bioinnovel Chapter 383 Son of the Ancient God of Chaos
Chapter 383 Son of the Ancient God of Chaos
The moment the True Spirit fragment entered the crack, the three law patterns on the surface of the entire sphere simultaneously extinguished.
It was extinguished so thoroughly that even the silvery-white light spreading from the bottom of the pool dimmed for a moment.
The law mark on Nezha's left shoulder dimmed in that instant, so dim that the golden steam around the edges of the pattern was almost invisible.
He glanced down at his left shoulder, but before he could speak, a muffled roar suddenly erupted from inside the sphere.
The roar is not a sound, but the vibration of the laws.
The vibration traveled upwards along the mud at the bottom of the slurry pool, through the vast slurry of laws, and struck the floating stone beneath Su Fan's feet on the surface of the pool, causing three extremely fine cracks to appear on the surface of the stone.
The seal has been broken.
Xu spoke extremely fast.
He placed his right hand on Nezha's left shoulder, and the embers of flint emanating from the scorched mark on his index finger automatically enveloped the entire mark the moment it dimmed, forcibly maintaining the connection between the mark and the core of the stone embryo using the resonant frequency of the Eastern Emperor's heart network.
"The Creation Jade Tablet seal inside the sphere has sensed the aura of the True Spirit fragment. It is currently verifying whether the fragment's law structure matches the key preset by the seal. Once the match is successful, the axe handle fragment will be actively expelled by the seal."
Nezha stared at the slowly closing crack on the surface of the sphere.
The clear light emanating from the crack began to change color after the True Spirit Fragment entered, transforming from a very faint clear light into an extremely dense dark golden light.
The dark golden light contained countless extremely fine runes of the Jade Tablet of Creation. The runes spun rapidly deep within the crack, their speed increasing until they became so fast that the naked eye could only see a blurry halo of light.
At the very center of the halo, the fragment of the Demon Ancestor's true spirit that he had personally placed inside was having its dark purple law patterns peeled away layer by layer by the runes of the Creation Jade Tablet.
The stripped fragments of the pattern were ground into extremely fine powder inside the light wheel, and the powder flowed into the depths of the sphere along the rune gaps on the edge of the light wheel.
The remnant of Rahu's will sealed inside the fragment emitted a very short law-like hiss the moment the patterns were peeled away. The hiss pierced through the light wheel and the outer shell of the sphere, exploding deep within Nezha's spiritual platform.
"Mortals, you use my fragments as keys to exchange for Pangu's axe handle. Hongjun's calculations were accurate. He foresaw that I would spit out the fragments of my true spirit, and he also foresaw that you would use them to break the seal."
"But have you ever considered that the axe handle fragment was sealed within the Jade Tablet of Creation for 30,000 years, and that the sealing membrane encasing it was woven by Hongjun himself using his own Dao principles?"
"Once the membrane wall is exposed at the bottom of the magma pool, all the sleeping bodies of Rahu in the depths of chaos will simultaneously sense the aura of Hongjun's Dao Principles."
"My physical body is trapped beneath the Purple Cloud Palace, unable to move, but six other parts of my body are sealed throughout the chaos. The seals on three of them have already loosened. As soon as the axe handle fragment appeared, they all awoke."
After the hissing dissipated, the light wheel inside the sphere suddenly stopped rotating.
The moment it stopped, a very fine crack appeared in the center of the light wheel, and from the depths of the crack, an extremely ancient aura of law surged forth.
The aura was completely of the same origin as the residual will of Pangu on the blade of Pangu's axe, but it was heavier and more stable. The mud at the bottom of the entire pool was pressed down by this aura by three inches.
Fragments of the axe handle slowly emerged from the gaps in the light wheel.
The fragment is small, only about the length of a forearm, and is in the shape of a perfectly regular cylinder. Its surface is engraved with primordial chaotic laws left on the axe handle when Pangu created the world.
The engravings are extremely deep, and each engraving contains an extremely thin, clear membrane that has been sealed and bound by the Jade Tablet of Creation for 30,000 years.
The membrane wall began to shatter on its own the instant the axe handle fragment detached from the light wheel, and the shattering point was precisely the docking groove at the end of the axe handle that was completely identical to the axe mark of Pangu's axe.
The inside of the docking groove retains the last palm print left by Pangu when he held an axe 30,000 years ago.
The palm lines were extremely shallow, almost invisible, but as Su Fan stood on the floating stone on the surface of the slurry pool, separated by the vast expanse of law-based slurry, the 'human' character scar on his left palm suddenly throbbed with pain the moment the axe handle fragment's joint groove was exposed.
