The Ancient One's Glance

Inside the base, it looked like wreckage chewed up and spat out by a colossal beast. Twisted, warped metal walls were covered in cracks, scorched blackness interwoven with frost. The air reeked of ozone, burnt metal, and a faint trace of blood. The core energy readings had dropped completely to zero, and the residual fluctuations were so weak they had nearly vanished. The shells of the disabled instruments had shattered, their internal chips melted into glass, their circuit boards carbonized, emitting dying wails. In the dead silence, only several people's heavy, suppressed breathing could be heard.

Xiang Yi leaned against a cold broken wall, every breath tugging at the tearing agony inside him. His right arm, the one that had crushed the crystal, hung limply at his side. Dark-blue patterns writhed wildly beneath his skin, bringing the extreme agony and numbness of billions of icy needles piercing his nerves and magma flowing through his marrow. The premonition of permanent nerve damage coiled around his heart like an icy venomous snake. Blood and cold sweat soaked his tattered clothes. His hollow gaze remained fixed on the now-sealed, empty rock wall, his lips moving soundlessly before he spat out a few rust-flavored words:

"This is... the Sorcerer Supreme..."

Every word weighed a thousand pounds, crashing into the silent air. His gaze swept across the ruins and landed in the corner of the quiet room—there, Guiguzi's first protective formation disk had not even left ashes behind. The collapse in his mind was far more complete than the destruction around him.

"Cough, cough... pfft!" A weak, choking cough came from the corner. Ming Shiyin lay curled up, his face as gray and lifeless as gold paper, his breathing faint. A large patch of thick blood flecked with dim golden specks soaked the front of his clothes. He struggled to raise his eyes, terror and bloodshot veins filling his clouded gaze. "Those who... peer into heavenly secrets... must suffer... backlash... To look directly upon... such an existence... is... sacrilege..." Before he could finish, another mouthful of blood mixed with golden specks surged out. His body went limp, and he fell completely unconscious. A strand of glaring white hair appeared at his temple, as though ten years of vitality had been drained from him in an instant, and spread across half his head at a visible rate! A tiny yet vicious black crack silently spread across the Armillary Sphere clenched in his hand.

"Mr. Ming!" Xiang Yi's heart shook violently. He struggled to rise, but the movement pulled at his internal injuries. Darkness flooded his vision, and he spat out another mouthful of blood. Amid the sharp pain from pinching the wound on his left arm, an extremely fleeting phantom of double pupils seemed to flash through the depths of his eyes.

"My lord! Don't move!" Lanling King appeared at Xiang Yi's side in an instant, his body covered in cold armor and a dark-blue dagger held across his chest as his wary gaze swept their surroundings. The lingering icy fear deep in his soul made the knuckles gripping his weapon turn white, veins bulging.

A Ke appeared beside Ming Shiyin like a shadow, checking his breathing and examining the invisible tearing wounds. Twin blades in hand, her eyes were sharp. Seeing the spreading white hair and the crack in the Armillary Sphere, she knitted her brows fiercely and cursed under her breath, "You old bastard, risking your life to divine the future!" Her tone was hard, but it could not conceal her anxiety. "His internal organs are severely injured, and his soul is shaken... He needs treatment immediately!" She swiftly carried Ming Shiyin onto her back. His unconscious body was unnaturally light, like a dead leaf. A spreading strand of white hair accidentally fell against the skin of A Ke's neck. In that instant, a faint yet distinct chill seeped into her, as if a trace of warmth had been drained away! Her body tensed for a moment, and she let out a muffled groan, but instead of shaking him off, she hoisted him higher on her back.

"Mr. Guiguzi!" Suppressing the surging blood and despair within him, Xiang Yi looked toward the center of the quiet room. Guiguzi's gaunt figure stood upright, though he was in no better condition. His sleeves were scorched and torn, and the skin on the fingers forming seals had cracked inch by inch. What seeped from them was not blood, but thin Xuan Weizi light particles that seemed ready to dissipate at any moment! His face was deathly pale, veins throbbing wildly at his temples, while his body grew increasingly illusory and transparent in the light. Both hands formed seals as he struggled to repair the base's only remaining foundational defensive rune. Every shift in his hand signs made him a little more insubstantial.

