crack, some towards Sun Wukong, and many more flew haphazardly through the void, tearing the void itself with extremely fine cracks wherever they passed.
The gatekeeper did not waste this moment that Sun Wukong had risked his life for.
He released the eighth array seal as the sphere was pierced.
The array seal flew out from his palm, unfolding into a huge gravitational net covering a hundred miles of void, with meshes so fine that each thread was a miniature version of a Kunlun Mountain-protecting rune.
The fragments of the remnant soul collided with the net, were trapped by its mesh, and the residual liquid of the Demon Ancestor's Law, which had been peeled off, dripped from below the mesh and was guided by gravity into the chaotic depths beyond the crack.
The stripped-off fragments of pure divine consciousness were then lifted layer by layer by the mesh, reaching the edge of the star field above the void that had not yet been shattered.
As the eighth array seal peeled away the remnant soul, the ninth array seal flew out from his other palm and stuck to the center of the Tai Sui crack, covering every new crack on the inner wall of the crack caused by the impact of Rahu's limbs.
But the three limbs did not stop.
At the same instant that Sun Wukong pierced the Law Orb, Rahu's right arm slammed down from the side.
The fist slammed into Sun Wukong's right rib, and the sound of the ribs breaking clearly echoed from the void.
Sun Wukong was sent flying, his hand still gripping the handle of the staff. The staff was pulled out from the hole in the sphere, still covered with the dark purple liquid from inside the Law Sphere.
After flying a hundred feet, he barely managed to steady himself, landing on a fragment of Kunlun mother rock that had been blasted away by the shockwave. His right hand was covering his right rib, and the blood seeping from between his fingers was golden, mixed with the liquid of the Rahu Law, creating a golden-black intertwined pattern.
The left knee came up from below, the kneecap hit his back, making him bounce up, and then the left leg followed with a stomp, landing on his left shoulder.
The old wound, torn open by Rahu's claw marks, was completely ripped open under the trampling, and the shoulder blade made a creaking sound as it dislocated.
"Old Shi! How much longer!"
Sun Wukong used his golden cudgel to support his body, but his left arm was completely unable to lift, so he could only hold the cudgel with his right hand.
"Seventy percent of the remnant soul fragments have been removed! Hold on for another twenty breaths!"
The protective runes on the guardian's arms began to shatter from the edges under the extreme pressure of maintaining two array seals simultaneously. The rubble peeled off his arms and fell into the void, where it was sucked away by the gravitational net.
"Twenty breaths."
Sun Wukong spat out a mouthful of blood, switched the golden cudgel to his left hand, and used his left arm, which he could no longer lift, to hold the cudgel.
He tore a piece of tattered gold armor from his waist with his right hand, rolled it into a ball, and stuffed it into his mouth, biting down on it.
Then he released his left hand and gripped the bat again with only his right hand.
Luo Hou's right ankle slammed down from directly above, the spot where he had just pierced through. However, the fluid cavity had already healed under the soaking of the Law Pool, and the newly formed skin and flesh had not yet fully solidified, with a very faint purple color on the surface.
Sun Wukong did not dodge. Instead, he charged upwards in the direction his ankle was coming down. His golden cudgel became thinner and sharper, aiming at an extremely fine line of law on the outside of his ankle and piercing it in.
That wasn't a joint or an old injury, but a weakness he had inadvertently discovered during a previous fight.
Although the patterns on Rahu's limbs are dense, there is one pattern on the outer side of the joints near the bony prominence that is always one layer shallower than the others.
The skin in that area was too thin, and the fluid from the engraving flowed too quickly, so the lines couldn't be carved deeply enough.
When he punctured the ankle joint, the sebum in the septic cavity first gushed out from this spot.
The tip of the rod pierced the shallow groove, penetrated the skin, and embedded itself in the law membrane wall on the outer side of the serous cavity.
Sun Wukong pressed his entire weight onto the handle of the staff and pulled it down hard.
The tip of the rod tore a hole in the membrane wall, and the black law fluid in the fluid cavity spurted out of the hole, spraying him all over his head and face.
