Before the star-dust of the shattered Silvertarn Abyss could fully dissipate, a crimson fog erupted a hundred zhang high in Chaos' southeast. Xuan's Golden Fissure Sigils recoiled like searing brands against his wrist, oozing bruised purple blood from their cracks. The droplets reflected a phantom image of the Blood-River Patriarch's malicious grin. Zhu Li's Starfire Lantern emitted a piercing shriek; its wick's light corroded into a sinister black-red by the fog, projecting terrifying images: The Flesh-Barren splitting open, innumerable Devouring Mandate-imbued flesh-tendrils heaving themselves from the rent earth, writhing with primal hunger toward Chaos-Citadel.
"The Blood-River Patriarch absorbed the Silvertarn's residual energy! He's rebuilding the Ancient Blood Altar!" Xuan's voice was tight with agony as his spirit meridian seared. His Fissure-Gold Gaze revealed the altar's core – a pulsating 'Glutton's Eye'. "This time, he seeks to drag all Chaos into the Abyss of Devouring."
The moment they breached the fog, Xing Tian's chaotic-clay form began bubbling under the strain. His Sky-Cleaving Axe thrummed with a dark consciousness of its own; the Pangu War Glyphs on its blade bled crimson from the Blood-River's power, while Devouring sigils crawled like parasites up its haft onto his arm. "Granddamned! This taint… a hundred times more vile than when I served as his lieutenant!" He swung the axe in fury, only to see the air itself rot into ever-expanding black holes in its wake.
The Blood Altar rose before them – constructed from countless vertebrae, its pinnacle crowned by the Glutton's Eye dripping nauseating ichor. Each splash birthed a fanged flesh-serpent. The Blood-River Patriarch's remnant coalesced within the ichor, no longer a mass of grasping arms, but a towering Giant of Blood. Its every vein pulsed with Primordial Power strong enough to consume Mandates.
"Dregs of Chaos! Prepared for true Oblivion?" The Patriarch's voice cracked spacetime. With a gesture, the flesh-tendrils around the altar wove a colossal Blood-Web, ensnaring the trio at its heart. "The Mirror-Wheel Matriarch's failure taught me: Only the purest Devouring can cleanse vermin like you!"
Zhu Li transformed her Starfire Lantern into a blazing phoenix, attempting to break through the web, only to watch its wings dissolve into ash upon contact. "These tendrils don't just consume energy! They absorb our WILL to fight!" Crimson spots bloomed in her silver hair; the lantern's light dimmed dangerously.
Xuan activated his Chaos Dao Body, weaving protective nets of Golden Fissure Sigils. Yet the sigils visibly corroded, assimilated by the Blood-River's power. Then, the Blood Giant struck. Within the gale-force blood-tide of its fist, Xuan glimpsed a scene that froze his soul: Chaos-Citadel's Symbiosis Oak strangled by flesh-vines, its citizens losing consciousness to Devouring, morphing into mindless, hungering undead.
"HALT!" Xuan roared, leaping upward. His Golden Fissure Sigils became chains ensnaring the blood-fist. "Devouring is not Chaos's truth! Symbiosis IS!" Memories of him taming the Devouring Heart-Core in the Flesh-Barren flared in his palm, a desperate appeal to the Patriarch's buried understanding of symbiosis.
The Blood-River Patriarch answered with thunderous laughter. Devouring sigils on his fist surged. "Symbiosis? Coward's clinging! Witness your 'saved' lives! Before Devouring, they lack even the right to resist!" His other hand swept out. The Glutton's Eye atop the altar vomited torrents of Reality-Dissolving Acid. Where it fell, space disintegrated.
Xing Tian's body melted within the acid. Watching his arm turn transparent, bloody memories of his lieutenant days flooded him. On the brink of consciousness crumbling, the symbiotic vines on his axe-haft exploded with radiance. They coiled around his vanishing limbs, reforming his body. "I answer ONLY to this axe now!" He swung, Devouring sigils and Pangu Glyphs entwining on the blade, unleashing a wave of Chaos-born life-preserving force.
A flicker of shock crossed the Blood-River Patriarch's eyes. "Chaos-spawn! You think such parlour tricks defy PRIMORDIAL DEVOURING?!" He formed hand-seals. The altar reversed rotation. Countless captive spirits manifested from the fog, bodies branded with Devouring sigils, eyes vacant, mindlessly charging Xuan's group.
Zhu Li's Starfire Lantern underwent its final trial. The wick shattered into motes of flame, each becoming a phantom image of a Chaos-Citadel citizen. "Starlight Flame: Symbiotic Sanctuary!" She cast the motes toward the enslaved spirits. Upon contact with the Devouring brands, they erupted in golden light, cleansing the blankness from the spirits' eyes. Freed, the spirits turned, using their own bodies as shields against the Patriarch's assault.
Seizing the moment, Xuan activated "Chaos Dao Body: Entropic Devourer!". Golden Fissure Sigils became a vortex, violently absorbing the Reality-Dissolving Acid. Agony wracked his form as opposing Mandates clashed, yet within his consciousness, he forged a NEW DAO GLYPH of Symbiotic Devouring. "SEE? Devouring and Symbiosis CAN coexist!" He channeled the new glyph directly into the Glutton's Eye. Multifold Dao Roots pierced the Blood-River's core.
An enraged bellow shook existence. The Blood Giant disintegrated, desperately trying to reform. "Impossible... the Primordial Devouring... cannot submit to such... domestication..." But as Xuan embedded the Core of Choice into the altar's heart, the entire structure convulsed. Flesh-tendrils shed their crimson hue, transmuting into rich loam. The Glutton's Eye pulsed, morphing into a massive Heart, its surface etched with Symbiotic Patterns and Devouring Fangs locked in perfect, terrifying balance.
Within the altar's foundations, Xuan found Pangu's stele once more: "*I forged Devouring from Fear. Yet only in Equilibrium does Eternity reside.*" As the glyphs blazed, cheers echoed from Chaos-Citadel: the Symbiosis Oak revived, flesh-vines dissolving into fertile soil, Devouring brands vanishing from citizens' skin.
Yet, within Chaos's deepest shadow, the remnant soul of the Saṃsāra Matriarch watched, cold and unmoved. Time-sands trickled through her fingers, weaving a new stratagem. "The failures of Blood-River and Mirror-Wheel... mere interludes in Time's River. When you tread upon my True Domain, your forgotten sins shall strike your hearts like dagger-strikes of consequence." Her whisper dissolved in the thinning fog, portending trials yet to come.
After the battle, the Blood Altar's aura of annihilation faded. It stood transformed into a Garden of Equilibrium. Newly born flora bore fanged appetites, yet their thorns protected other life; streams of faintest ruby irrigated revitalized land. Xuan, Zhu Li, and Xing Tian stood within this hard-won peace. The Blood-River Patriarch was defeated. Yet deep within, they knew: the Blood Altar's fall was merely a prelude. Chaos's truest crucible lay ahead.