bioinnovel Chapter 407 Embers of the Law
Chapter 407 Embers of the Law
As the golden light of Mars spread steadily across the South Heavenly Gate city wall, the heart of the Ruins suddenly stopped beating for a moment.
This pause was extremely brief, so brief that even the core fragments of Mount Sumeru couldn't detect any fluctuations in the laws, but Xu himself knew it.
He stood barefoot at the deepest part of the Guixu foundation, his right hand pressed against the pale gold line on his chest. The transparent law pattern on his fingertip cracked open on its own the instant it stopped jumping. What emerged from the depths of the crack was not embers of flint, but a wisp of extremely faint grayish-white law residue.
The residue floated for a moment in the faint golden glow of the laws emanating from the foundation of the Ruins, then dissipated on its own.
Xu looked down at the crack on his fingertip.
Under his gaze, the crack slowly healed, and after it healed, the transparent law pattern on his fingertip was slightly fainter than before.
This trace was so minute that even the sensing array of the Eros monitoring station couldn't detect it, but Xu knew what it meant.
After the last embers of the flint flame finished carving the beacon runes at the entrance to the Ruins, the scorch mark on his fingertip completely healed.
The law patterns left after healing slightly improve the law transparency of the Guixu foundation, but no longer have the function of active perception.
These are his own words.
Now the pattern has cracked, and grayish-white remnants of the law are gushing out from the crack.
The residue is not the embers of flint, nor the Eastern Emperor's Mother Liquid, nor is it a product of any known system of laws.
Its law frequency is extremely ancient and weak, so ancient that even the heart network of the Void can only barely detect a trace of its law boundary.
This boundary is not inside the foundation of the Ruins, not outside the membrane wall, not in the direction of the old domain, and not at the entrance to the Ruins End.
It lies directly beneath the larva's nest at the deepest part of the Guixu foundation, deeper than the white rock layer, deeper than the traces of chaotic laws left when the mountain root merged into the foundation, and deeper than any law pattern on the interface between the Buzhou Mountain remnants and the Guixu foundation.
That depth was something even the heart network of the Ruins hadn't reached when it scanned the entire foundation of the Ruins before.
"Straight beneath the larval nest, there is an extremely faint signal of law. The frequency of the signal does not belong to any known system of laws, nor to the law of chaos, the law of causality, the law of life, or the path of all living beings."
"Its laws are extremely ancient, older than the origin of the laws of the Old Domain, and older than the core of the Nest Shell of the Ruins."
The sound of the shattered mirror came from the ruins, extremely calm and steady, but each word was pronounced more firmly than usual.
Su Fan was sitting at the entrance of the weapons shop eating fried dough sticks when he heard this, so he put the dough sticks down.
He took the shattered mirror out of his waist, and the real-time images of the laws transmitted back from the ruins appeared on the mirror's surface.
In the image, directly below the larva's nest at the deepest part of the Guixu foundation, there is a very blurry gray-white shadow slowly wriggling.
The peristalsis is extremely slow, so slow that it only occurs once every very long period of time.
But it is wriggling, and with each wriggling motion, it leaves an extremely fine imprint of law on the larva's sensory network.
The larvae did not trigger an alarm because the frequency of the indentations was too low, so low that the larvae's sensory network automatically categorized it as a normal geological adjustment of the Guixu foundation.
But Xu knew that it wasn't a geological adjustment.
Geological fine-tuning will not leave cracks in the natural patterns after the flint flame has healed.
"What is that?" Su Fan held the broken mirror up to his eyes.
"I don't know. The cardiac network can't detect its legal structure; it can only sense its legal boundaries. The density of laws within the boundaries is extremely high, so high that all of the cardiac network's perception is rejected."
"It is asleep, asleep more deeply than any living creature has slept for 30,000 years in the Ruins of Nothingness. The living creature was awakened once by Pangu splitting its nest shell, but this thing has never been awakened by any shockwave of the laws."
"It was sealed there before the foundation of the Ruins was formed. The moment the heart's pulse stopped beating wasn't because of an impact from the laws, but because this thing turned over in its slumber."
"The ripples of law generated by its turning over passed through the white rock layer of the Ruins' foundation and struck the heart's pulsating network. The network was briefly disturbed by the law frequency of the ripples. After the disturbance, the network automatically recovered, but it was turning over. It's about to wake up."
Xu's voice paused for a moment in the shattered mirror before resuming, speaking slightly faster than before.
Eros's voice came through the shattered mirror.
