Chapter 437

Wang Ping raised his hand. It wasn't him wanting to raise it—the Chaos Immortal Stele moved first.

The stele spirit opened its eyes at that moment. Gray eyes, chaos-colored gray, penetrating the layers of restrictions on the immortal stele and directly projecting onto Wang Ping's primordial spirit. His gaze said—you knew. Wang Ping indeed knew.

At the instant he saw the core, he knew—about this core, about why it still existed, about why Opening Heaven couldn't shatter it.

Because it is "non-being", Opening Heaven can separate "being"—separating heaven and earth, separating yin and yang, separating all boundaries between existences. But Opening Heaven cannot separate "non-being"; something that cannot be dichotomized cannot be split—there is only one way to deal with it. Use chaos to "embrace" it. Swallow it, let it become part of you.

From then on, your Dao contains order; within the Dao of order lies chaos. Not opposition, but symbiosis.

You turn the enemy into yourself, and you coexist with it forever inside your body. You can never rest, never slack, never cease suppressing it. But you will never lose anyone again.

The Chaos Immortal Stele flew out of his dantian. Not flying, but "being". It had just been turning slowly deep in his dantian, a full turn taking several heartbeats.

Now it appeared in Wang Ping's open palm—no flight process, no transition from inside to outside. From inside the dantian to the palm, the intervening space was skipped directly by it.

A palm-sized small stone stele, heavy as an iron weight pressed long on his chest, now moved from his chest into his fist. The four characters on its face glowed—Hun, Dun, Xian, Bei. Each stroke, blazingly bright.

Each character is alive—within the "hun" surges the initial state of all things before separation; within the "dun" roils the tension of heaven and earth about to open; within the "xian" lies the lifelong Dao traces of the Chaos Immortal Venerable; within the "bei" bears the mission of a weapon that, after waiting countless years, has finally been fulfilled.

The stele spirit gazed at him from the deepest part of the immortal stele. No longer asking "Are you ready?" No need to ask. Wang Ping also didn't nod again. He lifted the stele over his head. Not by arm strength—his arms had hardly any strength left.

It was the final surge of chaos power rising from the depths of his dantian via the Chaos Dao Foundation. The Spirit Sea had run dry, but its bottom sand layer still held water—this was the last supplement pumped from the Jianmu in the spirit realm's veins, the unconscious rootlets of Jianmu still conveying chaos spiritual power after Nine'er fell asleep. The supplement he received was meager, just enough to lift the stele. Enough.

The stone stele was growing. Not slowly—it was "already grown." From palm-size to over a person's height, to the size of a room, to the height of a mountain. Each step was not a gradual change but a "replacement": the stele of the previous scale vanished while the stele of the next scale appeared simultaneously. Each replacement was accompanied by a law‑level reshaping—every time the scale increased, the chaotic‑hued light on the stele's surface deepened another layer. The light flowed across the stele, streaming down from the grooves of the four ancient characters, spilling over the edge and sending up an extremely fine mist of light. It hovered above the ruins of the Holy Hall, above the heads of all survivors, between darkness and void. Like a massive meteorite, like a heavenly punishment about to fall, like a mother lifting her hand to shield her child.

The Chaos Immortal Venerable's strongest strike—Chaos Opening Heaven. Before heaven and earth were opened, there was only chaos. No light, no darkness, no up/down, left/right, front/back, size. No order, no chaos, nothing that could be named. Nothing at all—not "emptiness," but even emptiness had not yet come into being. Then, heaven opened. The pure qi rising to become heaven was not someone lifting a mass of pure qi upward; the pure qi itself separated from the chaos because its nature is to rise. The turbid qi sinking to become earth was not the turbid qi being expelled or discarded; it sank of its own accord. Heaven and earth were not created; they emerged when chaos separated into pure and turbid, each going to its proper place. This strike is that very moment of "opening"—not creating something new, not destroying something old, but returning to the beginning of all things and re‑dividing the existing order and chaos once more. You, Lord of Order, are the turbid qi that split off from chaos—you thought you had pushed chaos aside and built yourself, but you never left chaos. Now let it take you back in.

