Xuan Ming's Pursuit

Darkness.

Thick, cloying darkness, carrying the earthy stench unique to the depths of the Earth Veins and the sound of Turbid Qi flowing through them.

Taiyi felt as though he had sunk to the bottom of a muddy river. His body was falling downward while his consciousness floated upward. Between them lay something thick and cold, something he could not tear apart no matter how hard he tried.

Pain.

Everything hurt. His bones felt shattered, his organs mangled, and his meridians felt as if red-hot wires had been branded through them. The agony was so intense that even unconsciousness offered no peace. Something always tugged at him, refusing to let him sink completely.

Was it... the bell?

Within his sea of consciousness, the Chaos Bell, its luster so dim it was nearly invisible, trembled stubbornly like a boulder at the bottom of a swamp. Every almost imperceptible tremor stirred faint ripples through space and time, barely protecting his true spirit from dispersing.

And... that point of light?

It was not real light, but a sensation. An incredibly sharp, incredibly domineering... "trajectory," as though it could cleave through all chaos and obstacles. It was branded deep within his consciousness, blurry yet carrying an undeniable sense of existence.

The Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint.

That fragment of insight remained, like a glowing coal scorching his wavering soul.

"...Can't... sleep..."

Broken thoughts rose laboriously like bubbles from the riverbed. Taiyi exhausted all his strength trying to pry open eyelids that felt welded shut.

At first, all he saw was crimson. Then came wavering, distorted darkness. It took him several breaths to realize that he was lying face-down. Beneath him was a rough, uneven rock wall that pressed against his wounds with piercing pain. His mouth and nose were filled with the stench of blood and dust.

He was still in that narrow, steep Earth Vein passage. His body was twisted into an extremely awkward position, wedged between two protruding rocks, which had at least kept him from rolling farther down.

How had he stopped? He did not know. Perhaps the last shred of his consciousness had instinctively grabbed onto something.

He tried moving a finger.

"Urgh..."

A hoarse groan squeezed from his throat. His fingers curled weakly, their nails packed with blood and mud. Every bone in his body seemed dislocated. The slightest movement brought a sharp agony that darkened his vision.

He was gravely wounded. The kind that left one on the verge of death.

Yet he could still think. His mind felt stuffed with soaked cotton, heavy and numb, but it could still turn.

"Xuan Ming... is coming..."

That thought surfaced even more clearly than the pain. The bell's chime, which had resounded throughout the Great Wilderness, could not be concealed from the Witch Race—much less from the nearest Ancestral Witch, whose bloodline resonance with Pangu Hall was the most sensitive.

He had to move. Lying here meant waiting to die.

Taiyi clenched his teeth, and blood seeped from his gums again. He no longer tried to control his entire body. Instead, he focused every remaining scrap of will on his left arm, the one that could still barely curl.

Hook his fingers into a crack in the rock.

Push.

His body dragged forward less than half an inch. His wounds scraped across the coarse stone, making his entire body convulse in pain.

Again.

Like a snake that had been skinned and had its spine broken, he inched downward through the dark, steep passage. Behind him trailed a long, sticky streak of blood mixed with mud and gravel.

His speed was despairingly slow.

Yet with every inch he moved, the fragment of the Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint branded in his consciousness seemed to "brighten" a little. It was not actual light, but a certain rhythm becoming clearer. It was no longer merely static insight; as he moved clumsily, painfully, almost instinctively, it began to subtly adjust and resonate with him.

Taiyi had no time to ponder it. All his attention was spent resisting the agony and staying conscious. Still, he vaguely felt that his crawling posture had somehow... become smoother? At angles where he would have struck sharp rocks, he unconsciously made minute adjustments and slipped past their edges. At moments when he needed to exert force, the rhythm of his muscle contractions also seemed to fit a more effortless, more efficient kind of strength.

Was it the battle instinct brought by the axe imprint? Or a hallucination born of approaching death?

He did not know. He simply crawled.