He stood on the white rock platform of the Guixu Foundation. After receiving the abnormal signal of the law from the heart network, the almost completely transparent law membrane around him turned from transparent to a very faint dark purple.
This is a passive stress response from the law symbiont; the law-sensing array inside the monitoring station is emitting a very low law hum in sync.
The frequency of the buzzing sound was exactly the same as the frequency of the writhing gray-white shadow.
"The monitoring station's sensing array has captured the frequency of that signal. The frequency band is extremely narrow and ancient, and it has a very slight overlap with the pre-pulse of the law released by the origin of the old domain's laws during its self-repair period."
"The overlapping band is only a very narrow segment, but it is enough to confirm one thing: this thing is not a product of the Guixu foundation; it was sealed deep into the Guixu foundation by external forces."
"The power that sealed it is not Pangu, not Hongjun, not the origin of the laws of the old domain. The structure of the sealed laws is completely of the same origin as the law membrane at the entrance to the Land of Ruins."
"The Nest Law of Living Things".
Su Fan pulled the Pangu Axe from beside the stool leg, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and flew towards the direction of Guixu.
The steam from the fried dough stick stall's steamer was barely visible behind him, and the aftershocks of the calamity at the alley entrance still danced with faint white arcs of electricity on the bluestone slabs. A Dou was squatting at the alley entrance, chopping the day's worth of withered branches.
As Su Fan flew past the alley entrance, he glanced down and saw that A Dou's small axe was chopping right in the middle of a dead branch, the dark red law pattern on the axe blade extremely stable and bright.
At the deepest part of the Guixu foundation, the Xu squats directly above the larval nest.
With his right hand pressed against the surface of the white rock layer, all the perception power of his heart's vascular network was concentrated on the boundary of the law of that gray-white shadow.
Eros stood behind him, the dark purple law membrane around him swirling slightly in the faint golden law glow of the Ruins foundation, synchronously translating all the law data received by the monitoring station's sensing array into law frequencies that the Ruins could understand.
Nezha, carrying the Fire-Tipped Spear, flew down from the direction of the South Heavenly Gate and landed on a white rock platform at the edge of the Guixu foundation that was not yet covered by pale gold moss.
Yang Jian pieced the two broken mirrors together, and the real-time law image of the gray-white shadow deep in the foundation of Guixu appeared on the mirror surface.
The image was extremely blurry, so blurry that only a very irregular outline could be seen.
The shape of the outline is constantly changing, and each change is accompanied by an extremely low-frequency hissing of laws.
The frequency of the hiss was extremely low, so low that even the core fragments of Mount Sumeru could not detect it, but the law mark on Nezha's left shoulder twitched very slightly the moment the hiss appeared.
After he finished jumping, the golden steam seeping from the edge of the mark condensed into extremely fine law patterns, the direction of which completely overlapped with the old scar on his left arm that had been cut by the fragment of Rahu.
He glanced down at his old scar and slammed the fire-tipped spear to the ground.
"The frequency of this thing's laws resonates with my old scar. When the fragment of Rahu tore open this wound, the fragments of the Demon Ancestor's laws inside the fragment embedded themselves deep into the wound, and were later burned away by the flint flames."
"But the residual imprints of the laws remain on the fragments, and the frequency of these imprints overlaps very slightly with the frequency of the laws of this thing. It is of the same kind as the laws of the Demon Ancestor."
"They are not the same kind. The Law of the Demon Ancestor is the natural opposite of the Law of Chaos. Its law is based on the same root but repulsed by the Law of Chaos. The structure of this thing's law is more ancient and primitive than the Law of the Demon Ancestor. So ancient that the Law of the Demon Ancestor seems young in front of it."
"If it is of the same kind as Rahu, then it is Rahu's origin. The Law of the Demon Ancestor is not the natural opposite of the Law of Chaos, but evolved from a fragment of the Law that was peeled off from it. Rahu is its fragment."
Eros's voice was extremely calm and steady, but the intervals between each word were slightly shorter than usual.
Xu removed his right hand from the white rock layer and stood up.
The crack on the transparent law pattern on the fingertip has completely healed, and the pattern is now slightly fainter than before.
This trace was extremely subtle, but Xu knew it meant that the heart's network of meridians had lost a tiny portion of its law tolerance under the impact of that law ripple.
The loss of tolerance will not affect the basic operation of the cardiac network, but it will prevent the cardiac network from operating at its limit for long when it is awakened by this thing.
"It is accelerating its awakening. The ripples of law generated by turning over are only the first wave; the second wave will be stronger. The cardiac network may briefly enter a protective dormancy under the impact of the second wave."
