The Bridge of Chaos

The patterns ran deep—so deep that when his divine sense entered them, it was like falling into a well. All around him were walls of dark-golden light, across which dense runes flowed. The runes rotated slowly, and with every turn, exceedingly faint fluctuations of law seeped from them.

The words spoken by Tianheng's afterimage surfaced in his sea of consciousness.

"Beginning Dao Lords 'perceive chaos'; intermediate Dao Lords 'borrow chaos'; advanced Dao Lords 'command chaos'; peak Dao Lords 'become chaos.'"

Chu Ming was currently at the stage of "perceiving chaos."

His power of order could carve out passages through chaos, define laws within chaos, and "fix" chaos into whatever form he desired within a small area.

But he was still unable to "borrow" chaos's power.

Before his power of order, chaos was passive, obedient, and at his disposal—but it was not "alive."

It would not actively aid him, replenish him when his strength was exhausted, or protect him when he encountered danger.

To step into the intermediate Dao Lord realm, he needed to achieve "borrowing chaos."

He needed to make chaos an extension of his power of order, rather than something to oppose.

Chaos would no longer be resistance, but assistance.

Chu Ming closed his eyes.

The power of order surged from his Dao Fruit, flowed along his meridians to every limb and bone, then seeped out from beneath his skin and into the chaos surrounding him. It was not opposing the chaos.

Not as before, when he used the power of order to carve a path through chaos, pushing it away, isolating it, suppressing it.

Instead, he "merged" with it.

He let the power of order touch the chaos—without pushing it away, without isolating it, without suppressing it.

It simply touched it.

Like a drop of water falling into