Advancing to Dou Zong!

Inside the secret chamber, Lu Heng sat on a cushion with his hands resting flat on his knees, his breathing slowed to an extreme.

Deep within his dantian, the Nine-Star barrier that had blocked him for two months was collapsing in great swathes, like a cracked riverbed in the dry season. Fractures spread outward from the center in every direction. It could no longer hold.

The Five Elements Chaos Dou Qi Vortex swallowed all the energy spilling out from the shattered barrier, and the vortex itself began to change. The gray-white whirlpool, originally the size of a fist, expanded outward at a visible pace—one ring, two rings, three rings—until it occupied nearly half the space within his dantian before stopping.

The patterns inside the vortex changed.

They had previously been broad strands of interwoven five-colored Dou Qi. Now, those strands were crushed, kneaded apart, and woven anew, becoming gray-white solid forms packed so densely that there was almost no gap between them. Its rotation had slowed instead, yet the energy fluctuations driven by each turn were heavier than those produced by ten rapid rotations in the past.

The two-colored nest-like flames of the Green Lotus Core Flame and Fallen Heart Flame were wrapped at the very heart of the vortex. The fireball, green on the outside and white within, quietly revolved along with it without the slightest trace of wildness.

The last fragment of the barrier was ground into powder by the vortex.

Lu Heng's body jolted violently.

It was not pain, but a feeling of utter clarity pouring from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. The flow of Dou Qi through his meridians doubled in an instant, only to be pressed back into its normal rhythm by the Five Elements Cycle the next moment.