"During the hibernation period, all law monitoring of the Guixu Foundation will be interrupted, and the sensing array of the Eros monitoring station will take over the monitoring function."
"However, the monitoring station's sensing array is not as accurate as the heart's pulsatile network in recognizing the law frequency of this thing. If it fully awakens during its protective dormancy, the monitoring station can only capture the law fluctuations after it awakens, but cannot capture the changes in the law structure at the moment of its awakening."
"The structural changes in the laws at the moment of awakening are the only window to determine what its first instinct is after awakening."
"The first fluctuation is a turnaround, what is the second fluctuation?"
Su Fan landed on the edge of the Guixu foundation, put the Pangu Axe off his shoulder, and touched the ground with the axe blade.
"The second fluctuation is the opening of its eyes. It has no eyes, but it has organs that perceive the laws. At the moment of awakening, its organs that perceive the laws will release an extremely brief law scanning pulse, the range of which covers the entire Guixu Foundation."
"After the scan, it will decide its first instinct based on the scan results. If the density of the laws of the Ruins Foundation in the scan results makes it feel safe, it will continue to slumber."
"If the density of the laws in the foundation of the Ruins in the scan results makes it uneasy, it will fully awaken. What its first instinct after fully awakening is depends on what the last law memory sealed in the core of the laws was before it fell asleep."
"Just now, during the brief moment the heart's pulse stopped beating, it detected an extremely subtle fluctuation of law within the outermost layer of its law core. That fluctuation contained a fragment of an extremely ancient law memory. The fragment contained only four words."
Xu paused here.
He looked down at the grayish-white shadow that was rapidly writhing deep within the white rock layer beneath his feet, and then spoke again.
"The Mother of Chaos".
A profound silence, extremely dark and still, reigned deep within the foundation of Guixu.
The golden light of Mars shone through the law membrane of the Ruins of Return onto the white rock layer, making the faint golden light of the law on the face of Ruins flicker.
Nezha's knuckles were white as he gripped the Fire-Tipped Spear.
Su Fan pulled the Pangu Axe from the ground, hoisted it onto his shoulder, and the faint chaotic light on the axe blade flickered slightly in the golden glow of the Guixu foundation.
"The Mother of Chaos. The Great Sage's mother was the only god in the Void, and Chaos was formed after fragments of her nest emerged. The Ancient Gods of Chaos were primordial life forms naturally generated by the laws of Chaos."
"Rahu is an aggregate of the laws of the Demon Ancestor, and the laws of the Demon Ancestor are the opposite of the laws of chaos. If this thing is the origin of Rahu, the mother of chaos, then it is the opposite of the laws of the Great Sage's mother."
"The only god in the Void slept for countless eons. After Pangu split the shell of the nest, chaos overflowed. During the expansion of chaos, an extremely fine crack of law appeared at the boundary between the Void and the chaos."
"Deep within the rift, fragments of the laws of nothingness and chaos eroded each other under extremely high pressure, eroding each other for countless eons. The products of this erosion spontaneously coalesced into an extremely unstable aggregate of laws."
"This aggregate was shaken out of the crack by the shock wave of Pangu's creation of the world, swept into the depths of chaos, and finally sealed in the lowest layer of primordial law sedimentation layer before the formation of the Guixu foundation."
"It's not the Great Sage's mother's enemy; it's a fold of law that she created when she rolled over in her dream."
"A fragment of mixed laws of nothingness and chaos was sandwiched in the folds. The fragment had been dormant for countless eons in the high temperature and high pressure environment under the Guixu foundation. Now it has been awakened by the change in the density of laws after the Guixu foundation merged with the mountain root."
"Does the Great Sage know about this?"
Nezha slammed his fire-tipped spear to the ground.
"We don't know yet. The flint beacon rune at the entrance to the Land of Ruins just sent back a pulse of law. The pulse contained the Great Sage counting the law patterns on his scales with his mother inside the core of the nest."
"When he got to the rune that Pangu carved with the tip of his axe dipped in blood, his mother paused and said that there was one more line on the scales than before. The Great Sage asked her what the extra line was."
"She said she didn't know, but she sensed a very subtle resonance between the frequency of the law of that pattern and the core of the nest shell, and the direction of the resonance pointed to the Void."
Xu placed his right hand back on the pale gold line on his chest.
Su Fan took the broken mirror out of his waist and shone it towards the direction of the ruins.
A faint golden pulse of law shot out from the mirror, piercing through the law membrane of the Ruins Crack, and flew towards the end of the Ruins.
