Restriction Backlash

Chapter 24: Restriction Backlash

The axe imprint descended upon him.

The chill of death nearly froze Taiyi's blood. It was no exquisite technique, nor did it contain any dazzling circulation of Dao resonance. It was simply the purest, most primal slash—a remnant of the Heaven-Opening One's will, seeking to erase this "anomaly" who dared defile the sacred ground from the very root.

He couldn't block it.

That was the only thought left in Taiyi's mind. The gap in cultivation was far too vast. It was suppression by rank, like a mortal gazing up at a falling star. Other than waiting for death, there was nothing he could do.

But... wait for death?

"Fuck!"

A hoarse roar squeezed from his chest, mixed with bloody froth. Taiyi's pupils, slightly unfocused from exhaustion and blood loss, suddenly contracted the instant the axe blade touched the skin of his back!

If he couldn't take it head-on, then... borrow its force!

This nearly insane thought flashed through his mind like lightning. At almost the same instant, every shred of his remaining will poured recklessly into the depths of his sea of consciousness, crashing fiercely into the Chaos Bell, whose dim luster made it seem as though it could go out at any moment.

"Old friend—ring!!"

Not defense. Not counterattack. It was the most primitive form of... activation!

"Clang—!!!"

A desolate, ancient bell toll, as though it had traveled through endless ages of chaos, exploded from within Taiyi!

This was not the controlled tremor he had used to break the restriction before. This was a full-powered roar born of imminent death, despair, and hysteria! The phantom of the Chaos Bell was completely awakened at that moment. The ancient patterns representing "time" and "space" on its surface burned with unprecedented brilliance, and the entire phantom instantly expanded, completely covering Taiyi's back!

And at that very instant—

The illusory axe imprint condensed from Pangu's will struck solidly against the phantom of the Chaos Bell!

"Boom!!!!!"

An indescribable crash.

It was not the spread of sound, but a terrifying roar born from the violent collision of two supreme laws, one that struck directly at the soul! Within Pangu Hall, the ink-thick darkness was torn apart. Gray mist was churned into whirlpools by the berserk force. The totems on the twelve Ancestral Witch pillars flickered erratically, releasing pained wails!

"Puh—!"

Taiyi was struck as though by lightning and hurled violently forward like a broken sack! While still in midair, blood sprayed from his mouth, nose, and ears as though it cost nothing, mixed even with fragments of his internal organs! The clothes on his back instantly turned to ash, while countless fine cracks burst across his skin, deep enough to reveal bone. Even his golden bones were covered in spiderweb-like fractures!

The phantom of the Chaos Bell let out a mournful cry, its light completely extinguishing. It became duller than a stubborn stone, shrank back into the deepest part of his sea of consciousness, and fell silent. It had borne most of the axe's power, but the remaining aftershock transmitted through the bell still nearly shattered Taiyi outright!

Pain.

Every part of him, inside and out, body and soul, screamed with searing pain. His consciousness teetered repeatedly on the verge of collapse. Everything before him was blood-red, and he could no longer see anything clearly.

But... he wasn't dead!

Borrowing the overwhelming impact created when the axe imprint struck the Chaos Bell, Taiyi's body, which had originally been pushing the door forward, suddenly accelerated with completely uncontrollable, cannonball-like speed!

"Bang!!!"

His body slammed viciously into the stone door that had just opened a crack! That incomparably heavy stone door, engraved with his "calligraphy," was forcefully smashed outward by the impact carrying Pangu's furious will!

The crack instantly widened!

Blinding light poured in from beyond the door—it was the dim radiance mixed with Earth Vein Turbid Qi, emitted by the stone pillars and restrictions in the plaza outside Pangu Hall. Yet to Taiyi, who had remained in absolute darkness for so long, the light was painfully dazzling.

He tumbled through the gap like a lump of rotten flesh and crashed heavily onto the plaza's cold black stone floor. He rolled more than a dozen times, leaving behind a long, horrifying trail of blood before barely coming to a stop.

"Cough... urgh..."

He lay curled on his side. Every cough sent great mouthfuls of blood spraying out, dotted with tiny golden flecks—the shattered origin of his True Sun Fire. The wounds on his back were deep enough to expose bone, and he could even see his faintly pulsing, crack-covered internal organs. Most of his meridians had ruptured. His dantian was utterly empty. The Three Flowers in his sea of consciousness swayed precariously, their light so dim it seemed ready to vanish at any moment.

Gravely wounded.

Gravely wounded, on the verge of death.

But he was still alive. And he had gotten out.

The instant he fell out of Pangu Hall—

"Clang--------!!!"

Another bell toll rang out.

This time, it did not come from within him, but... from the Great Wilderness itself!

The resonance created by the violent clash between the "time-space" Dao resonance contained in the Chaos Bell toll he had activated in his desperate struggle and Pangu's "Law of Strength" had actually pierced through Pangu Hall's layered restrictions, through Buzhou Mountain's incomparably massive body, and spread throughout the entire Great Wilderness!

