The texture of that barrier was "pure chaos."
Like the state before the birth of the universe.
No laws, no existence, no concept of nonexistence.
Only "chaos."
Chu Ming continued onward.
The ninety-ninth step.
The fusion rate reached ninety-nine percent.
The patterns on the surface of the Dao Fruit reached one hundred and seven.
Only the final one remained.
Those one hundred and seven patterns interwove across the Dao Fruit's surface, forming an impenetrable net.
Every strand of the net was colorless.
At the center of the net, where the final pattern should have been, there was a mass of "light."
Like an empty room: there was "space" within it, and you could "feel" the existence of that space because you stood inside it.
The final pattern was wrapped within the other one hundred and seven, like a seed hidden inside a shell.
The shell was hard, heavy, and textured.
The seed slept within the shell, waiting.
Waiting for the shell to crack, waiting to sprout.
The hundredth step.
The fusion rate reached ninety-nine and a half percent.
The patterns on the Dao Fruit's surface still numbered one hundred and seven.
The final pattern refused to appear.
Chu Ming stopped.
His foot stood upon the hundredth step.
Colorless.
His divine sense delved into the depths of the Dao Fruit, moving through that mass of "light of existence."
The light was warm, like a mother's hand.
The light was quiet, like a lake at dawn.
The light was "empty," like a sheet of paper that had never been written upon.
Within the light, he "searched" for that pattern.
To search was to have a goal, a direction, a method.
Like someone groping through darkness: he touched a switch. He did not know what it was, but he "felt" it.
That pattern