The pulse contained only a very brief message, consisting of just one sentence.
"The things beneath the Guixu foundation are related to your mother. Return immediately."
After he finished, he tucked the broken mirror back into his waistband and slung the Pangu Axe over his shoulder.
"Before it releases its second scanning pulse, use the Pangu Axe to cleave a law-based rift directly above the larval nest, cutting off the transmission path of the scanning pulse."
"After the cutoff, it will no longer receive the law density data of the Ruins Foundation, and the awakening process will automatically pause."
"After the pause, we gained some time to figure out three things: First, what is its relationship with the Great Sage's mother? Second, what is its first instinct after waking up?"
"Third, if the first instinct is aggressive, how do we reseal it before it fully awakens?"
"To split open the cracks in the laws, the will of all living beings and the law patterns of the white rock layer of the Guixu foundation must be completely synchronized."
"When the heart network is calibrating the same frequency accuracy, it will be disturbed by the law ripple of the second wave. If the calibration error exceeds the critical value, the angle of the crack will deviate. After the deviation, it will not only fail to cut off the scanning pulse, but will also crack the white rock layer directly below the larval nest."
"After the shattering, that thing will be awakened prematurely, and its first instinct after being awakened will most likely be to attack."
Xu removed his right hand from his chest.
"How long does it take to keep the calibration error within the critical value?" Su Fan asked.
"The calibration needs to be completed before the second fluctuation occurs. The time window is just right."
Xu closed his eyes, focusing all the perception of his heart's network on the boundary of the gray-white shadow's laws.
The density of laws within the boundary is increasing rapidly, at a pace that is both extremely steady and extremely fast.
The second wave is approaching.
Nezha slammed his Fire-Tipped Spear into the ground, and the brightness of the Law Mark on his left shoulder remained extremely stable under the blessing of the Pure Yang Talisman.
He walked directly above the larval nest, thrusting the tip of his spear into the white rock layer. The spear tip penetrated several inches into the rock, and the flowing Fire Law on the spear shaft burned a very faint circle of law patterns on the surface of the rock layer.
The lines on his skin perfectly matched the old scar on his left arm.
He pressed the gun barrel down, and the rock layer around the gun tip was burned with a very thin law indentation by the law of fire. The indentation was located directly above the point where the fissure marked the entry point of the rift.
"After the calibration is complete, when you split the fissure, I will use the tip of the spear to hold the rock layer in place. If you miss, the fire-removing principle on the spear tip can buffer the deviation in the angle of entry."
"The patterns of the Fire Li Fire Law and the White Rock Layer of the Ruins Foundation are not highly synchronized, so the buffering effect is limited, but it is enough to block a minor deviation."
Nezha flicked the shaft of his spear upwards, pulling the spear tip out of the rock layer, bringing with it a cloud of extremely fine grayish-white rock fragments.
The rock fragments floated for a moment in the golden glow of the laws of the Guixu foundation, then were shaken into extremely fine powder by the law ripples of the larval sensory network. The powder flowed into the depths of the nest along the law patterns of the white rock layer.
Xu opened his eyes.
The calibration of the cardiac vascular network is complete.
He transmitted the calibration parameters to Su Fan simultaneously. Su Fan gripped the axe with both hands, and the will of the Dao of All Beings surged from the golden threads in his palms and poured into the axe handle, shooting out an extremely bright golden light from the tip of the axe blade.
The light struck the center of the law-based indentation that Nezha had carved with the tip of his spear directly above the larval nest. The law patterns inside the indentation stopped flowing the moment they came into contact with the will of all living beings.
Then it moved aside on its own, revealing an extremely narrow gap that was only wide enough for the axe blade to pass through.
The fissure extends downwards from the surface of the rock layer, its depth precisely cutting off the transmission path of the scanning pulses released by the gray-white shadow.
The moment the path was cut off, the creeping rhythm of the gray-white shadow slowed down significantly, from creeping once every long period of time to almost stopping.
After the pause, the rate at which the density of the laws within its core increased also slowed down, changing from an accelerated increase to an extremely slow, uniform increase.
A steady climb means the awakening process has been paused, but pause does not mean dormancy.
It is waiting for the crack to heal.
"How long can the fissure last?" Su Fan pulled the Pangu Axe out of the fissure. The golden light on the axe blade left a very thin law membrane inside the fissure. The membrane temporarily replaced the law patterns of the split rock layer, maintaining the interrupted state of the conduction path.
"Based on the data of laws transmitted back from the larval sensory network, the law membrane wall inside the fissure can withstand the continuous compression of the Guixu foundation law pressure for a period of time."
