bioinnovel Chapter 381 Rahu
Chapter 381 Rahu
Su Fan held the stone core in his palm; the silvery-white crystal shone with a dazzling light.
The law mark on Nezha's left shoulder pulsated in sync with the light, and the pulsation frequency became faster and faster.
As they approached the ruins, they had to reach out and press down on Nezha's shoulder, using the network of pulses from the Eastern Emperor's heart within their own chest to share the pressure of the law resonance.
"The Great Sage's signal has penetrated the law membrane of Zixiao Palace and may come out at any time."
Xu Song released his hand and turned to look at the void layer above the Guixu Crack.
The law membrane at the entrance to the void interlayer is fluctuating violently, and the frequency of the fluctuation is completely synchronized with the pulsation of the mark on Nezha's left shoulder.
When Sun Wukong emerged from the Guixu Crack, he landed face down on the bricks of the South Heavenly Gate.
The golden armor was mostly shattered; the left arm armor was gone, and only half of the right leg armor remained, hanging on the knee. A fist-shaped dent was dented in the center of the breastplate.
The golden cudgel rolled out of his hand, bounced twice on the city bricks, and stopped at Nezha's feet.
The monkey itself lay on its back in the pile of broken bricks, its fur covered with dust that had accumulated in the Zixiao Palace for countless millennia.
A dried bloodstain hung from the corner of his mouth, extending all the way to his ear.
He opened one eye and squinted at the Yuanshi Tianzun sitting cross-legged on the ridge of the South Heavenly Gate with the other. His voice was so hoarse that it sounded like he had swallowed a whole piece of the Five Elements Mountain.
"Laojun, the steps to your Zixiao Palace have nine levels. Each level is inscribed with a law of creation, carved by Hongjun. With each step, a law presses down on your back."
"I, Old Sun, carried a broken stone slab up nine steps to the last one. The weight of the laws on my back was heavier than the entire Mount Sumeru. That old bastard Hongjun placed the stone slab on the dome of the main hall, which was 90,000 feet above the ground. I climbed up to get it down, and then climbed down again. I've never been so tired in my life."
Yuanshi Tianzun stood up from his spine, flicked his whisk, and a ray of clear light landed on Sun Wukong's chest.
The clear light seeped into the dent in the breastplate, and the spiderweb-like cracks at the edge of the dent slowly healed in the clear light.
Lao Jun looked down at the monkey, and his lips twitched slightly.
"The flow of time in Zixiao Palace is dozens of times faster than in the primordial world. How long have you been inside?"
"According to the primordial era, I was inside for quite a few days. According to the Purple Cloud Palace, I stayed inside for a whole year."
Sun Wukong sat up, picked up the golden cudgel from Nezha's feet, lengthened it, and used it as a cane to stand up.
He took out a gray-black stone slab from his pocket. The slab was not large, about two feet square, and its surface was covered with densely packed characters.
The characters were filled with powder from the Jade Tablet of Creation, and each character emitted a faint, clear light on its own.
He shoved the stone slab into Su Fan's hand. The slab was extremely heavy, so heavy that Su Fan's arm muscles tensed instantly, and the will of the Dao of All Beings automatically poured into his arms to strengthen his grip.
"Hongjun is gone. In Zixiao Palace, there are only fragments of the Jade Tablet of Creation he left behind, as well as words covering the walls and the floor. Some of the writing is new, and some is old. The edges of the new carvings are still covered with fresh powder, while the old carvings have been worn away by the laws of time and are almost invisible."
"I searched every single one of the nine levels of the Purple Cloud Palace. Every wall, every pillar, and every step was inscribed with words. Hongjun stayed inside for 30,000 years and inscribed words for 30,000 years."
"Most of those words are deducing something—deducing the structure of laws, tracing causal chains, and calculating the location of Rahu's physical seal. I don't understand them. Laozi can."
Sun Wukong slammed his golden cudgel against the city bricks, wedging the end of the cudgel into the crack between the bricks, and he stood up by leaning against the cudgel.
Yuanshi Tianzun took the stone tablet and began reading it line by line, starting from the first line.
After a moment, the clear light on his whisk suddenly receded, and all 108 runes stopped flowing at the same time.
He placed the stone slab on his lap, pressed his right index finger against the inscription on the first line of characters, and let the clear light from his fingertip seep into the stone slab along the patterns of the inscription.
The characters on the stone slab, filled with the powder of the Jade Tablet of Creation, all lit up after the clear light penetrated them, the light spreading from the first line to the last.
The last line of text is the newest, with the edges of the engraving still covered in extremely fresh powder from the Creation Jade Tablet.
