Pursuit Through the Rain Curtain

Chapter 26: Pursuit Through the Rain Curtain

Inside the lava cave, frost was inch by inch devouring the last faint glimmer of Earth Fire.

Taiyi lay prone on the ground, clearly hearing the grinding of his fractured bones, like grit caught inside a broken bellows. His left arm no longer felt like his own; it was merely a lump of frostbitten flesh hanging from his shoulder. His right leg could still move, but whenever he tried to exert force, his dantian felt as though it were being viciously churned by a dull blade.

The warmth of the Witch Blood Powder slowly spread through his organs like lukewarm water, unable to quench an immediate thirst. The jade slip of the Breath Concealment Art pressed coldly into his palm.

A dead end.

His blood-blurred eyes turned toward the center of the lava cave—the dried-up Earth Fire spring. Ice was closing in from the edges toward the center, while dark-red crystals stubbornly gave off their final glimmer beneath the icy shell, like the last breath of a dying beast.

Ice and fire...

That mad thought from when he had fled inside now became extraordinarily clear in his dying mind.

He would not endure it head-on. He would make them fight each other.

But how? He could barely lift a finger. Where would he find the strength to provoke two laws of heaven and earth?

Yet deep within his consciousness, the imprint of the Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint began to grow faintly hot.

It was not the scorching heat of power, but something more primal—like a spark in the wilderness about to ignite an inferno, carrying a violent yearning to split open chaos and tear apart all established order.

Taiyi closed his eyes. He no longer looked at that faint Earth Fire, nor did he sense the suffocating pressure of laws drawing ever closer overhead.

He wrapped every remaining shred of will around that scorching imprint, clinging to it as desperately as a drowning man clutching his last straw.

This time, he did not seek "resonance," nor did he imitate its "trajectory."

What he wanted was the most central, most tyrannical "intent" deep within the imprint—not how the axe was swung, but why it had to be swung!

It was the resolve to face three thousand Demon Gods blocking the path; the dominance of splitting open chaos if chaos stood in the way; the conviction that all existing order had to yield before the birth of what was yet to come... the Creation Will!

This will inherently contained the ultimate "opposition" and "conflict."

Because creation itself was the ultimate negation and tearing apart of the original state!

"Found it..."

Taiyi's cracked lips moved soundlessly.

It was not power, nor was it technique. This "will" itself could become a catalyst that stirred up "conflict"!

He suddenly opened his eyes. Bloodshot veins filled them, yet they shone with the ferocity of a dying counterattack.

With difficulty, his right hand reached into his robe and pulled out the blazing crimson-gold Sun Crystal Shard—the one he had used to carve words in Pangu Hall. Its edges still bore his blood. It faintly heated up in his palm, and the remaining source of True Sun Fire within it resonated weakly with him, as they shared the same origin.

Then he did something that seemed utterly meaningless—

He used the last of his strength to viciously press the Sun Crystal Shard against his forehead!

He was not trying to absorb it. He was using it as an "anchor"!

The instant the shard touched his forehead, the lingering aura of True Sun Fire surged into his Ancestral Aperture! This should have been a suicidal act, but Taiyi's meridians were already shattered and his dantian exhausted. Instead, that faint current of heat was like water dripping into boiling oil, stirring up violent turbulence within his chaotic sea of consciousness!

And at the peak of that turbulence—

Taiyi gathered every last shred of his dying will and, like wielding an invisible giant axe, fiercely "slashed" the scorching Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint in his sea of consciousness toward the space where ice and fire clashed most fiercely within the lava cave!

He did not slash out power. He slashed out a pure "will"!

A peerlessly tyrannical Creation Will that proclaimed, "Here there shall be conflict, there shall be opposition, and the old order shall collapse!"

This will had neither form nor substance, yet it branded that fragile point of balance between laws like red-hot iron!

"Bzzzz—!!!"

Deep within the Earth Fire spring, the dormant dark-red crystals seemed to have had their final instincts completely enraged by that overbearing "Creation Will." They burned every last trace of their remaining essence without restraint, transforming into a blazing current of heat that shot skyward like a dying beast's final counterattack!

At the same time, the laws of Xuan Ming's ice, seeping down from above, were likewise enraged by this suddenly appearing "alien will," so full of provocation and negation. Instinctively, they gathered an even more bone-chilling power and descended to suppress the stream of heat!

