Chapter 91: The Hand Beyond the World
BOOOOOOM!
Light erupted above Gray Ghost Valley, turning the overcast sky into a second sun.
The mist was hurled across the ravines. Ancient trees bent beneath the shock wave, their branches snapping as space trembled like glass on the verge of shattering. Waves of frenzied energy descended upon the valley, crushing the rocks and tearing through the already unstable spiritual currents.
Han Feng staggered.
For a moment, even standing upright became difficult.
This was not ordinary spiritual pressure. It did not merely weigh upon his body or suppress the circulation of his primordial essence.
It felt as though the laws governing the world were being forced to yield.
His meridians tightened. His breathing became labored. Even the movement of his thoughts seemed to slow beneath the overwhelming presence beyond the fissure.
Beside him, Shen Lian coughed violently.
Blood spilled from her lips.
She tried to raise her head, but her eyes rolled backward, and her body collapsed against the broken stone.
Han Feng reached toward her.
He never got the chance to check her condition.
A sound came from the mist.
CRACK.
Then another.
CRACK. CRACK.
Han Feng turned.
The corpses scattered throughout Gray Ghost Valley were moving.
A cultivator with half his skull missing slowly pushed himself upright. Several broken ribs protruded from his chest, yet his limbs moved with unnatural coordination.
Nearby, a merchant whose body had been reduced almost entirely to bones dragged himself out from beneath a collapsed cart.
A third corpse rose from the gray dust.
Then a fourth.
Their eyes were completely black.
No spiritual light remained within them. No recognizable aura of life could be detected.
And yet every corpse turned toward the fissure.
They did not look at Han Feng.
They did not look at the living.
They stared upward, their ruined faces lifted toward the enormous opening in the sky.
Like worshippers awaiting the arrival of their god.
Han Feng's expression hardened.
"The fissure is controlling them..."
He stopped.
That explanation was too simple.
The energy pouring from the opening was certainly influencing the corpses, but something else was happening. The bodies were not merely being animated by an external force.
Thin strands of gray energy extended from their backs and disappeared into the mist.
Some seemed to lead toward the fissure.
Others sank into the ground.
Han Feng could not determine whether the strands were connections, remnants of the valley's ancient formation, or something entirely different.
He only knew that the corpses were acting as temporary vessels for energy that did not belong to the Gu World.
And there were far too many of them.
The first corpse moved.
One instant, it stood several dozen paces away.
The next, it was directly in front of him.
Han Feng's pupils contracted.
He twisted aside as a rotting hand slammed into the ground.
BOOM!
The impact shattered the stone beneath his feet.
Fragments struck his face and shoulders.
Han Feng retreated immediately, drawing on his primordial essence to activate his defensive Gu.
Crimson light spread across his body.
The corpse lunged again.
Han Feng struck with his burning palm.
FOOOOM!
Flames engulfed the creature and hurled it backward.
Its robes caught fire. Its flesh blackened. The exposed bones beneath its skin glowed red.
Yet the corpse continued crawling toward him.
Its burning fingers scraped against the stone.
It had no pain.
No fear.
No instinct for self-preservation.
Only an overwhelming compulsion to move.
Han Feng's expression grew colder.
"You're already dead. What else is there to fear?"
He shifted sideways as another corpse attacked from his blind spot.
A short burst of crimson flame shattered its shoulder.
Han Feng followed with a kick that sent the body tumbling down the slope.
Three more appeared through the mist.
Then five.
The valley was producing enemies faster than he could eliminate them.
And every moment he spent fighting was a moment he could not spend escaping.
He abandoned the idea of destroying them all.
Instead, he moved toward the narrow passage between the cliffs, where the pressure had seemed slightly weaker before the fissure expanded.
He needed to get Shen Lian out.
If she was still alive.
The first Rank Four corpse emerged from the mist just as Han Feng reached the passage.
He sensed its aura before seeing it.
The familiar pressure of a cultivator who had established a foundation far stronger than his own rolled through the ravine.
