Earth Element Law Origin!
Energy of purity beyond the system's analytical limits!
Cheng Xi's heart hammered wildly in his chest, blood surging to his head and making his eardrums buzz. The Jianmu Fragment in his palm underwent a violent tremor, its emerald green radiance flowing like a living thing toward the chest of the skeletal Daoist robe, illuminating every detail of the faint yet incomparably heavy earthen-yellow glow seeping through the silver-gray cloth!
Instinct! A greedy instinct stemming from the depths of his soul drove him forward! The power contained within this Xirang Crystal—the system's designation—was the key to resolving all his current predicaments! Restoring system energy, suppressing the backlash of the talismanic markings, resisting the Human Sect's eradication... perhaps even glimpsing that mysterious path of transcendence!
One step!
Only three steps separated him from the seated remains and the ancient stone platform!
"Buzz—!"
A sudden change!
At the center of the stone platform, the plain, unremarkable ancient Stone Sword embedded there suddenly released a deep, resounding hum without warning! The entire platform, along with the rocky ground beneath their feet, shook violently!
A heavy, vast, Terrifying Will descended like the entire Zhongnan Mountain range crushing down upon them! The air instantly froze, growing as thick as mercury! The elite guards groaned, as though struck by invisible Giant Hammers, and staggered back in unison. More than half the torches in their hands sputtered out! The stone cavern abruptly darkened, leaving only the faint light refracted by the stalactites overhead and the emerald green glow of the Jianmu Fragment!
Cheng Xi was the first to bear the brunt! That pressure did not target his flesh, but directly assaulted his mental will! His vision went black, and he felt as though he stood beneath the boundless Primordial Earth while phantom images of countless ancient mountains took turns crushing over him! His sea of consciousness was like an icy lake struck by a boulder, instantly covered with cracks! A strained groan rose from the depths of his soul!
"Pfft!" He could no longer suppress the blood in his throat and sprayed it out! His body swayed, and only the emerald green light erupting from the Jianmu Fragment in his hand held him up, preventing him from falling to his knees on the spot!
[Warning! Subjected to the pressure of an ultra-high-tier Earth Element Law! Mental Barrier on the verge of collapse! Associated source: Stone Sword (suppressing object)... Objective: protect the Xirang Crystal...]
Protect it?! That seemingly dead object of a Stone Sword was actually the suppressing object guarding the Xirang Crystal! Any being that approached the crystal would have to endure this Terrifying Will stemming from the earth!
"Royal younger brother!" Ying Zheng's stern shout sounded behind him. Under pressure like collapsing mountains, he alone remained standing upright! His black robes snapped in the invisible pressure as he stepped forward, forcibly squeezing to Cheng Xi's side and reaching out to support his on-the-verge-of-collapse body!
Just as Ying Zheng's hand touched Cheng Xi's shoulder—
"Roar—!!!"
An ancient, desolate dragon roar, so majestic it made souls tremble, erupted from within Ying Zheng without warning! It was not an actual sound, but one that rang directly through the depths of consciousness of every living being in the stone cavern!
With that dragon roar, a point of purple gold light, pure to the extreme, suddenly lit up in the depths of Ying Zheng's abyss-like eyes! Immediately afterward, a vague yet incomparably majestic phantom of a five-clawed true dragon surged up from behind him! Though faint, the Dragon Shadow carried the supreme Imperial Way's Majesty of ruling the eight wildernesses and looking down upon heaven and earth!
The instant the Dragon Shadow appeared, the vast earth pressure emitted by the Stone Sword suddenly stalled, as though it had encountered its natural enemy! That invisible crushing force briefly turned sluggish and retreated!
Now!
A sharp gleam flashed through Cheng Xi's eyes! This was the moment he had been waiting for! The dormant ancestral dragon aura within Ying Zheng truly possessed an innate suppressive force against the earth-element pressure that shared its origin law!
Enduring the tearing agony in his sea of consciousness, he poured all his remaining spiritual power, along with all the Life Energy erupting from the Jianmu Fragment, madly into the system! Target locked—the Xirang Crystal beneath the skeletal Daoist robe!
[Forced analysis initiated! Target: outer sealing structure of the Xirang Crystal! Energy overload!... Deduction... Bzz... Energy node locked!]
The pale-blue system display flickered frantically within Cheng Xi's on-the-verge-of-collapse sea of consciousness. In an instant, it locked onto an extremely tiny energy node within the invisible sealing network on the surface of the Xirang Crystal—a network formed from countless fine earthen-yellow runes. The node had briefly fluctuated because the Stone Sword's pressure had been disrupted by the ancestral dragon aura!
"Open... for me!" Cheng Xi let out a soundless roar in his heart! Through the natural, powerful resonance between the Jianmu Fragment and the Xirang Crystal, he turned the last trace of his gathered will into an invisible chisel and viciously drove it into that fluctuating node!
"Pop!"
A soft sound, like a bubble bursting, that only Cheng Xi himself could "hear"!
At the chest of the skeletal Daoist robe, the earthen-yellow glow abruptly contracted inward before erupting with a radiance a hundred times brighter than before! A pigeon egg sized crystal, perfectly round and displaying the purest profound yellow of the earth, slowly rose from beneath the dust of the Daoist robe like a star Breaking Free from invisible shackles!
