Far from the suffocating, artificial noise of Heiyun City, the world reclaimed its ancient majesty. The land transitioned into a vast, emerald silence dominated by towering sentinels of wood and spirit.
This was the Spirit Mountain Range. It stood as a jagged, untamed barrier between the civilization of man and the raw, unbridled breath of the cosmos. Here, the Primal Chaos Qi did not merely drift; it surged, resonating with the heartbeat of Heaven and Earth. The air was a razor, biting and cold, sweeping down from the peaks to carry the scent of frozen time and ancient frost into the valleys below.
Shen Xuan moved through the shadows of the iron-bark giants. He walked with a steady, rhythmic pace, yet his bare feet remained a fraction of an inch above the soil. He left no mark upon the pristine blanket of snow, nor did he disturb the brittle, fallen branches. To the colossal trees, whose bark cracked like the obsidian scales of a dying dragon, he was not a trespasser, but a passing thought of the wind.
After hours of effortless ascent, he reached a secluded summit. The snow here was thin, scrubbed away by the relentless mountain gales, revealing a plateau of ancient, grey stone.
To his left, the great snow-capped giants loomed, their peaks piercing the heavens. A massive waterfall cascaded from a higher precipice, the water so frigid it released plumes of steam as it fell through the thin air. It crashed into a natural basin, forming a lake of liquid sapphire that reflected the deep, indigo sky with terrifying clarity.
The water did not rest. It swirled in a perfect, silent vortex before spilling over the edge of the cliff, a silver ribbon merging with the veins of the world below.
"Flowing without retention. Existing without attachment," Shen Xuan murmured, his breath a white plume in the sub-zero air. "This is the stillness I require."
In the records of the current era, this summit was marked as a Natural Deadzone. Even those at the Chaos Divine Transformation Realm feared to tread here. The Chaos Qi was too pure, too wild, and too cold; it would freeze the meridians of a modern cultivator in a single breath, turning their blood to ice.
But for Shen Xuan, this was a homecoming. Though his current vessel was fragile, his soul remembered the touch of the True Void. This terrestrial energy was a kitten compared to the lions he had tamed.
He walked to the center of the stone platform and retrieved a portable dwelling. It was a simple, single-room structure, but for a man about to destroy and rebuild his soul, it was a palace. He placed it carefully, then withdrew a fifth-grade formation disk, array flags, and several Heavenly Chaos Crystals.
He tossed the disk into the air. It hummed, resisting the earth's pull, emitting a low frequency that made the snow beneath it dance. Shen Xuan's fingers became a blur, weaving seals that had not been seen by the eyes of the living for a billion years.
He was not merely powering a formation. He was orchestrating a resonance. He used the crystals to bridge the gap between his will and the mountain's spirit, creating a self-sustaining loop that fed on the environment itself.
"Earth as the anchor, water as the vein, snow as the shroud," he whispered, his eyes flashing with a cold, imperial gold. "And Heaven as the lid."
Boom.
A silent shockwave rippled across the peak. To the outside world, the hut, the lake, and the boy vanished. In their place sat a jagged, empty pile of rock, an illusion so perfect it could deceive the divine sense of a Chaos Lord.
Shen Xuan approached the edge of the basin where the waterfall roared. He touched the water, feeling the bite of the frost.
"The water is too cold for the refinement," he mused. "Balance is required."
He pointed his index finger at the stone beside the basin. A ray of concentrated light struck the rock.
"Law of Order and Chaos: Reform."
The mountain groaned. A deep, tectonic vibration shook the plateau. Within heartbeats, the stone melted and reshaped itself into a second pond. Water diverted from the waterfall, filled the new basin, and flowed back into the river.
Shen Xuan inscribed a small thermal formation at the bottom. The water began to shimmer, steam rising in soft, inviting clouds. Cold and heat, yin and yang, stood side by side.
"Finally. The stage is set."
He looked at the green grass peeking through the snow. He looked at the sky of the Luoshui World. A faint, enigmatic smile touched his lips.
"Am I to remain a stranger to this earth?"
He allowed his bare feet to touch the ground. For the first time since his awakening, he made contact with the world.
The moment his skin touched the cold stone, reality buckled.
On his left, the snow melted instantly. The grass beneath his heel surged upward, growing months of height in a single second, vibrant and overflowing with life essence. On his right, the snow didn't melt; it hardened into obsidian glass. The grass withered into fine, grey ash, its life force extinguished.
Creation and Destruction danced in a perfect, terrifying equilibrium beneath his feet.
Shen Xuan stared at the patch of earth he had transformed. He had once stood at the apex of the Great Laws, and even in this withered, fragile world, they recognized their master. His very existence was a demand for submission, a truth he acknowledged with a hint of melancholy.
"The ten supreme laws," he whispered. "Life and Death, Karma and Fate, Space and Time, Creation and Destruction, Order and Chaos. In this era, even the Ancestors struggle to glimpse their shadows."
He reflected on his own birth. He was born with these laws woven into his marrow. In the history of Chaos, no being was meant to be born beyond the Supreme Realm, yet he was an anomaly.
To step into the Emperor Realm in this era, one needed to create their own laws. But for Shen Xuan, it was about reclaiming what was already his. He looked at the path ahead. The Mortal Fragment Realm was simple—he had already mastered the transformations of Body, Blood, and Soul. Most in this lower world cultivated them one by one, lacking the talent or resources to do otherwise. Shen Xuan, however, moved in unison with the Dao.
The real challenge lay in the Chaos Seed Realm. If handled poorly, his cracked, sleeping seed would detonate, taking his soul and this mountain with it.
"But for that," Shen Xuan said, his eyes turning toward his storage ring, "I have the catalyst."
He reached inside, his fingers brushing against the rusted metal sphere he had acquired from the Trade Centre.
"A sleeping star to awaken a sleeping god."
Would you like me to proceed with the ritual of breaking the old foundation, or perhaps an unexpected visitor to the mountain?