The stone stele slammed down—not slowly, not with acceleration, but as "Opening Heaven"—its descent did not pass through intermediate scales. There was no time interval between being lifted to its highest point and touching the core singularity. This strike needs no distance, because it is not smashing stone; it is resetting the law—the act of "splitting" itself is the law. The law requires no distance, only a trigger. From the base of the stone stele a beam of light welled up: chaotic‑hued, gray‑misty, like the sky before dawn. The light spread between the stele and the core, not as a jet or explosion, but as "splitting"—splitting outward, left, right, up, down. It split heaven and earth, yin and yang, life and death. Wherever the light flowed, everything was split: stones split from stones, cracks split from cracks, void split from void, darkness split from darkness. Finally the light surged onto the singularity atop the core mother body. The singularity was originally absolute nothing—no dichotomy could apply to it, because dichotomy requires something to split. But now it was shrouded in chaotic light—chaos embracing it gave it back its primal essence. It was no longer nothing; it returned to the initial state before all things were divided—having something, it could be split. Thus it was split: one half order, one half chaos—two faces of the same essence, originally together. After the split, order ceased to exist. Not death, but "not‑being"—not dead matter, not living thing, not existence, not non‑existence. It returned to before its birth.

The core split—not from the middle, because the middle is a "point" and a point has no middle. It split from "nothing" into "something." Like a chick inside an egg pecking the shell to get out: the chick's beak pecks from inside outward, once, twice, a tiny bump appears on the shell, the bump cracks into fine lines, the lines join into a seam. The shell cracked along a seam, and light shone through. It was not silvery‑white—order's light is silvery‑white and cold; this light is different. It is chaotic‑hued—the chaotic hue seeps out from the deepest part of the order‑core after it has been embraced by chaos, as the core begins to generate chaos from within. The light wells out of the seam, warm and gentle, like a spring breeze slipping through a door crack, sweeping over the whole dark ruin, brushing Yu Ling's face, brushing the metal threads still stained with blood on Yu Liuli's broken harp strings, brushing the blade of the sword Cang Xuan left hanging in the void, brushing the wounds in the ruin that are still bleeding and those that have stopped. The shadow of the Lord of Order—that earthworm still writhing to gather fragments—halted in the darkness. Not stopped growing, but "held fast." Its body remains, but it cannot move, because its root—that mother‑body particle—is being infused with chaos. The root is no longer order; what could its body be? It dazedly lifts its still‑unformed part toward the direction the stone stele fell, as if looking for something. It does not recognize that seam—it has never seen chaotic‑hued light. For it knows only order, not chaos. Chaos is its mother‑body—before order was born, when "nothing" was still part of chaos, it had been chaos. It forgot; chaos did not. A child may not know its mother, but the mother knows the child.

The core broke apart—not by explosion, which would leave fragments, a shockwave, and a loud roar. Its breaking was "dispersing." Like a sandcastle washed by water: water flows over the castle's base, sand grains are washed down one by one; some sink in the water and settle beside the original base, some float up and are carried away by the current, some are driven into deeper water and can never be found. The sandcastle's shape gradually dissolves in the water—not collapsing but "transforming": from having shape to having none, from having edges to having none, from existing to not existing. Its remnants of order‑law drift into the chaotic light, piece by piece, increasing in number, rising from the deep core, drifting past the seam, drifting into the chaotic light, where chaos envelops, soaks, and digests them. It is not annihilation—it is like a drop of ink falling into water, the water diffusing the ink. Every ink particle remains, merely dispersed as part of the water. The water that has taken on ink is no longer pure water, yet it is no longer ink either.