Luo Hou's right leg twitched violently, his ankle lost strength, and his entire leg retracted into the depths of the gray fog.
The right fist came crashing down again.
This time, Sun Wukong was too exhausted to dodge anymore. He held his golden cudgel horizontally in front of him, making the cudgel thicker, and used it as a shield to block the fist.
The fist slammed into the stick, bending it in an arc. The bent stick bounced back and struck him in the chest, sending him flying.
His back slammed against a protruding Kunlun mother rock at the edge of the Tai Sui crack, and his spine cracked.
The fragment of golden armor he was holding in his mouth was shaken off, slipped out and floated in the void, covered in blood.
"Ten breaths!"
The gatekeeper's voice had changed; his stone vocal cords were beginning to crack under the high load, and with each word he spoke, pebbles fell out of his throat.
Sun Wukong slid down the mother rock with his back against it. When he reached the base of the mother rock, he used his heels to wedge himself in a crevice and stopped sliding down.
He looked down at his entire body.
The golden armor was completely shattered, and the breastplate was embedded with the dents from Rahu's fist, which were directly opposite the heart.
My left arm completely lost sensation after my scapula dislocated, and it hung limply at my side, swaying with inertia.
At least three ribs on the right side were broken, and the broken bones pushed out several bumps on the skin.
His left thigh was whipped by the curved blade of his own golden cudgel, leaving a bruise running across his thigh.
The only joints in his body that could still move freely were his right arm, right leg, and neck.
He pulled the golden cudgel back from its bent state, restoring it to its original shape.
He touched the spot on his chest directly opposite the indentation with his right hand, and felt his heartbeat through the breastplate.
My heart is racing. The will of the Path of All Beings is still holding on deep within my mind, but the Seventy-Two Transformations Fate Line has been eroded by the aftershocks of the Great Calamity and the liquid of Rahu's Law, and is almost knotted.
He could feel his transformation technique starting to loosen from the root, most obviously in his ears—the furry monkey ears kept switching between human form and his stone monkey form, uncontrollable.
"Five breaths!"
Rahu's three limbs readjusted their angles in the void.
This time, they no longer fought alone, but rushed towards the Tai Sui crack from three directions at the same time.
The right fist is aligned with the center of the crack, the left knee with the left flank of the crack, and the right ankle with the right flank of the crack.
The demonic law patterns on the three limbs simultaneously lit up to their limit during the charge, and the law slurry deep within the patterns left three dark purple trails in the void.
Sun Wukong propped himself up on the mother rock, pushed off the rock wall with his right leg, and used the force to propel himself forward.
He stood in front of the crack, his back to it, facing three limbs rushing towards him simultaneously.
He held the golden cudgel horizontally in front of him, its shaft thickening and lengthening to block the gap between the crack and his limbs.
He didn't swing the bat, he didn't attack, he just held the bat horizontally to block.
"I only have this one stick left. I'm not going to hit anyone with it, I'm going to block the door."
All three limbs simultaneously struck the golden cudgel.
At the moment of impact, the guardian deity completed the stripping of the last fragment of the remnant soul, and the eighth array seal closed in.
The ninth layer of array seals fully unfolded on the surface of the crack, sealing off every new crack on the Tai Sui crack.
He pulled his arms back, his stone palms covered in cracks, the deepest one running from the center of his palm to the back of his hand, almost splitting his right hand in two.
He looked at the figure outside the crack, whose three limbs were blocked by a stick, and shouted at the crack with all his might.
"The rift is sealed! All remnant souls have been stripped away! You retreat!"
After the three limbs bounced off the golden cudgel, they each shrank back for a moment. This was the instinctive backlash of the laws from Rahu's physical body after the Demon Ancestor's Devouring Heaven Law Sphere was shattered.
They floated in the gray mist, with black liquid seeping from the joints of their limbs—the wounds caused by the backlash of the laws exploding inside.
But the backlash did not deter them; instead, it thoroughly enraged them.
The three limbs no longer maintained tactical coordination, but instead simultaneously slammed down on the golden cudgel.
When Su Fan and Nezha arrived outside the Tai Sui crack, this was the scene they witnessed.