Han Feng stopped.
The corpse wore the remains of a dark blue robe. Its right arm was missing, and a long crack ran from its forehead to its jaw.
Yet the energy circulating through its body was unmistakably powerful.
A thin gray thread passed through its chest.
The corpse raised its remaining hand.
Han Feng immediately activated Shadow Displacement.
His body blurred.
The corpse's palm struck the ground where he had stood.
The shock wave tore through the passage and shattered a section of the cliff.
Han Feng reappeared several paces away.
Pain flared through his injured side.
His primordial essence had not fully recovered from the previous battles, and each burst of movement consumed more energy than he could comfortably spare.
He could not afford a prolonged fight.
The corpse turned toward him.
Its black eyes remained empty.
Han Feng released a narrow arc of crimson fire.
The attack struck its chest.
For an instant, the corpse's body was illuminated from within.
Then the flame dispersed.
The creature had not been destroyed.
A dark layer of energy had formed around its torso, absorbing most of the impact.
Han Feng's gaze sharpened.
The gray energy was not simply animating the corpse.
It was defending it.
That meant his ordinary attacks would become increasingly inefficient as the stronger vessels appeared.
He changed tactics.
Rather than attack the corpse's body, Han Feng directed a small burst of fire toward the gray thread extending from its back.
The flame made contact.
The thread flickered.
The corpse abruptly stopped.
Its head tilted.
For the first time, its movements became uncertain.
Han Feng seized the opportunity and slipped past it.
He did not attempt to finish the creature.
A moment later, the thread brightened again, and the corpse resumed its pursuit.
That was enough to confirm his suspicion.
The bodies were not the source of the power.
They were being supplied by something else.
And the supply was connected to the fissure.
Han Feng continued toward the passage, leaving the Rank Four corpse behind.
He could not afford to test how many times the connection could be disrupted.
Not while the sky was coming apart.
The fissure pulsed.
The pressure doubled.
Han Feng's knees nearly buckled.
Blood rose into his throat, and he swallowed it with difficulty.
Above him, the silhouette beyond the opening became clearer.
It was still impossible to determine its true shape. Darkness concealed most of its body, while countless red eyes opened and closed across its enormous outline.
The eyes did not move randomly.
Some watched the valley.
Others seemed to examine the surrounding mountains.
A few remained fixed on the ground, as though they were looking through the earth itself.
Han Feng felt an unpleasant chill crawl along his spine.
This was not the presence he had glimpsed above Black Crow City.
Nor did it resemble the distant, silent awareness that had once brushed against the Celestial Diagram.
The entity beyond Gray Ghost Valley was different.
More chaotic.
More immediate.
It did not seem content to observe the world from a distance.
It was trying to reach it.
Then a massive shape shifted behind the fissure.
Han Feng looked up.
A hand was emerging from the darkness.
At first, he mistook it for another section of the silhouette.
Then he saw the fingers.
Five enormous digits, each longer than a tower, slowly pressed against the edges of the opening.
The surrounding space cracked.
Not metaphorically.
Thin fractures appeared in the air around the fingers, spreading outward like cracks across a pane of glass.
Every movement forced the fissure wider.
The pressure descending into Gray Ghost Valley became almost unbearable.
Han Feng's defensive Gu flickered.
His crimson flame shrank.
The golden seal beneath his chest burned so fiercely that he felt as though a heated blade had been pressed against his bones.
He clutched his chest.
"No..."
The seal was reacting to the entity.
Or to the energy pouring through the fissure.
He could not tell which.
But the reaction was becoming dangerous.
Han Feng forced his primordial essence to circulate around the seal, attempting to suppress its fluctuations without feeding it more energy.
For several breaths, the burning eased.
Then a voice entered his consciousness.
It was not the same voice that had spoken during the earlier disturbance.
This one was deeper.
Rougher.
Its presence seemed to drag fragments of unfamiliar sensations into his mind.
Cold darkness.
An endless void.