The Holy Hall shuddered—not an earthquake, but a "collapse." The core mother body of the Lord of Order is the Holy Hall's foundation—not a ground foundation, but a more fundamental "foundation of existence." The Holy Hall stands upon Order‑law, and the deepest source of that law is this core. When the core shattered, the Hall's foundation of existence vanished. The walls began to crack—cracks started at the base and climbed upward, not as straight lines but as root‑like branches, splitting finer and finer; halfway up the wall surface began to peel off in large sheets. The peeling fragments did not fall—they floated up. As the Holy Hall disintegrated, the law of gravity also began to fail. The cracks kept climbing, reaching the vault. The law‑crystal void slots still hanging in the void on the vault began to tilt as a whole, and the vault's structure collapsed silently—not falling downward but collapsing simultaneously in all directions, because direction itself no longer existed. The lamps had long gone out; now even the lamp bases split in half. Darkness was no longer empty—it was a "surge." It poured in from outside the wall cracks, from above the vault's breach, and rose up from the depths of the canyon floor. It was not water, not smoke; it was darkness itself. It flooded the Holy Hall, filling every gap in the ruins, submerging the corpses—God‑transforming cultivators still lying among the rocks, half‑kneed remnants of the Union stage with their upper bodies severed, and scattered fragments across the battlefield that are tiny and unidentifiable. It covered the bloodstains—silvery‑white residue on the stone slabs, meltwater from ice crystals, golden‑feathered clan blood, black Return‑to‑the‑Abyss stains. It covered the battle's traces—shattered hammers, hammer heads rolled to one side, handles jammed into rock crevices; broken wings, their tips still fluttering faintly in the breeze before going still; broken staffs, their beads dropped to one side, lying at the edge of a blood pool without sinking. The darkness gently blanketed everything, like a mother pulling a blanket over a sleeping person.

Wang Ping stood at the edge of the canyon. This canyon was split by himself—right above where the core had just shattered, the ground was torn in two from the middle and the crack raced outward on both sides. Under his feet only a few feet of ground remained; one more step forward would be the abyss. In his hand he still held the stone stele, which had shrunk back to palm‑size, back into his palm. It felt heavy, like a piece of jade just pulled from his bosom, warm, lightly resting against his life line. He was breathing heavily, deep gulps—not the exhausted pant after a marathon, but the confirmation "I can still breathe"—lung lobes expanded, airflow rushed in, alveoli inflated, oxygen exchange normal, I am still here. His lungs burned; the residual air of the Holy Hall was bitterly cold—this hall was never designed for comfortable temperatures for living beings; it maintains low cold to keep Order‑law at minimal entropy. He drew the cold air into his lungs; his trachea tightened from the chill, giving each breath a subtle sting. He didn't mind. His gaze was fixed on the deepest point of the canyon—there lay an extremely faint point of light, not chaotic‑hued, not silvery‑white, but transparent. So transparent it was almost invisible, yet it still flickered ever so slightly, like a dying indicator light still doing its duty, emitting its last few flashes. It was the last remnant of the Lord of Order's core—not the mother‑body core just shattered, but a tiny existence fragment left over after the mother‑body, having been embraced by chaos, shifted from "nothing" to "something" and was not fully transformed. Smaller than a needle tip, so small that even the Chaos Opening Heaven strike could not completely dissolve it. It had fallen—it lay among shards and dust, on a raised little stone platform on the crack wall. It had not yet gone out. So tiny it could not be called "he," could not be called the Lord of Order, could not be called an enemy. It was merely a spark not yet extinguished.

Wang Ping jumped down without hesitation. He thrust his legs from the canyon rim; his calf muscles tensed, pouring his last ounce of strength into the push. Loose stones shattered under his feet, a few pebbles kicked loose rolled ahead of him into the abyss. His body fell through the canyon—not a free fall, but a controlled descent downward. The middle of the abyss is narrow, the distance between the opposing crack walls only a few arm‑spans; he braced his hands against the walls, his palms scraped raw by the rough stone, slowing himself by friction. Wind howled past his ears—this canyon is extremely deep; after the crack tore through the Holy Hall's foundation‑law structure at the bottom, the bottom opened into the void below. The void is cold, and a cold draft rises from the abyss floor, rushing past his ears and producing a thin, piercing whistle. He fell alone, the light above growing ever more distant—Cang Xuan, Yu Liuli, and Yu Ying did not follow. Not because they dared not, but because he was too fast. They had not yet reached the canyon rim when he had already leapt.