He did not know how long the passage was, and the steep slope seemed endless. Darkness and silence devoured everything, leaving only his own ragged, heavy breathing, the scrape of his body against the rock walls, and the drip of falling blood.

Time lost all meaning here.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour had passed. Perhaps half an hour.

Suddenly—

Taiyi stopped moving.

It was not because he had run out of strength. Rather, a chill from deep within his bloodline suddenly shot up his spine without warning!

Cold.

Not the gloomy chill of Earth Vein Turbid Qi in the passage, but something sharper, wetter, carrying the pressure of a vast law... cold.

It was like the damp chill that filled the air before a torrential downpour, magnified tens of millions of times.

She had arrived.

He did not need to look up or probe with divine sense. That terrifying aura—cold, vast, and steeped in endless rain—already descended like a falling sky over the entire Earth Vein region of Buzhou Mountain!

Xuan Ming.

The Ancestral Witch of Rain.

"I found you."

A voice so cold that it held no trace of emotion seemed to ring directly within his heart. It had not entered through his ears, but through the omnipresent moisture and chill. There was no anger or urgency in that voice, only the indifference of someone carrying out an extermination.

The next instant—

"Splash..."

It was not truly the sound of water. It was the sound of laws converging.

On the rock walls of the narrow passage where Taiyi lay, a thin layer of crystalline frost formed without warning! The frost spread and thickened at a visible rate, carrying bone-piercing cold as it instantly dropped the already meager temperature in the passage below freezing!

The air became thick, damp, and cold. Every breath felt as if his lungs were being scraped by ice shards. The blood flowing from his wounds froze quickly and stuck to the frost, bringing a fresh wave of tearing pain.

This was not even an attack. It was merely Xuan Ming's domain unfolding, the natural radiation of her law power.

The true killing move was outside.

Taiyi could feel it. Above his head, beyond the thick layers of Buzhou Mountain rock, dense black rainclouds blanketed a radius of a thousand li. The terrifying law power contained within those clouds was locking onto every anomaly in the area.

He was like an insect trapped in amber.

Unable to move, unable to hide, could he only wait for death?

Taiyi's bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at the deeper darkness beyond the bend in the passage. A wheezing sound came from his throat, like a broken bellows leaking air.

He could not wait.

Waiting meant being frozen into an ice statue, or crushed into dust by the terrifying Law of Rain outside.

He suddenly inhaled a breath of icy air. The cold stabbing into his lungs instead cleared his muddled consciousness slightly. His will sank into his sea of consciousness again—not to beg the system for help. The system was quiet as though it did not exist, only coldly feeding him scans of his surroundings and marking several abnormal energy points, clearly nodes of Xuan Ming's laws, but offering no "solution."

He could not rely on the system. He could only rely on himself.

On what?

The Chaos Bell? It was barely alive, and the power he could draw from it was negligible.

Blood Fiend Power? Suppressed by both Pangu's will and his severe injuries, it remained curled up motionlessly within his meridians.

His cultivation? Nearly depleted.

His body? About to fall apart.

Only...

Taiyi's gaze—or rather, his will—turned toward the burning axe imprint deep in his consciousness.

The Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint... battle instinct...

He closed his eyes, though opening them would not have let him see anything anyway. He no longer tried to understand or comprehend that lofty Dao rhythm. Instead, he emptied the mind nearly bursting from pain and fear, and hurled all his remaining will at that imprint like ice thrown into boiling water!

He did not seek understanding. He only sought... resonance!

Buzz—

The axe imprint suddenly trembled!

An intent far clearer, sharper, and more domineering than before fed back through his will! It was not knowledge, nor was it a technique. It was more like an instinctive response branded deep within the axe imprint when facing a desperate situation!

Almost at the same time, Xuan Ming's law domain completed its initial lock. In the thick, damp, cold air, countless rain threads thinner than hair yet incomparably sharp condensed from nothing. Carrying bone-chilling killing intent, they silently shot toward Taiyi's position in the passage!