The pressure of something immense moving through a narrow passage.
Then a single word.
"Open..."
Han Feng's eyes widened.
The crimson trace within its sealed container stirred violently.
The Celestial Diagram responded with an abrupt burst of light.
For one terrible instant, Han Feng felt a connection form between the golden seal, the Diagram, and the fissure.
It was not a connection he had established.
It was something imposed upon him.
His mind recoiled.
He immediately cut off the flow of primordial essence feeding the resonance.
The pressure intensified.
The voice returned.
"Open."
Han Feng gritted his teeth.
"Find someone else."
He did not know whether the entity could hear him.
He did not care.
He would not willingly become a doorway for something he could neither understand nor control.
The connection shuddered.
Pain exploded through his chest.
Han Feng fell to one knee.
The crimson trace flared inside its container, but the seal held. No foreign flame escaped into his body.
For now.
He drew a ragged breath and forced himself to stand.
The fissure continued widening.
The enormous hand had crossed halfway through.
If it emerged completely, Gray Ghost Valley might not survive the impact.
The surrounding mountains were already beginning to fracture. The mist had become a storm of gray vapor, and the earth beneath Han Feng's feet pulsed with the same strange rhythm as the fissure.
The valley was becoming something else.
Not a place where two worlds had fully merged.
A boundary where their incompatible laws were colliding.
And the collision was spreading.
Han Feng could not defeat the entity.
He could not destroy the fissure with the power available to him.
Even the thought of confronting that enormous hand directly was absurd.
He had survived previous encounters with powerful beings by using terrain, deception, and the limitations of his opponents.
But what weakness could he exploit in something that had barely entered the world?
He needed another approach.
His gaze fell upon the Celestial Diagram.
The golden lines were moving.
Not randomly.
They were shifting into a pattern that Han Feng had never seen before.
Several lines curved inward, while others stretched toward the seventh point.
The seventh point remained dark.
Yet the surrounding lines were aligning into a formation.
A path.
Han Feng stared.
The Diagram had reacted to the fissure before, but this time its response was more structured. It was not merely vibrating in recognition of an unfamiliar energy.
It was showing him something.
Or attempting to.
Han Feng had no time to understand the entire pattern.
He only needed to identify its purpose.
He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
The energy pouring through the fissure was chaotic, but not entirely without structure. The enormous hand seemed to rely on the opening to maintain its presence within the Gu World.
The fissure itself was unstable.
Its edges pulsed with alternating waves of energy, and every pulse caused the surrounding space to distort.
The Celestial Diagram was reacting most strongly to those fluctuations.
Not to the red eyes.
Not to the hand.
To the boundary.
Han Feng opened his eyes.
"You're not telling me to attack it..."
He watched the golden lines shift.
"...you're showing me where the boundary is breaking."
The distinction changed everything.
He could not overpower the entity.
But perhaps he could interfere with the unstable connection that allowed the hand to emerge.
Perhaps.
There was no guarantee.
And failure could destroy him.
Han Feng glanced toward the unconscious Shen Lian.
She lay several paces away, partially sheltered by the rocks.
He could not carry her through a fight of this scale while maintaining his concealment and controlling his remaining energy.
If he failed, she would die with him.
If he abandoned her, she might die anyway.
Han Feng's jaw tightened.
He had no obligation to save every stranger he encountered.
But he had already intervened once.
And leaving her behind now would accomplish nothing if the entire valley collapsed.
He had to make one attempt.
Only one.
He extended his hand toward the fissure.
The crimson flame appeared around his fingers.
It was weaker than before.
His primordial essence reserves were dangerously low, and the pain in his chest made it difficult to maintain a steady circulation.
The Celestial Diagram's golden lines brightened.
Han Feng did not force them to move.
He allowed the Diagram's resonance to pass through the flame, carefully controlling the amount of energy he released.
The first golden particles appeared.
Then a second cluster.
Unlike the earlier reaction, the particles began arranging themselves into short, angular patterns.