The Pangu Axe flew out of Su Fan's hand, and all three lights on the axe blade lit up. The white light, the blue light, and the golden patterns twisted into a beam of light, splitting through the chaotic gray mist and smashing into the elbow joint of Luo Hou's right arm.
The axe blade wedged into the gap at the joint, and the triple law was poured in simultaneously.
His right elbow was stuck, and his fist stopped three zhang above the golden cudgel.
Nezha's Wind and Fire Wheels burst into flames, and the tip of his Fire-Tipped Spear pierced the old wound in Rahu's left knee joint.
That crack was caused by Sun Wukong's three blows earlier, and it hasn't fully healed yet.
After the spear tip pierced the crack, Nezha pressed down on the spear shaft, using the lever force to deflect the direction of the force exerted by his left knee, causing his knee to glide past the left side of the golden cudgel.
His right ankle slammed into the golden cudgel, causing the cudgel to tremble violently. The tremor was transmitted to Sun Wukong's hand, and the web between his thumb and forefinger, which was gripping the handle of the cudgel, split open again.
The golden cudgel sank a bit downwards after being hit by the right leg.
But the stick did not break.
Sun Wukong gritted his teeth and braced himself against the handle of his staff, the veins on his neck bulging and the blood vessels under his skin throbbing as if they were about to burst.
He pushed the golden cudgel back up an inch.
Su Fan summoned back the Pangu Axe with one hand, pulling the axe blade from his right elbow joint, accompanied by a spray of black law liquid.
The slurry splashed onto Su Fan's left arm, corroding several holes in the sleeve and revealing the golden patterns formed by the will of all living beings on his arm.
Ignoring the corrosive slurry, he gripped his axe and leaped to the left of the golden cudgel, standing side-by-side with Sun Wukong in front of the crack.
Nezha drew his Fire-Tipped Spear, jumped back to the right side of the Golden Cudgel, with the spear tip pointing outwards.
The wound left by the Time Hunter on his left arm had completely healed, and the new skin glowed a pale pink under the light of the flames from the Wind and Fire Wheels.
He squatted down beside Sun Wukong's right leg, glanced at the monkey's injuries all over his body, and spoke.
"Great Sage, your left scapula is dislocated, three ribs are broken, you can't lift your left arm, the broken bone on your right rib is pressing against your skin, and your face is covered in blood. You only have your right arm that you can move, and you're still stubbornly holding on. I'm too late."
"Not too late. Just in time."
Before Sun Wukong could finish speaking, Rahu's three limbs crashed down again.
The right fist slammed into the center of the golden cudgel, causing the cudgel to bend into a very deep arc.
The ninth layer of array seal that the gatekeeper had placed on the crack was shaken by the shockwave.
He thrust his left knee at Nezha from the side, and Nezha parried with his spear. Nezha's kneecap struck the spear shaft, sending him and his spear flying back ten feet.
The right ankle was swept towards Su Fan.
Su Fan sidestepped the bony protrusion on the front of his ankle, then swung the Pangu Axe upwards, the blade striking the shallow layer of the law pattern on the outside of his ankle.
The axe blade cut in two inches and got stuck between the skin and the membrane wall of the serous cavity.
Instead of continuing to chop downwards, Su Fan pulled the axe blade horizontally, tearing a laceration across the outside of the ankle joint in the shallow grooves.
After the rift opened, he drew his axe and retreated, shouting something to Nezha.
"The spot where the Great Sage just pierced is newly healed; the membrane of the fluid cavity hasn't fully hardened yet. Strike that shallow line on the outside; that's where the law lines on Rahu's limbs are thinnest."
Nezha pulled the spear shaft back from the impact with his knee, turned the spear tip to aim at the outside of Rahu's left knee joint, accelerated with his Wind Fire Wheels, and thrust the spear into the shallow wound.
The three-limbed encirclement formation was disrupted by two shallow wounds.
The law-based fluid that gushed from the crack on the outside of the right ankle joint left a black trail in the void.
The hole on the outside of Nezha's left knee joint was oozing fluid.
The joint of my right elbow, which was caught by Pangu's axe, has not yet fully returned to its original position.
