Pebbles were still tumbling down. At the edge of the breach in the light screen before the exit, a dim blue glow flickered, its runes pulsing slowly like a heartbeat. Chen Wuya's palm remained pressed to the ground, his knuckles trembling faintly from maintaining the output of Misaligned Force for so long, but he did not withdraw it.
That was not damage. It was the beginning of healing.
He stared at the crack as it reformed, keeping his breath exceedingly light. That strike should have torn the formation's foundation apart completely, yet not only had the barrier not collapsed, it had swallowed the external force like a living thing, condensing denser patterns amid the tremors. All at once, he realized—they had been wrong from the start.
"It isn't afraid of being hit," he said quietly, his voice nearly drowned out by the dull thuds of falling rocks overhead. "It lives off being hit."
Bai Zhi leaned against the sidewall, the tip of her sword braced on the ground. The cloth around her right shoulder had been soaked through with blood, which dripped down the hilt onto the stone tiles. She raised her eyes toward Chen Wuya. "What did you say?"
"Every time we attack, it absorbs the force." Chen Wuya slowly lifted his head, his gaze sweeping over the three brightest energy nodes at the base of the barrier. "Especially during that huge tremor just now, when the collapse came down—it absorbed the most. That old man used his bone staff to steady the formation not to repair it, but to control the pace—so it wouldn't eat too fast."
Mo Feng crouched nearby, his fingertips lightly tracing a thin crack in the ground, his expression grave. "You mean... this formation is 'breathing'?"
"Yes." Chen Wuya nodded. "It treats our attacks