The instant the crystal appeared, the earth-element spiritual energy throughout the stone cavern instantly boiled! The ground rose and fell like waves! The stalactites overhead gave off clear hums! A vast, pure primordial aura that nurtured all things and bore all things spread through the cavern!
Yet that aura lasted only an instant!
"Roar—!!!"
The Stone Sword erupted with an unprecedented, furious roar! Its Terrifying Will surged back like a Primordial Fierce Beast that had been utterly enraged, crashing down with overwhelming force! It was ten times stronger than before! Countless fine tortoiseshell cracks on the Stone Sword's plain gray surface suddenly lit up with blinding earthen-yellow light. The blade shook violently and let out a strained groan, as though it might explode at any moment!
Drawn by that force, the floating Xirang Crystal shuddered and Turned into a streak of yellow light, about to fly back into the stone platform!
"Don't even think about it!" Cheng Xi's eyes nearly split apart! He had paid the price of being severely wounded in his sea of consciousness just to seize this once-in-a-thousand-year opportunity and pry open a sliver of the seal. How could he let all his efforts go to waste?! With his last strength, he viciously hurled the Jianmu Fragment in his hand at the Xirang Crystal flying toward the stone platform!
"Buzz!"
The Jianmu Fragment and the Xirang Crystal collided in midair!
There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a strange and harmonious resonance, like a water droplet merging into the earth! Emerald green and profound yellow light instantly intertwined and entwined, forming a soft pillar of dual-colored radiance! Within the pillar, the Jianmu Fragment softened and stretched swiftly as though returning to its mother body, turning into countless slender emerald green roots that greedily yet gently coiled around the pigeon-egg-sized Xirang Crystal!
The crystal's struggle stopped instantly! Its violent earth-element origin power seemed to have found a channel through which to vent, and was madly absorbed and guided by those emerald green roots!
An indescribable torrent of energy, pure and heavy to the extreme, flowed through the Jianmu roots and their spiritual connection to the fragment like a breached river, crashing into Cheng Xi's depleted sea of consciousness and meridians!
"Urgh...!" Cheng Xi's entire body shook violently, as though scorching magma had been poured over his head! But this time, it was no longer a destructive impact! The Jianmu roots were like the most precise filters, converting the Xirang Crystal's violent origin power into gentle, pure Earth Element Spiritual Energy that could be directly absorbed!
[Energy injection! Chaos Foundation charging! 1%... 5%... 10%...]
The system's cold prompt now sounded like heavenly music! His depleted energy pool surged at an unprecedented pace! The cracks in his sea of consciousness rapidly healed under the nourishment of pure energy, even becoming tougher and broader! The burning pain from the backlash of the talismanic markings on his chest was completely soothed by the heavy Earth Element Spiritual Energy, replaced by an unprecedented feeling of steady strength, as though he had rooted himself in the earth!
However, this raging tide of energy also startled a terrifying existence!
Rumble—!
From behind the huge stone wall deep in the cavern, the one carved by the remains with the words "Soul Suppresses This Gate," came a muffled boom so heavy it seemed capable of stopping hearts! It was as though some colossal creature that had slept for countless ages had been thoroughly startled awake by this sudden fluctuation of earth-element origin power and the ancestral dragon aura!
The stone wall underwent a violent tremor, dust and broken rocks raining down! The three blood-red characters for "Caution" on the wall seemed to have been wiped by an invisible force, instantly becoming dim and lusterless!
A Terrifying Will, even more ancient and more primordial than the Stone Sword's pressure, brimming with chaos and destruction, instantly flooded the entire stone cavern like an icy tide!
"Thud! Thud!" The elite guards fell unconscious in an instant under the Will Impact, like wheat stalks cut down!
"Go!" Ying Zheng grabbed Cheng Xi, who stood stiffly from absorbing vast energy, his expression shifting unpredictably. With his other hand, he shot out like lightning and precisely seized the Xirang Crystal in midair, wrapped in emerald green roots and flowing with light!
It was as heavy as a mountain in his grasp!
Without hesitation, he dragged Cheng Xi and turned, rapidly retreating toward the cave entrance! He moved so swiftly that an afterimage trailed behind him!
"Roar—!!!"
Behind them, the Stone Sword released one final unwilling roar, like a mournful cry. The blinding earthen-yellow light on its blade abruptly went out, and countless fine cracks instantly spread across it!
Boom!
The enormous Stone Sword and the platform beneath it collapsed with a tremendous crash! Dust filled the air!
Almost at the exact moment the stone platform collapsed!
"Crack—!!!"
The huge stone wall carved with "Soul Suppresses This Gate" split apart like fragile glass, a terrifying crack more than ten feet wide tearing through it from top to bottom!
Within the crack, a despairing, absolute darkness churned and rolled!
A colossal claw covered with Dark Gold scales, too enormous to describe, suddenly stretched out from the darkness behind the crack and viciously dug into the edge of the stone wall! Its sharp talons scraped across the rock with a piercing screech that set teeth on edge, Kicking up a trail of blinding sparks!
An icy gale carrying the scent of blood and sulfur, mixed with chaotic whispers, surged wildly from the crack like the breath of the netherworld, instantly filling the entire stone cavern!
Ying Zheng dragged Cheng Xi toward the entrance without looking back. The destructive gale blew his black robes straight behind him! In his hand, he tightly gripped that warm yet heavy ball of dual-colored light, his knuckles turning white from the force.
Behind them, that Dark Gold gigantic claw was little by little tearing the crack wider...
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