"These words were not carved randomly. Hongjun used fragments of the Jade Tablet of Creation to forge a Law Mirror from the stone slab. The mirror contains the real-time coordinates of all the seals deep within the chaos, including the precise locations of the six remaining physical bodies of Luo Hou, the scattered locations of the six fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe, and one more thing."
Yuanshi Tianzun paused for a moment, then pressed his right index finger on the last line of text.
"There are nine fragments of the Pangu Axe that created the world. One is on the Pangu Axe blade in Su Fan's hand, and it has been used up. Another was personally fused into the Golden Cudgel by Hongjun. Great Sage, the chaotic law patterns in your cudgel originate from the fragments of the Pangu Axe."
"One piece was sealed by Hongjun in the deepest part of Zixiao Palace, and the other six pieces were scattered throughout the chaos. One of them was swallowed by Rahu outside the Tai Sui Crack. When you shattered that right arm, the fragment was no longer inside it."
"What does 'not inside its body' mean? Was it digested by Rahu?"
Nezha tumbled down from the top of the stack.
"It wasn't digestion. The fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe were forged by Pangu himself using the laws of chaos, and even if Rahu swallowed them, he couldn't digest them. The fragments were still deep within chaos, but Rahu spat them out."
"He swallowed it for 30,000 years, but found he couldn't digest it, so he spat it into the deepest part of the Bottomless Pool of Laws. There was more than one fragment in the pool. Rahu swallowed all three fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe and then spat them all out."
The Primordial Celestial Venerable turned the stone slab over, and on the back of the slab was carved an extremely rudimentary map of the laws of chaos.
At the very center of the map is a mark of an extremely deep pool of law, surrounded by three tiny axe-shaped runes.
Each rune represents a fragment of the Heaven-Opening Axe that Rahu spat out.
"The three fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe are in the same place. But the location of that bottomless pool of law-based liquid is not marked on the map."
Su Fan stared at the map on the back of the stone slab, put the Pangu Axe down from his shoulder, and touched the ground with the axe blade.
The blue light and gold patterns on the axe blade flashed simultaneously under the clear light of the stone slab.
"The location is sealed within the fragment of the Jade Tablet of Creation in the Great Sage's arms. The fragment of the Jade Tablet of Creation is the central hub of the entire Chaos Law Network; it can sense the location of all the fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe."
Xu walked out from behind Su Fan, his bare feet stepping on the city bricks. He walked up to Sun Wukong, his pale golden pupils aimed at the monkey's chest.
Just below the dent in the monkey's breastplate, a faint glimmer of light shone from the inside of his clothing. It was a fragment of the Jade Tablet of Creation that he had just taken from the Purple Cloud Palace and kept close to his body.
Xu stretched out his right hand, and the scorch mark on his index finger cracked open the moment it touched Qingguang. The embers of the flint poured out from the crack and condensed into a tiny cluster of dark red flames on his fingertip.
The flame and the clear light jumped simultaneously after a brief contact.
"This jade tablet fragment is the key that Hongjun left for the Great Sage. The key can activate the resonance frequency of the stone embryo's core, and the resonance frequency can locate all the fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe, including the three fragments that Rahu spat into the Law Pool."
Sun Wukong took the fragment of the Jade Tablet of Creation out of his pocket and held it in his furry palm.
The fragment was only the size of a fingernail, with a faint, clear light flowing across its surface, and within the light was a minimalist law rune.
The rune has only two strokes, one pointing upwards and the other downwards. The upward-pointing stroke points to the Purple Cloud Palace, while the downward-pointing stroke points to a very distant location deep within the chaos.
"The downward-facing path refers to the Bottomless Law Pool. Hongjun inscribed a line on the top of the Zixiao Palace, saying that he had foreseen that Rahu would spit all three fragments into the same pool. The pool is located in the deepest part of the Chaos, at least three times deeper than the Tai Sui Crack."
Sun Wukong turned the fragment over, and on the back was engraved a line of extremely fine characters. The characters were very new, and the edges of the engraving were still covered with fresh powder.
"To obtain the blade of the Heaven-Opening Axe, I resonated it with the core of the stone. This was carved by Hongjun the day before I entered the Purple Cloud Palace. He foresaw that I would go."
Su Fan took the stone core out of his pocket and held it in the palm of his left hand.
The silvery-white crystal on the core surface was still shining steadily, its brightness increasing as the fragment of the Jade Tablet of Creation approached.
He turned the handle of the Pangu Axe in his right hand upside down and gently touched the fragment of the Creation Jade Tablet with the Pangu Axe mark at the end of the handle.