Tiny symbols formed within the crimson fire.
Han Feng could not read them.
He had no idea whether they belonged to an ancient formation or were merely visual expressions of the Diagram's response.
But the fissure reacted.
Its edges trembled.
The enormous hand stopped moving.
For the first time since it began emerging, the pressure over the valley wavered.
Han Feng's heart pounded.
It was working.
Not because his flame was stronger than the entity.
Because the golden resonance was interacting with the boundary itself.
He had found a point of interference.
The question was whether he could use it before the fissure widened further.
Han Feng drew a breath.
Then he released the flame.
FOOOOOOOOM!
The crimson-gold energy surged upward.
It struck the lower edge of the fissure.
The sky flashed.
For a fraction of a second, the entire opening became outlined in golden light. Ancient-looking symbols appeared along its fractured edges, forming an incomplete ring around the darkness beyond.
The enormous hand stopped.
Its fingers curled.
A sound like a thousand mountains grinding together rolled across the valley.
The golden ring flickered.
Han Feng felt the force of the reaction slam into his body.
CRACK.
The sound came from inside his chest.
Pain tore through his meridians.
Blood spilled from his mouth.
He almost lost consciousness.
The Celestial Diagram spun violently, its golden lines burning with such intensity that his vision blurred.
He had not gained control over the formation.
He had forced an incomplete response from the Diagram, and the energy required to maintain it was far beyond what his body could safely endure.
The golden ring began to collapse.
Han Feng's arm shook.
He could not sustain the connection.
The fissure widened again.
The enormous hand pushed forward.
"No..."
He tried to release another thread of primordial essence.
His meridians spasmed.
Nothing happened.
The crimson flame weakened.
For a moment, Han Feng believed he had failed.
Then the Celestial Diagram changed its pattern.
The golden lines contracted.
Rather than continuing to expand the formation, they withdrew toward the outer edge of the Diagram, forming a narrow, incomplete circuit.
The pressure around Han Feng shifted.
He felt the energy feeding the fissure become momentarily disordered.
The enormous hand faltered.
The opening narrowed by a fraction.
Only a fraction.
But it was enough.
Han Feng forced the remaining crimson-gold flame toward the same point.
BOOOOOOM!
The second impact was weaker than the first.
It did not strike the entity.
It struck the unstable boundary surrounding it.
The golden symbols flared.
The enormous hand was pushed backward.
The fissure shuddered violently.
Then, slowly, its edges began to draw together.
Han Feng collapsed onto one hand.
He could barely breathe.
The Celestial Diagram continued spinning inside his consciousness, its golden lines trembling as though the structure itself had been damaged.
The patterns occupied a larger portion of the Diagram than before, but they were uneven and unstable. Some lines flickered in and out of existence.
This was not a breakthrough.
It was the aftermath of forcing a system beyond its intended limits.
Han Feng had not mastered a new ability.
He had barely survived a single use of something he did not understand.
The fissure continued closing.
The enormous hand withdrew into the darkness.
One finger disappeared.
Then another.
The pressure began to lessen.
But before the opening vanished completely, every red eye beyond it turned toward Han Feng.
For the first time, he felt no uncertainty about the target of that attention.
The gaze was fixed on him.
A voice entered his consciousness.
Clearer than before.
Colder.
"We found you."
Han Feng felt something inside his soul recoil.
The words carried no obvious anger.
No triumph.
They sounded like a conclusion reached after a long search.
That was far more disturbing.
The fissure collapsed.
BOOOOOOM!
The shock wave swept across Gray Ghost Valley.
Then the pressure vanished.
The golden light disappeared.
The enormous hand was gone.
And the sky closed.
Silence descended upon the valley.
The corpses fell where they stood.
The gray threads connecting them to the fissure snapped one after another, dissolving into faint particles that vanished before reaching the ground.
The mist stopped rotating.
Stones dropped from the air.
The cracks spreading through the cliffs ceased growing, though several sections of rock collapsed under their own weight.