The three limbs retracted and readjusted their angles at the edge of the gray fog.
Sun Wukong supported himself with one hand on his golden cudgel, looking back into the crack.
The protective runes on the guardian deity's arms had shattered to the last layer, and cracks on his stone palms spread from his palms to his wrists.
Although the ninth layer of the array seal sealed the main body of the crack, the edges of the array seal were being repeatedly eroded by the residual shockwaves of the laws in the gray mist, and small fragments of laws kept falling off the seal.
"The array seals won't hold for long. At most, they can withstand one more wave of simultaneous attacks. In the next wave, the three limbs will abandon tactical coordination and directly smash into the cracks with their bare bodies."
The gatekeeper looked up at Sun Wukong, his stone-faced eyes reflecting the outline of Rahu's limbs, which were gathering strength again outside the crack.
"Their law patterns have been soaking in the bottomless pool of law for 30,000 years, and the impact force of their physical bodies is enough to break through the law membrane at the edge of the crack."
"Then let's prevent them from launching another simultaneous attack."
Su Fan slung the Pangu Axe over his shoulder and turned to look at the gatekeeper.
The engraved bell core on his chest emitted a faint, dark golden light through his clothes. When he slashed into Rahu's ankle, the bell core's temperature of law and Rahu's law fluid briefly came into contact, triggering a piece of residual information sealed deep within the runes by Taiyi.
His voice was very steady when he spoke.
"When Taiyi inscribed this rune, he recorded an old story about Rahu with the sound of a bell. When Pangu split the heavens and earth and shattered the chaos, Rahu was the first to be hit and half of his true form as the Demon Ancestor was smashed by the back of the Heaven-Opening Axe. A mark from the Heaven-Opening Axe remained in the core of his laws, and it has not healed for 30,000 years."
"The axe mark is located at the joint where his twelve limbs connect. It's not the joint of the limb itself, but the main joint that needs to be connected when the twelve pieces of flesh are put back together."
"The main joint is hidden at the base of each limb, wrapped in layers of Demon Ancestor Law patterns, but the shallow patterns are the outermost layer of the patterns. As long as you dig along the shallow patterns into the joint cavity, you can touch that old axe mark."
Upon hearing this, a bright light flashed in the stone eye sockets of the gatekeeper.
He pressed his broken right palm against the protective stone armor on his chest, and the fragments of Kunlun mother rock sealed inside the armor resonated with the aftershocks of Sun Wukong's great calamity.
He caught the resonance, extracted it, and poured it into the remaining protective runes on his right arm, condensing the final complete Kunlun Sealing Technique in his palm.
Then he looked up at Su Fan and said two words.
"Borrow an axe."
Su Fan untied the Pangu Axe with one hand and handed it over.
The guardian deity did not take the axe. Instead, he placed his stone hand on the axe blade, and the newly formed sealing spell in his palm flowed into the blade.
The Kunlun Sealing Technique and the Triple Law briefly overlapped on the axe blade, adding a very faint stone-gray halo to the white light, blue light, and golden patterns.
That was a single-layer seal formed after the ancient Kunlun Mountain Protection Array was compressed to its limit. The core runes of the seal were of the same origin as the self-destruction array on the mother rock, but the gatekeeper god rewrote part of the law logic, changing it from freezing to locking.
Locks onto the law structure of a single target, preventing the target from mobilizing any law fluids to heal wounds for the duration of the seal.
"The seal can lock the repair of a limb's laws, lasting for twenty breaths. Within twenty breaths, dig along the shallow lines until you reach the joint cavity, find the old axe mark, and use the axe blade to chop at the old axe mark again."
"The Pangu Axe is a replica of the Heaven-Opening Axe, but the power of creation on the axe blade was sealed in by the remnant consciousness of Pangu himself. The old axe mark in Luo Hou's body recognizes the power of creation. The superposition of the old and new axe forces in the joint cavity will cause the resonance to shatter the law patterns of the entire limb from the inside."
"If one limb is shattered, the other two will be damaged along with it due to the resonance of the same origin of the Demon Ancestor's Law."
