167: Chapter 167 Crack

When the grayish-white palm retracted into the crack, it took a piece of the Law barrier from the edge of the firmament with it.

The gap wasn't large, only about the size of a fist, but its edges were spreading outward, with a corrosion speed three times faster than the previous black lines.

Pure Void Master descended from mid-air, a section of his sleeve charred. He landed steadily, but a grayish-white mark had appeared on the back of his left hand, looking as if it had been pressed by a branding iron.

“That hand isn't the one you mentioned.” He looked toward Bai Yu.

“It’s not.” Bai Yu stood at the door, his gaze fixed on the firmament. “The gray humanoid is a program; its body is mist, not a physical entity. That hand just now had bones.”

Having bones meant having a physical form. Having a physical form meant it wasn't something native to the Heavenly Dao Interlayer.

It was either something that broke in or something that was placed inside.

“The thing behind the door.” Void Realm leaned against the stone table, his voice carrying the exhaustion of a survivor. “When you pushed that door open, you woke it up.”

Bai Yu didn't deny it.

He glanced back at the inner room. Bai Wuji was still asleep, his breathing unchanged.

“Old man.”

“Who are you calling old man?”

“Your Bone Knife—can I borrow it one more time?”

The old man lifted his backside from the stone stool and tilted his neck to size him up.

“In your current state, you’d struggle to even hold a kitchen knife, yet you want to go back in?”

“I'm not going in.” Bai Yu turned back to face the firmament. “I'm luring it out.”

Pure Void Master and Void Realm looked at him simultaneously.

“You're crazy.” Void Realm's assessment was concise and powerful.

“Inside is its home turf; outside is mine.” Bai Yu raised a finger to point at the Pulse-Sealing Needle at his brow. “This needle sealed my perception of the three powers, but it didn't seal their reaction to the outside world. When that hand reached out just now, the gold and ink colors inside my body both flared—though I couldn't feel it, you felt it, Pure Void Master.”

Pure Void Master's expression confirmed this.

“Two Heavenly Dao wills reacting simultaneously indicates that the owner of that hand is at least a Heavenly Dao-Grade existence. In the interlayer, it has no Law constraints and can grow however it wants. But once it comes out—”

“It will be suppressed by the current Heavenly Dao Laws.” Pure Void Master finished the thought, his tone deepening.

Bai Yu nodded.

“So your point is to lure it to an area with complete Laws and use the rules of the world itself to restrict it.” The old man laid the Bone Knife across his knees. “Sounds good. But there's a problem—once it's out, who fights it? You?”

Bai Yu didn't answer the question.

He walked to the center of the courtyard, crouched down, and drew a circle on the stone slab with his finger.

“We need a formation,” he said. “Not an offensive one, but a cage. Cover the exit of the crack so it’s trapped the moment it emerges.”

“What kind of formation can trap a Heavenly Dao-Grade existence?” Void Realm's tone sounded like he was listening to a bad joke.

Bai Yu pulled the mirror fragment from his robes. Half of the old heavenly dao's face remained quietly embedded in the fragment.

“Use this.”

Pure Void Master's gaze fell upon the fragment.

“Law scripts of the old heavenly dao.” Bai Yu flipped the fragment over. The line 'Three Seats of the Heavenly Dao, One is Missing' was still glowing. “The scripts on this fragment aren't ordinary carvings; they are the compressed will of the old heavenly dao. If we can decipher the structure of this line, we can replicate his Law framework, even if it's only a partial one.”

He handed the fragment to Pure Void Master.

“You can read this script.”

It wasn't a guess. Pure Void Master had cultivated for untold years, and at least half the battles he'd fought involved the Heavenly Dao. The old heavenly dao Law scripts were gibberish to others, but not to him.

Pure Void Master took the fragment, holding it between his fingers as his thumb brushed over the line of text.

Golden light emanated from the script, crawling half an inch up his finger bone. He didn't dodge, letting the light finish its path before it retracted.

“Three days,” he said. “I can construct a framework in three days. But it won't last long; the limit is the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.”

“One incense stick is enough.”

Bai Yu stood up and brushed the dust off his knees. He walked toward the inner room, stopping at the doorway.

“Gu Dusheng.”

“Here.”

“Go down the mountain and find two things. A jar of undiluted yellow wine and a whetstone.”

Gu Dusheng opened his mouth to speak.

“Don't ask so many questions, just go get them.”

Gu Dusheng left.

Bai Yu pushed the door open and entered the inner room.

Bai Wuji was awake.

It was unclear when he had woken up; he was lying on his side on the couch, eyes open, staring at the spot on the low stool where Bai Yu had been sitting earlier.

Hearing the door, he turned his head.

“You left,” he said.

Bai Yu paused.

“I stepped out for a moment.”

Bai Wuji didn't respond. His gaze swept over Bai Yu before landing on his right hand. In the dim room, the translucent fingers faintly revealed the outline of the bones.

“What happened to your hand?”

“It’s injured.”

Bai Wuji stared at the hand for a few seconds. Then he sat up from the couch with clumsy movements, like someone who had just learned how to use their body. He reached out with both hands and cupped Bai Yu's translucent right hand in his palms.

Bai Yu didn't pull away.

Bai Wuji lowered his head, looking at it earnestly for a while.

“I don't remember you,” he said softly. “But seeing your hand like this, here in my chest...” He released one hand and patted the left side of his chest. “It feels heavy.”

Medicine Not So leaned against the doorframe, his face already turned away.

Bai Yu looked at Bai Wuji's hands. They were much rougher than he remembered, the calluses on the knuckles had thickened, and there were fresh cracks at the base of the thumb that hadn't healed yet.

The result of ten thousand sword strikes.

Bai Wuji didn't remember.

But his hands did.

Bai Yu used his right hand to grasp the other's fingers. The translucent palm wrapped around the solid fingers; no temperature could be transferred, but he could feel the heat from the other's palm.

“When you're better,” Bai Yu said, “I'll teach you how to practice the sword again.”

Bai Wuji looked up at him. In those empty eyes, something flashed at the bottom. It wasn't a memory, but something deeper.

“Okay,” he said.

A single word.

Without hesitation.

Bai Yu released his hand and stood up. As he walked out the door, his back to Bai Wuji, he paused for a step.

Beneath the Pulse-Sealing Needle at his brow, a white thread suddenly twitched violently.

Blocked by the needle, it didn't overflow.

But it was heavier than any previous time.

He walked into the courtyard. The crack in the firmament had widened by another half-inch, and gray mist seeped from the gap, forming a thin gray dome over the Heavenly Sword Sect.

Pure Void Master stood on the courtyard wall, clutching the fragment, projecting Law scripts into the air. Golden characters floated up one by one, arranging themselves around the crack.

“Bai Yu.” He didn't turn his head.

“Yeah.”

“When you pushed open that door, what did you see?”

Bai Yu looked up at the gray dome.

“A mirror. After the mirror shattered, golden light blasted a hole in the interlayer.”

“And on the other side of the hole?”

Bai Yu's lips thinned.

“There was no other side. At the end of the hole was a chair.”

Pure Void Master's hand stopped.

“Empty,” Bai Yu said. “There was no one on the chair. But three words were carved into the armrest.”

“What words?”

Bai Yu lowered his head, looking at his translucent right palm.

“My name.”