189: Refining the Heart in Chaos
Dizziness.
Extreme dizziness, defying all common sense.
This was Liu Qingtian's most direct and intense feeling after stepping into the Chaos light gate. It was as if the entire Universe's up, down, left, and right had been shattered, then haphazardly pieced back together by an invisible giant hand. He felt himself falling, yet rising, moving horizontally, and even retreating backward... various senses of direction chaotically intertwined and conflicted, causing even him, a Black Hole Level Demonic Venerable, to experience a physiological discomfort akin to nausea.
"Stabilize!"
He let out a low roar, and his formidable Demonic Essence erupted, attempting to forcibly stabilize his body and lock onto a direction. However, the moment this vast Power, capable of crushing stars, surged into the surrounding Chaos, it was like a drop of water falling into boiling oil, triggering an even more violent reaction.
Rumble!
The Chaos Qi currents, which had originally flowed slowly, suddenly became turbulent, transforming into countless torrents with drastically different directions and immense force, tearing at his Demonic body from all sides. His protective Demonic light flickered violently, emitting a creaking sound as if it could no longer bear the strain.
"Damn it!" Liu Qingtian immediately reined in most of his outward Power, maintaining only the minimum Wither and Flourish Star Annihilation Domain to protect his body. He discovered that here, the more he tried to resist the 'impermanence' of the environment with brute force, the stronger the backlash he provoked.
He forced himself to calm down, discarding his ingrained spatial awareness, and purely relied on his Demonic Soul's perception to adapt to this Chaos. However, even his Demonic Soul's probing was greatly interfered with. His Divine Thought, once it left his body for less than a hundred zhang, was like falling into a quagmire, becoming blurry and unclear, and the information it fed back was fragmented and full of contradictions.
He 'saw' a huge, continent-like rock fragment slowly drifting past his 'head', but the next moment, that rock appeared 'under his feet' and was moving away. He 'felt' a stream of energy as hot as a stellar core surging from his 'left side', but what his body actually felt was a bone-chilling cold coming from 'behind'.
Sight, hearing, touch, even energy perception... everything became unreliable.
"This is 'impermanence'..." Liu Qingtian's heart was solemn, the Palace-Attired Woman's warning still ringing in his ears. Trusting instinct was better than trusting cognition.
He closed his eyes, completely abandoning the attempt to 'see' with his eyes or 'scan' with his Divine Thought. He immersed his mind within his body, feeling the rotation of his Black Hole core, feeling the flow of Demonic Essence in his Meridians, using this as his sole 'anchor point' to confirm his own existence.
Then, he tried to move.
He wanted to fly upward.
With a thought, his Demonic Essence circulated in the way he remembered for 'moving upward'. However, the sensation his body gave back was a sudden downward plunge! It was as if countless invisible hands were pulling at his ankles, trying to drag him into a bottomless abyss.
"Incorrect!" He immediately stopped exerting force, and his body tumbled several times uncontrollably in the Chaos. He steadied his mind and tried again. This time, he no longer presupposed the concept of 'upward', but simply generated an 'intention' to 'leave the current position and go to that area where the energy feels more active', carefully mobilizing a trace of Demonic Essence to cooperate.
Whoosh—
His body moved. But the direction was not a straight line; instead, it was a twisted, drunken trajectory, sometimes darting upwards and to the left for a bit, sometimes sliding downwards and to the right, interspersed with several unannounced brief pauses and reverse shifts. Although the process was strange, overall, he was indeed approaching the energy-active area he perceived.
"Intention-guided, not concept-driven..." Liu Qingtian mused. In this Chaos, fixed spatial concepts lost their meaning; actions needed to rely on a more fundamental 'intention' and subtle perception of environmental energy flows to adjust.
This was an extremely mentally taxing process. He had to maintain a high level of concentration at all times, constantly fine-tuning the interaction between his own Power and the surrounding Chaos Qi currents, like dancing on a knife's edge. A slight mistake could trigger violent ChaosTurbulence, or he could completely lose himself in the impermanent shifts of direction.
Who knew how long had 'passed'? Perhaps an instant, perhaps several days. Liu Qingtian finally gradually adapted to this completely counter-intuitive mode of movement. Although his movements were still not fluid, at least he no longer tumbled out of control as he did at the beginning. His control over his own Power, under the compulsion of this extreme environment, was forced to develop in a more refined and subtle direction. The previous methods of exerting force, characterized by wide, sweeping movements and brutal collisions, seemed out of place and dangerous here.
Just as he had somewhat familiarized himself with this movement and was preparing to accelerate towards that energy-active area, a sudden change occurred!
A gray shadow shot out from a dense mass of Chaos Qi from his rear-side without warning. Its speed was astonishing, directly ignoring some chaotic spatial obstructions, and darting straight for Liu Qingtian's back.
The object was blurry in shape, like a constantly shifting mass of gray colloid, with no fixed features or limbs, but the aura it emitted carried a pure greed and malice towards all ordered energy.
"Chaos Creature?" Liu Qingtian's Demonic Pupils contracted, and an alarm blared in his heart. He didn't even have time to fully turn around; with a thought, his Wither and Flourish Star Annihilation Domain, compressed to its extreme, violently swung backward!
