The Primordial Chaos Gem shouted urgently. If they were sucked in, the ferry calamity boat was finished—Lin Moyu too, with no chance of survival. The gem would end up drifting in the Forbidden Zone of Life again, who knew for how many years, before it could re-enter a world.
Lin Moyu moved by thought, pouring all his soul power into the ferry calamity boat, steering it against the pull and flying in the opposite direction. He saw a Primordial Dawn Vortex straight ahead—not a large one among the many. It had just flipped its rotation, switching from push to pull, and the boat happened to lie along its pulling axis. Fortunately, the pull wasn't too strong; with the boat driven at full power, he quickly broke free.
The Primordial Chaos Gem exhaled. "Good, good. When a Primordial Dawn Vortex flips direction, its push or pull erupts once. If you endure that burst, it stays relatively stable for a while. Master, the thing to watch is the burst at the moment of reversal—it might drag us in, or fling us far away to be caught by another vortex. We escaped because we were far enough; closer, we might not." His tone was grave.
"I understand." Lin swept his gaze across the vortices—stars across the sky, each like a man-eating maw. A single lapse would be dangerous. Whether push or pull, he couldn't afford to relax. He shifted approach, keeping as much distance as possible from each vortex, and gradually flew into the field. While carefully piloting the ferry calamity boat, he studied the vortices, searching for one suitable for himself.
The vortices varied immensely in strength—differences of ten thousandfold or more. As the gem had said, he ignored the powerful ones and sought only the weaker. The boat slowed, advancing under a ring of lurking vortices. Little by little, Lin discovered patterns: whether pushing or pulling, a vortex's force acts along a single straight line. Each vortex has its own facing; its force doesn't bend or spread, only concentrates. That made the invisible forces traceable.
In his mind he sketched the web formed by these force lines—a vast, fiendishly complex net—and threaded the ferry calamity boat through its mesh. Soon after entering, he still hadn't found a suitable vortex; among the thousands, even the weakest exceeded his tolerance. He could only continue, slowly—there was no rushing here.
A question arose: were Primordial Dawn Vortices the core of the World's Genesis?
The gem shook his head. "No—only the outer ring. The true core isn't accessible to ordinary beings; even a Supreme must work for it. And there's nothing there you need now—Supremes go only to refine the world and become its master. Master doesn't need to go."
Lin nodded. "Another time."
The gem added, "When you become a Supreme and refine this world—plus your own world—you'll have two worlds. Your power will soar."
Lin asked, "The Supremes you've seen—did they each have only one world?"
"Yes," said the gem. "Even someone like the Sky-rending Emperor-Lord—after gaining one world, a second is impossible. He could only keep refining other worlds to strengthen his world. A world's strength caps out after absorbing a few; surplus world-remnants were used to strengthen oneself. Supremes value self-power more than world-power; they don't rely on worlds or external things."
So aligned with his own path—he hadn't gone astray.
They flew on, threading the dense net safely, but this cluster held nothing suitable. Lin kept searching; there were more clusters ahead.
He locked onto the next group and guided the ferry calamity boat toward it. As they neared, the boat halted. Lin stared ahead: this cluster was smaller than the last—promising—but its vortices were changing their facing. Previously, a vortex's direction was fixed; only push/pull flipped. Compute the lines and you could pass. Here, the vortices also kept turning to new facings while randomly switching push and pull—hard to read.
Lin watched quietly, imprinting every visible vortex into memory as a 3-D model, then sought patterns in the angle changes. If he could find a pattern, he could slip through the gaps without touching any vortex; then push or pull wouldn't matter.
Multithreading his mind, he tracked thousands of vortices at once, noting their rotations. Gradually, patterns emerged; a great net took shape in his mind, along with a viable path. That part wasn't the hard bit—the hard part was beyond his current line of sight. Once inside, he couldn't stop—he'd have to keep moving—and many vortices within were still unseen; only by entering would he see them, and their changes remained unknowns. He would have to compute paths in real time as they appeared—unsafe, with no guarantee. If need be, he'd skip this cluster; others might not change facing.
While Lin analyzed, the Primordial Chaos Gem was observing too—not plotting a path, but peering directly inside the cluster. "I see a vortex that might suit Master," it said suddenly.
Lin had been ready to move on. "You sure?"
"Not fully. Eighty percent, perhaps."
Eighty percent was worth the risk. "Then let's go look."