His eyes stayed locked on that speck of light. During the fall he could not blink—not even if the cold wind drove tears from his eyes—because the speck is so tiny that a single blink might lose it forever. Looking down from above, it sat on that raised little stone platform on the crack wall, flickering, like a lost child by the roadside with head bowed and arms around knees, neither crying nor calling out, just waiting. It does not know whether it is an enemy or a child. It does not know that it was dropped. It does not know who it is. It does not know whether anyone will come to fetch it. It simply is there, flickering.

Wang Ping reached out. When he was still a few zhang from the stone platform, he kicked hard against the crack wall, launching himself sideways to slam onto the platform. The platform was small—just enough for one person to crouch. He crouched, sharp stones digging into his knees. He extended his hand; his fingertip touched the speck of light. The light jumped on his fingertip—so light, like a kitten being stroked on the head for the first time, unsure whether to pull away or rub in. Then it "merged"—not an explosion, but a fusion. It seeped from his fingertip, passing through the intercellular matrix between epidermal cells, down into the capillaries, permeating the vessel walls, and mingling with the blood. The blood carried it to his wrist, forearm, upper arm, and shoulder, where it split—one branch ran up the carotid artery, the other down the subclavian artery. The lower branch entered the heart, was pumped into every blood vessel throughout the body. The upper branch crossed the blood‑brain barrier into the deep brain, traveled down the spinal cord, and met the lower branch in the dantian. After merging, it surged into the dantian, into the shallow shoal of the residual Chaos Spirit Sea, into the seated position of the Chaos Primordial Spirit. The Primordial Spirit, eyes closed in breath regulation, opened its eyes as the light rushed in. The light's form hovered before the Primordial Spirit—now, after soaking in blood and spiritual fluid, it had grown a little, chaotic‑hued. It had no name, no shape, no awareness. Yet, embraced by chaos, it gained them. Its name was given by the Primordial Spirit—when it was drawn into the Chaos Dao Foundation, the Primordial Spirit registered it. Its shape was given by the Spirit Sea—the Chaos Spirit Sea expanded it a little. Its awareness was given by Wang Ping—at the moment it merged into his body, he impressed his own consciousness upon it, inscribing "who it is." It is the final spark of the Lord of Order, and also a part of chaos. Now it has been taken back into chaos.

The stele spirit gazed at that mote of light in the depths. His eyes finally showed a hint of expression. Not hatred—he had hated the Lord of Order for thirty thousand years, ever since the Immortal Venerable fell. But facing this unextinguished spark, his gaze held no hatred. It was 'recognition'—like an old man seeing the child of his enemy abandoned by the roadside, the child unaware of his own surname, unaware of what his forebears had done. The old man picked up the child and brought him home. He did not hate this child. He recognized it—it was part of Chaos. Long ago, before Order had split from Chaos, it had been Chaos. The Chaos Immortal Stele still bears its mark from that time: it is the first chain of law refined from the Chaos Sea when the Chaos Immortal Venerable opened the Dao, the primordial Dao-seed when the Immortal Realm was opened, it merely took a wrong path. Now it has returned.

Wang Ping fell to the bottom of the canyon. Not a stone platform—after catching that mote of light, his unstable crouch caused him to slide off the platform. At the last moment he curled himself into a protective posture, his shoulders hitting the ground first, rolling several times over the scree slope before stopping. His feet rested on the lowest scree; beneath the scree was void. He stood up, brushed the grit from his knees. His hand held nothing— the mote of light was no longer at his fingertips. It was in his dantian, in his primordial spirit, in his Dao. The Chaos Primordial Spirit sat with closed eyes in his dantian, above it hovered Chaos Immortal Thunder—the thunder sprout now glowed a little brighter, supplemented by a trickle of power newly merged into his Dao foundation. To his right, the Chaos Immortal Stele turned slowly. Before him hovered a tiny, faint point of light, chaos-colored, suspended before his primordial spirit. It slowly rotated, imitating the stele, seeking its own orbit.