This was a basic application of the Law of Rain—Bone-Eroding Cold Rain. Every thread contained the Dao rhythm of extreme cold and penetration, capable of easily freezing and piercing a Golden Immortal's protective divine light.

There was nowhere to evade and no way to block.

At the instant those countless rain threads were about to touch his back—

Taiyi's battered body, seemingly frozen dead between the rocks, suddenly "twisted" in an extremely bizarre manner, completely contrary to how a human body should exert force!

It was not a large dodge, but a minute yet precise displacement and tremor as his shoulder blades, spine, waist, and hips shifted simultaneously!

Ssssss—!

Countless rain threads grazed past his body and embedded themselves in the surrounding rock walls, instantly freezing the hard stone into dense honeycomb-like holes. The edges of those holes were smooth as mirrors, exuding a sinister chill.

Yet only a dozen shallow cuts, grazed by their edges, appeared on Taiyi's body.

He had avoided most of them!

Not through speed, nor through prediction. His body had simply made reflexive micro-adjustments under the guidance of the axe imprint's battle instinct! Like a dead leaf in a gale, seemingly tossed by the wind, yet always able to drift through the gaps between the fiercest currents without being torn apart.

Outside the passage, the dense rainclouds seemed to pause slightly.

For the first time, an extremely faint trace of surprise flashed through Xuan Ming's cold eyes. She could sense that the "insect" she had locked onto, whose aura was so weak that it seemed ready to extinguish at any moment, had made some kind of instinctive reaction she could not understand and evaded a fatal strike.

It was not a divine ability, not a magical treasure, not even a conscious evasion.

It was more like... the struggle of a beast at death's door? Yet it carried an indescribable rhythm.

"A dying struggle."

She uttered the four words indifferently, and the chill in her eyes intensified. No matter what was strange about him, he was severely wounded and trapped within her law domain. The outcome had long been decided. She raised her right hand and slowly curled her fingers toward Buzhou Mountain below.

Within the passage, after avoiding that wave of rain threads, Taiyi's body completely gave out. He slumped limply over the rocks, with only his chest still rising and falling weakly. That movement had nearly exhausted the tiny bit of strength he had just gathered and pulled at every wound on his body, leaving him unable to move even his fingertips.

Yet that clumsy resonance with the axe imprint in his consciousness had allowed him to grasp something.

It was a method of using... force.

It was not about overcoming everything with brute strength, but about using the least expenditure and the most precise angle, when at an absolute disadvantage, to counter, guide, and even... borrow the enemy's strength.

Just like before. He had possessed no strength to resist those rain threads. His body had merely made slight adjustments along the incoming momentum of the rain threads, causing the attack to miss.

"Borrowing force... deflecting force..."

A broken thought flashed through his mind. Taiyi licked his dry, bleeding lips and tasted the strange mixture of frost and blood.

Outside, Xuan Ming's second attack was gathering. This time, it would no longer be probing rain threads. The rock strata containing the entire Earth Vein passage began to groan under unbearable strain. Above, unimaginably heavy "water" was gathering and compressing. It was no ordinary water, but law-manifested Primordial Heavy Water. A single drop weighed ten thousand jun, enough to crush mountains!

She intended to collapse this passage directly, grinding both him and the passage into the depths of the Earth Veins!

What could he do?

Twist again with his body's instinct? Once the Primordial Heavy Water descended, it would crush the entire space. There would be nowhere to hide.

Taiyi's bloodshot eyes fixed on the bend in the passage. There seemed to be a narrow branch passage there, smaller and more rugged than the main route, leading who knew where.

"System... scan that branch... maximum distance..." he ordered laboriously with his will.

[Scanning... Branch passage approximately three li long. Its end connects to a small underground cavern with faint residual Earth Fire fluctuations. The space is relatively stable. The path is winding and contains three narrow bottlenecks.]

The information returned, still cold and without advice.

Three li... Could he crawl that far in his current condition? With Primordial Heavy Water about to crush down behind him?

Should he gamble?