The ferry calamity boat eased into the cluster. Lin micromanaged its course, slipping through mesh-gaps while tens of thousands of vortices kept changing facing. Straight-line pushes and pulls collided and rewove the net. Lin solved for the gaps and sailed them, never touching a force line—the safest method he had. The catch: once inside, the boat couldn't stop. A stop risked brushing a force line; a slight deviation could ripple the entire web into chaos—hard to restabilize.
Deeper in, the inner vortices seemed smaller. Lin computed like mad, plotting their force paths; he didn't even have bandwidth to judge suitability—that he left to the gem. In the past the gem would have refused; now it was oddly compliant, actively scanning vortices for him. New vortices entered his view and were woven into the mental net. The boat slowed again to a steady crawl.
"That one," the gem pointed.
Lin saw the designated Primordial Dawn Vortex—tiny, only ten meters across, among the smallest. He'd seen ones over one hundred thousand li wide; the difference was vast. The larger the vortex, the stronger its force; at a hundred thousand li, even a Supreme would avoid contact. With his current strength, entering such a field meant certain death, not even a chance to break free. But this ten-meter vortex—its pull or push, he felt he could counter. If he could remain stable inside and touch the forbidden-zone power, he would die instantly, as intended.
Threading the net's gaps, the ferry calamity boat reached the tiny vortex. Lin stowed the boat and hovered at the rim, drifting with its changing facing and feeling it out. The force was not strong; he even extended a hand into its field to test it. It was currently pulling—well within his ability to oppose, and thus the push phase should be manageable too. One issue solved; another remained:
At the instant he died—body shattered—he would lose control for a fraction of a moment, less than one-tenth of a second. Brief for most things, but long for a vortex. In that tenth, if the vortex flipped, it might push his fragments away, breaking his rebirth sequence—or pull them into the Forbidden Zone, ending everything for good. He had to solve this, or he couldn't proceed.
After a moment's thought, he found a way: set up a formation inside the vortex that, like the vortex, possesses both push and pull, and stays in sync with it. When the vortex pulls, the formation also pulls, the forces canceling around him; likewise for push. The formation would envelop him, shrinking the vortex's impact to negligible.
Another problem: during direction flips, the vortex's force spikes. The formation would need to spike in tandem, while still preventing him from being yanked in or hurled away. Since flips and spikes are irregular and patternless, Lin could adjust the formation on the fly—but he'd always be a half-beat late; even the slightest lag could mean true death.
So he chose a simpler solution: use the Heaven's Calamity Scepter as the formation eye, and have the Primordial Chaos Gem drive the Balance Gem to perfectly balance formation and vortex. That way, whatever the vortex did, the formation would track it.
After simulating several times, Lin was confident. The gem cooperated, willing to serve as the eye. Lin drew runes—ordinary Chaos runes were weak here, so he tweaked their structure to tap Ancient Wilds power. Time was short; the runes were only decent, but sufficient.
A peculiar formation took shape. Lin pushed it into the nearby vortex as a test. It ran smoothly and quickly synced with the vortex. He felt its operation—harmonious, like they were one—until the vortex flipped from pull to push. The formation lagged a half-beat and was blasted out of the vortex, bumping another force line and getting sucked by a different vortex—its pull so strong the formation was shredded in an instant.
"Just as expected," Lin murmured, unfazed. He redrew the runes and rebuilt the formation, fine-tuned this time, with the Heaven's Calamity Scepter as the eye. Once more he slid it into the vortex. Under the gem's control, the Balance Gem gleamed, balancing formation and vortex until they felt like a single whole. Without eyes, mere perception wouldn't detect the formation. Better than expected.
Now he was 99% confident he could go in and "die."
From within the formation, the gem's voice came: "Please enter and court death, Master."
Lin chuckled and slipped inside. Passing through the formation into the vortex's depths, he felt its power flow from behind and settle onto him, like a giant hand gripping him securely—safety. The vortex's force vanished—no push, no pull. Around his body, formation and vortex canceled each other. Entering the vortex was like strolling a back garden—unimpeded—until he reached the end.
Now he stood a single step from the Forbidden Zone of Life. One pace more and he would be inside. A thin mist filled the space—power from the Forbidden Zone with a peculiar property that kills all. The mist blocked his sight; he could not peer into the Forbidden Zone.
"It begins," Lin said quietly, and flew into the falling mist.