The excruciating pain was not from the wound reopening, but from an extremely strong resonance of laws between the will of all living beings and the palm lines of Pangu.
The resonance spread upwards along his left arm, penetrating deep into his mind, and exploding into a minimalist image in the deepest part of his consciousness.
Pangu held an axe in both hands, with the blades pointing downwards and the handles upwards, standing in a vast, chaotic void.
Before him were twelve chaotic stone embryos that were slowly rotating. Eleven of them were covered with cracks, while only the largest and the smallest ones were intact.
Pangu loosened his right hand, held the axe with his left hand, and gently pressed his right hand onto the surface of the smallest stone.
The primordial protective will within the stone core throbbed slightly under the warmth of his palm. After the throbbed, a very fine crack appeared on the surface of the stone core, and a faint golden light emerged from within the crack.
Golden light flowed along Pangu's palm lines into his arm, then poured into the axe handle, flowing along the chaotic law patterns on the handle all the way to the tip of the axe blade.
After receiving this ray of golden light, the axe blade's brightness increased sharply, then dropped sharply after reaching its limit, leaving an extremely fine golden line on the blade.
That golden pattern is the prototype of the path of all living beings.
It wasn't the Dao of All Beings that Su Fan later created using the will of ten thousand people, but rather the first protective law that Pangu carved on the Heaven-Opening Axe using the primordial protective will of the twelfth Chaos Stone Embryo at the beginning of chaos.
This law was sealed inside the axe handle fragment, and together with the Pangu palm print in the docking groove, it was sealed by the Creation Jade Tablet for 30,000 years.
Now that the sealing membrane has shattered and the palm prints have been exposed, this protective law, following the transmission channel of the will of all living beings, flows directly from the bottom of the pool into Su Fan's spiritual platform.
Su Fan suddenly opened his eyes on the floating rock.
The 'human' character scar on his left palm split open the moment the protective law was infused into it, and the scabs on the three old knife wounds fell off at the same time. Golden blood gushed out from the depths of the scars and dripped onto the floating stone along his fingers.
Blood dripped into the cracks on the surface of the pumice, and extremely fine golden law patterns automatically grew from the edges of the cracks. The direction of the patterns was exactly the same as the Pangu palm print on the axe handle fragment.
He raised his left hand to his eyes, watching the crooked, V-shaped scar on his palm change on its own, slowly reforming from the shape of three old cuts into a minimalist axe-shaped brand.
"The protective laws that Pangu left on the axe handle have recognized you as their master. The scar on your left hand was originally the entrance to the channel of the Path of All Beings, but now it has been reforged by Pangu's protective laws."
"After forging, your left hand will become the mounting slot for the handle of the Pangu Axe. Once the handle fragments fly up from the bottom of the pool, you don't need to catch them; they will automatically embed themselves into your palm."
Sun Wukong held his golden cudgel horizontally in front of him, looking at the axe-shaped brand that was taking shape on Su Fan's left hand.
After the brand was formed, the golden patterns on the edge of the brand began to extend towards the wrist, intertwining with the original golden patterns of the Dao of All Beings on Su Fan's arm.
The silvery-white light at the bottom of the pool exploded again after the axe handle fragments completely detached from the light wheel.
This time, the light was brighter than before, so bright that it penetrated the vast liquid of laws, illuminating the entire surface of the pool as if it were daytime.
As the axe handle fragment broke free from the seal, the three fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe completed the final round of attenuation of the resonance vibration. After the attenuation ended, the law patterns on the surface of the fragments all converged, converging into three extremely small axe-shaped light spots.
The light spot hovered deep within the mud, forming an extremely stable force of law between itself and the axe handle fragment.
The traction force was so strong that the axe handle fragments began to float upwards along the direction of the traction force, and the floating speed was extremely fast.
"The axe handle fragment is coming! It's dragging three more fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe behind it, and all four fragments are flying towards the surface of the pool!"
Nezha leaped up from the mud, holding the stone core in his left hand and grabbing Xu's wrist with his right. The flames of the Wind and Fire Wheels under his feet exploded into two extremely long tongues of fire under the dual blessing of the Pure Yang Talisman and the core.
Flames engulfed him and Xu, propelling them upwards from directly beneath the axe handle fragment.
The moment the axe handle fragment shattered the surface of the pool, an extremely wide rift was torn open across the entire dark purple surface.
The liquid of laws on both sides of the crack could not close temporarily due to the suppression of the Pangu law aura emanating from the axe handle fragment, revealing the dark purple law layer deep beneath the pool.