For a few seconds, nothing moved.
Then Han Feng coughed.
Blood fell onto the stone beneath him.
He tried to stand and immediately collapsed again.
His entire body trembled.
The pain in his chest was severe enough to make every breath feel like a struggle, and his primordial essence had fallen to a dangerously low level.
He could feel the damage in his meridians.
The golden seal remained beneath his skin, but its heat had subsided.
The crimson trace was still contained.
The Celestial Diagram, however, had not returned to normal.
Its golden lines continued moving in a slow, uneven rhythm.
They had spread across nearly a fifth of the Diagram's structure, forming a network of incomplete connections around several of the original symbols.
A few lines appeared to pulse independently.
Han Feng stared into his consciousness.
Something about the pattern felt alive.
Not necessarily conscious.
Not necessarily intelligent.
But responsive in a way he had never experienced before.
He tried to examine it more closely.
Pain immediately stabbed through his spiritual sense.
Han Feng withdrew.
"Not now..."
He had no intention of provoking another reaction while his body was in this condition.
He needed to leave the valley.
He needed medicine.
And he needed to understand why the entity had recognized him.
We found you.
The words continued echoing in his mind.
The entity had not said that it had found the Celestial Diagram.
It had not said that it had found the seal.
It had said you.
That distinction was impossible to ignore.
Han Feng slowly looked toward the sky.
The fissure had disappeared, but the clouds above the valley remained distorted. A faint circular pattern lingered where the opening had been, like a scar that had not yet healed.
He had interfered with the fissure.
Perhaps he had even prevented the entity from crossing completely.
But he had also revealed something.
His presence.
His connection to the Diagram.
Possibly his existence to whatever waited beyond the boundary.
He had won a few moments of survival at the cost of becoming easier to find.
It was a terrible exchange.
Yet he could not regret making it.
If the enormous hand had crossed completely, the entire valley might have been destroyed before he could escape.
He had chosen the only path he could see.
That was all.
A faint sound came from behind him.
Han Feng turned sharply, then regretted the movement as pain flared through his chest.
Shen Lian was stirring.
She coughed and slowly opened her eyes.
For several seconds, she appeared confused.
Then she saw the shattered cliffs.
The ruined trees.
The countless corpses lying motionless beneath the mist.
Her face lost what little color remained.
"Is it..."
She struggled to speak.
"Is it gone?"
"For now."
Han Feng's voice sounded rough.
Shen Lian looked toward the sky.
"That thing..."
She swallowed.
"What was it?"
"I don't know."
"Was it a spirit beast?"
"No."
"A Gu Immortal?"
Han Feng glanced at her.
"I said I don't know."
She fell silent.
After a moment, she tried to sit up and winced.
Han Feng noticed the blood at the corner of her mouth.
"Don't move too quickly."
He reached for the healing pill's remaining counterpart in his storage pouch, then stopped.
His supplies were limited.
He had already spent resources on her once, and the valley had left him badly injured.
But Shen Lian's condition was worse than he had initially realized. The pressure from the fissure had likely damaged her internal energy circulation, and she might have suffered a spiritual injury as well.
Han Feng gave her the pill.
"Take it slowly."
She accepted it without argument.
After swallowing, she looked at him for a long time.
"You stopped it."
Han Feng shook his head.
"I interfered with the fissure."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"No."
He looked toward the sky again.
"I don't know what would have happened if I had done nothing. I don't know whether the opening would have closed on its own, or whether something else would have intervened."
He paused.
"And I certainly didn't defeat whatever was on the other side."
Shen Lian lowered her gaze.
"But you made it retreat."
"Perhaps."
Han Feng pushed himself upright, using the broken rock beside him for support.
"Don't mistake survival for victory."
The words came out more harshly than he intended.
Shen Lian did not answer.
For a moment, he wondered whether he had spoken to her or to himself.
He had survived the encounter.
But survival had never been proof that he was strong enough to face the next one.
He had seen that lesson repeatedly since his reincarnation.