Hearing the call, Guiguzi slowly withdrew his hands and turned around wearily. His gaze was solemn, lingering fear within it. "My lord, the core... has been stabilized for now. But..." He looked around the ruins and shook his head bitterly. "This place... has been completely exposed. Less than one-tenth of its defenses remain. That person's gaze earlier... branded this place's coordinates deep into the laws of this universe, like a drop of thick ink falling into a still lake! It cannot be erased, only diluted by time... But that existence can find us again at any moment!"

Branded! The word pierced Xiang Yi's heart like an ice pick. The base had become a target that could not be hidden!

"How long can it hold?" Xiang Yi's voice was hoarse, carrying the tremor of a child, though something colder and harder had congealed in his eyes.

Guiguzi closed his eyes to sense the situation. His expression changed drastically, even turning horrified. "The disturbance at the level of laws is intensifying! The core runes can hold for at most... half an hour! If any energy detection sweeps across the Kunlun Mountains, or... that existence looks this way again, the formation will break instantly! The base will be like a stripped prisoner, with everything inside exposed!"

Half an hour! The countdown to death had suddenly shortened! An icy noose tightened around them!

"What... do we need to repair it?" Xiang Yi pressed, sweeping his gaze over the debris covering the ground.

Guiguzi was pained and helpless. "The core nodes... are completely destroyed. To rebuild them... we need at least three Pure Energy Crystals at the level of the Kunlun Ancient Jade, supplemented by large amounts of Vibranium or Uru Metal... It will take... at least seven days!" He gasped. "And... even if it is repaired, it will be difficult to withstand... another gaze from that kind of existence." He raised a hand shedding Xuan Weizi light particles and pointed at the control console. "The law imprint... is the true death warrant."

The darkness of despair instantly flooded the ruined quiet room. Vibranium? Uru? Resources straight out of myth! A fool's dream!

Bzz... bzz... crackle—!

A weak hum filled with piercing static came from the control console! It was the core runes Guiguzi had barely stabilized, crying out in agony! At the same time, the wildly flickering holographic screen stubbornly lit up!

The image was unstable and filled with static. The snow peaks of Kunlun could barely be seen. Above them, space rippled violently like a lake struck by a massive boulder, layer after layer of visible pale-gold waves spreading outward with cold intent!

At the center of the ripples, the outline of an enormous eye, its structure so profound it made the mind reel, was gathering from spatial laws and streams of energy! With the indifference of someone looking at insects, it slowly scanned the Kunlun Mountains! Wherever its "gaze" passed, the base's remaining weak fluctuations flickered once like startled fireflies before vanishing completely! At the cuff of the unconscious Ming Shiyin's sleeve, a phantom of half a dark-blue butterfly wing flashed and disappeared.

"It's... it's that..." For the first time, A Ke's voice carried an unmistakable tremor.

"An eye for locating enemies... on the level of laws... It is locking onto the imprint! The core runes... can't hold!" Guiguzi despaired.

On the screen, the scanning path of the pale-gold Eye of Rules was closing in on them with terrifying speed! Each passing ripple sharpened the wail of the base's runes and fractured the screen a little further! An invisible power seeped through them. Lanling King and A Ke felt their souls pierced by that cold gaze; Ming Shiyin's unconscious body convulsed violently!

Xiang Yi suddenly raised his head! All hesitation, pain, and weakness in his eyes were instantly replaced by blazing, icy resolve! He was no longer a boy, but a player moving pieces in a desperate game while bearing everyone's lives!

His trembling left hand dug viciously into the wound on his right arm! Sharp pain pierced through the haze, and warm blood instantly poured out, dripping onto the frozen ground and blooming like dazzling red plum blossoms!

"Move!" His roar drowned out the noise, his young voice tearing out with the ring of metal and stone!