After the axe handle fragments burst out of the pool, they floated in mid-air. The clear membrane on the surface had completely shattered, revealing the extremely ancient chaotic law patterns underneath.
The patterns were fully activated the moment they came into contact with the chaotic gray mist above the pool of liquid, and the axe handle fragment began to rotate on its own, in the direction of Su Fan's position on the floating stone.
Su Fan stretched out his left hand, the newly formed axe-shaped mark on his palm facing the axe handle fragment.
The axe handle fragment accelerated abruptly the moment it sensed the axe-shaped mark, transforming into an extremely bright dark gold light that crashed straight into his palm.
The impact was so powerful that Su Fan was knocked back three steps, his heels getting stuck at the edge of a crack in the floating rock before he could barely stop.
After the axe handle fragment embedded itself into the axe-shaped brand on his palm, the fitting slot and the three old knife marks on his palm fit together perfectly.
At the moment of engagement, a perfectly closed loop of laws was formed between the blade of the Pangu Axe and the handle in his palm.
The light flowing within the closed loop is no longer a single blue or golden pattern, but a completely new law-based radiance formed by the fusion of the two.
The light was an extremely faint, chaotic color, completely of the same origin as the afterglow of the laws that appeared when Pangu's axe first cleaved through chaos at the beginning of time.
Su Fan gripped the axe handle and lifted the Pangu Axe off the floating rock.
After the axe handle was joined together, the two beams of light on the axe blade automatically converged and disappeared into the axe body. Then, a new beam of light emerged from the surface of the axe body.
The color of the light is extremely difficult to describe; it is neither gold, nor blue, nor white, but a very faint, chaotic primary color formed by the superposition of the three.
The primary light extended outwards along the axe blade, condensing into an extremely thin, sharp line of law at the tip.
Wherever the sharp edge passes, the law-based slurry on the surface of the slurry pool automatically separates to both sides, and the separated cross-section is so smooth that the law-based texture is almost invisible.
"The Pangu Axe is complete. There are nine fragments of the axe blade: one in my hand, one in the Great Sage's staff, one in the Purple Cloud Palace, three were just retrieved from the bottom of the pool of liquid, and three are scattered throughout the chaos. But there is only one axe handle, which is now in my hand."
"The axe handle is the central hub of the laws of the Pangu Axe. By holding the axe handle, one can sense the location of all the axe blade fragments."
Su Fan looked down at the palm of his left hand.
The axe-shaped brand disappeared under the skin after being embedded in the axe handle, leaving only a very faint dark gold mark on the skin surface.
He could feel the Pangu Guardian Law inside the axe handle slowly merging with his will of all living beings, though the merging process was not fast.
But with each fusion, his perception of the three axe blade fragments scattered throughout the chaos became clearer.
Nezha and Xu burst out of the crack in the pool, and half of the flames of the Wind Fire Wheels were extinguished by the law liquid the moment they broke through the surface of the pool.
Nezha landed on the floating rocks carrying the Fire-Tipped Spear. The Law Mark on his left shoulder lit up again after the axe handle fragment recognized him as its master, and its brightness doubled.
Xu followed behind him, his bare feet stepping on the edge of the floating stone. The scorch mark on his right index finger had split open into a deep gash when he had stabilized the Nezha mark. The embers of flint that had seeped out from the depths of the gash were almost gone.
He pressed his fingers on the pale gold line on his chest, using the resonant frequency of his heart's blood vessels to slowly repair the scorch marks and cracks.
"The three fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe follow behind the axe handle, now suspended above the surface of the pool of liquid. The law patterns on the surface of the fragments have weakened to their lowest point after the resonance and vibration, with less than one-tenth of their original activity. They need to be continuously stimulated by the resonance frequency of the stone core for a period of time to recover."
Nezha lifted the stone core in his left hand, and the silvery-white crystal on the surface of the core was facing the three axe-shaped light spots floating above the surface of the pool.
Su Fan, holding the complete Pangu Axe, walked to the edge of the floating stone.
The chaotic primary light on the axe blade shone on the three axe-shaped light spots, and the law patterns on the surface of the light spots began to slowly recover and flow under the reflection of the chaotic primary light.
He pointed the axe blade at the surface of the pool, and three points of light rose from the water at the same time, flying in the direction of the axe blade's light to him, hovering around the Pangu axe and slowly rotating.