Su Fan took the Pangu Axe, and the four layers of light on the axe blade reflected on his face.
He turned to face the three limbs of Rahu outside the crack, which were gathering strength for a final, coordinated attack, and without turning his head, gave instructions to Nezha and Sun Wukong.
"Twenty breaths. I'll cut off the right arm. The elbow joint was just caught by the axe blade, and the joint hasn't reset yet; the shallowest lines are still visible."
"Nezha, you and the gatekeeper will hold down my left and right legs, so they don't interfere with me."
"Great Sage, use your right arm, which you can still move, to grip the staff tightly and guard the crack. The seal is breaking off fragments; if any remnant soul fragments leak out from the crack, whip them back with the staff."
Nezha slung his Fire-Tipped Spear over his shoulder, and his Wind-Fire Wheels burned two streaks of fire in the air. He only managed to utter two words in response.
"clear."
Sun Wukong did not answer.
He changed the golden cudgel from a horizontal block to a vertical one, holding it with one hand and bracing it against the edge of the crack. In his monkey eyes, he could see the limbs of Rahu gathering strength outside the crack.
His left hand was hanging limply at his side, and a purplish-black swelling had appeared where his shoulder blade was misaligned.
He glanced down at his left hand, bit his left wrist with his teeth, and swung his head upwards, using the force to forcefully pull his dislocated shoulder blade back into place.
The crisp sound of the joint returning to its place came from his shoulder socket. He opened his mouth and moved his newly reattached left arm.
My fingers can move, but my grip strength is only 30% of what it used to be.
He gripped the handle with his left hand as well, holding the staff with both hands. The staff thickened again and stood firmly across the crack.
Su Fan was the first to rush out of the crevice.
He stepped on a fragment of Kunlun mother rock floating in the void, switched the Pangu Axe to his right hand with the blade facing outward, and charged straight at Rahu's right elbow joint.
Nezha circled around from the right, the flames trailing from his Wind and Fire Wheels drawing an arc in the air, the tip of his Fire-Tipped Spear aimed at the shallow, old hole that had been pierced through the outside of Rahu's left knee joint.
The guardian deity stretched out his broken arms from the crack, and his giant stone hands opened in the void, one hand grabbing at Rahu's right ankle, the other maintaining the sealing power of the ninth layer of the array.
Rahu's three limbs reacted simultaneously.
The right arm stops gathering power, the elbow joint sinks down, and the muscle layer of the upper arm wraps around the shallow and weak creases on the outside of the joint.
The left knee was brought inward, and the patterns of the thigh and calf intertwined to form a temporary shield to block Nezha's charge.
The right ankle joint actively met the giant stone hand that the gatekeeper was extending, and the protruding part of the ankle bone directly collided with the deepest part of the crack in the palm.
When Su Fan rushed to the outside of his right elbow joint, he saw that the muscle layer had already covered the shallow lines.
He didn't slow down, but switched the Pangu Axe from his forehand to his backhand, with the blade facing upwards, and began to slash upwards from below the muscle layer.
The four layers of light on the axe blade cut into the muscle layer, and the Kunlun Sealing Technique seeped into the muscle fibers from the tip of the axe blade. The sealing force penetrated towards the joint cavity along the path of the law patterns.
Once the muscle layer is sealed, it cannot contract. The muscle layer covering the shallow lines automatically relaxes, revealing the shallow line of law below, which is shallower than the other lines.
Su Fan didn't waste a moment. He followed the shallow lines with his axe blade and dug in, breaking through the skin, the membrane wall, and the outer layer of the serous cavity, until he reached the entrance to the joint cavity.
The inside of the joint cavity was pitch black, but deep within the darkness, a very fine axe mark was glowing.
That was an old wound left when Pangu smashed half of Rahu's true form with the back of his axe when he created the world 30,000 years ago.
The axe mark was surrounded by crystals of law-based slurry that had accumulated over 30,000 years. These crystals layered upon each other, sealing the axe mark deep within. However, after the Kunlun Sealing Technique cut off the supply of law-based slurry to Rahu's right arm, the crystals began to crack automatically.
"Found it. The old axe mark is inside the joint cavity, sealed by a crystal of laws. The crystal is collapsing; ten breaths left."