Chichich!
The gray shadow collided with the Domain wall, emitting a corrosive sound. The Domain, which contained the Power of Wither and Flourish, Annihilation, and Guixu, was actually rapidly dissolved in part by the gray colloid. Although the Domain was continuously regenerating, it was clearly at a disadvantage.
Having failed in one strike, the gray shadow suddenly stretched out, like a gray whip, bypassing the Domain and coiling around Liu Qingtian's neck from an extremely tricky angle.
Liu Qingtian reacted extremely quickly, his fingers like a blade, with highly compressed Black Hole Devouring Power condensed at his fingertips, he slashed backward!
"God Slaying Finger!"
This was a Divine Ability he had seen in Demonic Path texts, originally requiring specific Cultivation Technique cooperation, but he forcibly simulated its form with Black Hole Power, focusing on extreme point-like destruction.
Where the finger wind passed, space was cut open with a subtle black mark. The coiling gray 'whip' made contact with the finger wind, and a section of it was instantly devoured, emitting a silent shriek.
The gray shadow shrieked in pain and rapidly contracted and retreated. A noticeable gap appeared on its constantly shifting form, but the surrounding Chaos Qi currents were rapidly surging in, repairing its damage.
"Physical attacks are generally ineffective, energy attacks are dissolved; only Power containing high-level Laws or extreme destructiveness can harm it..." Liu Qingtian instantly made a judgment. This Chaos Creature itself seemed to be a part of this Chaos, making it extremely difficult to deal with.
The gray shadow clearly did not give up. It hovered not far away, its form changing again. This time, it transformed into dozens of smaller gray shadows, attacking Liu Qingtian simultaneously from all directions, following various movement trajectories that defied geometric Laws.
Liu Qingtian's expression was grim; he knew he could no longer hold back. In this land of impermanence, delaying would only attract more unknown dangers.
He let out a low roar, and divine light burst from his eyes. His left pupil seemed to transform into a miniature Black Hole, deep and swirling, causing the surrounding Chaos Qi currents to subtly tilt towards it; his right eye, meanwhile, revealed a strange sight of Chaos Nebula intertwined with Karma threads.
"Myriad Phenomena Return to Void—Pull!"
He no longer tried to precisely attack each shadow, but instead combined the Black Hole Power of his left eye with the Wither and Flourish Star Annihilation Domain, suddenly creating a powerful, inwardly collapsing gravitational singularity centered on himself!
Buzz!
The trajectories of the surrounding gray shadows that were rushing towards him were instantly twisted and pulled by this sudden powerful gravity, involuntarily deviating from their original attack routes, like a school of fish caught in an invisible vortex, all converging towards Liu Qingtian.
At the same time, Liu Qingtian's right eye shone brightly. The Power of Karma and the Chaos Nebula operated to their utmost, and among the dozens of shadows being pulled by gravity, he instantly locked onto a 'point' that had a subtle energy connection with other shadows and was the most core in its fluctuations!
"Found you!"
He pointed his fingers again. This time, what condensed at his fingertips was no longer simple Black Hole Devouring Power, but rather the sharpness of the 'core' Karma thread captured by his right eye, combined with his own Annihilation Dao Law!
"Annihilation—Karma Thorn!"
An extremely condensed, almost invisible black light ignored the rushing illusions, directly piercing through the chaotic space, precisely hitting the locked core!
"Screech—!"
An extremely sharp Soul scream erupted. The dozens of rushing gray shadows suddenly froze, then shattered and dissipated like bubbles. The core shadow struck by the black light twisted and contracted violently, finally 'poofing' out of existence, leaving only a wisp of extremely pure, attribute-less Chaos Origin Qi, slowly drifting away.
Liu Qingtian reached out and drew the wisp of Chaos Origin Qi into his hand. The Qi felt cool to the touch, containing the most primitive and purest energy and Law fragments. It actually had a subtle nourishing and harmonizing effect on the Myriad Law Origin he had refined within his body.
"Good stuff!" A hint of joy flashed in his eyes. Although this Chaos Creature was dangerous, the Chaos Origin left behind after its core was annihilated was a rare Opportunity.
He quickly absorbed this wisp of Origin Qi into his body and circulated his Demonic Technique to refine it. Immediately, he felt that the powers within his body, which had been somewhat restless and mutually repulsive due to the refinement of Myriad Laws, seemed to have been injected with a soft lubricant, becoming a little more peaceful, and their Fusion degree also slightly improved.
"Indeed, here, danger and Opportunity coexist." Liu Qingtian's spirits lifted. He looked at the boundless, chaotic space around him, the solemnity in his eyes diminishing slightly, while his desire for exploration grew stronger.
He adjusted his state and once again relied on 'intention' to guide him towards that energy-active area. Only this time, his perception was sharper, and his control over his own Power was more refined. He knew that this 'impermanent' Chaos Secret Realm's tempering of him had only just begun.
And in the depths of Chaos, where he was unaware, some larger, more obscure consciousnesses seemed to slowly awaken due to the brief but intense energy fluctuation just now, casting their invisible 'gaze' upon this new, somewhat unusual intruder...