chsdbacks Chapter 360 Chaotic Calamity
Chapter 360 Chaotic Calamity
Sun Wukong carefully placed the golden cudgel on his knees.
"I, Old Sun, have done things like attracting calamity before. During the time I wreaked havoc in the Heavenly Palace, Laozi used the Eight Trigrams Furnace to refine me, giving me Fiery Eyes. Later, the Five Elements Mountain pressed down on me, and the Heavenly Tribulation followed, pressing down for five hundred years. For five hundred years, I didn't even budge."
Nezha leaned the gun barrel against his shoulder.
"You can move now, can't you?"
"I can move because I want to move."
Sun Wukong turned his head to look at Nezha.
"But the Chaos Calamity is different. It doesn't just suppress you; it redefines you from the very foundation of the laws. When Laozi used his furnace to refine me, he made me indestructible. The Chaos Calamity refines the laws themselves. Whether I'll still be myself after the refinement is hard to say."
"It's hard to say what that means." Nezha frowned.
"It means I might become something from outside this realm," Sun Wukong said calmly.
"Each of the seventy-two transformations alters the causal lines of fate. By the two hundred and thirtieth transformation, the causal lines have become too tangled. When the great calamity strikes down, it will also weld me to the laws of the outer realms. At that time, if you fight the black-robed man, it will be the same as fighting me."
Nezha fell silent.
Su Fan gripped the Pangu Axe. He didn't look at Sun Wukong, but at the dark layer of laws that was shrinking inside the cage.
"You have no other choice."
"Yes," Sun Wukong said, "I can remain unchanged. If I don't change, I won't attract calamity. But there are still eleven extraterrestrial gods alive in the cage. There are also three black stars outside. Each black star contains the corpses of seven old extraterrestrial gods. If I don't change, what will you use to fight me?"
Su Fan tightened his grip on the axe handle.
Yang Jian suddenly spoke. He didn't open his eyes. His Heavenly Eye was enveloped by Laozi's talisman array, and white light flowed between his forehead.
What is the essence of the Chaotic Cataclysm?
Sun Wukong thought for a moment.
"Start over. Chaos felt the causal threads were too messy, so it unleashed a calamity to burn all the knots. After the burning, the causal threads were laid out anew. It burned the messy threads, not the main ones."
"Then it's not about burning you," Yang Jian's voice was steady. "It's about burning those knots that are impossible to untie. How did those knots come about?"
"It was caused by the karmic entanglements from beyond the realm."
"When the tribulation lightning strikes, it will first burn the laws of the outer realm. Then it will burn you." Yang Jian opened his eyes. "You yourself might be fine."
"Maybe," Sun Wukong repeated the word. "You said maybe."
"That's enough," Su Fan interrupted.
He turned to look at Sun Wukong. The Pangu Axe stood between them. Golden light illuminated Sun Wukong's furry face.
"Great Sage, the Primordial World is currently missing a rule. The rule of power has already been swallowed up. The Heavenly Dao is leaking. The Dao of All Beings is also leaking. If we cannot lock the cage before the Great Tribulation explodes the layer of laws, the Primordial World will be plowed up by the three black stars. Do you want to take a gamble?"
Sun Wukong stared at Su Fan for a long time. The smile in his monkey eyes vanished.
He took the golden cudgel off his knees and slammed it into the ground. The cudgel thickened, and a crack appeared in the city bricks.
"Okay. But you have to promise me one thing."
"you say."
"After I'm bound by the laws of the outer realms after the calamity, you can use the Pangu Axe to chop me down. If you die, it's on me."
Su Fan did not answer. He tucked the Pangu Axe into his robes and turned to face the cage.
"Whether or not to chop it up, we'll talk about that later. You should initiate the calamity first."
Sun Wukong flipped down from the top of the battlement. He somersaulted in mid-air. His golden armor flashed in an arc of light amidst the gray mist.
When he landed, he stood in the very center of the cage. Beneath his feet was a densely packed layer of dark laws.
Above its head were the pure white wings of a roc. Around it were eleven extraterrestrial gods and three black stars that were seeping in.
Sun Wukong planted his golden cudgel into the ground. The cudgel went three feet into the ground, its shaft thickening to support the top and bottom of the cage.
He sat cross-legged in front of the staff. His hands formed a mudra.
Change begins.
In his seventy-third transformation, he became the phantom of an ancient demonic ape. The demonic ape opened its mouth and roared silently, the sound waves shattering a chain of cause and effect.
In his seventy-fourth transformation, he became a nine-bend broken pillar, and the cracks on the pillar simultaneously entangled the four causal lines around him.
