Only the wind could be heard atop Kunlun Mountain.
Chen Hao waited one minute. Three minutes. Ten minutes.
There was no response.
No disturbance. No feedback at the level of the Laws.
Fu Zhaojie—or rather, the being who commanded the Way of Karma—had chosen silence.
Chen Hao withdrew his power of Laws and stood on the summit, facing the gloomy horizon.
No response.
He stood there, clenching his hands into fists, his nails digging into his palms.
Someone who commanded the Way of Karma. Someone who had lived from the Wild Era to the present.
Hidden beyond the perception of every Dao Wielder. Never appearing, never discovered.
Why had he interfered with the spatial passage?
Chen Hao reviewed everything he knew.
First, Fu Zhaojie carried no trace of the Gold-Eater Clan. Chen Hao had confirmed that. His Great Dao origin belonged to this world.
He belonged to the same universe, the same system of Laws.
He was not an outsider.
Second... the Gold-Devouring Behemoth devoured more than metals and planets. It devoured Great Dao origins as well.
That meant that if the Black Tide reached Blue Star, both Chen Hao and Fu Zhaojie would be devoured.
No one would be spared.
Then why interfere with the passage? To drag everyone down with him? He couldn't escape either.
Suicide? Or did he have some other means of escape?
No. Someone who had survived since the Wild Era couldn't be that simple.
Chen Hao worked through the possibilities again and again, but could find no reasonable motive.
He stood on the summit platform, thinking for a long time. Wind swept in from every direction, carrying an ever-deepening chill. The darkness at the edge of the sky had advanced farther. It was visible to the naked eye.
Time waited for no one.
Chen