"There are nine fragments of the Pangu Axe blade. One is on my axe blade, one is inside the Great Sage's Golden Cudgel, and one was sealed by Hongjun in the deepest part of the Zixiao Palace. These three fragments were just retrieved from the pool of liquid."
"There are still three pieces scattered throughout the chaos. One is near the seal on Rahu's torso, one is near the seal on Rahu's left leg, and one is in the ancient battlefield ruins where the remains of the ancient gods of chaos are most concentrated."
"The coordinates that Hongjun carved on the stone slab mark the location of each fragment. All three fragments are currently in a dormant state, without any active laws, and Luo Hou's physical body cannot sense them for the time being."
Sun Wukong slammed his golden cudgel onto the floating rock:
"Of the nine axe blade fragments, six are in our hands. The remaining three are located in Rahu's torso, left leg, and the ruins of an ancient battlefield. The torso is buried under Zixiao Palace; I, Old Sun, just came out of Zixiao Palace, and I know that path well."
"His left leg is in another pool of law-based liquid deep within the chaos; the seal has loosened. In the deepest part of the ancient battlefield ruins, next to Hongjun's coordinates, there's a line of small characters inscribed."
"What word?" Nezha asked.
"The ancient gods are not all dead; there are still living things on the battlefield."
Sun Wukong took the fragment of the Jade Tablet of Creation from his pocket. The rune on the fragment, which was facing down, split into a new branch after the axe handle fragment recognized it as its master. The end of the branch pointed to an extremely distant coordinate in the deepest part of chaos.
"This line of text was carved next to the coordinates of that fragment on the stone slab. I didn't understand it at the time, but now that the axe handle has recognized its owner, the jade tablet fragment has completed the second half of the sentence."
"The ancient gods are not all dead. There are living things on the battlefield. These living things are not ancient gods, but the eggs of ancient gods. Before the Chaos Ancient God was shattered by Pangu, he laid his last egg in the deepest part of the ancient battlefield ruins."
"That egg was sealed for 30,000 years, waiting for the density of the Chaos Laws to drop low enough to hatch. Now the seal at the bottom of the pool has been broken, the axe handle fragment has emerged, and the density of the Chaos Laws has been disrupted by the aura of the Pangu Laws. The egg may begin to hatch at any time."
Su Fan looked at the Pangu Axe in his palm and remained silent for a moment.
The chaotic primordial light on the axe blade flowed steadily, and the perception of laws emanating from the complete axe handle was weaving an extremely vast map of laws deep within his mind.
The map marked the locations of all the fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe, the real-time status of Hongjun's seal, and the tightness of the seals on the six still-dormant bodies of Rahu deep within the chaos.
However, at the very edge of the map, there is an extremely faint signal of law, so weak that it is almost completely drowned out by the noise of law in the chaotic gray fog.
The location of that signal is deep within the ancient battlefield ruins, completely overlapping with the location of the ancient god's egg marked by Hongjun's coordinates.
The signal was neither emitted by the fragments of the Heaven-Opening Axe nor by Rahu's physical body.
The laws governing the signal are extremely ancient, at least an order of magnitude older than the laws and patterns on the remains of the ancient chaotic gods.
"The egg of the ancient god has begun to hatch. The egg does not contain the original body of the Chaos Ancient God, but rather the offspring that the Ancient God condensed with the last bit of his life force before being shattered by Pangu."
"It is different from Rahu. Rahu is the opposite of the natural opposite of the laws of chaos, and the descendants of the ancient gods were obtained by the ancient gods of chaos at the cost of their own lives."
"Its first instinct after hatching is not to devour, but to find the place with the highest density of chaotic laws to build its nest. Now, the place with the highest density of chaotic laws is not the ancient battlefield ruins, but the Ruins of Return."
Su Fan slung the Pangu Axe over his shoulder and turned to face the direction of the South Heavenly Gate.
The golden light of Mars shone from the direction of the Ruins of Return, casting an extremely long shadow in front of him.
"The heart network of the Ruins and the law patterns of the Ruins' foundation are interlocked, and the foundation contains the mountain root and eleven fragments of stone embryos. The density of chaotic laws is the highest in the Ruins. Once the egg hatches, it will fly directly to the Ruins."
Xu removed his right hand from his chest; the scorch marks and cracks had mostly healed.
He looked up at Su Fan, his pale golden pupils reflecting the primordial chaotic light from the Pangu Axe blade:
"The density of laws in the foundation of Guixu jumped by 10% after it merged with the mountain root. With the resonance of laws between my heart network and the root system of the flint tree, the current density of chaotic laws in Guixu is indeed higher than that of the ancient battlefield ruins. If the eggs build their nests according to the density of chaotic laws, their first target will be Guixu."