Su Fan wedged the axe blade at the entrance of the joint cavity to maintain the sealing force, then turned around and shouted towards the crack.
Upon hearing the shout, Nezha pulled the tip of his spear out of the old hole on the outside of Rahu's left knee joint, bringing out a spray of black liquid.
His left knee joint had been repeatedly pierced in the same spot, and the shallow groove had rotted into a through hole. More than 60% of the law fluid in the fluid cavity had been lost, and the reaction speed of his entire left leg had obviously decreased.
The gatekeeper grabbed Rahu's right ankle with his right palm. The crack in his palm was deepened after being hit by the protruding part of the ankle bone, but his five fingers firmly locked the joint of the ankle joint to prevent it from breaking free.
Luo Hou struggled wildly with his right leg, his ankle joint making a screeching sound like metal scraping as it was caught by the stone fingers.
Sun Wukong stood before the crack, his golden cudgel covered with fragments of remnant souls leaking from the crack in the array.
Each fragment that struck the rod was pulverized into powder by the aftershocks of the calamity, and the powder drifted into the void where it was swept away by the residual attraction of the gravitational net.
"Eight breaths," the gatekeeper announced.
Su Fan stared at the inside of the joint cavity.
Seventy percent of the law crystals around the old axe mark have collapsed. The remaining crystals are too thick, and it will take at least fifteen breaths for them to disintegrate naturally.
The Fifteen-Breath Kunlun Sealing Technique had long expired; he couldn't afford to wait any longer.
He reached his left hand into the joint cavity, his fingers threading through the cracked crystals, and pressed directly against the old axe mark.
The edges of the axe mark were extremely sharp; the moment a fingertip touched it, it was cut open, and golden blood gushed out and flowed into the axe mark.
The blood formed from the will of all living beings and the power of creation briefly came into contact deep within the axe mark, triggering a residual will sealed within the axe mark by the remnant consciousness of Pangu.
The will spoke only one sentence, but Su Fan heard it clearly.
Split it open.
It wasn't split by Pangu's axe, but rather the will of all living beings wrapped around the power of creation and smashed into the deepest part of the axe mark.
Su Fan withdrew his left hand and gripped the Pangu Axe tightly with his right.
He pulled the axe blade out of the joint cavity entrance and turned it so that the back of the axe faced inward.
The will of all living beings poured into the back of the axe, enveloping the remaining power of creation on it. Then, using the back of the axe as a hammer, it smashed down hard on the old axe mark.
The back of the axe struck the old axe mark.
A blinding white light exploded inside the joint cavity.
The old wound inflicted by Pangu's axe 30,000 years ago and the will of all living beings, wrapped in the power of creation, struck the same spot 30,000 years later. The two forces resonated deep within the core of the laws in Rahu's right arm.
The resonance spread along the patterns of the Demon Ancestor's Laws to the entire right arm, from the elbow joint to the knuckles, and from the knuckles to the fingertips.
The law patterns on the surface of the right arm all turned from dark purple to grayish-white and then burst from the inside, with fragments of the patterns exploding one after another.
His entire right arm began to disintegrate.
The disintegration begins at the fingertips, with the fingers crumbling into dust of law, then the palms, wrists, forearms, upper arms, and finally the elbows.
After the elbow joint shattered, the joint cavity was exposed in the void, and the old axe marks sealed inside were completely released, transforming into a pure white axe-shaped beam of light that pierced through the void and struck the Kunlun ruins deep within the Tai Sui rift.
His right arm was completely shattered.
Rahu's left and right legs convulsed violently simultaneously under the impact of the same source resonance.
The black law slurry that gushed out of the piercing hole on the outside of the left knee joint, where Nezha had stabbed it, was no longer flowing out, but rather grayish-white law powder. The law structure inside the slurry cavity began to self-destruct during the resonance.
The right ankle joint, which was being held in place by the gatekeeper, came loose on its own, and the entire right leg was broken in two at the ankle joint.
A large amount of law powder was ejected from the broken edge, and the powder surged into the void and was absorbed by the gravitational net.