The moment they touched, the remnant consciousness of Pangu within the axe mark and the laws of creation within the jade fragment were activated simultaneously, forming a faint ripple at the point of contact.
The ripples spread to the surface of the stone core, and all twelve chaotic law patterns on the core lit up.
Eleven dimmed patterns briefly regained their brightness amidst the ripples of the laws, while the twelfth freely flowing pattern accelerated to the point where its direction was almost invisible.
"The fragments of the Jade Tablet of Creation have activated the resonance frequency of the stone core. The resonance frequency has already penetrated the chaotic gray mist and is scanning towards the bottomless pool of laws. After scanning the fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe, the core will automatically lock onto the coordinates."
With his eyes closed, the laws on the surface of the core of the Eastern Emperor's heart flashed with each beat in the chest cavity.
On the fifth flash, Xu suddenly opened his eyes, and three tiny axe-shaped points of light were reflected in his pale golden pupils.
The location of the light spot was extremely far away in the depths of chaos, perfectly matching the location of the bottomless pool of law marked on the map on the stone slab.
"All three fragments are in the same pool of liquid, three times deeper than the Tai Sui Crack. Inside the pool, besides the fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe, there are two other things that Rahu spat out."
The Ruins translate the sensed signals of the laws into concrete information within the heart's vascular network.
"The first item is a fragment of the sealing wedge on Rahu's left arm. The Creation Wedge on his left arm was mostly shattered during the erosion of the laws over 30,000 years, and the fragment was forced out of his body and spat into the pool of liquid."
"The second item is a fragment of Rahu's true spirit. After Hongjun used the Jade Tablet of Creation to shatter his true spirit, the largest fragment was sealed beneath the Zixiao Palace."
"But he swallowed a tiny piece and tried to refine it again using the laws of the Demon Ancestor. He tried for 30,000 years without success and vomited it up. The fragment of the Demon Ancestor's true spirit is now soaking in the deepest part of the pool."
Nezha pulled the Fire-Tipped Spear from the ground; the grayish-white powder of the law that clung to the tip of the spear had dried completely.
He slung the gun over his shoulder and looked at Su Fan, asking a question.
"What would happen if the fragments of the Demon Ancestor's true spirit were soaking in the pool of liquid and were sucked back in by Rahu's left arm?"
"The left arm will possess its own consciousness. It is not an extension of Rahu's original consciousness, but an independent consciousness carried by that fragment of the True Spirit itself. Before Rahu was scattered by Hongjun, he separated a part of his will and sealed it into the three fragments of the True Spirit."
"One piece was sealed in Zixiao Palace, one piece was sealed in the ruins of Buzhou Mountain, and one piece was swallowed into his body. The piece he swallowed was the tool he used to refine the fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe."
"If the fragments are reabsorbed by the left arm after they have gained independent consciousness, the left arm will no longer be controlled by the will of Luo Hou's main body. It will become a third independently acting aggregation of the Demon Ancestor's laws."
Xu spoke extremely fast, and with each sentence, the pulse in his chest would quicken.
"One Rahu was already troublesome enough, and now it has to split into two. Its right arm is broken, its left and right legs are half crippled, its torso is trapped under Zixiao Palace and cannot move, and its head is sealed under Buzhou Mountain."
"If the left arm obtains the fragment of the Demon Ancestor's true spirit, along with the three fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe, it can piece together a Demon Ancestor clone independent of Rahu's main body. That clone will be unaffected by any seals or controls."
Nezha slung the spear over his shoulder, and the spear tip drew a very shallow spark on the city bricks.
"Hongjun left this coordinate with the Great Sage so that we could retrieve the contents of the slurry pool before his left arm absorbed the fragments of the true spirit."
"It's not just that it was fished out. There are two runes on the jade tablet fragment, one pointing upwards to Zixiao Palace and the other downwards to the pool. The end of the downward-pointing rune has a tiny fork, which points to the current position of Rahu's left arm."
Su Fan hoisted the Pangu Axe onto his shoulder, and the two lights on the axe blade shone brightly again under the clear light of the laws on the map on the stone slab.
"Hongjun's meaning is very clear: activate the three fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe in the pool of liquid with the stone core, so that the fragments resonate and vibrate. The frequency of the vibration will simultaneously shatter the remaining fragments of the Creation Wedge on the left arm."
"That's equivalent to breaking the seal on the left arm as well. Then, before the left arm can obtain the True Spirit Fragment, we'll just kill it."
Sun Wukong pulled the golden cudgel out of the city bricks, the cudgel grew thicker, and carried it on his shoulder.
His left scapula, which had just been reattached, still had a purplish-black hematoma. The broken bone in his right rib had healed firmly under the infusion of the will of the Path of All Beings, but the dark gold scab at the break point was still there.