"Then let's not let it come. Let's go first."
Nezha slung the Fire-Tipped Spear over his shoulder, and the Wind-Fire Wheels were rekindled. With the combined blessing of the Pure Yang Talisman and the Stone Core, the flames blazed up again.
"The left arm was just severed, the torso is buried under the Purple Cloud Palace, and the remaining parts of the body are still asleep. Before they wake up, let's deal with the Ancient God's egg first. I've never fought the son of a Chaos Ancient God in my life."
Sun Wukong pulled the golden cudgel from the floating rock; the cudgel grew thicker, and he carried it on his shoulder, grinning as he did so.
"I've never fought either. Fighting the father and then the son, that's a profitable deal."
Xu removed his fingers from his chest; the scorch marks and cracks had mostly healed.
He looked up at the extremely distant law signal deep within the chaotic gray mist. The signal had become more than twice as clear after the Pangu Axe was completed.
The egg of the ancient god is accelerating its movement from the ancient battlefield ruins toward the Ruins of Return. Its trajectory is not a straight line, but rather it is circling around along the path with the highest density gradient of the laws of chaos.
The signal gets stronger with each detour.
"It's accumulating energy. The density of chaotic laws inside the eggshell is gradually increasing, and it will hatch after reaching a certain threshold. At the current rate, it will break out of the shell before reaching the edge of the void."
Xu turned to look at Su Fan.
Su Fan gripped the Pangu Axe, and the chaotic light on the axe blade flickered slightly after sensing the law signal from the Ancient God's Egg.
He raised his left hand to his eyes, and the axe-shaped mark on his palm swirled around under his skin, pushing the fusion of Pangu's Guardian Law and the will of all living beings forward a little further.
"Then intercept it. Intercept it in the chaotic gray fog zone before it reaches the Ruins of Return."
"Nezha, your Wind Fire Wheels were crushed at the bottom of the pool. How much longer can you hold on?"
"There's still more than half of the Pure Yang Talisman left, and the resonance frequency of the Stone Embryo's core is still at its peak. It should be enough to hold out until we intercept that egg."
Nezha slung the Fire-Tipped Spear over his shoulder, and the flames of the Wind-Fire Wheels exploded again, creating two rings of extremely bright tongues of fire.
The law mark on his left shoulder brightened even more under the combined blessing of the pure yang talisman's warmth and the stone embryo's core.
Sun Wukong pulled the golden cudgel from the floating rock, and the cudgel became thicker, which he then carried on his shoulder.
The monkey's eyes reflected the golden light of Mars, and it grinned:
"I, Old Sun, once stayed outside the Tai Sui Crack in that chaotic gray mist area. The stalactites of law are too dense; the Golden Cudgel can't swung through them. But I have another way."
"The aftershocks of the great calamity are still pressing down in your spiritual realm. When the time comes, a burst of electric arcs will clear away the gray mist and pave the way for you."
"The Great Sage will hold the line, while Nezha and I will charge head-on. Xu will use the stone core to sense the egg's real-time location. Yang Jian's shattered mirror is still at the South Heavenly Gate, and Laozi can transmit messages through the mirror. In case the egg hatches prematurely on the way, the South Heavenly Gate will be able to give an early warning."
Su Fan turned and strode towards the direction of the chaotic gray mist.
With the Pangu Axe slung over his shoulder, the chaotic primordial light on the axe blade drew an extremely bright arc of law on the surface of the floating stone, the end of the arc pointing towards the surging dark gray mist deep within the Ruins of Return.
The signal of the ancient god's egg was rapidly approaching from behind the fog, less than half an hour away from the edge of the Ruins.
Nezha followed on his right, the flames from his Wind Fire Wheels leaving two very shallow scorch marks on the floating stone.
Xu walked barefoot at the back, his Eastern Emperor heart beating with each step, its rhythm synchronized with the pulse of the Pangu Axe handle in Su Fan's left hand.
Behind the three, the dark purple surface of the bottomless pool of law was once again filled with the liquid dripping from the stalactites of law, and the last wisp of ash left after Nezha's command flag burned up above the pool slowly drifted away in the chaotic gray mist.
At the deepest part of the slurry pool, the spherical outline sank back to the bottom of the slurry after the True Spirit Fragment was sealed inside.
The three law patterns sealing the Jade Tablet of Creation slowly closed, permanently locking the last fragment of Rahu's independent consciousness within the sealing membrane woven by Hongjun himself.