156: Chapter 156 Extracting Existence

Su Bai looked at the world opposite him.

The Chaos World.

It was a void without shape, color, or boundaries.

In that void, there was no up or down, no near or far, no past, and no future. There was only an eternal, primordial, and indescribable chaos.

Then, light appeared within the chaos.

It wasn't starlight, nor firelight, nor any known type of light. It was an 'existence' born from 'nothingness,' an order born from chaos. Light and dark separated in the void; the pure and the turbid rose and sank within the emptiness.

Heaven and earth took shape within the chaos.

The ground was grayish-white—not the grayish-white of Yin Qi, but that of chaos. There were no plants, no rivers, and no mountains on that land, only a flat, infinitely extending void. Yet, within this void, life was being born.

Chaos Beasts.

Su Bai's pupils constricted slightly.

Those Chaos Beasts had no fixed form.

Their bodies were constantly changing, reorganizing, and evolving. Some resembled beasts, some birds, some fish, and some insects, but no known creature could perfectly correspond to them.

They were creations of chaos, the opposite of order, forms existing before the birth of form.

Their numbers exceeded six million.

Su Bai stood in the center of the world pod, his grayish-white eyes watching the chaotic land with a calm expression. However, in his mind, he was rapidly scanning the distribution, density, and rank of the Chaos Beasts.

Six million Chaos Beasts were scattered across a chaotic land over five thousand kilometers in diameter. Their ranks ranged from Rank 1 to Rank 6, and among them, he saw at least twelve Chaos Beasts at the peak of Rank 6.

Twelve peak Rank 6 entities.

More than Luo Qinghe's seven, and more than Bei Chenyao's nine.

Furthermore, these Chaos Beasts were not independent individuals; they were extensions of the Chaos World, the manifestation of Ye Qingxue's will. Within the Chaos World, they had no fixed weaknesses, no fixed forms, and no fixed methods of attack.

Because chaos, in itself, was 'uncertainty.'

Su Bai withdrew his gaze and looked toward the deepest part of the Chaos World.

There stood a person.

Ye Qingxue.

She stood in the center of the chaotic land, surrounded by twelve peak Rank 6 Chaos Beasts like twelve satellites orbiting a star. Her left eye was pitch-black as ink, while her right eye was pure white as snow. Both eyes watched Su Bai simultaneously, with countless chaos swirling deep within her pupils.

The corners of her mouth curled up slightly.

That curve was wider than any seen before.

"Su Bai," her voice drifted from the Chaos World. It didn't travel through the air but rang directly in his mind. The voice was cold as ice, yet carried a chaos-like unpredictability. "Is your Netherworld ready?"

Su Bai did not speak.

He merely raised his hand and pointed gently forward.

Grayish-white Yin Qi surged from the borders of the Netherworld World like a bursting dam, flooding toward the chaotic land.

Yin Qi and chaos collided in the void.

The grayish-white Yin Qi and the grayish-white chaos intertwined. They neither harmonized nor repelled each other, but simply coexisted in silence.

Two forces of the same origin but different natures entwined, eroded, and merged in the void, like two rivers flowing in opposite directions meeting to stir up silent whirlpools.

Su Bai did not wait for Ye Qingxue to attack as he had before. He struck first.

Because against the Chaos World, waiting meant death.

"Ghost King."

"Present."

The Ghost King stepped out from before Ghost Gate Pass, his golden vertical pupils staring at the chaotic land ahead. Behind him, the phantom of Ghost Gate Pass loomed in the Yin Qi, with ethereal blue runes flowing across its doors.

"Yellow Spring Road."

The Ghost King thrust the ghost king sword into the void.

A grayish-white path extended from beneath the Ghost King's feet, crossing the border of the Netherworld World, passing through the Yin Qi and chaos in the void, and reaching directly onto the soil of the Chaos World. Upon the path, Yin Qi surged like an ocean, and the wails of countless departed souls echoed in the void.

Wherever the Yellow Spring Road passed, chaos began to be eroded. Those formless chaotic energies, faced with the guiding power of the Yellow Spring Road, began to be dragged into the Yellow Spring. The grayish-white path extended across the chaotic land like an irreversible thread of fate.

Ye Qingxue watched the approaching Yellow Spring Road. Her left eye was black as ink, her right eye white as snow, and her expression remained unchanged.