The bell toll was desolate and sorrowful, yet carried a trace of unyielding arrogance. In an instant, it spread through the four poles and eight wilds of the Great Wilderness!

On the Sun Star, within the Sun Palace.

Di Jun, who had been reviewing memorials with a slight frown, abruptly looked up. The jade slip in his hand fell onto the desk with a slap. His expression changed dramatically as he shot to his feet, terrifying golden light bursting from his eyes. "Taiyi?!"

He could sense the unique origin aura of the Chaos Bell within that toll, and even more clearly, he could feel the... weakness and pain on the verge of collapse carried deep within it!

Kunlun Mountain, Jade Void Palace.

The Three Pure Ones opened their eyes at the same time while meditating. A trace of surprise crossed Laozi's usually placid face. Primordial Lord of Heaven frowned deeply, while Lord of the Heavens' eyes flashed as he murmured, "The Chaos Bell? Such a disturbance... what did it encounter?"

In the west, at the foot of Spirit Mountain.

Daoist Jieyin's already sorrowful face grew even more mournful, while Daoist Zhunti's gaze flickered as he calculated with his fingers. Yet all he found was utter chaos in the heavenly secrets; he could calculate nothing at all.

Deep within the Blood Sea, Old Ancestor Styx opened his eyes atop a blood lotus. A trace of shock and suspicion flashed through his scarlet pupils. "In the direction of Pangu Hall? That madman... really went there?"

Longevity Mountain, Wuzhuang Temple.

Zhen Yuanzi set down the Ginseng Fruit in his hand and looked toward Buzhou Mountain, his expression grave. "Calamity Qi is churning. Troubled times indeed..."

Countless mighty experts and reclusive cultivators were startled by the bell toll that had spread through the Great Wilderness. Each harbored different thoughts.

Meanwhile, beneath Buzhou Mountain, in the plaza outside Pangu Hall.

"Buzz—!!!"

Almost at the same moment the bell toll rang out, the remaining eight layers of restrictions outside Pangu Hall erupted with blinding light like beasts that had been thoroughly enraged! Earth Vein Turbid Qi surged like raging waves. All thirty-six baleful spirit guards opened their gray-white stone eyes at once and released soundless roars. The glow of the Time-Space Stasis barrier enveloped the entire plaza. Ripples of bloodline verification swept wildly across it. The power of the heart demon illusion leaked out. The imprint of karmic tracing shone as brightly as day. Pangu's pressure intensified by more than a hundredfold!

The entire outer perimeter of Pangu Hall instantly became a place of certain death!

And Taiyi lay at the center of that killing ground like a rag doll.

Run... I have to run...

His remaining consciousness screamed. He tried to move a finger, but the piercing pain plunged his vision into darkness again. His magic power was exhausted, his body was on the verge of collapse, and his soul was wounded... At this point, even if any baleful spirit merely stepped on him, he would die.

Yet as he lay there, his blood-smeared face turned toward the edge of the plaza. In those eyes, slightly unfocused from blood loss and agony, he stared fixedly at the entrance to the narrow Earth Vein passage through which he had come.

There was still a chance.

As long as... as long as he could crawl over there.

He clenched his teeth so hard that blood seeped from them. With his left arm, which could still barely move, he gripped the cracks between the black stone slabs and began dragging his utterly unresponsive, agonized lower body forward inch by inch.

Like a dying worm, he left a sticky trail of blood across the cold, rough ground.

Behind him, Pangu Hall's doors slammed shut after trembling violently. Yet the thoroughly enraged will of Pangu within still passed through the stone doors like invisible raging waves, washing over his soul again and again and keeping his consciousness constantly on the verge of collapse.

Ahead, the nearest several baleful spirit guards had already turned their gray-white stone heads to "look" at him, the intruder. They slowly raised their stone axes as baleful energy began to gather.

The shadow of death had not dispersed. It had drawn even closer.

Taiyi ignored everything and simply crawled. His fingernails peeled back and split from clawing at the stone slabs, blood dripping everywhere, yet he seemed unable to feel the pain. He only stared fixedly at the passage entrance.

Thirty zhang... twenty-four zhang... fifteen zhang...

One baleful spirit's stone axe had already been raised high. Gray-black baleful light flickered along its blade, locking onto Taiyi as he crawled slowly across the ground.

Just as the stone axe was about to fall—

"Buzz!"

Deep within Taiyi's sea of consciousness, the [Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint Insight (Fragment)] he had just stored in the system space and temporarily forgotten suddenly trembled faintly on its own!

An extremely weak, nearly imperceptible "resonance" flowed from the fragment of insight. It was not any concrete power or knowledge, but a kind of... instinct.

An instinct concerning how "strength" should be used, transmitted, unleashed in desperate circumstances, and how force could be borrowed and redirected... a combat instinct!

It was a fragment of the most primal battle consciousness, imprinted in the depths of the axe imprint when Pangu opened heaven, fought the three thousand Chaos Fiends, and struggled against chaos!

Taiyi's consciousness, already on the verge of dispersing, was sharply jolted by that weak yet incomparably clear "instinct"!

