Beneath the nourishing aura of the Chaos Codex, Chaos-Citadel's Symbiosis Oak unfurled branches heavy with Memory-Blooms, weaving Chrysalis-Breakers' tales into star-jewelled constellations. Xuan traced the fading glyphs on his palm where the Codex's imprint resided, when suddenly his Golden Fissure Sigils flared corrupted crimson—a viscous scarlet climbing the patterns like living poison, etching a horrific emblem of the Three Archaic Laws fused as one.
"Anomaly!" Zhu Li's Starfire Lantern shattered without warning. Each fragment reflected a collapsing world: Flawless Sanctum's crystal spires re-sheathed in icy argent, Flesh-Barren's newborns mutated by festering ichor, phantoms bound by chains crawling from Time-Prison's ruins. "The Three's remnants… coalescing in Chaos's marrow!"
Xing Tian's Sky-Cleaving Axe trembled violently. Pangu War Glyphs oozed ichor-black blood. He staggered against the citadel walls as hairline fissures split his chaotic-clay form, vomiting swarms of microscopic devouring tendrils. "Granddamned—feels like my bones are melting! Those filth are brewing dark rites!"
Tracking the malignant resonance to Chaos's frayed edge, they beheld cosmic debris drifting in the void. The Mirror-Wheel Matriarch's fractured panes reassembled into cage lattices. The Blood-River Patriarch's residues churned into boiling sacrifical fonts. The Samsara Matriarch's time-sands crystallized into cursed runes. At their nexus, a titanic entity coalesced—a patchwork abomination forged of law-scraps.
"Chrysalis-Breakers, did you truly believe destroying our vessels ended us?" Its voice rasped like shattered glass. A mouth slit open upon its mirror-plate face, drooling necrosis. "We are woven into Chaos's sinews! Your every breath feeds our resurgence!"
Xuan channeled the Chaos Codex, probing the entity's structure. Its existence defied all known Mandates—his retinas flooded with glitched data-streams; analytical models collapsed like sandcastles. "This isn't fusion! They've found a blind spot in the Codex!"
Zhu Li reforged her lantern-shards into chains—only for mirror-light to slash them, ichor to corrode them, time-runes to unravel them. Silver frost crept up her hair as her pupils reflected the Codex's primal energy being reverse-drained. "They're plundering the Codex! These law-fragments… are evolving into an invasive paradigm!"
Xing Tian's axe-strike dissipated into warped space. His body flickered translucently; his Spine Shard dimmed. "FIGHT ME, YOU COWARDS!" Before the echo faded, coagulated blood from the altar became innumerable hands, dragging him into a maelstrom of viscid crimson.
Xuan's Fissure-Gold Gaze locked onto an anomaly at the entity's core—a shimmer of gold echoing the Chaos Codex. He bit his tongue and spat blood charged with Codex-energy. Golden chains lashed out: "Zhu Li! Aim for the core's golden spark! It's a stolen Codex-fragment!"
As Zhu Li struck, the time-sand runes reversed. Time inverted. Xuan's body rewound to pre-battle state. Zhu Li's attack ceased to exist. Xing Tian's ensnared arm re-materialized. The abomination's laughter was a screech of fractured glass: "In the domain where Samsara dances with Silver-Light… your defiance is meaningless."
At the abyss-edge of annihilation, Xuan slammed his palms onto fractured reality. Codex-power surged through his sigils into Chaos's wounds—and echoes answered. Citizens of the Flawless Sanctum wove mirror-shields. Flesh-Barren's symbionts vomited vines. Time-Prison's phantoms forged weapons from remembrance. Converging into a river of multiversal defiance, they pierced the entity's core.
"Chaos belongs to NO ONE!" Xuan's voice merged with a million spirits. His form near-dissolved under the strain, yet he anchored the chains. "If the Three Laws choose annihilation… we'll use the Codex to rewrite them!"
The abomination howled. Mirror-plates spiderwebbed. Ichor-evaporated. Time-runes crumbled. Before dissolving, it hurled the stolen Codex-shard into Chaos's abyssal heart: "Witness… as we hollow Chaos's roots… leaving your precious legacy a hollow jest!"
In the smoldering aftermath, Xuan retrieved a core pulsating with scarred Mandates. Its glyphs resonated with the Chaos Codex yet reeked of corruption. Pocketing the grim artifact, he gazed into the deep void: "A prelude. The Three won't relent. We must unravel this before they fester."
Zhu Li's reforged Starfire Lantern pulsed alarmingly. New Dao Glyphs materialized on its wick: "Xuan… the Chaos Codex is mutating. These symbols… guide us to a place beyond known Mandates."
Xing Tian wiped ichor from his face, hefting his axe. "Hah! Wherever they skulk—granddad's axe will cut the cancer out! Next time… we make sure those scabs REMEMBER Chaos-Citadel!"
As they departed, deep within Chaos's unlit recesses, the hurled Codex-shard took root. Law-fragments swarmed like flies to necrotic flesh. A presence far more grotesque stirred in the membranous dark. And where the Three Archaic Laws had struck—fresh contagions bloomed: Flawless Sanctum's mirrors concealed devouring fangs. Flesh-Barren's fungal-symbionts bled temporal glyphs. Time-Prison's memories cracked with creeping perfection.
Chaos's bloodstream now carried a new plague.