For countless years, Gu Chuan had carved a silent dominion in the chaos. But this day was different.
The runes.
They burned in the void like coals hidden under ash, faint yet eternal, as though written not by hand but by the chaos itself. His colossal serpent body coiled tighter as his golden eyes narrowed, each vertical pupil reflecting the strange glyphs. They were not random sigils, but language. Primordial law given form.
When his Divine Sense brushed across them, his heart trembled. The vibration wasn't merely sound—it was rhythm, Dao made audible, a chant older than the concept of time.
"The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao…"
The syllables spilled from his lips unbidden. His voice was hoarse yet resonant, a vibration that rolled across millions of miles of chaos. Each word ignited the runes, and they flared one after another, forming constellations of truth.
"The name that can be named is not the eternal name…"
With each phrase, Gu Chuan felt his blood thunder. The serpent scales on his body shimmered like molten bronze, each one echoing the cadence of the ancient scripture. It was not he who recited the words—the chaos itself used his tongue, pouring the Tao Te Ching through him.
And then—
The void split.
With a sound like a thousand worlds grinding together, a gate appeared. Not a physical door, but a structure of paradox—half real, half unreal. Its pillars were woven from law itself, shimmering strands of yin and yang twisting into a frame that should not exist.
"The Gate of All Wonders…" Gu Chuan whispered, his cold composure cracking for the briefest instant.
Before him hung the very threshold spoken of in myth: the entrance between the known and the unknowable, the pivot of creation. Countless currents of Dao surged through it, a tide that could drown even Demon Gods.
Gu Chuan's coils tightened, the vast body of the serpent flexing like a continent under strain. For a breath, even he hesitated. Survival—his truest instinct—warned him that stepping through might erase him entirely. And yet…
Without risk, survival is only delay.
Cold calculation steadied him. Strength was truth, but wisdom directed strength. He had not wandered through endless gray tides to bow at the threshold like a beggar. If this was the Gate of All Wonders, then he would carve his mark upon it.
He surged forward.
As his body brushed the luminous threshold, chaos screamed. Laws collided, birthing storms that shredded mountains of mist into nothing. His scales cracked, blood spattering the void in rivers of molten gold. Yet each drop that fell was rewritten—chaos devoured it, reforged it, and returned it to him as power.
He endured.
And when he emerged beyond the Gate, a stillness met him.
The Chaos Realm bent.
For the first time, Gu Chuan realized that the Orb within him had not been his greatest gain—it was his vessel for something greater. His body itself became the axis upon which the Realm turned. With a thought, he unfurled his will, and the Chaos Realm expanded, enveloping hundreds of millions of kilometers.
Every ripple of void, every current of law, bent like reeds in the wind. For the first time, Gu Chuan tasted it: not just defense, not just survival—dominion.
A low hiss slipped from his fangs, sharp and cold. "Now… I am not merely prey hiding in the tides."
But the chaos had its own answer.
Murderous intent swept in like a tide.
He felt it before he saw them—beings moving like knives, shark-like demon gods, their bodies spanning millions of kilometers, teeth like sickles honed by eternity. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, swarmed in unison, the chaos itself trembling under their collective hunger.
Their aura was not primal instinct alone. It was hatred, sharpened by endless slaughter. They had smelled the transformation of the serpent, and like wolves scenting a wounded rival, they came.
Their leader opened its jaws, voice booming like thunder through water:
"Serpent… you trespass. The Orb is not yours."
Gu Chuan's gaze was cold, calculating, yet his coils stirred restlessly. His survival instinct screamed at the numbers, yet another truth rose in his chest: if he fled now, the scent of weakness would follow him forever.
"Not mine?" His voice was deep, rumbling, as though the abyss itself spoke. "Then whose? Yours?"
The lead shark demon's teeth glimmered like blades. "It belongs to chaos itself. You are but carrion that swallowed what you cannot digest."
For a long moment, the void was silent. Then Gu Chuan's eyes gleamed with cold mirth.
"Carrion?" His tail twitched once, splitting a nearby vortex into dust. "Then come. Tear me apart… if you can."
With a thought, the Chaos Realm descended.
The void stilled. Within hundreds of millions of kilometers, time seemed to crawl. The shark demons thrashed, their speed cut to a fraction, their roars echoing with fear they could not name.
Gu Chuan moved.
The serpent's tail, 100 million kilometers long, whipped once through the chaos. It was less a strike than a verdict. Space fractured, laws screamed, and entire clusters of shark demons were obliterated before their cries could leave their throats.
The survivors panicked. Their swarming formation dissolved into chaos. But the Realm held them fast, a swamp of inevitability they could not escape.
Gu Chuan's golden eyes narrowed, cold satisfaction glinting. "Strength is truth," he murmured. His coils twisted again, another sweep reducing demon gods to mist and fragments of law.
The void shook with silence.
Blood. Meat. Fragments of immortal essence drifted. With a rumbling hiss, Gu Chuan devoured them all, refining them in rivers of heat that poured through his body. His cultivation surged, serpent body stretching ever longer, scales darkening with law.
A predator no longer. Now, he was the abyss that swallowed predators whole.
Yet even as the power flooded him, a deeper truth flickered at the edges of his mind. The Gate. The Tao Te Ching. The divine script whispered still, runes burning faintly in his sea of consciousness.
The words lingered:
"Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders…"
Gu Chuan's coils tightened once more, his expression unreadable. The shark demons had been nothing but a test. Greater storms were coming.