262: Source Core Resonance, Gate of Bones
The dark sword shadow formed by the broken thought fragment and the beam of return to silence shot from the black hole vortex collided fiercely in the twisted space-time!
There was no expected energy explosion, nor the roar of Laws shattering. Two powers, both heading towards the 'ultimate' but originating from different Origins, were like water meeting fire, or like Yin and Yang clashing. The moment they touched, they fell into the most essential, most dangerous annihilation and devouring at the level of the Laws!
Ye Chen bore the brunt of it!
He felt as if he had been thrown into a purgatory and an ice cave at the same time! On one side was the cold, silent extinction from the broken thought fragment, wanting to sever everything and return to absolute darkness; on the other side was the decaying decline contained in the beam of return to silence, making all things head towards an end and turn into emptiness! Both forces used his body and Divine Soul as a battlefield, crazily clashing and eroding!
"Pfft—!"
He could no longer suppress it, and large mouthfuls of blood mixed with shattered internal organ fragments gushed out. The blood was intertwined with gold and dark gray, appearing eerie and tragic. On the surface of his skin, gray, decayed cracks eroded by the power of return to silence appeared on the left, while cold Death Qi stained by the dark Sword Intent permeated the right. The dark gray demon seal on his chest flickered frantically; the balance was completely broken, and what it transmitted was no longer a feeling of hunger, but a kind of violent and chaotic state on the verge of disintegration!
"Fellow Daoist Ye Chen!" Seeing this, Qing Lin turned pale with fright. Disregarding her own Divine Soul injuries, she once again forcibly activated the Origin of the ancient tree of life. A denser emerald radiance transformed into a beam of light, attempting to inject into Ye Chen's body to stabilize his vitality.
However, that life force containing immense vitality, upon contacting the extremely chaotic annihilation force field around Ye Chen, was like a snowflake thrown into a raging fire, instantly dissolved and evaporated, unable to penetrate at all!
"It's useless..." Ye Chen's voice was as hoarse as an old bellows. He struggled to lift his head, but his eyes burned with an almost insane persistence. "This is... a confrontation at the level of the Laws... external forces... are hard to intervene..."
He gripped the broken thought fragment tightly, his nails digging deep into his palm from the force, dripping with blood. He did not give up; instead, he poured all his focus and all his will into perceiving and guiding these two destructive forces!
Chaos! Inclusiveness!
He thought of Yu's Legacy, and his own understanding of the Dao of Chaos! Chaos does not have only one form; it can derive vitality and can also contain silent death! This power of return to silence, this dark Sword Intent, in essence, are they not also one of the "myriad phenomena" that Chaos can encompass?!
"Merge... for me!"
Ye Chen let out a silent roar in his heart! He no longer tried to "resist" or "eliminate" these two forces, but opened up his own Chaos Origin, like a bottomless black hole, actively devouring the power of return to silence and the dark Sword Intent that had invaded his body, along with the violent energy produced by their conflict and annihilation, into his chaos minor world!
This was an even crazier move! It was equivalent to throwing two more destruction bombs into his own world that was on the verge of collapse!
"Rumble—!"
Inside the chaos minor world, the world turned upside down! The gray sky was torn apart, the thick earth disintegrated again, and the three-leaf Chaos seedling in the center swayed violently. The dark golden luster and black spots on its leaves flickered frantically, as if it would completely wither at any moment!
Intense pain! An indescribable, intense pain swept through every inch of Ye Chen's nerves! His consciousness wandered repeatedly on the edge of destruction, as if he would completely sink into the abyss in the next second.
But right in this extreme pain and Chaos, that ancient Chaos Origin that had been silent deep within the Small World, obtained from the Pool of Origin, seemed to be stimulated by this external, high-level destructive force, and finally... awakened a sliver!
A more ancient, more magnificent Chaos aura, as if originating from the beginning of primordial times, permeated from the core of the Small World. It did not directly suppress the two destructive forces, but like a supreme mediator, with its unparalleled inclusiveness, began to sort out and reconcile the conflicting power of return to silence and the dark Sword Intent!