Cangxuan and the others waited at the canyon's edge. Wang Ping looked up; the canyon was too high, climbing from the bottom would require strength he no longer had. He sent up a single thought with his Chaos Divine Sense: 'Still alive.' Above, there was a moment of silence. Then he heard Cangxuan's voice—an extremely short, cold 'En.' Then came the soft pluck of Yuliuli's lute string—she plucked the sole intact feather-string, its tone clear and bright, like a responding bird's call. Then came Youying's void perception—an extremely gentle void touch wrapped around from behind, as if someone had tapped his shoulder with a fingertip. They were all there, waiting for him to climb up himself, or for them to come down to fetch him. Either way, they would be there.

Wang Ping stood at the canyon's bottom, glancing at the stone platform where he had just caught the mote of light. On the platform there was nothing left but the imprint of his knees where he had knelt and a few drops of blood that had fallen from the wound on his palm. The blood seeped into the platform's cracks; illuminated by the faint chaos light beneath the stone, its edges glowed with a very pale gray light. He turned and began to look for a fissured wall he could climb. His hands felt the uneven stone ridges on the wall, his feet stepping on stable chunks of scree. He climbed very slowly, needing to rest three times for each step upward. But his lips kept murmuring something softly. Jiu'er—Jiu'er, when will you wake? Spirit Realm—when will the sky turn blue? Those who had died—Jiang Mingyuan, Lei Wantiang, Ban Shan Lao Zu, Bing Yue Xianzi, Xing Mou, plus the thirty late-stage God-transformation cultivators whose names he could not recall. Their faces, their voices, the way they last looked at him. He would live a very long time, remembering them for a very long time. Until he too died, would the memory fade. Before that, every one of them was present.

As he climbed up from the canyon, his fingers gripped the edge, his arms unable to pull. One hand reached down from above to grab his forearm—it was Cangxuan; another hand also reached down—it was Yuliuli. The two of them pulled him up. He sat on the ground, gasping, his body covered in grit and blood, but his face bore a faint expression, the same as when he had just caught that mote of light. Then he got up and turned around. He faced the direction of the holy hall's exit. There, the light point in the passage still remained. Such a tiny cluster, weaker than before, but it was still there.

He stepped forward, walking toward the point of light. Behind him, Azure Mysterious turned and made a grasping motion in the air— the sword embedded in the void received the summons of the sword heart, sprang from the crack, flew back on its own, tracing a faint arc and landing steadily in his hand; the blade had no blood, clean as new, and he sheathed it. Yuliuli used the remaining three fingers' usable tone to lightly sweep the broken string; the zither's body vibrated, and the lingering vibration of the broken string overlapped with the pure sound still resonating from the feather string, forming the final chord. Youying emerged from the depths of the shadows, lifting his hand from his chest, the ancient mirror shards still trembling. They all caught up.

The light in the passage was very weak, weak to the point of almost going out. Jiu'er slept in the trunk of the Establish Tree, her face faintly visible in the light, like a person in a dream, like one who has awaited the returnee. Wang Ping stepped forward, walked into the light. Behind him, the last person caught up. The light in the passage gathered behind him, drawing in the darkness of the canyon and the abyss, drawing in the remaining points of light on the ruins. The light flowed— from the primordial chaos sea toward the direction of the spirit realm, from death to life, from past to future.

At the end of the passage was the sky of the spirit realm. Gray, low, pressing down on the head. But something was seeping through the gray— not silvery white, no. It was blue— an extremely thin, pale layer of blue, hidden behind the gray, like a lamp covered with gauze. The sunlight waited behind the gray— waiting for the gray thing to dissipate on its own, waiting for the wind to blow, waiting for the rain to wash, waiting for someone to come and brighten the sky. Wang Ping walked out of the passage, stood beneath the Establish Tree. The canopy of the Establish Tree was still gathered, its leaves still curled, it still stood in a deep slumber. A hand pressed against the trunk, head lowered, eyes closed, listening. Listening to the Establish Tree's breath— extremely slow and deep, like a hibernating bear, its beat about once per minute. Listening to Jiu'er's heartbeat— still beating, very weak but steady, overlapping with the Establish Tree's heartbeat on the same rhythm.