He stuffed the fragments of the Jade Tablet of Creation back into his bosom and tapped the broken bricks at his feet with the tip of his stick.
"I, Old Sun, spent a whole year climbing the steps of Zixiao Palace, reading the inscription carved by Hongjun from the first to the ninth level. After reading it, I had only one feeling. Hongjun wasn't deducing the laws and structure of the universe for the past 30,000 years; he was regretting it. He regretted scattering Rahu and sealing him in various places, and he regretted not killing him directly."
"We can't kill him. Rahu's Demon Ancestor Law is the opposite of the Chaos Law, and it is mutually exclusive with his own Creation Law. If we kill Rahu, the Creation Law will also collapse."
"So he had no choice but to seal it, sealing twelve parts, calculating that one day the seal would loosen, calculating that someone would finish him off."
"He engraved the exact location and timing of the finishing blow on the stone slab, right now. Rahu's left arm is still outside the Bottomless Law Pool and hasn't gone in yet. The True Spirit Fragment and the Heaven-Opening Axe Fragment are still in the deepest part of the pool. We need to get down there before the left arm, retrieve the fragments, and cut off the left arm as well."
Sun Wukong grinned when he said the last sentence.
Yang Jian leaned against the pillar and pieced the two broken pieces of the mirror back together.
The mirror surface reflected real-time images of the bottomless pool of laws deep within chaos.
The surface of the pool was an extremely dark purplish-black color, and countless inverted law stalactites hung above the surface, each stalactite dripping black law liquid from its tip.
Outside the pool, a dark purple left arm, hundreds of feet long, was slowly moving toward the surface of the pool.
The elbow and wrist joints of the left arm were intact, and the five fingers were spread out. The bone claws growing on the tips of each finger were longer and denser than those on the right arm outside the crack of the Tai Sui.
The shoulder joint of the left arm exposed grayish-white bone fragments of the Law, with fragments of the Creation Wedge, mostly broken, embedded inside.
The fragment was still faintly glowing, but the brightness was extremely unstable and it could shatter completely at any moment.
"Luo Hou's left arm is less than half an hour's journey from the surface of the slurry pool. It is moving very slowly because the density of the laws surrounding the slurry pool is too high, and its own demonic ancestor laws are also being suppressed."
"But once it enters the pool, the law-based liquid within will, in turn, push the activity of its Demon Ancestor Law to its limit. At that point, it will only take a few breaths to absorb the True Spirit fragments."
Yang Jian turned the mirror towards Su Fan.
"Half an hour should be enough. The True Spirit Fragment is at the deepest part of the pool. We'll split into two groups. One group will stay on the surface of the pool, holding onto the left arm, while the other group will go directly down into the pool to retrieve the fragment."
Su Fan stuck the Pangu Axe into his back.
Nezha, carrying a gun, walked to Su Fan's right side.
The law mark on the left shoulder doubled in brightness after the Jade Tablet of Creation activated the resonance frequency of the stone embryo's core, and the new skin at the edge of the mark began to seep out extremely faint golden law vapor.
He slung the gun barrel over his shoulder.
Nezha said, "I'll go down and retrieve the fragments of the true spirit."
"Although the Wind and Fire Wheels were reduced to sparks in the Bottomless Law Pool, I have the Pure Yang Talisman, and the mark that Xu left on my left shoulder can still hold out for a while."
"I'll charge ahead, and you hold Rahu's left arm on the surface of the pool. Half an hour is enough for me to go up and down."
Su Fan looked at him: "Reason?"
Nezha slung the gun barrel over his shoulder: "In my entire life, I've always been at the forefront of fights, and of course, I'll be at the forefront when it comes to retrieving things."
"Besides, I've fought with Rahu's arm before. I got half of my armor shattered by a slap on the right arm outside the crack of the Tai Sui. I know how to take a beating."
"The flint flames from the Ruins can be used in the Water Essence and also in the Law Essence Pool."
"Xu, come down with me. One of you will retrieve the fragments, and the other will light the fire. You and Great Sage will stay up here and beat up that left arm."
Sun Wukong grinned after hearing this, and slung his golden cudgel over his shoulder: "This is a good way to divide things. I've been climbing the steps of Zixiao Palace for a whole year, and I'm so angry that I have nowhere to vent it. I can take it out on Rahu's left arm."
Su Fan did not nod immediately.
He held the stone core in his palm. The silvery-white crystal light had stabilized to an extremely bright level. The light shone on the law mark on Nezha's left shoulder, and the golden steam seeping from the edge of the mark condensed into extremely fine law patterns in the light.