"Mr. Guiguzi! Draw upon the earth veins and detonate every remaining energy node. Create the largest possible 'landslide'! Cover the traces! Use physical chaos to counter magical laws and disrupt the imprint! Success probability: 63.7%! We gamble! Lanling King! Carry Mr. Ming! Protect his vital areas! A Ke! Cover the rear! Erase all biological traces! Skin flakes, hair, bodily fluids—annihilate them completely! Abandon the base! Now! Destination: Backup Point C!"

"Yes!" Lanling King did not hesitate. He sheathed his dagger and swiftly but gently carried Ming Shiyin onto his back. The body was as light as a dead leaf. His cold armor subtly shifted, forming a protective slope. Like an arrow loosed from a bow, he charged toward the narrow, cracked passage at the rear of the base. Along the way, dark-blue light pulsed from his dagger as he precisely struck several weak points in the rock layer that were nearly impossible to discern with the naked eye—locations Guiguzi had secretly marked! His face was pale, cold sweat seeping out. Just as he slashed through a section of rock, a large piece of the adjacent wall broke away in the shaking, revealing a half-rotted corpse dressed in black ninja garb! The stench of decay spread through the air!

"Damn it!" A Ke's figure flashed past, and with one flicker of blade light, the corpse was decapitated. But its foul black blood had already splattered across the wall! "It's contaminated!" "Go! Leave this to me!" A Ke barked.

Lanling King gritted his teeth and accelerated.

A Ke's twin blades vibrated at overclocked speed, raising a vortex of shadowy edge-light aimed directly at the corpse and bloodstains! The daggers hummed, their edges scraping the air and producing faint electrical sparks! A system notification flashed red in the corner of Xiang Yi's vision!

[Shadow Twin Blades Durability -15%]

A Ke frowned and shot Xiang Yi a glance, but her movements did not stop! An invisible force covered the contaminated area, and the corpse, the blood, and even the tainted surface layer of rock instantly broke down and vanished! Without pausing, she shot toward the passage. At the instant she rushed inside, a blazing metal fragment streaked toward the center of her back! A Ke twisted at the limit, crossing her twin blades to block it!

Clang—! A piercing ring! The fragment was knocked aside and embedded deep in the rock wall! Borrowing the force, A Ke lunged forward and landed steadily in the passage. For the first time, the hand gripping her blades showed a faint tremor. The next second, her eyes hardened, and she drove the tip of one dagger viciously into the outer side of her own thigh! Sharp pain instantly overwhelmed the shudder in her soul! She chased after Lanling King.

Enduring the agony, Xiang Yi grabbed the swaying Guiguzi with his left hand. As he exerted force, his numb right arm suddenly gave way, and loose stones caught his foot, sending him pitching forward! Guiguzi reacted quickly. Ignoring his own condition, his gaunt, cracked hand erupted with its last strength and seized Xiang Yi's left arm, forcibly steadying him! The motion aggravated Guiguzi's internal injuries. He coughed violently, blood mixed with escaping Xuan Weizi light particles staining his beard red.

"Earth veins... rise! Origin energy... explode! Landslide... conceal us! Begin!" Guiguzi rasped, forming the detonation seal with his withered hands! He drew upon the base's remaining violent energy, its collapsing runes, destructive power, and forcibly connected them to the earth veins beneath them! He had to create a landslide powerful enough to briefly interfere with the law-based scan while controlling the direction of the explosion!

Rumble—!!!!

A deeper roar than before, as if the earth itself were bellowing, erupted from the depths of the base! The entire mountain shook violently! Boulders rained down! The base's structure groaned painfully as cracks spread wildly! Guiguzi's body jolted, and he spat out a mouthful of blood containing countless fragmented Xuan Weizi light particles! His figure instantly became a little more transparent! The drifting Xuan Weizi light particles were swept up by the air currents from the collapse like golden fireflies. Some were forcibly caught and twisted by the lingering aftereffects of the Eye of Rules in the sky, instantly becoming a thread-thin pale-gold filament radiating the Ancient One's power! Guiguzi's eyes nearly split open as he cried out in anguish, "My path... is being eroded!" The remaining particles were carried away in all directions by the turbulent airflow. One of them, as though alive, made an unnatural right-angle turn through the wind and snow, shooting toward an unknown eastern direction deep in Kunlun—the Ten Rings base—only to strike an invisible wall midway and be swallowed instantly! More particles were cast toward unknown places.