Just as a clear cracking sound came from the rock layers above and the terrible pressure was about to descend—

Taiyi somehow found strength from nowhere and fiercely pushed with his left arm again! His body rolled violently toward the entrance of that branch passage!

He did not crawl. He rolled. Using the last of his strength, he rolled forward without regard for anything else!

At the instant his body rolled into the entrance of the narrower branch—

Boom!!!

The main passage above collapsed with an incomparably muffled roar! Endless Primordial Heavy Water, glowing with an eerie blue radiance, poured down like an inverted celestial river, carrying law power that crushed everything in its path! It instantly compressed the section of main passage Taiyi had just occupied, along with the rock strata within a hundred zhang, into an incredibly dense "rock pancake"!

The terrifying shockwave and tremors traveled through the rock layers. The branch passage shook violently as pebbles rained down. Taiyi was jolted into spitting another mouthful of blood, his body tumbling and crashing uncontrollably through the narrow tunnel. He had no idea how many more bones had broken.

But he had rolled inside.

And amid the tumbling and collisions, he somehow still managed to spare a shred of will to imitate the rhythm he had sensed from the axe imprint. He tried to adjust the way his body rolled—not resisting the impacts head-on, but following their force like a stone driven by running water. He staggered and tumbled, yet moved deeper into the passage in a relatively gentler way.

His speed was unexpectedly not slow.

Through the three-li winding passage, he endured collision after collision and tumble after tumble. By relying on that rudimentary instinct to deflect force, he actually reached the end in only dozens of breaths!

Behind him, the rumbling collapse of the main passage continued. Xuan Ming's will clung to him like a parasite on the bone, still firmly locked onto him. She could sense that he had fled into the branch passage. Her cold killing intent spread into it like a tide. Frost began forming on the rock walls again, faster than before and with an even deeper chill.

Ahead, at the end of the passage, a dim crimson glow appeared, accompanied by a trace of... faint dry heat?

It was the cavern the system had scanned, the one with residual Earth Fire!

Taiyi's spirits lifted. He smashed his head through the final narrow bottleneck, and his entire body, along with countless fragments of stone and dust, rolled into the small underground cavern.

The cavern spanned roughly a dozen zhang. Dark crimson stalactites hung from the ceiling, and the ground was uneven and pitted. At its center was a dried-up Earth Fire spring, still retaining some dark red crystals and lingering warmth. The air smelled of sulfur and rock.

Compared with the main passage, this place was indeed more stable, but it remained within Xuan Ming's law domain. Frost had already begun forming across the cavern walls and floor.

Taiyi lay sprawled on the warm ground, no longer even having the strength to raise his head. The final escape had exhausted everything, and his consciousness began sinking into darkness again.

Can't pass out... If I pass out, it'll really be over...

He struggled and pressed his face against the ground. The faint residual warmth of the Earth Fire seeped through his skin, bringing a thread of heat.

The system... the things... he had exchanged...

He remembered the Witch Blood Powder and Breath Concealment Art he had exchanged before losing consciousness. They were in the system space, but he no longer had the strength to take them out.

Xuan Ming's will, like an icy probe, had already swept across the entrance of the cavern. She seemed somewhat surprised that this "insect" had managed to escape here, but there was even more of the cold patience of a cat toying with a mouse.

The temperature inside the cavern was plummeting. Sharp icicles began forming on the ceiling.

A dead end.

It seemed even more hopeless than before.

Taiyi's face rested against the warm ground, his eyelids as heavy as lead. In his fading consciousness, that burning axe imprint seemed to grow clearer once more.

Borrowing force... deflecting force...

He had just borrowed the momentum of the rain threads and the force of the collapsing passage...

What about now?

What force could he borrow within this cavern?

His gaze—or rather, the last of his perception—slowly shifted until it settled on the dried Earth Fire spring at the center of the cavern, where dark red crystals and faint heat remained.

Earth Fire... residual heat... and outside, Xuan Ming's boundless, bone-piercing... Law of Rain...

Ice and fire...

A nearly insane thought flashed like lightning through the consciousness that darkness was about to swallow.