He stuffed the core into Nezha's hand.
"Take them down. The three fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe are at the deepest part of the pool; the resonance frequency of the stone core can activate them."
"Once activated, the fragments will resonate and vibrate, which will simultaneously shatter the fragments of the Wedge of Creation on Rahu's left arm."
"The moment you activate the fragments at the bottom of the slurry pool is the signal for us to take action above."
Nezha put the core into his bosom and stuck it together with the Pure Yang Talisman.
The silvery-white light on the surface of the core shone through the fabric onto the Pure Yang Talisman. The warmth of the rune and the laws of the core resonated, creating a very slight superposition effect, causing the temperature of his chest acupoint to rise slightly.
Xu walked over from the edge of the Water Essence, and the scorch mark on his right index finger cracked on its own when it approached the mark on Nezha's left shoulder. The embers of the flint surged out and condensed into a tiny cluster of dark red flames at his fingertip.
He pressed the flame to the center of the mark on Nezha's left shoulder. The flame seeped into the mark and merged with the golden vapor of the law at the edge of the mark.
Yang Jian separated the two pieces of the broken mirror, handing one half to Nezha and keeping the other half for himself.
Even after the shattered mirror's law remnants separated, they could still maintain real-time communication for a very short time. Although the law density inside the slurry pool was high, the remnants of the Kunlun Mirror were in sync with the heart network of the Ruins, allowing them to penetrate the law slurry and transmit the real-time image of the bottom of the slurry pool back to the South Heavenly Gate.
Nezha stuffed the half-shattered mirror into his bosom, carried the Fire-Tipped Spear, and walked to the edge of the Guixu Crack.
The Wind and Fire Wheels were reignited, and with the combined blessing of the Pure Yang Talisman and the Stone Embryo Core, the flames were twice as intense as usual.
He glanced back at Su Fan and Sun Wukong: "Wait for my signal before you make a move."
After saying that, he flipped over and jumped down into the crevice.
Xu followed behind him, his bare feet stepping on the broken rocks of the Five Elements Mountain at the edge of the crack. With each beat of the Eastern Emperor's heart in his chest, the law mark on Nezha's left shoulder would flash once.
Su Fan and Sun Wukong stood side by side on the ruins of the South Heavenly Gate.
Sun Wukong put the golden cudgel down from his shoulder, the cudgel thickened, and he gripped it with both hands.
The hematoma in his left scapula has halved under the infusion of the will of the Path of All Beings, and his grip strength in his left arm has recovered to 70%.
Su Fan took the Pangu Axe off his back, and the blue and golden light on the axe blade shone brightly again under the golden light of Mars.
Yang Jian held up the broken half of the mirror and aimed it at the depths of chaos. On the mirror, Luo Hou's left arm was only a little over half an hour's distance from the surface of the pool.
Rahu's five fingers on his left arm slowly moved among the law stalactites around the pool of liquid. Every time his fingertips touched a stalactite, the stalactite was corroded into powder by the law liquid.
The powder fell into the slurry pool, creating a tiny ripple on the surface.
The fragment of the Wedge of Creation at the fracture site of the left shoulder joint is still flashing, but the flashing frequency is getting slower and slower.
The fragments could shatter completely at any moment, at which point the seal on the left arm would be completely broken.
Yang Jian reported the real-time position of his left arm to Su Fan.
After listening, Su Fan slung the Pangu Axe over his shoulder and said, "Wait a little longer. Wait until it gets closer to the surface of the pool, and then wait for Nezha and Xu to go down to the bottom of the pool to activate the fragments."
Sun Wukong held his golden cudgel horizontally in front of him, his monkey eyes reflecting the slowly moving dark purple left arm on the mirror, and he grinned:
"I've waited a whole year, so I'm not in a hurry. But when the time comes, let me be the first to strike."
Su Fan nodded.
Yang Jian leaned against the pillar with his eyes closed, his charred eye sockets facing the pool of liquid, and he muttered the time.
When Yang Jian counted to the forty-seventh breath, the fingertips of Rahu's left arm on the mirror touched the surface of the pool.
Dark purple fingertips and bone claws pierced the surface of the pool, and the law-based liquid spread upwards along the patterns on the surface of the bone claws, crawling from the fingertips to the base of the fingers, and from the base of the fingers to the back of the hand.
The fragment of the Wedge of Creation at the cut surface of the left shoulder joint flashed suddenly as the fingertip touched the water. After the flash, the brightness dropped sharply, and extremely fine fragments of law began to fall from the edge of the fragment.
The debris fell into the slurry pool, creating a small ring of very faint grayish-white steam on the surface.