His movements, which had been merely instinctive and clumsy crawling, suddenly underwent an extremely subtle adjustment—the angle at which his left arm pressed against the ground, the timing of his right leg's unconscious twitch through the agony, even the rhythm of his breathing... all changed subtly under the guidance of that "instinct."

"Whoosh!"

The stone axe descended with a shrill tearing sound!

Yet Taiyi's seemingly slow and clumsy crawl suddenly "slid" half a foot diagonally forward at a nearly impossible angle in that critical instant!

The stone axe struck the ground while grazing the flesh at the back of his neck, spraying sparks and shattered stone. It left a bloody gash at his neck deep enough to reveal bone, but... it had not hit him squarely!

And because the baleful spirit had missed with its full-powered swing, its movement stiffened for an instant.

That instant was enough!

Taiyi's blood-soaked left hand slammed against the ground! Not with his palm, but with all five fingers dug deeply into a crack in the stone. Borrowing that tiny, insignificant recoil, along with the faint airflow kicked up by the missed axe, his body shot forward another zhang like an eel too slippery to catch!

Less than three zhang remained between him and the passage entrance!

But more baleful spirits closed in. Four, five... They strode forward with heavy steps, their gray-white stone eyes cold and merciless as they raised their stone axes again.

The glow of the Time-Space Stasis barrier also enveloped him. Taiyi felt the air around him become as thick as glue, and his crawling speed visibly slowed.

Was this the end?

The thought flashed through Taiyi's mind, but his body did not stop moving. The "combat instinct" brought by the Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint Insight seemed to awaken a small part of itself within his dying body, controlling his broken body and making clumsy-looking movements that narrowly evaded fatal attacks every time.

He dodged another axe, gaining another wound across his back.

He avoided another stomping foot, and the bones in his left arm let out a teeth-grating groan.

Every evasion consumed what little life force he had left and brought him another step closer to death, but it also brought him... another step closer to that dark passage entrance.

Two zhang... one and a half zhang...

At last, after taking the force of a sideways sweep from a baleful spirit's stone axe and rolling away while spitting blood, his fingertips touched the cold, rough rock wall at the passage entrance!

He had made it!

The last trace of ferocity burst from his eyes. He had no idea where the strength came from, but he rammed his head fiercely into the rock wall and rolled into that narrow, dark Earth Vein passage filled with turbid qi like a dead fish!

Almost the instant he rolled inside—

"Boom!!!"

Several stone axes struck down at once, blasting apart the place where he had just been lying. Shattered stone flew everywhere, and deep cracks split the ground.

But they had missed.

Inside the passage, Taiyi rolled down the steep slope he had taken on the way in. His body slammed against the uneven rock walls, pain crashing over him without end. At last, his consciousness could no longer hold on and began sinking into darkness.

Just before he completely lost consciousness, he thought hazily:

The bell rang... the disturbance got too big... the Witch Race... they should be coming...

I need to... hide...

With the last trace of clarity, he activated the system.

[Exchange... Witch Blood Powder... 8 points...]

[Exchange... Breath Concealment Art · Fragment... 15 points...]

The items had only just appeared in the system space. Before he could take them out and use them, boundless darkness and agony completely swallowed him.

Outside Buzhou Mountain, in the northern land of extreme cold.

Within an ancient palace made entirely of mysterious ice.

Xuan Ming, an Ancestral Witch, sat cross-legged on a bed of ten-thousand-year mysterious ice jade when she abruptly opened her eyes.

She wore a simple dark-blue hemp robe, her long hair cascading like an icy waterfall. Her face was cold and stern, and her gaze was as sharp as the northern wind. Just moments ago, while guiding the most yin and frigid Law of Rain between heaven and earth in cultivation, her heart had suddenly pounded violently without warning!

It was not her heartbeat.

It was a tremor from the source of her bloodline... Pangu Hall!

Then, the sorrowful bell toll carrying the aura of the Chaos Bell, which had spread throughout the Great Wilderness, pierced through endless space and entered her ears with perfect clarity.

Its direction... beneath Buzhou Mountain!

In an instant, frost cold enough to freeze souls covered Xuan Ming's icy face.

"Pangu Hall..."

She slowly spoke the three words, each one carrying bone-chilling killing intent.

Without the slightest hesitation, Xuan Ming's figure vanished from the mysterious ice jade bed. The next instant, she appeared beneath the freezing sky outside the palace.

"Rain, come."

She raised her right hand and made a grasping motion toward Buzhou Mountain.

"Rumble—"

The clear sky spanning thousands of miles was instantly filled with dark clouds! They were not natural clouds, but manifestations of the Law of Rain—thick as ink, endlessly churning, and radiating piercing cold! The clouds covered a thousand miles, with muffled thunder rumbling within. It was the roaring of the law itself.

Xuan Ming merged into the clouds, transforming into a dark-blue streak of light nearly impossible to see with the naked eye. At astonishing speed, she tore through the sky and raced toward Buzhou Mountain!

The Ancestral Witch of Rain was the first to arrive.

The hunt had begun.