Xuan Ming's Pursuit

Chapter 25: Xuan Ming's Pursuit

Darkness.

Viscous, carrying the earthy scent unique to the depths of the earth's veins and the sound of rushing turbid air.

Taiyi felt as if he were sinking to the bottom of a murky river, his body falling while his consciousness floated upward. A thick, cold layer separated them, impossible to tear apart.

Pain.

Pain everywhere. Pain like shattered bones, like mangled organs, like meridians seared by red-hot iron wires. The pain was so intense that even unconsciousness offered no respite; something kept pulling at him, preventing him from sinking completely.

Was it... the Bell?

In his sea of consciousness, the Chaos Bell, its luster so dim it was almost invisible, lay like a stubborn rock at the deepest part of a mud pit, still trembling faintly, tenaciously. Each barely perceptible tremor sent a subtle ripple through space-time, barely protecting his true spirit from dissipating.

And... that point of light?

Not real light, but a feeling. An extremely sharp, extremely overbearing "trajectory" that seemed capable of cleaving through all chaos and obstruction. It was imprinted deep within his consciousness, blurry, yet possessing an undeniable sense of existence.

The Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint.

That fragment of understanding was still there, like a red-hot ember, searing his precarious divine soul.

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

Fragmented thoughts bubbled up like foam underwater, struggling to reach the surface. Taiyi used all his strength, trying to pry open his eyelids, which felt welded shut.

First, a field of blood red appeared, followed by swirling, distorted darkness. It took him several breaths to realize he was lying face down, his body on a rough, uneven rock face that made his wounds throb with excruciating pain. His mouth and nose were filled with the taste of blood and dust.

He was still in that narrow, steep earth vein passage. His body was stuck in an extremely awkward position, wedged between two protruding rocks, which had stopped him from rolling further down.

How had he stopped? He didn't know. Perhaps the last vestiges of his consciousness had instinctively clung to something.

He tried to move a finger.

"Ugh..."

A hoarse groan escaped his throat. His finger managed to curl slightly, his fingernails packed with blood and mud. All his bones seemed to be out of place; any slight movement sent waves of pain that made his vision black out.

Severely injured. On the brink of death.

Yet, he could still think. His mind felt like it was stuffed with wet cotton, heavy and numb, but somehow still functioning.

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

This thought emerged clearer than the pain. The bell chime that had echoed throughout the Great Wilderness couldn't be hidden from the Witch Race, let alone from the Ancestral Witches who were closest and most sensitive to the Pangu Hall's bloodline.

He had to move. Staying here was waiting for death.

Taiyi gritted his teeth, his gums bleeding again. He stopped trying to control his entire body and focused all his remaining intent on his left arm, which he could still barely curl.

He dug his fingers into the rock crevice.

He strained.

His body lurched forward less than half an inch. The friction of his wounds against the rough rock surface sent tremors of pain through him.

Again.

Like a snake that had been skinned and had its spine broken, he inched his way down the dark, steep passage. A long, sticky trail of blood, mixed with dirt and gravel, marked his path behind him.

The speed was despairingly slow.

But with every inch he moved, the fragment of the Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint etched into his consciousness seemed to "brighten" a fraction. It wasn't emitting light, but a certain "rhythm" became clearer. It was no longer just a static understanding; it began to subtly adjust and resonate with his clumsy, painful, almost instinctual movements.

Taiyi had no time to ponder. All his attention was focused on fighting the intense pain and staying conscious. He vaguely felt that his crawling posture had, without him realizing it, become... smoother? An angle that would have scraped against a sharp rock was now narrowly avoided with an unconscious, minuscule adjustment; the rhythm of muscle contraction at a moment requiring exertion seemed to align with a more effortless, more effective "force."

Was it combat intuition from the axe imprint? Or a hallucination from being on the verge of death?

He didn't know. He just crawled.

The passage seemed endless, the steep slope without end. Darkness and silence swallowed everything, leaving only his own ragged breaths, the rustling sound of his body against the rock walls, and the drip, drip, drip of blood.