Two of the three limbs are partially disabled.
His left leg lost most of its mobility, and his right leg was broken in two, with only the groin remaining, still twitching in the gray fog.
His right arm was completely shattered into powder, leaving not a trace.
The backlash from Luo Hou's laws was completely interrupted by Su Fan's axe.
The gatekeeper withdrew his arms, the cracks on his stone palms so numerous that the lines on his palms were no longer visible.
He poured all the remaining power of the array seal into the ninth layer of the array seal, and the fragments falling off the seal's seal finally stopped.
The crack has stabilized.
Nezha sheathed his spear and looked down at the grayish-white powder that covered the tip of his spear.
The Wind and Fire Wheels went out in the void. He stepped on a floating fragment of mother rock and let out a long breath.
Sun Wukong loosened his grip on the staff, leaned his back against the mother rock at the edge of the crack, and slid down the rock wall.
The golden cudgel shrank to the size of an embroidery needle and flew back into his ear.
He looked down at his body. There was a huge hematoma around the joint that had just been reattached in his left shoulder. There was another bulge at the broken rib on his right side. The bruise on his left thigh had spread from his thigh to his calf.
The monkey hair smelled burnt after being burned by the law liquid.
He grinned and cursed.
"Damn it, Rahu only has one arm and two legs, and he almost tore my old bones apart."
Su Fan walked back to the edge of the crack.
The power to create the world on the back of Pangu's axe has been exhausted, and only three of the four layers of light on the axe blade remain.
He tucked the axe into his waistband, squatted down next to Sun Wukong, glanced at the hematoma on the monkey's left shoulder, then stretched out his left hand and pressed it onto the hematoma, aligning the crooked V-shaped scar on his palm with the center of the hematoma, using the will of the Dao of All Beings to guide the stagnant blood inside the hematoma outward.
"Great Sage, do you still want this physical body of yours?"
"No, that's fine. Let Laozi refine another batch later."
The gatekeeper looked down at his broken hands, his stone-faced eyes reflecting the slowly dissipating law powder outside the cracks.
The powder from the shattered right arm floated everywhere in the void; some was absorbed by the gravitational net, while others drifted deeper into the chaos.
Rahu's right arm was shattered, but his left leg and half of his right leg were still alive. He dragged his broken body into the deepest part of the chaotic gray fog and re-established a connection with the bottomless pool of laws.
Rahu's other nine physical bodies are still sealed in various parts of the chaos, and they will come looking for him again sooner or later.
He withdrew his gaze, looked down at the three people sitting on the edge of the crack, and uttered four words.
Thank you.
Sun Wukong took the golden cudgel out of his ear, lengthened it, placed it across his knee, and tapped the stone instep of the gatekeeper with the cudgel.
"No need to thank me. I told you, once you seal the formation, you'll treat me to peaches. Are there any peach trees in the Kunlun ruins?"
"No. But there is a Vermilion Fruit tree on the back mountain of Kunlun Mountain that has lived for 90,000 years. The Vermilion Fruit ripens once every 3,000 years, and three of them have ripened this season."
Three. That's enough.
Sun Wukong grinned, then pulled at the blister on his lip where the liquid of law had burned him, and winced in pain.
Su Fan stood up from beside Sun Wukong and walked to the outer edge of the crack.
The Tai Sui rift was sealed, and all the fragments of the remnant soul were stripped away and held at the edge of the star field by the gravitational net.
The three ancient stars, Zhenxing, Chenxing, and Taisui, have all returned to their positions. The ruins of Donghuang have closed, and the firewood at the Suiming site is taking root anew under the restoration of the ruins.
After the Human Emperor Star was illuminated, all the positions of the gods were set, and the ancient god ruins are descending into the present world one by one from the time gap.
But he was looking at more than just the star charts in their original positions.
Looking from the outer edge of the Tai Sui crack into the depths of chaos, there are twelve dark purple pools of law essence, each containing a portion of Rahu's physical body.
My right arm is shattered; there are eleven pieces left.
Three of them have already regained consciousness: the left arm, torso, and head.