The seventy-fifth transformation, the seventy-sixth transformation, the seventy-seventh transformation.
The pace of change is accelerating. Each change inserts a new thread of destiny into the causal pathways beyond the realm. These threads of destiny become entangled and knotted within the causal chain. The knots are becoming increasingly intractable.
Yang Jian reported the numbers: "One hundred and twenty-three transformations. The number of karmic dead knots within the cage has exceeded three thousand."
The man in black robes stood at the edge of the archway. He heard the numbers Yang Jian had announced. His pure black eyes were fixed on the constantly shifting figure in the center of the cage.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, but no sound came out.
Peng stuffed the rule of "The Great Dao is Silent" into the causal core of the extraterrestrial god. He no longer had the ability to speak.
He wrote words in the air with his hand. Black causal liquid flowed from his fingertips and condensed into a row of runes in front of him.
"You are about to trigger a chaotic cataclysm."
The moment the runes materialized, all the extraterrestrial gods simultaneously ceased all movement, including the three black stars that were seeping into the cage.
Black Star stopped at the edge of the cage wall. The dark patterns on Black Star's surface stopped extending.
"I'm scared." Nezha slammed the tip of his spear on the ground.
"It's not that I'm afraid," Yang Jian's voice remained calm.
"The Chaotic Tribulation is an indiscriminate attack. When it strikes, all the primordial laws and extraterrestrial laws within the cage will be affected by the tribulation lightning. We have the support of the Path of All Beings on their side. The Path of Cause and Effect on their side is blocking the way within the cage. Whoever gets struck first by the tribulation lightning will have their laws more chaotic."
"Whose is more chaotic?" Nezha asked.
"Beyond the realm." Yang Jian glanced at the tangled chains of cause and effect in the cage.
"The Great Sage stuffed three thousand knots into their causal threads. When the great calamity descends, the first one to be severed will be the most tangled one."
The man in black understood. He quickly wrote words in the air with his hand.
"When the great calamity strikes, even the cage will shatter. The primordial world will also have to endure the tribulation lightning."
Su Fan saw the row of runes. He slung the Pangu Axe over his shoulder.
"When the cage shatters, the primordial rules return. When the rules return, the path of all living beings is restored. When the path of all living beings is restored, the tribulation lightning falling on the primordial world is equivalent to recharging the Heavenly Dao."
He took a step forward.
"And you? Your causal path is blocked by three hundred dead knots in a cage. When the tribulation lightning strikes in, it burns the very foundation of the laws of the outer realm. After it's burned away, how much of your causal path will be left?"
The black-robed man's fingertips stopped. The causal liquid remained suspended in mid-air, not continuing to write.
He stared at Su Fan, his pure black eyes without pupils, but Su Fan could feel the focus of those two black lights constantly shrinking.
The other extraterrestrial gods inside the cage began to stir. The rune-inlaid humanoid aggregate was the first to rush out.
It disassembled all its runic components, each rune flying in a different direction. Three hundred runes simultaneously shot towards the archway at the edge of the cage.
Nezha drew his spear. The flames trailing from his Wind and Fire Wheels engulfed forty of the runes.
The law of fire, wrapped in golden patterns, burned upwards, causing the runes to explode into ashes in mid-air.
The remaining runes were blocked by Qingfeng's broken sword and the light arrows from the archer camp.
A dark palm print slammed down on the top of the cage from the other side. Its five fingers were spread wide, as if trying to tear through the layers of laws to escape.
Sun Wukong opened one eye during a brief moment of transformation. He changed his hand seals, and the seventy-eighth transformation materialized into a stone monkey.
The stone monkey leaped onto the back of the palm print and punched into the law patterns on the palm. The force of the punch, wrapped in golden patterns, poured in.
The index finger of the palm print split at the base, the crack spreading along the back of the hand into the palm. The entire palm print trembled, and the five fingers retracted and retreated.
"One hundred and fifty-seven transformations." Yang Jian's counting grew faster and faster, "The dead knot has broken through five thousand."
The top of the cage began to change color.
Something was gathering above the gray fog. It wasn't clouds, thunder, or light. It was pressure. Pressure pressing down from the depths of chaos.
It hasn't struck yet, but its shadow has already seeped into the cage through the law layer at the top.
The dark layer of laws trembled. The congested fragments of cause and effect simultaneously emitted high-frequency vibrations.
The sound waves generated by the tremors were suppressed by the Great Dao's silence and could not be emitted; they could only bounce back and forth within the layer of laws. With each bounce, the dark layer thinned a little.