"This period of time is enough for the Great Sage to return from the Ruins of Desolation. However, once the rift heals, that thing's awakening process will automatically resume, and after it resumes, the second wave will immediately release a scanning pulse."
"At that point, all the time windows gained beforehand will be wasted, and it must be resealed before it releases its scanning pulse."
Xu placed his right hand on his chest, his heart's energy network continuously monitoring the changes in the boundary of the gray-white shadow's laws.
The golden light of Mars flashed briefly above the Ruins of Return.
After the flash, an extremely bright golden arc of light emerged from the narrow opening in the membrane wall and landed on the edge of the Guixu foundation.
Sun Wukong carried his golden cudgel, and the slag crystal on his chest, located at the Tanzhong acupoint, was still faintly glowing. The hole in the sleeve of his old battle robe was even larger than it had been half a month ago.
He slammed the golden cudgel into the ground, its end wedging several inches into the white rock layer. The outline of the law of the gray-white shadow directly below the larval nest was reflected in the monkey's eyes.
"My mother said that the extra pattern on her scales was a mark of law left by Pangu when he carved runes on her scales with the tip of his axe before he shattered the nest shell."
"The imprint was created after the fragments of the nest shell shattered and were wrapped by fragments of the chaotic laws, rolled into the depths of chaos, and sealed in the original law sedimentary layer beneath the Guixu foundation."
"This mark was eroded by countless fragments of the mixed laws of chaos and nothingness within the sedimentary layer, and the erosion products spontaneously condensed into an extremely unstable aggregate of laws."
"This aggregate is the grayish-white shadow you see. It is not the origin of Rahu; Rahu evolved from a fragment of law that was peeled off from its body."
"It is not the Mother of Chaos either; the Mother of Chaos is my mother. It is a law mutation produced after my mother's law imprint and the fragments of the Chaos Ruins were eroded."
"The mutant contains a trace of my mother's law imprint and a trace of Pangu's power of creation. The two laws have been fighting against each other for countless eons inside the mutant, neither of them able to devour the other, and finally forming an extremely unstable balance of laws."
"Once the balance is broken, the mutant will fully awaken. Its first instinct upon awakening is to find the source of the external force that broke the balance and then devour it."
"After the Guixu foundation merged with the mountain root, the density of its laws jumped significantly. This change in law density disrupted the balance between the two laws within the mutant. Now it's about to awaken."
"How do we reseal it?"
Su Fan slung the Pangu Axe over his shoulder.
"Use the will of all living beings on the Pangu Axe to separate the two laws within the mutant. Pangu's power of creation belongs to the Pangu Axe, and my mother's law imprint belongs to my mother's scales."
"After separation, there is no internal conflict within the mutant, and the balance of the laws is automatically restored. After restoration, it will fall into slumber again. Separating the two laws requires the will of all living beings and the power of creation to be completely synchronized, and at the same time, my mother's law imprint also needs to actively cooperate."
"My mother is in the Ruins of Desolation, and her law imprint is inside the mutant. To get her to cooperate willingly, someone needs to be inside the mutant to awaken that imprint with a law signal that is completely in sync with hers."
"The only way to awaken the mark is for me to go in myself. The trace of law mark inside the mutant is completely of the same origin as the law core in my body. I can briefly awaken it inside the mutant and make it voluntarily separate from the mutant's core."
"After being stripped away, Pangu's axe cleaved in, stripping away the power of creation as well. After both laws were completely stripped away, the mutant was left with only an empty outer shell of laws. Under the pressure of the laws of the Guixu foundation, the outer shell would automatically collapse, becoming an extremely thin layer of law sedimentation. The sedimentation layer would then merge into the depths of the white rock layer, never to awaken again."
Nezha slammed his fire-tipped spear on the ground: "What if the mutant wakes up prematurely during the stripping process if you go in alone?"
"Once it wakes up, I'll use the aftershocks of the Great Calamity to stun it. The aftershocks of the Great Calamity are the product of the collision between the laws of the outer realm and the primordial Heavenly Dao. The frequency of the laws is different from the frequency of the two laws inside the mutant. It won't break it, but it can stun it."
"I was hit by the Devouring Pulse once when I detonated the Law Vortex in the Old Domain. The impact of that wave was much stronger than the Law Shockwave at the moment the mutant awakened. I can withstand it."
Sun Wukong pulled the golden cudgel out of the white rock layer, carried it on his shoulder, and grinned as he saw the gray-white shadow slowly wriggling deep in the crevice reflected in his monkey eyes.