117: Chapter 117 Betting on the Last Bit of Luck

He did not hesitate.

Hesitation is a luxury for the dead, and Shen Xiao was never the type to gamble his life on a "wait and see" approach.

"Begin."

His voice struck a cold echo within the spherical space.

"The rift exit, it's best if it's far from the 'Echoes' nest. I am no saint, but I'm not desperate enough to deliver takeout to those mad dogs."

The fragmented ball of light did not respond. Or rather, it no longer had the energy to respond.

"Bang—bang—bang—" Outside the stone door, the sound of the Puppets' impact suddenly changed in tone.

It was no longer the crude, mechanical, brute-force collision from before, but a more unsettling, "rhythmic" tremor, as if those metal giants had found a new way to activate the Seal, and were using the entire hall's energy network to slowly eat away at this final refuge.

On the walls, the dark silver, mirror-like material began to show fine cracks.

The cracks spread like a spiderweb, and from every fissure shone the dark red light of the Puppets in the outer hall. That was the color of their "eyes"—cold, empty, and carrying a heart-stopping "focus."

They were waiting. They knew the prey was behind the door, with nowhere to run. So they were no longer in a hurry. They wanted to slowly, piece by piece, shatter this final shell, and then...

Shen Xiao withdrew his gaze, no longer looking at the increasingly glaring red light. His attention was entirely focused on the center of the spherical space, where the fragmented ball of light was slowly drawing close to the "cunning" Light Cocoon beside it.

Two balls of light, one large and one small, one bright and one dim.

The larger one was shattered beyond repair, its light so dim it was almost invisible, yet it exuded a heart-stopping "weight," as if it were not a ball of light, but a star about to collapse, using its last strength to maintain its form.

The smaller one was still pulsing and flickering, like a restless firefly. But at this moment, that firefly was no longer cunning, no longer grinning. Its light was trembling.

His Silver Pattern perception captured the emotions radiating from that Light Cocoon—reluctance. Fear. And something else... a heart-wrenching grief, like watching a loved one about to face death.

"Hum!" The two balls of light finally touched.

In an instant, the entire spherical space began to tremble violently! It was not the passive vibration from being struck before, but a kind of active, violent shaking originating from the space itself, like a death spasm!

On the walls, the speed of the cracking suddenly accelerated! Countless cracks exploded like lightning, and dark red light flooded in, dyeing the entire space into a Hell-like scarlet!

The ground was shaking. The air was tearing. A desolate, sorrowful wave, as if it had exhausted all life force, suddenly expanded from the central point where the two balls of light merged, spreading in all directions.

The wave struck Shen Xiao's Silver Pattern, causing his riddled Meridians to ache intensely. But he did not retreat. He gritted his teeth, his Silver Pattern spinning wildly, forcing himself to withstand the impact of the wave.

Xia Lengbai did not have it so easy. She let out a muffled groan, her figure staggering; had Shen Xiao not reached out to support her in time, she would likely have fallen directly to the ground.

"I'm fine." Her voice was hoarse, but the corners of her mouth curled into a pale arc, "I've experienced pain worse than this... what does this amount to?"

Shen Xiao did not reply. His gaze was fixed on the location where the balls of light had merged. There, a brand-new light was slowly taking shape.

It was no longer a broken candle, nor was it a cunning firefly. Instead, it was a... strange existence, indescribable, suspended between "light" and "dark."

Its color constantly shifted, sometimes ice blue, sometimes dark red, sometimes presenting a strange grayish-white, as if it were leaping back and forth on the boundary between "life" and "death." With every leap, its existence grew thinner.

Then... "Rip!" In the center of that ball of light, a rift suddenly tore open.

It was not a "split" in the physical sense, but a "wound" left behind after space itself had been forcibly torn apart. Its grayish-white edges constantly twisted, annihilated, and regenerated, like a wound that could never heal, radiating a nauseating, "unstable" aura.