"Before the great calamity even struck, the light precursor shattered two layers of their law skin."
Yang Jian, with his Heavenly Eye open, described what was happening inside the cage. Smoke began to rise from the edges of the Heavenly Eye's talisman array. Laozi's runes were bearing the backlash for him, struggling to do so.
The Primordial Celestial Venerable sat cross-legged on his spine. A whisk lay horizontally before his knees. Blood still clung to the corner of his mouth. The blood on his white beard had dried. He remained completely still, only his lips moved.
"Yang Jian, how much longer can the Heavenly Eye see?"
"Half an incense stick's time." Yang Jian's voice remained steady. But the blood flowing from his eyes had already dripped down his chin onto his breastplate.
"That's enough. Half an incense stick's worth is enough to cleave this calamity."
"Laojun," Yang Jian suddenly called out to him. He didn't call him "Master," but "Laojun."
The Heavenly Lord of Primordial Beginning's brow twitched. He understood.
"You have something to say."
"The Heavenly Eye saw more than just the Black Star's core. There's something else."
"explain."
"When the cataclysmic event strikes the black star, the corpse of the old extraterrestrial god inside the black star will awaken."
Yuanshi Tianzun remained silent for a moment.
"Wake up a few."
"Seven. Seven from each black star." Yang Jian spoke at an extremely slow pace. "Twenty-one. All awake. And they won't be corpses. It's as if the Heavenly Tribulation has infused the core of the Dao of Cause and Effect, reactivating the extraterrestrial gods from thirty thousand years ago. They will come back to life."
The air inside the cage froze.
Even Sun Wukong paused for a moment. The transformation stopped at the 189th transformation. His hand seal remained suspended in front of his chest, without continuing to form it.
"What would happen if I lived?" Nezha's voice was very low.
"If you survive, then fight."
The human warrior leaned against the battlements. His two bare legs were shattered, but he still supported himself against the city wall, blood still spitting from his mouth.
The hilt of the broken sword was still in his hand, but the blade was broken off and only three inches long remained.
"Anyway, we've already killed the living gods. Let's kill a few more that have been resurrected."
"You make it sound so easy." Qingfeng turned around, supporting his broken sword, and looked at him. "Just now, you chopped at that eyeball and it flew back, coughing up blood. Now there are twenty-one in Black Star. Do you even realize how many times stronger they are than that eyeball?"
"I don't know." The human warrior wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth again. "But I only have one life. Killing one is enough. Killing two is a bonus. Killing three is a bonus. Even if I die, it's not a loss."
The soldiers on the city wall all laughed.
The laughter was soft. Not the kind of hearty, triumphant laugh. It was the kind of laugh soldiers exchange before heading into battle, passing each other cigarettes. Light and airy. A forced smile, but with a gleam in their eyes.
Su Fan did not laugh.
He stood on the rampart with his back to everyone, facing the dark law layer that was trembling rapidly inside the cage, facing Sun Wukong who was sitting cross-legged in the center of the cage and constantly changing, and facing the three black stars that stopped beside the three arched doors, neither daring to go in nor daring to go back.
"Laojun".
"I am here."
"The Path of All Beings is currently supported by the will of ten thousand soldiers. As long as the will is extinguished, the rules will not perish. If the great calamity strikes down and the twenty-one old extraterrestrial gods in the Black Star are simultaneously resurrected, how immense will the impact of the laws be?"
Yuanshi Tianzun extended his right hand.
The whisk drew a circle in the void. Within the circle appeared a comparison diagram of the magnitudes of the laws governing the Southern Heavenly Gate, the cage, the black star, and chaos.
On the map, the Path of All Beings at the South Heavenly Gate is depicted as a thin golden line. The Path of Cause and Effect beyond this realm is a black swamp.
The Chaos Cataclysm is a white beam of light pressing down from above the image. The interiors of the three black stars are filled with dark red fuel.
Lao Jun stared at the picture for three breaths.
"When the impacts are superimposed, all living beings will be unable to withstand them."
"as a result of."
"The will of ten thousand soldiers will be shaken out of their bodies by the clash of the laws. If the will is separated from the body for more than half a quarter of an hour, the physical body maintained by the Heavenly Dao Repair Technique will begin to decay."
"Can it be salvaged?"
The Primordial Celestial Venerable withdrew his whisk. The picture dissipated.
"Yes. But the law clash must be suppressed within half a quarter of an hour. If it can't be suppressed, ten thousand people will be nothing but empty shells."