Ice and fire, cold and heat—under the forcible provocation and catalysis of the Creation Will, the two laws of heaven and earth collided like enraged beasts!

"Boom—hiss!!!"

This was not a simple cancellation, but a violent conflict and annihilation at the level of laws!

The air in that area instantly warped and exploded! Blinding white light and deep-blue icy radiance burst forth in a tangled explosion. Fine ice crystals and surging heat waves tore madly at one another, forming a raging torrent of energy only a few feet across!

Compared to Xuan Ming's rain curtain spanning thousands of miles, this torrent was as insignificant as a speck of dust.

But its timing and location were precisely at the weakest point in the lava cave's structure, as well as a critical node where Xuan Ming's torrent of laws seeped downward!

It was like a red-hot piece of iron slag suddenly jamming itself into a precisely operating set of gears!

The violent impact and law disturbance created by the energy torrent caused the previously steady descending flood of icy power overhead to suffer an extremely brief disruption and deviation!

Now!

At the same moment Taiyi "slashed" out the will of the axe imprint, his only movable right leg had already gathered force in a strange posture, as if it were stirring thick magma!

He did not push off the ground. Instead, he used the muscles and fascia of his leg to imitate the rhythm through which the "force" of the Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint was transmitted. It was only the faintest superficial imitation, yet at this moment, it gave his movement an indescribable precision that struck directly at a flaw!

He fiercely "swiped" toward the lower side of the rock layer, where the energy torrent had temporarily weakened it!

The swipe appeared powerless, yet it struck precisely along a tiny stress fracture that had formed in the rock layer due to the energy impact!

"Crack—boom!!"

The already unstable rock layer shattered and collapsed at once! Beneath it appeared a narrow, pitch-black fissure, exuding an even stronger stench of sulfur!

And because of the sudden collapse and the continued disruption from the torrent below, the flood of laws overhead was delayed and dispersed even further!

Run!

Driven by his final instinct, Taiyi violently rolled toward the entrance of that fissure! As he rolled, he flung his ruined left arm with savage force toward a sharp rock at the edge of the crack—

"Smack!"

His useless arm struck the pointed rock. The bones that had already been fractured twisted completely out of shape, but the impact also generated a faint opposing force, making his roll just a fraction faster!

"Whoosh!"

The instant his body rolled into the fissure, the briefly disrupted torrent of laws overhead crashed down!

"Rumble—!!!"

The lava cave behind him, together with a vast stretch of rock, was utterly crushed into powder amid a deafening explosion! The freezing power of the laws froze and compressed all matter, turning it into eternal permafrost.

Taiyi was wedged inside the narrow, twisting new passage, which was filled with a pungent sulfur stench. His body spasmed constantly from exhaustion and agonizing pain. His left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, completely ruined. The Sun Crystal Shard had burned a charred mark into his forehead. His sea of consciousness throbbed as though it had been split by an axe from forcibly activating the axe imprint's will, and his mind was a haze of chaos.

But he had rolled inside.

He had not relied on the system, nor on an external object. At the brink of life and death, he had comprehended the most central "Creation Will" from the imprint of the Heaven-Opening Axe Imprint. Using himself as fuel, the Sun Crystal Shard as the trigger, and his ruined body as the fulcrum, he had pried open that faint sliver of life!

The price was the complete destruction of his left arm, injuries to his sea of consciousness, a hidden danger left upon his forehead, and the total depletion of the remaining source power within the Sun Crystal Shard.

But he had survived.

The medicinal power of the Witch Blood Powder was still working, barely concealing his faint aura. He could sense that after a brief pause, the terrifying rain curtain outside had become even more violent, scanning with greater precision. Clearly, Xuan Ming had noticed the abnormal conflict of laws and disturbance of will from earlier.

Xuan Ming... had been enraged. Or rather, alerted.

She could sense that unnatural disorder in the laws just now. Though she had not caught him, she had certainly grown suspicious.

He could not escape far... but at least, for now, he was still alive.

Taiyi lay sprawled in the passage, his face pressed against the warm, rough ground. He barely had the strength even to breathe. His right hand still clutched the jade slip of the Breath Concealment Art tightly.

At last, his consciousness sank into darkness.

Before he lost consciousness, one final fragmented thought drifted through his mind:

"The axe imprint... creation... so that was how it was meant to be used..."

Darkness swallowed everything.