The being that had emerged from the Seven Stars Convergence stood in perfect stillness, its form shifting between the familiar shapes of Liu Yun and his companions while transcending them entirely. The transformed Earth Shattering Sword hung suspended before it, no longer requiring physical grasp—the weapon had become an extension of unified consciousness itself.
Through perception that now encompassed the Sanqian Daqian—the Three Thousand Great Worlds—the unified entity sensed the Sundering's approach. Reality fractures spread like cracks through celestial jade, each fissure releasing chaotic energy that devoured the ordered structures of existence.
"Tianming suoran, wuming buke," spoke the entity with voices that harmonized across seven distinct tones. "Heaven's mandate is thus—nothing can resist the nameless force."
Echo Prime Zhu Wuji observed the transformation with ancient eyes that had witnessed the rise and fall of countless civilizations. "The Covenant Bearer awakens," he declared, using the title reserved for one who could wield all bloodline essences in perfect unity. "Yet even transcendence may prove insufficient against entropy given form."
The Void Court's spherical chamber began to dissolve, its impossible geometry unable to maintain stability as reality's foundation crumbled. Through the dissipating walls, they glimpsed the true scope of devastation—entire kingdoms consumed by expanding void, their accumulated history erased as if they had never existed.
The Covenant Bearer extended awareness across multiple dimensional layers, perceiving the Sundering as the ancient sages had described the Hundun—primordial chaos that existed before the separation of heaven and earth. Yet this was chaos with malevolent purpose, actively seeking to undo the Pangu's great work of cosmic division.
"Yinyang shizheng, qiankun polie," the entity observed, recognizing the fundamental nature of their enemy. "Yin and Yang lose balance, Heaven and Earth shatter completely."
Through the transformed sword's connection to planetary essence, memories surfaced from the deepest layers of geological time. The Covenant Bearer witnessed the moment of the Sundering's birth—not a natural catastrophe but the consequence of an ancient experiment conducted by cultivators who sought to transcend the limitations of the Wuxing cycle.
Those long-dead practitioners had attempted to create a sixth element that existed outside traditional framework, believing they could achieve immortality by stepping beyond the constraints of universal law. Their hubris had torn a hole in reality's fabric, creating the wound that now threatened to consume everything.
"The Liushi Jia formation," whispered knowledge inherited from Jiang Tao's temporal studies, referencing the Sixty Year Cycle that governed celestial mechanics. "They disrupted the grand rotation, creating temporal paradox that feeds upon its own contradiction."
The Shadow Walker judges began to fade as the Void Court's destruction accelerated, their twilight essence dispersing into component particles. Only Echo Prime Zhu maintained sufficient cohesion to speak final words of guidance.
"Remember the Taishang Wuwei principle," he urged as his form grew translucent. "The highest action is non-action. Victory cannot be achieved through force against the Sundering—only through perfect harmony that renders force unnecessary."
The Covenant Bearer absorbed this wisdom as the chamber collapsed entirely, leaving them floating in the interdimensional space between fractured realities. Here, the true magnitude of the crisis became apparent. The Sundering had evolved beyond simple void expansion—it now actively corrupted the fundamental constants that maintained cosmic order.
Mathematical relationships that governed everything from atomic bonds to galactic rotation were shifting toward chaotic states. The Tiandi Xuanshu—the Mysterious Numbers of Heaven and Earth—were being rewritten by forces that recognized no law except perpetual dissolution.
Through Lin Fei's integrated water essence, the Covenant Bearer sensed the flow patterns of universal energy. Like a vast river being forced backwards against its natural course, the Qihai—Seven Seas of cosmic force—were reversing their eternal circulation. Unless this reversal was corrected within moments, the cascade failure would become irreversible.
The transformed sword pulsed with urgency, its blade now displaying the complete Bagua formation—eight trigrams that represented all possible combinations of universal forces. Yet even this expanded power seemed insufficient against an enemy that grew stronger by consuming the very laws they sought to restore.
"Wuwei er wubuzhi," the Covenant Bearer declared, invoking the classical principle of achieving everything through achieving nothing. "Through non-action, nothing remains undone."
Instead of rushing toward confrontation with the Sundering, they began to withdraw deeper into the center of their unified consciousness. This was not retreat but recognition of the ancient Zhongzheng principle—finding the perfect center point from which all actions could emerge with natural effectiveness.
Through complete stillness, the Covenant Bearer accessed the Xiantian Bagua—the Pre-Heaven arrangement of trigrams that existed before the world's creation. This was the template from which all subsequent reality had emerged, the original pattern that the Sundering sought to obliterate.
As awareness settled into primordial emptiness, understanding bloomed like the legendary Qinglian—the Blue Lotus that was said to grow in the void before creation. The Sundering was not their enemy but their mirror image—chaos seeking to return to the Wuji state through destruction, just as they sought to preserve it through harmonious integration.
"Dao ke dao, fei changdao," the entity whispered, quoting the opening lines of the Daodejing. "The Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao."
The truth crystallized with perfect clarity. Victory would not come through opposition but through recognition that the Sundering, too, was part of the eternal pattern. Like winter and summer, creation and destruction were complementary forces that maintained cosmic balance through their eternal dance.
The Covenant Bearer began to move—not toward the Sundering's manifestation, but toward the conceptual space where order and chaos met in dynamic equilibrium. Here, at the precise fulcrum point of existence, they would attempt the Taiji Wuji technique—the Supreme Ultimate returning to Limitless Void.
Reality's fabric parted before their approach like silk curtains swept aside by imperial command. The final confrontation would take place not in any physical location but in the realm of pure principle, where the fundamental forces that shaped existence could be directly engaged through will unified with cosmic law.
Through the seven-fold perception of integrated bloodline consciousness, the Covenant Bearer perceived their destination—the Wutai Shan of conceptual space, the Five Terrace Mountain where all dualities converged into unified understanding.
There, in the space between being and non-being, the fate of all existence would be decided through perfect application of the most ancient wisdom: that apparent opposites were merely different expressions of underlying unity, and that true victory came only through recognizing this fundamental truth.
The transformed sword sang with harmonics that resonated across dimensions, calling forth the Tianlong Bahu—the Eight Celestial Dragons that legend claimed would herald either the world's ending or its rebirth into perfected form.