Su Fan turned around and looked at the soldiers on the city wall. Qingfeng stood, the human warriors leaned against the crenellations, the wolf demon lay on the ground, and Gongsun Bao supported himself with his broken sword.
Ten thousand and fifty people, each bearing wounds. Each face smeared with fragments of law and blood. Every pair of eyes was fixed on him.
"I heard it all." Su Fan's voice could be heard throughout the entire city wall. "Half a quarter of an hour. Charge through and you live. Don't charge through and you die."
Qingfeng punched his chest with his bare fist.
"Then let's go for it."
Gongsun Bao raised the broken sword and, in a hoarse voice, uttered each word clearly: "The soldiers of the Primordial World die on the road to battle."
Su Fan nodded. He turned back to face the cage. He took the Pangu Axe off his shoulder.
He gripped the axe with both hands, the blade pointing directly at the center of the cage. The golden light returned, even brighter than before.
Golden patterns spread from the axe face to the handle, from the handle to the forearm, and from the forearm to the whole body.
Beneath the armor, every stripe radiated golden light. A heartbeat echoed from Su Fan's chest.
The voice was deep.
The vibrations repeatedly rippled between the city bricks inside the South Heavenly Gate, each overlap causing the soldiers' weapons to emit an even brighter white light.
Yang Jian said softly, "The Great Tribulation has arrived."
As soon as he finished speaking, the pressure that had been building up above the cage burst through.
It was not thunder, not fire, not light, not any form of energy seen on the battlefield.
When the great calamity descended, it was a pure white columnar pressure, the diameter of which was just enough to cover the entire cage.
It penetrated the law layer at the top of the cage like a red-hot iron rod stabbing into the snow.
The dark law layer was instantly pierced, and the first thing the pillar hit was Sun Wukong, who was sitting cross-legged in the center of the cage.
Sun Wukong's body completed its 230th transformation just before being hit.
The thirtieth transformation no longer covers the scope of destiny that the seventy-two transformations can encompass.
His physical body and the seventy-two emanations that emerged from it were simultaneously enveloped by the pillar of calamity, and all changes were penetrated one by one by the white light source in an extremely short time.
The monkey's true form transformed from a stone monkey back into a stone monkey, then from a stone monkey back into golden light, and finally from golden light it was forced to reassemble into flesh and blood.
In the white light, its shape and outline were indistinct; only a pair of monkey eyes could be seen that remained open from head to tail.
After passing through Sun Wukong, the pillar of calamity continued to crash down. The second thing hit was the law of cause and effect that was congested at the bottom of the cage.
The more than five thousand knots ignited simultaneously the moment they struck the pillar of calamity. What burned was not fire, but the cold flame that accelerated towards white as the laws collapsed.
The cold flames flowed back into the causal core of the extraterrestrial god along the causal chain.
The rune-like humanoid figures continuously disintegrated and reformed as they were engulfed by the flames. The five fingers of the ink-black palm print were burned off at the base, and the law-based bodies of the eleven extraterrestrial gods melted one after another into boiling black liquid in the cold flames.
The outer shell of the three black stars became transparent for a moment when they were struck by the pillar of calamity.
Through the surface of the black star, one can see the seven ancient deity shells neatly arranged inside the star, each wearing the same causal robes as the first to descend 30,000 years ago.
The pillars of calamity pierced through their empty eye sockets, pouring in the power of chaotic calamity and causing them to explode, and pair after pair of dark green dead eyes suddenly lit up.
Yang Jian counted off with his eyes closed. All the soldiers in the city heard him clearly.
"All twenty-one have awakened. The impact of the laws begins now. Half a quarter of an hour countdown. The Law Lines of the Dao of All Beings have begun to vibrate."
The golden patterns on the cage walls trembled violently. The city bricks beneath the feet of ten thousand soldiers hummed in unison.
Su Fan raised the Pangu Axe.
The axe blade pointed skyward, and golden light shone into the top of the cage.
With a cry, Peng pulled the Great Dao Silent Sound from the outer realm's divine causal core and stuffed it back into the primordial Heavenly Dao.
The mouths of the gods inside and outside the cage were simultaneously unsealed.
The black-robed man loosened his throat, his voice laced with raw killing intent. "Comrades, form ranks, drag the primordial world down to the depths of chaos!"
Inside the black star, twenty-one pairs of dark green eyes rotated in sync, all locked on the direction of the South Heavenly Gate.
The three archways were shattered into dust by the aftershocks of the laws, and a deep black liquid of cause and effect exploded from the archway ruins.
The entire cage began to sink rapidly, piercing through the chaotic gray mist and rushing towards the ancient battlefield at the bottom, piled with corpses.