Supporting Guiguzi, Xiang Yi staggered into the passage. Behind them was a scene of apocalypse. Blinding light and murky torrents of air surged from the base's cracks like a volcanic eruption! Thunderous roars continued without end as the entire cliff collapsed and slid away! A flood of snow and rock instantly swallowed the abandoned weather station entrance, every trace, half of Guiguzi's broken divination disk, and half a rusty metal plate exposed from the rubble bearing the words "STARK INDUSTRY"!

At the moment the last massive boulder crashed down and sealed the entrance, Xiang Yi looked back one final time from the end of the passage.

Behind the savage curtain of dust and snow, above the collapsed cliff, the pale-gold phantom of the Eye of Rules seemed to pause. But the even more violent eruption of earth veins and the law-level "information noise" created by the landslide instantly obscured and disrupted it. The outline of that cold eye flickered unwillingly several times before finally dispersing into the wind and snow.

The biting wind and snow lashed the faces of everyone rushing out of the passage like icy whips. Xiang Yi took one last look at the completely buried "starting point." Unconsciously, his left hand clenched the memorial dagger of Lanling King against his chest. The cold metal cut into his palm, bringing the clarity of pain. He withdrew his gaze and did not look back.

The wind and snow howled. A flake of snow landed on the wound of his lowered right arm, covered in dark-blue patterns. Instead of melting, the snow instantly vanished with a hiss! Then, several dark-blue ice-crystal particles condensed from thin air half an inch above the wound, hovered for less than half a second, and silently burst into cold stardust before fading away. This tiny anomaly was caught from the corner of Lanling King's eye as he cleared the way ahead. The cold assassin's pupils contracted sharply, and his hand gripping the dagger loosened out of control for the first time—the dark-blue dagger slipped free with a thud and plunged deep into the frozen ground, burying half its blade! Beneath his cold killing intent, profound anxiety and fury surged.

"Stay alive..." Xiang Yi murmured, his voice torn apart by the wind and snow. The agony and numbness in his right arm were branded into him as icy despair and burning will collided within his chest. He supported the weakened Guiguzi; Lanling King led the way with Ming Shiyin, light as a dead leaf and half-haired in white, on his back; A Ke brought up the rear, dragging her bleeding leg. Amid their stumbling flight through the snowstorm, the dark-blue patterns around the wound on Xiang Yi's numb right arm seemed to flicker very faintly. In that instant, a distant, obscure, cold will carrying the scent of ice, snow, and ancient sandalwood from Kamar-Taj, yet mixed with the strange bitter tang of herbs and an extremely faint trace of blood, seemed to sweep through the storm and produce a fleeting, hair-raising resonance with those patterns before vanishing.

Xiang Yi's heart suddenly turned cold, as though he had fallen into an ice pit.

He abruptly lifted his head and stared into an unknown direction deep within the wind and snow. The last trace of hesitation in his eyes vanished, leaving only stone-like coldness and resolve.

The dagger's cold edge pressed viciously into the flesh over his chest! Blood ran down the groove of the blade, scorching a burning, deeply embedded cross-shaped brand over his heart! At the edges of that brand, a faint dark-blue glow from the wound on his right arm could be seen!

Deep within the wind and snow, the golden Xuan Weizi light that had escaped from the collapsed ruins and stubbornly pierced through the snowy curtain suddenly split in the gale: one particle struggled a few times before vanishing into the darkness; the other, like an unyielding firefly, stubbornly pierced through the wind and snow in the final instant before disappearing, illuminating Lanling King's sudden turn—his eyes reddened by fury, pain, and resolve.