The other side of the rift... Shen Xiao's pupils suddenly contracted. There was no road. No door. No corridor. There was only a bizarre, color-distorted scene of Chaos, like a mosaic with no logic, as if the entire world had been ground up and pasted back together at random.

Red, blue, purple, black... various colors surged, collided, annihilated, and were reborn within that Chaos. Every second it transformed, every instant it collapsed and rebuilt itself, making one dizzy and nauseated.

Even more unsettling was the sound. The wind. A low, whimpering wind came from the depths of that Chaos, like the breathing of some massive creature in its sleep.

And then... "Crunch... crunch... crunch..." A kind of chewing sound. Slow, rhythmic, and carrying a bone-chilling "satisfaction." It was as if something was in some corner of that Chaos, enjoying its "dinner."

Shen Xiao did not want to know what it was. He wanted to know even less what that "dinner" was.

"Follow the faint pull of the 'Tomb Guardian Seal'..." A thought, so weak it was almost inaudible, came from the ball of light that was dissipating. It was the last voice of that ancient Consciousness Entity. It was no longer a complete "broadcast," but intermittent "Echoes" that seemed ready to cut off at any moment.

"Perhaps... you can find... a relatively safe 'anchor point'..." Its voice grew weaker and fainter, like a drop of ink falling into the ocean, being rapidly diluted.

"Remember..." The final thought was like the last flicker of a candle in the wind. "The chessboard... is not just one side... making moves..."

The words faded. The ball of light dissipated completely. Along with that cunning, restless Light Cocoon that had chosen to accompany them at the final moment, it turned into the purest energy, devoid of any consciousness, and flooded into the unstable rift, attempting to... stabilize it for an instant.

It was only for an instant. But for escaping, an instant was enough.

"Go!" Shen Xiao let out a low shout, his Silver Pattern erupting beneath his feet, wrapping around them both as they rushed toward the grayish-white rift.

Just then, Xia Lengbai's hand gripped his tightly. It was not the romantic way of interlacing fingers. It was the desperate, ungentle grip of a drowning person clutching the final straw.

Her fingers were ice-cold, her nails almost digging into his flesh. But Shen Xiao did not shake her off. In that instant, his Silver Pattern perception caught a faint warmth emanating from Xia Lengbai's palm; that was the clear radiance of the Tomb Guardian Seal gathering in her palm, faintly pointing toward a direction deep within the rift.

Coordinates. The final coordinates.

"Boom!!!" Behind them, the stone door finally could not withstand the Puppets' relentless bombardment and suddenly burst open!

Countless stone fragments flew in like cannonballs, and dark red light surged into the spherical space like a flood. Those three-zhang-tall metal giants loomed in the red light, their dark red light spots like the ghost fires of Hell—cold, empty, and carrying the... excitement of a predator locking onto its prey.

Shen Xiao did not look back. He took one last glance at the scene of Hell behind him—the Puppets flooding in, the collapsing walls, the twisting red light—and then, with his Silver Pattern wrapping tightly around them both, he leapt into the grayish-white rift.

Leaping into that Chaos. Leaping into that unknown. Leaping into that... abyss from which there might be no return.

The rift closed instantly behind them. Annihilation. It was like a wound that had been forcibly torn open finally healing, sealing everything behind it—the roar of the Puppets, the collapse of space, those dark red light spots—off in another world.

Weightlessness. Chaos. Heaven and earth inverted.

Shen Xiao felt as if he had been stuffed into a wildly spinning washing machine; up, down, left, right, forward, and backward—all directions were rotating simultaneously, and every inch of his skin, every bone, every Meridian was enduring the disordered, violent tearing coming from all sides.

The Silver Pattern spun frantically, forming a thin protective film on his skin, desperately resisting the erosion of the Chaos space. But he could feel that the protective film was thinning. It was being worn down. It was, bit by bit... dissolving.

"Tomb Guardian Seal..." Xia Lengbai's voice came from beside him, intermittent, as if separated by a layer of water film, "Pointing... direction... that way..."

Shen Xiao did not respond. All his will was focused on maintaining the Silver Pattern protection; he simply could not spare the energy to discern the direction. But he trusted her. Not because of trust. But because... there were not many choices left.

