The Crack

Luo Yang pushed himself up from the carpet.

The black ocean showed no sign of spreading even half an inch toward him.

It didn't expand, nor did it contract; it simply stayed there. It didn't feel like a threat, but rather like a wall—a man-made seal designed to isolate everything within.

Luo Yang took off his hat and gripped it in his hand, his bangs stuck to his forehead with sweat. He walked half a circle around the corridor again, his pace much slower than before. With every step, he used his eyes to repeatedly confirm his surroundings.

He still couldn't find a gap.

He had swept the perimeter with his mental power three times. The boundary of the Stagnant Water was slippery, like a single, seamless sheet of alloy; he couldn't even find a joint.

"Tch."

He closed his eyes again.

His mental power burst forth once more. The moment it touched the boundary of the Stagnant Water, the repulsive force surged back. A sharp pain rose from both his temples simultaneously, even more intense than the first time. The roots of the golden tree in his Sea of Consciousness vibrated frantically, absorbing at least thirty percent of the impact, but the remaining seventy percent still caused his vision to go white with pain.

But this time, he did not choose to withdraw.

After his mental power was repelled by the surface of the Stagnant Water, Luo Yang didn't let it retract. Instead, he forcibly compressed it, flattening it until it was thinner than paper, and slid it slowly against the black surface.

It was like a person placing their palm flat against a red-hot iron plate, relying on speed and angle to reduce the contact area so the skin wouldn't be burned through.

He was searching for the pattern belonging to this Stagnant Water.

This thing disguised itself as a pool of stagnant water, but true stagnant water didn't exist in the world. As long as something was composed of energy, it had to operate according to some kind of rule.

His mental power slid along the surface for about ten seconds. His speed grew slower and slower, and his concentration reached its limit. As his mental power glided over the black surface, the information it sent back was no different from touching a dead object.

Fine beads of sweat broke out on Luo Yang's forehead, trickling down his nose and hanging precariously from the tip of his chin.

Nine of the Orphaned Remaining Leaves detached from the tree crown one by one, slowly drifting down to the water's surface around the tree. In reality, they slowly gathered behind Luo Yang's head, arranging themselves into an irregular arc.

The ring of leaves glowed with golden light, like a crown visible only to him.

Among the nine leaves, the one at the very top—Absolute Slaughter—was the first to change.

A certain light that did not belong to the golden color began to seep from the leaf's surface. Initially, it was just a dot the size of a fingernail, gradually spreading outward from the center of the leaf veins. The color of the light was red, with wisps of pitch-black melting into its edges.

Black and red interwoven, slowly devouring the originally pure golden surface of the leaf inch by inch.

Gradually, the texture of the blood energy surging from around Luo Yang's body abruptly changed.

The originally steady flow of dark red energy felt as if someone had twisted open a valve, and its circulation frequency tripled within a single second. Its steady and restrained nature was replaced by violence and ruthlessness. Blood energy, carrying a pungent scent of rust, overflowed from his pores, making even the cold air from the corridor's air conditioning feel warm.

The authority of Absolute Slaughter had activated on its own at this moment.

The two lamps closest to him emitted a very faint electrical buzz before returning to normal.

Luo Yang saw the change in his mental vision.

The pool of Stagnant Water finally couldn't remain still.

Ripples began to appear on the water's surface directly beneath him. The ripples were small, as if someone had lightly flicked the water from below.

When the violent aura erupting from his body touched the black surface, the Stagnant Water actually responded. It was a minute, almost negligible ripple.

But for Luo Yang, that was enough.

Where there were fluctuations, there was a structure; where there was a structure, there were weaknesses.

His mental power plunged down at the position of the ripple like a needle piercing through cloth—precise, fast, and without hesitation.

The duration of the pierce was less than a second before the Stagnant Water's repulsive force surged again.

But this time, he saw it clearly.

In that single millimeter his mental power had pierced, he finally captured a piece of information.

About two steps directly behind him, there was an extremely fine and shallow crack on the surface of the Stagnant Water. It was so thin that it was absolutely invisible to the naked eye, and so shallow that his mental power hadn't been able to touch it when sliding along the surface.

Only at the moment when the slaughtering aura provoked the ripple was the edge of the crack turned up by the ripple, creating a tiny burr.

Luo Yang turned abruptly. The arc composed of the nine golden leaves behind his head shifted with his turn. Absolute Slaughter, now stained with black and red, hung at the highest point, emitting an ominous glow.

His right hand was held across his chest, fingers spread wide.

The nine leaves detached from the arc simultaneously.

They spun once in mid-air, interlocking with each other to form a regular disc shape. The tip of each leaf pointed outward, like a blossoming metal flower or a rapidly spinning saw blade.

Luo Yang swung his right arm forward violently, and the leaf wheel tore through the air.

The air was ripped apart along its path. The edges of the leaves were thinner than any blade, and the enhancement from Weapon's End, Ember's Birth allowed it to maintain extreme sharpness for every millisecond of its flight.

It slammed into the spot two steps directly behind Luo Yang—the spot where, to the naked eye, there was nothing.

There was only the corridor carpet, the warm yellow light, and air that was as normal as could be.

Yet the moment the leaf wheel spun into that "air," a sound like glass shattering, yet also like silk being torn, echoed through the entire floor. It wasn't exactly ear-piercing, but it made Luo Yang's scalp tighten from his hairline to the back of his neck.

A pitch-black opening was torn out of the void.

The opening wasn't large, about the width of an adult's shoulders, and less than two meters long from top to bottom. The edges of the crack curled, churning with a thick, silent blackness that surged from deep within the tear.

The other side was absolute darkness.

It was a pure black that devoured everything, where even light could not escape. The chill pouring out of the crack crawled along the carpet toward Luo Yang's feet, and even the warm yellow lights of the corridor dimmed by several shades within three steps of the opening.

The nine golden leaves bounced back from the edge of the crack, returning to Luo Yang's side with a faint hum.

The interwoven black and red colors on the Absolute Slaughter leaf had grown deeper, looking as if it had just been fished out of some liquid.

Luo Yang stared at the pitch-black opening, the silent darkness reflected in his pupils.

The air conditioning in the corridor was still humming, and the cold air it sent out mixed with the chill emerging from the crack, forming a thin layer of white mist at his ankle height.

Luo Yang tried to release a bit of mental power toward it. He was already prepared to withdraw at any moment, but the instant his mental power passed through this crack, he felt a violent change within.

Two powerful auras were racing toward the location of this crack.