Time lost all meaning here.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour passed, perhaps half an hour.

Suddenly—

Taiyi stopped moving.

It wasn't from lack of strength, but a chilling sensation, originating from the depths of his bloodline, that shot up his spine without warning!

Cold.

Not the damp chill of the earth vein's turbid air, but a sharper, more humid cold, carrying the pressure of some vast law.

Like the damp cold permeating the air before a torrential downpour, but magnified a million times.

She's here.

He didn't even need to look up or use his divine sense to scan. That icy, vast aura, filled with the pressure of boundless rain, had already descended upon the entire Buzhou Mountain earth vein region like the sky collapsing!

Xuan Ming.

The Ancestral Witch of Rain.

"Found you."

A voice, as cold and devoid of any emotional fluctuation as if it had spoken directly into his heart, echoed in his mind. It wasn't heard through his ears, but transmitted through the ubiquitous "water vapor" and "chill." The voice held no anger, no urgency, only a pure indifference of a mission to annihilate.

The next second--

"Hiss..."

Not the sound of actual water. It was the sound of laws condensing.

On the rock walls of the narrow passage where Taiyi lay prostrate, a thin layer of crystal-clear frost began to form without warning! The frost spread and thickened at a visible rate, bringing a bone-chilling cold that instantly dropped the already thin temperature in the passage below freezing point!

The air became thick, damp, and cold. Each breath felt like shards of ice scraping his lungs. Blood flowing from his wounds froze rapidly, sticking to the frost and bringing a new wave of tearing pain.

This wasn't an attack. This was merely Xuan Ming's "domain" unfolding, the natural radiation of her law power.

The real killing blow was outside.

Taiyi could feel it – above him, beyond the thick rock strata of Buzhou Mountain, the dense, ink-like rain clouds that covered a thousand-mile radius. The terrifying law power contained within the clouds was locking onto every "anomaly" in this area.

He was like an insect trapped in amber.

Unable to move, unable to hide, just waiting to die?

Taiyi's bloodshot eyes stared intently at the deeper darkness at the bend of the passage ahead. A gurgling sound came from his throat, like a leaky bellows.

He couldn't wait.

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

He took a sharp breath of icy air filled with frost. The stinging cold in his lungs actually cleared his hazy consciousness a little. His will sank into his sea of consciousness again, not to ask the System for help – the System was as quiet as if it didn't exist, merely coldly feeding him environmental scan information and marking a few energy anomaly points (clearly nodes of Xuan Ming's laws), but offering no "solutions."

He couldn't rely on the System, only himself.

Rely on what?

The Chaos Bell? It was half-dead, with only a minuscule amount of power he could use.

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

His cultivation? Depleted.

His physical body? About to shatter.

Only...

Taiyi's gaze (or rather, his will) turned to the point of scorching axe imprints deep within his consciousness.

The Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint... combat intuition...

He closed his eyes (though opening them wouldn't have helped him see much). He stopped trying to "understand" or "comprehend" the lofty Dao charm. Instead, he emptied his mind, which was almost bursting with pain and fear, and hurled all his remaining will, like an ice cube thrown into boiling water, heedlessly towards that imprint!

Not seeking understanding, only... resonance!

Hum--

The axe imprint trembled violently!

A "will" far clearer, sharper, and more savage than before fed back along his intent! This wasn't knowledge, nor skill, but more like an "instinctive reaction" imprinted deep within the axe's shadow, faced with a desperate situation!

Almost simultaneously, Xuan Ming's law domain outside completed its initial lock. In the thick, damp, and cold air, countless "rain threads," finer than a hair but incredibly sharp, condensed out of thin air. Carrying a bone-chilling killing intent, they silently shot towards Taiyi's location within the passage!

This was a basic application of the Law of Rain – "Corrosive Bone Cold Rain." Each rain thread contained the Dao charm of extreme cold and penetration, capable of easily freezing and piercing the protective divine light of a Golden Immortal.