Deep within the three sealed Law Pools, a large amount of Law Liquid was simultaneously gushing out, the frequency of which was exactly the same as when Luo Hou's right arm had awakened.
He turned to face the direction of the South Heavenly Gate. The golden light of Mars was stable, the foundation of Guixu was solidified, and the flint of the Suiming Ruins transmitted the progress of the restoration through the layer of laws in the form of law signals.
The heartbeat of the ruins was steady and strong in the signal, and the flint had already sprouted seven new buds.
"Laojun just sent a message. Yang Jian and the others in Beiju Luzhou pulled out the Demon Emperor's Spear, and Di Jun's remnant soul was pinned back to Bone Mountain by the spear tip. All the remains of the ten thousand demons in Beiju Luzhou have returned to their places. All three routes have finished. Let's go, let's go back to the South Heavenly Gate first."
Su Fan took the Pangu Axe from his waist, and the triple light on the axe blade shone brightly again under the golden light of Mars.
He slung the axe over his shoulder and turned to look at Nezha and Sun Wukong.
"The flint from the Suiming Ruins is waiting for the ruins to be fully restored. The human warriors in Beiju Luzhou have lost their legs and can't travel far. Gongsun Bao's axe is dull and needs to be reforged. We'll build the city walls once everyone is gathered."
Nezha slung his Fire-Tipped Spear over his shoulder, rekindled his Wind-Fire Wheels, and walked back, stepping on the rubble in the void.
Sun Wukong propped himself up from the Mother Rock. The dark golden scabs on his broken bones had healed firmly under the infusion of the will of all living beings. He tested the grip strength of his left arm and found that it had recovered to 60%.
He lengthened his golden cudgel to use as a crutch, walked up to the gatekeeper, and looked up at the other's large, stone-like face.
"Old Shi, I have a question for you before I leave. You said that Luo Hou's body was pressed under Zixiao Palace by Hongjun, and his head was sealed deep inside the ruins of Buzhou Mountain. Where is Zixiao Palace? And where are the ruins of Buzhou Mountain?"
"I only know that Buzhou Mountain was broken by Gonggong back then, and the remains should be in the northwest corner of the prehistoric world. But Zixiao Palace, I searched through the entire library of Patriarch Bodhi, and I didn't find a single book that mentioned the location of Zixiao Palace."
The gatekeeper looked down at Sun Wukong.
After a moment of silence, he placed his broken right palm on the protective stone armor on his chest, extracted an extremely ancient law coordinate from the core of the Kunlun mother rock, and wrote a string of ancient Kunlun characters in the void with his stone fingers.
The text lingered in the void for a moment, then translated itself into the common language of the primordial world, consisting of only one sentence.
"The Purple Cloud Palace is above the Ruins of Return, and Mount Buzhou is below the Ruins of Return."
Sun Wukong read the sentence aloud, his monkey face expressionless.
He slung the golden cudgel over his shoulder, turned around, and walked towards the South Heavenly Gate.
"Above Guixu, below Guixu. I, Old Sun, was imprisoned by the Five Elements Mountain on the edge of Guixu for five hundred years, never realizing that Zixiao Palace was above my head and the ruins of Buzhou Mountain were below me. The mountain that imprisoned me was moved down from Mount Sumeru by Tathagata. It wasn't me that was being suppressed, but the two entrances of Guixu. Tathagata had already made his move in this game."
The crack in the Tai Sui slowly closed behind the three of them.
The guardian deity withdrew the ninth layer of the array seal, crossed his arms in front of his chest, and stood back in the center of the square in the ruins of the old Kunlun Mountain Gate.
Eight of the nine ancient stars were fully ignited, while the last one was pierced by the axe-shaped beam of light when Rahu's right arm shattered. The temperature of the laws inside the star core was reactivated, and it began to slowly ignite.
After being reconstructed by the aftershocks of Sun Wukong's Great Calamity, the mountain-protecting formation recovered 60% of its law framework. The remaining 40% will automatically repair itself after all nine stars are ignited.
He looked up at the two stars that were recovering, folded his arms back into the first defensive stance, faced the depths of chaos, and guarded the mountain gate that had been abandoned for 30,000 years.