Under the intervention of this ancient Origin, the intensity of the conflict between the two forces, which were originally like water and fire, actually began to slowly decrease! They seemed to have been thrown into a larger, deeper "furnace." Although they still repelled each other, they were no longer in disorderly annihilation, but began to be forcibly blended by the ancient Chaos aura in an extremely slow and extremely difficult way!
The dark gray demon seal on Ye Chen's chest also underwent a strange change under the influence of the internal upheaval. The rotation speed of the vortex at its center suddenly accelerated. It was no longer simply absorbing, but began to actively release a weak, yet somehow harmonizing, gray-dark airflow, participating in the grand "smelting" within his body!
Outside, Qing Lin saw with shock that the distinct gray decay and Death Qi on Ye Chen's body began to gradually blur and merge, eventually turning into a deeper, more restrained dark Chaos color! The blood he spat out was no longer intertwined with gold and gray, but had turned into a dark red that was almost black!
The heart-palpitating annihilation force field around him, although still present, was no longer so violent; instead, it had an eerie sense of stability! It was as if the destructive power had been forcibly brought under his control in some incomprehensible way!
And just at this moment—
The broken thought fragment in his hand flared with black light again! But this time, the black light was no longer aggressive, but became gentle and concentrated, forming a wonderful resonance with the beam of return to silence shot from the black hole vortex!
"Hum—!"
The beam of return to silence no longer attacked; instead, like a fledgling returning to its nest, it actively coiled around the dark sword shadow formed by the broken thought fragment. The two forces no longer conflicted, but combined like water and milk, turning into a more solid, deeper dark light bridge. One end connected to the fragment in Ye Chen's hand, and the other end went straight into the depths of the slowly rotating black hole vortex!
The black hole vortex that blocked everything and devoured everything, in front of this light bridge made of homologous power, actually rippled slightly, and its resistance was greatly reduced!
"The passage... opened?" Qing Lin looked at this scene in disbelief.
Ye Chen slowly raised his head. Although his face was still as pale as paper and his aura was extremely weak, his eyes were astonishingly bright, as if Chaos nebulae were being born and dying within them. He felt the pulling force from the broken thought fragment in his hand, and the more magnificent and vast call from the other side of the light bridge, originating from the same root and Origin!
"The source core of silence... is on the other side!"
He glanced at Qing Lin, who was pale and tottering due to exhausting her strength, took a deep breath, and forcing his almost falling-apart body, stepped forward.
"Let's go!"
He stepped onto the dark light bridge constructed of return to silence and darkness, and Qing Lin followed closely behind. The light bridge was extremely stable, carrying both of them, ignoring the surrounding violent space-time turbulence, and leading straight to the center of the black hole vortex.
The moment their figures completely submerged into the vortex, the huge black hole vortex trembled violently, then quickly shrank, calmed down, and finally disappeared, as if it had never appeared. Only the edge of the forbidden zone remained, still chaotic but having lost its core target.
The moment they passed through the vortex, Ye Chen and Qing Lin felt as if they had crossed through eons of space-time. Around them were bizarre, twisted scenes, and countless broken memory fragments and space-time shadows flashed by rapidly.
A moment later, a sense of solid ground came.
They appeared in a huge circular hall constructed of countless giant bones!
The dome of the hall was composed of a skull shaped like a Dragon's head, which was unimaginably huge, with two balls of ghostly blue, eternal Soul fire burning in the eye sockets. The surrounding walls were built from countless ribs and spines as thick as mountain ranges, exuding a desolate and majestic aura.
And in the very center of the hall, it was not the source core fragment as expected, but a... door suspended there.
A gate of bones made of pure, constantly flowing dark gray energy!
The door was carved with countless complex and ancient runes, which originated from the same source as the runes on the stone tablet at the bottom of the Pool of Origin, but they were more complete and more profound. The door was tightly closed, but the aura of return to silence emanating from it was more than a hundred times stronger than that of the previous black hole vortex!
The broken thought fragment in Ye Chen's hand vibrated violently, pointing to the gate of bones, conveying an incomparable desire and awe.
The source core of silence is behind this door!
But at the same time, a Seal force, powerful enough to make one despair, also permeated from the door, blocking the approach of all outsiders.
To get the source core, one must first... open this door!