She simply raised her hand and gave a light wave.

"Chaos Beasts, first formation, devour the Yellow Spring Road."

At the edge of the chaotic land, thirty thousand Chaos Beasts moved simultaneously.

Their bodies changed, reorganized, and evolved as they ran.

Some turned into giant wolves, some into fierce tigers, some into massive pythons, but not a single Chaos Beast had a complete form. The giant wolves had fish scales, the tigers grew deer antlers, and the pythons had bird wings. They were fragments of order, forms before the birth of form, the most primordial creations of chaos.

Thirty thousand Chaos Beasts lunged at the Yellow Spring Road, opening their mouths to begin devouring it.

They weren't destroying the Yellow Spring Road; they were devouring it. The essence of chaos is 'assimilation.' Any order that enters chaos is devoured, decomposed, and returned to nothingness. The Yellow Spring Road was a path of order, a path of rules, the road used by the underworld to guide souls. Before chaos, it was merely a path that could be consumed.

The grayish-white light of the Yellow Spring Road began to dim. In the sections devoured by the Chaos Beasts, the Yin Qi dissipated, the wails of the souls vanished, and the power of the rules on the path was decomposed into the most primordial nothingness by the chaos.

The Ghost King's golden vertical pupils constricted slightly.

"The Yellow Spring Road is disappearing."

He pulled out the ghost king sword, and the ethereal blue light on the blade erupted. The light of the Yellow Spring Road brightened again, but the sections already devoured could not be restored. The devouring of the Chaos Beasts was irreversible, because chaos itself was 'irreversible.'

Su Bai watched the Chaos Beasts devouring the Yellow Spring Road with a calm expression.

"Black and White Impermanence."

"Present."

White Impermanence's smile remained gentle, but the light in his eyes was sharper than ever before. Black Impermanence's face remained fierce, the soul-locking chain coiling in his palm with a low metallic rasp.

"Cut in from the flanks, bypass the first formation of Chaos Beasts, and strike the core area of the Chaos World directly. The target isn't the Chaos Beasts, but their birthplace."

White Impermanence's smile deepened slightly.

"Understood. The birthplace of the Chaos Beasts is where the chaotic energy is densest. That is where the most Chaos Beasts are, but it is also the most fragile node of the Chaos World."

Black Impermanence did not speak, merely tightening his grip on the soul-locking chain.

Two figures vanished from their spots. In the next second, they appeared on the flanks of the Chaos World. Eight hundred thousand Shadow Demons and five hundred thousand Mushroom People followed close behind. The Shadow Demons' Space Folding allowed them to move freely through the chaos, while the Mushroom People's Spore Domain spread tenaciously through the chaotic energy.

But the Chaos World was not undefended.

Ye Qingxue's right eye brightened slightly. Pure white light surged from her pupil, condensing into a light curtain on the flank of the chaotic land.

Chaos Beasts were born from the light curtain.

They poured out from the curtain, their bodies still constantly changing and reorganizing, yet already possessing basic forms. Wolf-like bodies, eagle wings, snake-scaled skin, dragon-horned heads. They were the purest creations of chaos, possessing no souls and no will, only Ye Qingxue's command.

Devour all intruders.

The figures of Black and White Impermanence wove through the flood of Chaos Beasts. Every time White Impermanence's funeral staff fell, the soul of a Chaos Beast was extracted.

However, Chaos Beasts had no souls. They were creations of chaos, the opposite of order, an 'existence' produced from 'nothingness.' What the funeral staff extracted was not a soul, but the fleeting 'existence' Ye Qingxue had bestowed upon them.

The Chaos Beasts whose 'existence' was extracted began to collapse, turning into chaotic energy and returning to the chaotic land.

Black Impermanence's soul-locking chain swept through the Chaos Beasts. Each chain entangled hundreds of them, and their 'existence' was forcibly ripped from their bodies. But there were too many Chaos Beasts. Ten thousand, twenty thousand, thirty thousand. They poured incessantly from the light curtain like a spring that would never run dry.

For the first time, a hint of gravity appeared in White Impermanence's smile.

"These things have no souls. My Soul-hooking can only extract their fleeting existence."

Black Impermanence's voice was cold as iron.

"Then keep extracting. Extract until their birthplace runs dry."