Now the lesson had become much larger.
The danger was no longer limited to cultivators, sects, or ancient inheritances.
Something beyond the world had noticed him.
And he had no idea what it wanted.
Han Feng took one final look across Gray Ghost Valley.
The dead remained dead.
The mist was beginning to thin, revealing the full extent of the destruction.
Deep fissures crossed the ground. Several cliffs had partially collapsed. The narrow passage he had intended to use was now blocked by enormous slabs of stone.
The valley's spiritual currents were still abnormal, but the violent fluctuations had diminished.
For the moment, the boundary was stable enough to remain closed.
He could not determine how long that would last.
Then he sensed something else.
A presence.
Silent.
Cold.
Very distant.
Han Feng froze.
The sensation was unlike the chaotic pressure that had poured from the fissure.
It carried no overwhelming force.
No violent fluctuations.
No apparent desire to enter the world.
It was simply there.
Observing.
For an instant, Han Feng felt as though the distance between him and that presence had become meaningless. Countless layers of emptiness seemed to separate them, yet something had turned its attention toward the valley.
The Celestial Diagram trembled once.
The golden lines dimmed.
The unstable patterns inside his consciousness settled into a slower rhythm.
The pressure in his chest eased slightly.
Han Feng's expression changed.
The silent presence had affected the Diagram.
But had it stabilized the pattern deliberately?
Or had the Diagram merely responded to the disappearance of the chaotic energy?
He could not tell.
The presence lingered for less than a breath.
Then it vanished.
Han Feng remained motionless.
He did not recognize it with certainty.
It reminded him of the distant awareness he had sensed beyond the boundary before, but resemblance was not proof of identity.
He would not attach a name to something he did not understand.
Not even in his own thoughts.
After several seconds, he finally exhaled.
"One problem at a time."
Shen Lian looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He helped her stand.
"We're leaving."
She glanced at the valley's ruined landscape.
"Where will we go?"
Han Feng looked toward the northern cliffs.
"Somewhere that isn't here."
It was not a reassuring answer.
But it was the only one he had.
They began moving through the wreckage, slowly and carefully. Han Feng kept his spiritual sense close, searching for signs of movement beneath the mist.
He found none.
Still, he did not relax.
The Celestial Diagram remained damaged—or changed, though he was not prepared to decide which.
The golden seal had survived another violent reaction.
The crimson trace remained contained.
And the entity beyond the fissure had spoken directly to him.
We found you.
Han Feng clenched his jaw.
He had spent months hiding his true cultivation, concealing his Gu, and avoiding the attention of powerful factions.
He had believed that if he remained cautious enough, he could choose which dangers to confront.
Now he understood the flaw in that belief.
Some dangers did not need to find his trail.
They could simply look through the boundary between worlds.
He had no way to know whether the entity had recognized him because of the Celestial Diagram, the golden seal, or something he had carried since before his reincarnation.
The answer might determine whether he could survive the next encounter.
For now, he had only one advantage.
The entity had not crossed.
And he was still alive.
Han Feng continued walking.
Behind them, the mist slowly gathered over the ruined valley.
Far below the earth, something answered the final pulse of the ancient formation.
One deep vibration traveled through the stone.
Then another.
A network of buried lines flickered briefly beneath the ground, illuminating a structure that had remained dormant for countless years.
At its center, a dark point responded to the resonance left by the Celestial Diagram.
It did not awaken.
Not completely.
But for the first time in an age, it responded twice.
Above the valley, the clouds began to separate.
No fissure appeared.
No eye opened.
Only a faint golden line crossed the gray sky before fading into the distance.
Han Feng did not see it.
He was already leading Shen Lian away from Gray Ghost Valley, unaware that the ancient structure beneath the valley had registered his presence.
The passage had closed.
The boundary had stabilized.
But somewhere beyond it, something had learned his existence.
And somewhere beneath it, something ancient had begun to remember.
The next time the worlds touched, Han Feng might not be given the chance to close the door.