After the Eternal Seed fused with his body, an infinitesimal ripple appeared in the depths of his sea of consciousness.
The ripple's origin was not on the floor of the side hall, not anywhere in space, nor in any segment of the Law Channel.
It lay at the bottom of his sea of consciousness.
Within the old layer of inertial law sediment left behind during his advancement as a Dao Lord.
The sediment layer's surface had originally been flat, like ground repeatedly rolled over, its texture dense and without the slightest rise or fall.
At this moment, a crack appeared on that flat surface. It extended outward from within the sediment layer, splitting open at the surface with narrow edges, like parched earth cracking on its own through rainless days.
The crack was located toward the left at the bottom of his sea of consciousness.
When the Dao Lord Seed had undergone law-zeroing and reforging, the residual memories left behind by the old law patterns before they dissipated had settled in that layer. They had originally been completely transformed, their texture merged into one with the other regions at the bottom of his sea of consciousness.
But earlier, the confirmation signals from the three Eternal Lords had surged densely into the side hall. The signals had covered his range of perception with continuous law fluctuations, and when those fluctuations seeped through the shell into his sea of consciousness, the compressed old remnants within the sediment layer had inadvertently been activated by a trace.
The crack's outline was not random.
Its shape was identical to the one hundred and twenty-eighth pattern that had dispersed back then.
That was precisely the original form of the Foundation of Order.
Completely identical, like a slumbering symbol being awakened once more.
The symbol was pale