Unavoidable, unstoppable.

Just as the countless rain threads were about to touch his back--

Taiyi's seemingly lifeless body, stuck between the rocks, suddenly "twisted" in an extremely bizarre manner, completely defying the way a human body exerts force!

It wasn't a large dodge, but an extremely small yet precise to the millimeter adjustment and tremor in his shoulder blades, spine, and waist joints!

Chichichichi--!

Countless rain threads grazed his body and shot past, embedding themselves into the surrounding rock walls. The hard rock instantly developed dense, honeycomb-like holes, their edges smooth as mirrors and emitting a chilling cold.

But on Taiyi's body, there were only a dozen shallow scratches from the edges grazing him.

Most of them were dodged!

Not by speed, not by prediction, but entirely by his body making "micro-adjustments" driven by the combat instinct of the axe imprint, almost like a conditioned reflex! It was like a withered leaf in a fierce wind, seemingly drifting with the currents but always managing to weave through the gaps in the fiercest gusts, avoiding being torn apart.

Outside the passage, the dense rain clouds seemed to pause slightly.

A fleeting, minuscule hint of surprise flashed in Xuan Ming's icy eyes for the first time. She could feel that the "bug" she had locked onto, whose aura was so weak it seemed about to extinguish at any moment, had made some kind of... instinctive reaction in its body at that instant, evading a fatal blow.

It wasn't a divine ability, nor a magic treasure, nor even a conscious dodge.

It was more like... the struggle of a cornered beast? But with an inexplicable "charm."

"A death throe," she murmured indifferently, her eyes growing colder. No matter what oddity it was, with such severe injuries and enveloped by her law domain, the outcome was already decided. She slowly raised her right hand, her five fingers closing towards the Buzhou Mountain body below.

Inside the passage, after dodging that wave of rain threads, Taiyi's body completely gave out. He slumped limply onto the rocks, only his chest still rising and falling weakly. That last maneuver had almost exhausted the sliver of strength he had just gathered, and it had aggravated all his wounds, causing him so much pain that he couldn't even move his fingertips now.

But deep within his consciousness, that clumsy "resonance" with the axe imprint had allowed him to grasp something.

It was a... method of using "force."

Not brute force to achieve miracles, but how, under absolute disadvantage, to use the least energy, at the most precise angle, to respond, guide, and even... borrow the enemy's strength.

Just now, he had no strength to resist the rain threads. His body merely followed the "momentum" of the rain threads' attack, making slight adjustments that caused the attack to miss.

"Borrowing strength... unloading force..."

Shattered thoughts flashed through his mind. Taiyi licked his cracked, bleeding lips, tasting the strange mix of frost and blood.

Outside, Xuan Ming's second wave of attack was brewing. This time, it wasn't tentative rain threads. The entire rock layer containing the earth vein passage began to groan under the immense pressure. Above, an incredibly heavy "water" was condensing, compressing. This wasn't ordinary water; it was the materialized "Primordial Heavy Water" of the law, each drop weighing ten thousand jun, capable of crushing mountains!

She intended to directly collapse this passage, crushing both him and the passage deep into the earth vein!

What to do?

Relying on his body's instinct to "twist" again? The Primordial Heavy Water would crush the entire space, leaving nowhere to hide.

Taiyi's bloodshot eyes stared intently at the bend in the passage. There, it seemed to be a tiny branch of the main passage, narrower and more rugged, leading to an unknown destination.

"System... scan that branch... maximum distance..." he commanded with difficulty using his mind.

[Scanning... Branch passage, approximately three li long, connects to a small underground cave at the end. Faint residual fluctuations of Earth Fire detected. Space is relatively stable. Path is winding, with three narrow bottlenecks.]

The information feedback was, as always, cold and devoid of suggestions.

Three li... In his current state, could he crawl that far? With the Primordial Heavy Water pressing down from above.

Should he take a gamble?

