The silence inside the ruins was absolute. Not peaceful, but aggressive—a vacuum that actively sucked at sound, at energy, at life itself. The air tasted flat and metallic. Ling Xiao's own breath sounded deafening in the stillness.
The walls, floors, and ceilings were all the same seamless, bone-white material. There were no joints, no cracks, not even the finest grain. It was as if the entire complex had been grown or printed in one perfect piece. Soft, sourceless light emanated from every surface, leaving no shadows. It was disorienting, like being trapped inside a giant, geometric egg.
His first step forward triggered a reaction. The chaotic energy circulating within him, soothed by two years of careful practice, immediately rebelled against the oppressive order. A faint, violet haze seeped from his pores, reacting with the sterile air. Where it touched the white walls, it sizzled softly, leaving temporary, smoky smudges that faded after a few seconds. The air around him hummed with a low-frequency dissonance.
"Energy contamination detected," the calm voice noted, echoing from everywhere and nowhere. "Passive suppression initiated."
A wave of force, invisible but immense, pressed down on him. It wasn't attacking his body, but his spiritual energy. It sought to flatten the chaotic fluctuations within him, to force his wild potential into a static, orderly state. The pressure was immense, like being submerged in hardening concrete. He grunted, instinctively cycling his Chaos Breathing to reinforce his internal reserves, to keep his energy from being compressed into nothingness.
He had to move. Staying still felt like surrender.
The corridor led to a circular chamber. In its center stood a plinth, and on the plinth rested a single, black crystal slate. As he approached, the slate lit up, projecting lines of crisp, angular script into the air above it. It was a language he didn't know, but the Memory Crystal behind his brow pulsed, and Shí's gift provided a shaky translation. It was a directory.
Archive Index:
· Sector 1: The Principle of Order (Theoretical Foundations)
· Sector 7: Threats to Cosmic Stability (Anomaly Classification)
· Sector 9: Purification Protocols & Containment
· Sector 12: Historical Precedents: Chaos Incursions
His eyes lingered on Sector 12. Historical Precedents. He needed to know what had happened to others like him.
A thought seemed to be enough. The wall opposite the plinth shimmered and irised open, revealing a passage labeled with the symbol for Sector 12. The suppression field intensified as he walked through, as if the archive was herding him toward the lesson it wanted him to learn.
This chamber was different. The walls were lined with thousands of small, hexagonal niches. In each niche rested a crystal similar to the slate, but these were cloudy, dormant. As he entered, one niche at eye level glowed. Its crystal projected not just text, but hazy, soundless images above it.
He approached. The script labeled it: Subject Gamma-Seven. "The Shattered-Star Sage."
The image showed a man floating amidst asteroids, his body radiating wild, multi-colored energy. He was powerful, reshaping rock with a gesture. Then the image flickered. The energy around him became jagged, uncontrollable. He clutched his head, screaming in silent agony. His own power lashed out, not at the asteroids, but inward, and then outward in a supernova-like pulse. The image ended with a field of scattered, glowing dust where the man had been.
Annotation: Chaos affinity: Celestial-grade. Outcome: Auto-dissolution at estimated Soul Seed realm. Cause: Inability to impose cognitive order on perceptual chaos. Concluded: Unstable by nature.
Ling Xiao's mouth went dry. He moved to the next glowing niche.
Subject Kappa-Two. "The Laughing Maw." This one showed a woman in a forest. Plants grew and died in accelerated cycles around her. She laughed, a manic, endless sound even in silence. Then the plants began to twist into monstrous, fleshy shapes. The woman's body merged with the biomass, becoming a writhing, mindless mound of chaotic life that eventually consumed itself.
Annotation: Chaos affinity: Life/Entropy. Outcome: Biomass assimilation and consciousness loss. Cause: Emotional resonance with chaotic frequencies. Concluded: A hazard to biospheres.
Niche after niche glowed as he passed, presenting a gallery of horrors. A child who unraveled time in a village, trapping everyone in a single, repeating moment of terror. A warrior whose chaotic armor eventually ate through his flesh. A seer whose true sight drove her to pluck out her own eyes.
All dead. All mad. All disasters.
The message was clear: Chaos, left to itself, led to annihilation. It was a disease. A cosmological mistake. The ordered races had studied, categorized, and concluded: purification or elimination were the only ethical responses.
A cold knot of despair tightened in Ling Xiao's chest. Was this his destiny? To become a "Subject" in some future archive? To end as a cautionary footnote?
He reached the final illuminated niche in the row. Its label was partially corrupted, but Shí's crystal translated the fragment: ...nal Report: The Azure Phoenix Project. Hypothesis: Forced Symbiosis. Result: Catastrophic. Note: Supervisor's addendum: Absolute order is brittle. Absolute chaos is devouring. Is the flaw in the subjects, or in our understanding? Balance is not a midpoint, but a tension. Data sealed. Project terminated.
Balance is not a midpoint, but a tension.
The words cut through the despair like a shard of glass. They were different. A question, not a conclusion. A crack in the archive's perfect, ordered certainty.
Before he could ponder it, the niche beside this one, previously dark, glowed to life. It wasn't a record of a subject. It was labeled Containment Protocol Delta: Stabilization Primer. This crystal didn't project images. With a soft click, a physical object materialized on a tray that slid from the niche: a slim, metallic booklet.
He picked it up. It was cool and heavy. It opened at his touch. Inside, intricate diagrams of meridian pathways, meditation poses, and formulae for gathering and cycling spiritual energy filled the pages. It was a basic cultivation manual. But it was the most orthodox, fundamental primer imaginable. It explained how to draw in natural energy (which it called "structured qi") and refine it in the dantian in perfectly repeating, stable cycles. It was the philosophy of the wall, the floor, the very air here: take the wild, and make it orderly.
To Ling Xiao, it was both fascinating and useless. His body couldn't perform these cycles. His dantian didn't work that way. But as he stared at the diagrams, he began to understand the pattern of order. The logic behind it. The desire for control, for predictability, for safety. He understood why they feared him.
He slipped the manual into his pouch. It was a artifact of the "other side." A piece of the puzzle.
"Assessment period complete," the voice intoned. The pressure in the room shifted. The suppression field didn't lessen; it changed purpose. "Anomaly Ling Xiao exhibits high-level chaos affinity with atypical cognitive stability. Deviation from recorded failure patterns noted. Initiating Tier-1 Evaluation Trial."
The wall at the end of the chamber dissolved, not into a corridor, but into a vast, white space. In the center of the space stood a simple stone pillar. On top of the pillar rested a perfect, glowing sphere of silver light—a condensed orb of pure, harmless ordered energy.
"Trial Objective: Neutralize the sphere using your anomalous abilities."
"Parameters: Direct physical contact prohibited. Orthodox qi techniques unavailable to subject. Trial will assess chaos manipulation precision, control, and environmental impact."
"Failure Conditions: Sphere remains intact after time limit. Chaos contamination exceeds permitted thresholds. Subject exhibits mental degradation."
"Begin."
A soft chime echoed.
This was no longer an archive. It was a laboratory. And he was the test subject.
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END OF CHAPTER 13