He did not know how much time had passed. Perhaps an instant, perhaps ten thousand years. In the Chaos space, time had no meaning.

Beneath his feet, a solid touch suddenly came. Not emptiness, not floating, but the real, hard, slightly chilly... ground.

The scene before his eyes changed suddenly. The Chaos dissipated. The colors reorganized. Shen Xiao narrowed his eyes, adapting to the sudden change in light.

A dark red sky. No sun, no moon, no stars. There was only that oppressive, heavy dark red, as if the entire firmament were pressing down, like a curtain soaked in blood, hanging low overhead.

Beneath his feet was a desolate black Gobi Desert. Crushed stone, gravel, and occasionally, pale rock layers resembling bones exposed on the ground.

In the distance, the outlines of twisted mountain ranges were faintly visible. Those were not normal mountains, but jagged, bizarre silhouettes resembling the skeletons of giant beasts, crookedly piercing the sky like some abandoned, rotting monuments.

The air was filled with a scent. Rust. And decay. The two scents mixed together to form a nauseating, yet inexplicably familiar smell, like an old slaughterhouse, or a mass grave forgotten for a thousand years.

Shen Xiao took a deep breath, letting the scent fill his lungs, then slowly exhaled. They had survived. For now.

"Ugh..." Beside him, Xia Lengbai suddenly let out a muffled groan. Shen Xiao turned his head abruptly.

Xia Lengbai was clutching her left arm, her face pale, her brows furrowed, her lips pressed into a line—that was the expression she only had when enduring intense pain.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing..." Xia Lengbai let go and looked down at her forearm. Her skin was already pale to the point of being sickly, and now, under the illumination of the dark red sky, it appeared even more paper-white.

And right on that paleness, a faint, dark red pattern was quietly emerging from her wrist.

The pattern was very faint, very thin, like a mark left by a needle tip gently scratching the skin, yet it carried a bizarre, non-human "texture." It was not a scar, not a Bloodline, but something... foreign, invasive, like a parasite.

The pattern only appeared for an instant before quickly fading, merging back under the skin as if it had never appeared. But Shen Xiao's Silver Pattern perception captured the aura emanating from that pattern in that instant.

It was not a cold in terms of temperature. It was a cold on the level of... "existence." It was as if something was using that pattern to quietly mark Xia Lengbai's "location." Like branding a prey, to make it convenient to... harvest at any time later.

"Something from the rift." Xia Lengbai's voice was calm, even carrying a hint of self-mockery, "The 'Impurities' from the Chaos space, or... something else. I guess it's the latter."

She looked up at Shen Xiao, revealing a smile with no warmth. "It seems our 'Heavenly Dao' reacts quite quickly. We just escaped, and it has already arranged a new 'plot' for me."

Shen Xiao did not speak. His Silver Pattern perception was frantically scanning the surroundings—this black Gobi Desert, this dark red sky, those distant skeletal mountain ranges... everything radiated a bizarre, unsettling "sense of unfamiliarity."

This was not any corner of the Nine Heavens Continent he knew. This... was somewhere else. A more dangerous place. A place that perhaps even the 'heavenly dao chessboard' could not fully control.

Xia Lengbai suddenly took his hand. It was not the desperate grip from when they were fleeing earlier. It was a light, slightly probing grip, as if confirming whether the other person was still there.

"Shen Xiao." Her voice was light, scattered by the wind, "Where are we now?"

Shen Xiao was silent for a moment. Then, his knees bent slightly. He rested his right hand on his knee. His left hand slowly raised to tightly clutch his chest. His face, illuminated by the dark red sky, presented an unnatural pallor.

The Silver Pattern was raging frantically inside him, and his riddled Meridians sent wave after wave of stabbing pain, as if countless needles were simultaneously piercing his heart.

"I don't know." His voice was hoarse, as if squeezed from his throat. "But no matter where we are..." He paused, the corners of his mouth curling into a pale arc, "We must survive."