Just as the rock layer above began to crack audibly, and the terrifying pressure was about to descend—

Taiyi, with a surge of strength from nowhere, pushed off the ground with his left arm again! He violently rolled towards the entrance of the branch passage!

Not crawling, but rolling. Using his last ounce of strength, rolling without regard for anything!

The moment his body rolled into the narrower branch entrance—

"RUMBLE!!!"

The main passage above collapsed with an incredibly muffled roar! Endless, faintly blue Primordial Heavy Water, like a celestial river overflowing, carrying the law's power to crush everything, crashed down! The section of the main passage Taiyi had just occupied, along with the surrounding hundred zhang of rock layer, was instantly compressed into an incredibly dense "rock pancake"!

The terrifying shockwave and vibration traveled through the rock layer. The branch passage shook violently, and debris rained down. The impact made Taiyi spit out another mouthful of blood. His body tumbled and collided uncontrollably within the narrow passage, and he didn't know how many more bones had broken.

But he had rolled in.

And amidst the tumbling and collisions, he could still spare a sliver of his consciousness to mimic the "rhythm" he had felt from the axe imprint earlier, trying to adjust his body's tumbling posture—not to resist the impact head-on, but to flow with the force of the impact, like a stone tossed by water, stumbling but moving towards the depths of the passage in a relatively "gentle" manner.

His speed was surprisingly not slow.

The three-li long winding passage, through repeated collisions and tumbles, with instinctive adjustments to "unload" the force, he actually reached the end in just a few dozen breaths!

Behind him, the roar of the main passage's collapse continued. Xuan Ming's will, like a maggot clinging to bone, still locked onto him firmly. She could sense him escaping into the branch, and her icy killing intent began to spread towards this branch passage like a tide. Frost started to condense on the passage walls again, faster this time, and the cold was more intense.

Ahead, at the end of the passage, a faint dark red light could be seen, and a hint of... faint heat?

It was the cave system the System had scanned, with residual Earth Fire!

Taiyi's spirit lifted. He forcefully rammed his head through the last narrow bottleneck, and his entire body, along with countless broken stones and dust, rolled into the small underground cave.

The cave was about ten zhang in diameter. Dark red stalactites hung from the ceiling. The ground was uneven, and in the center was a dry Earth Fire spring eye, still containing some dark red crystals and residual warmth. The air was filled with the smell of sulfur and rock.

Compared to the main passage, this place was indeed more stable, but it was still within the scope of Xuan Ming's law. Frost had already begun to condense on the cave walls and floor.

Taiyi collapsed onto the warm ground, too exhausted to even lift his head. The final escape had drained everything, and his consciousness began to sink back into darkness.

Don't... faint... If I faint, it's truly over...

He struggled, pressing his face against the ground. The faint residual warmth of the Earth Fire sent a trace of warmth through his skin.

System... the items... I redeemed...

He remembered the Witch Blood Powder and Breath Concealment Art he had redeemed before losing consciousness. The items were in the System space, but he no longer had the strength to retrieve them.

Xuan Ming's will, like an icy probe, had already swept to the entrance of the cave. She seemed somewhat surprised that this "bug" could escape here, but more so was a cold patience, like a cat playing with a mouse.

The temperature inside the cave was dropping rapidly. Sharp ice cones began to form on the ceiling.

A dead end.

It seemed even more desperate than before.

Taiyi's face was pressed against the warm ground, his eyelids heavy as lead. In his blurred consciousness, the scorching imprint of the axe shadow seemed to become clearer.

Borrowing strength... unloading force...

He had borrowed the "momentum" of the rain threads earlier, borrowed the "force" of the collapse...

Then what about now?

What "force" was there left to borrow in this cave?

His gaze (or rather, his remaining perception) slowly moved, finally settling on the dry Earth Fire spring eye in the center of the cave, with its residual dark red crystals and faint heat.

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

Ice and fire...

A nearly insane thought flashed like lightning through his consciousness, on the verge of being swallowed by darkness.