Invisible Pressure

Chapter Fifty: Invisible Pressure

The morning mist hung like gauze, lightly veiling the small courtyard at the foothills of Buzhou Mountain.

Chen An carried a clay pot toward the Vegetable Plot, his bare feet pressing into the damp earth and leaving shallow footprints.

Water from the well poured from the spout, scattering tiny droplets across the tender green leaves.

He casually hummed a few lines from an opera he had heard at a teahouse. The tune twisted and turned, having long since strayed from its original form.

His steps were light, his clothes fluttering in the breeze, and he was completely immersed in that languid pleasure, utterly unaware that, a thousand zhang above his head, a Crimson Rainbow Demonic Cloud was roiling like boiling blood, silently staining half the sky.

Nine Infant circled in the clouds, its nine heads and eighteen blood-red eyes firmly locked onto the courtyard below.

The agony of yesterday's Dao Resonance backlash still burned through its demonic veins, but Kunpeng's secret order coiled around its heart like a venomous snake—"Observe his form at close range."

It suppressed its fear, transformed its demonic body into a streak of red light, and plunged downward!

Strangely enough, Nine Infant possessed a fearsome reputation. It was less than a hundred paces from the Small Courtyard, close enough to reach out and touch, when an abrupt change occurred!

It was as if an invisible wall of adamantine steel had suddenly appeared in midair, causing it to slam into it and preventing it from advancing even an inch!

The overwhelming demonic power that had surged moments before instantly froze, as though it had fallen into an icy abyss.

The blood in its entire body began boiling into chaos against its will. The pain twisted its nine heads as it shrieked, the sound shaking the wilderness.

Deep within its primordial spirit, it seemed to be locked onto by a gaze that had existed since the beginning of the world's division from chaos. Boundless terror swept over it, nearly scattering even the soul of this ancient ferocious beast!

Half a step! It only needed to move half a step closer!

A ruthless determination to perish together with its enemy surged in Nine Infant's heart. It gathered every shred of its remaining will and forcibly stirred its primordial spirit without regard for the consequences, launching a desperate charge at that invisible barrier—

Yet the answer was a crisp, teeth-grating crack that came from the depths of its soul!

It clearly "saw" its primordial spirit instantly covered in spiderweb-like cracks, as though it would completely collapse in the next moment.

The agony that followed far exceeded its limit of endurance, as if its entire soul were being crushed inch by inch.

All nine heads threw themselves back toward the sky and let out shrieks mingled with pain and despair. Nine streams of thick black blood sprayed from their throats like splashed ink, transforming into a rain of blood in midair.

Inside the courtyard, Chen An pounded his lower back and looked up at the sky, muttering about the most ordinary of weather.

However, when his pure gaze swept across the clouds, an invisible destruction crossed space and descended.

"BOOM!"

In Nine Infant's perception, this was not the sound of thunder, but the sound of the foundation of its entire world breaking apart!

Its soul was like a fragile porcelain vessel hurled against a cliff. Under the sweep of the aftershock from that gaze, it was covered in cracks before it even had time to form the thought of struggling.

This was not a contest. It was the instinctive annihilation of an ant before the firmament.

No! Those were not the eyes of a mortal! That was heavenly retribution!

When that gaze fell upon me, I felt as if my soul were a sheet of paper easily clenched in a fist, about to be torn from my body! The Dao foundation I had cultivated for ten thousand years shattered inch by inch before it, like broken glass.

The ancient glory inherited through my bloodline had been reduced, in this moment, to the most desperate shriek from its source!

Every trace of resistance and ferocity vanished at that moment. The extreme terror and agony ultimately exceeded the limit it could bear.

With a short, shrill wail, one of Nine Infant's dragon heads, which had gathered immense demonic power, was utterly unable to withstand this crushing of its very essence. It exploded completely with a muffled boom, black blood and brain matter splattering in every direction.

He no longer dared to linger. All nine heads shrieked together as he transformed into a Crimson Rainbow and fled through the sky!

Where the Demonic Cloud dispersed, a drop of filthy blood fell into the withered grass outside the courtyard, sizzling sharply.

Chen An scratched his head and withdrew his gaze. "Must have been an illusion..."

He bent down and continued watering the plants. The clay pot struck the edge of the Vegetable Plot, ringing out with a crisp clink.

In a rocky cavern a hundred li away, Nine Infant curled up in the shadows.

The remaining eight heads drooped weakly, while the blasted dragon head was a mangled mass of flesh and blood.

He trembled as he spat out the last mouthful of black blood and rasped:

"That gaze... was the judgment of chaos!"