Chapter 3: The City of Amber
Amberglow Citadel's Radiance of Eternal Stasis
The glow of perpetual stillness from Amberglow Citadel refracted through a hundred thousand mirrorwalls. The moment Xuan's scaled armor scraped against a mirror's edge, the entire ice surface fractured into a spiderweb of cracks—an instinctive rejection of chaos by Primeval Law. Behind him, Jin's Emberfire Banner hummed, its fabric reflecting the spectral image of Zhuyin, the First Emberkeeper, whose finger pointed toward a hovering amber rhombus behind the mirrors, within which gleamed the Fragment of Stillness—pulsing with liquid silver light.
"The Labyrinth of Lumenhollow Gaze devours all moving life," Jin breathed, her words misting white air, lashes already crusted in ice crystals. "Lord Zhuyin traded half his heartscale for three breaths of time in this place. We must act before the mirage collapses—"
Before she finished, the mirrorwalls exploded in blinding azure light. Thousands of Xuan's reflections stepped out from the ice, each clad in flawless Primeval ice-plate, eyes glittering with runes of absolute stillness. These "Voidshell Copies" raised crystalline longswords—wherever their blades passed, silver threads of frozen time snaked through the air.
"Law Manifestation!" Xuan snarled, Chrono Dust swirling into a phantom Sky-Cleaving Axe in his palm, only to be flash-frozen as it met an ice blade. "They're replicating my nature as Three Antiquity Residue!"
Jin lashed out with her Emberfire Chain-whip. Links etched with Pangu-scale patterns clashed against ice swords, spraying sparks the color of molten gold and crimson. "The core lies in the Ice Spire at twelve o'clock! Xuan! Use your Chrono Dust to disrupt their resonance! I'll breach the Spire's Stasis Field!"
With a roar, Xuan violently split off a third of his Chrono Dust. Silver dust formed a vortex of chaos in the void, instantly destabilizing the perfect reflections—the Primeval Law could not simultaneously process the conflict between dynamic chaos and static perfection. Seizing the opening, he shot through the mirrorwalls as streaking light. Before him now hovered the amber rhombus at the citadel's heart.
Within the amber, the Fragment of Stillness resembled a frozen stellar core, its surface rippling with the primordial frost born at the Sky-Cleaving. As Xuan's fingertip touched the artifact, the entire Amberglow Citadel shook with deafening thunder. The Lumenhollow Gaze projected from the Spire's apex—a colossal eye woven from countless ice shards, its pupil reflecting the "optimal stasis configuration" of all living things.
"Residue of Time, you dare defile Primeval Perfection?" Its voice echoed like calving glaciers. "Only sealed in eternal amber can the taint of chaos be purged."
Xuan felt his body crystallizing. Silver sand leaking from his scales hardened into tiny icicles. At the critical moment, the Emberfire at his heart blazed fiercely, forcibly redirecting the fragment's frost-energy inward—for the Three Antiquity Fragments shared a common origin; the Emberfire was the very spark of Pangu's creation, intended to break cocoons, not build them.
"The shards of the Sky-Cleaving Axe were never meant to be prison locks!" Xuan's scales flickered wildly between ice and chaos, finally coalescing a translucent axe-blade in his palm. "The Law of Stillness should be a shield for protection, not a cage wall!"
As the blade descended, the amber rhombus sang with the pure cry of a phoenix. The Fragment of Stillness melted into a stream of light that fused into his brow. Simultaneously, cracks fractured the Lumenhollow Gaze projection. A hundred thousand mirrorwalls began to melt, revealing the Primeval ancestors frozen behind them for ten thousand years—desire for a moving world flickering deep within their eyes.
"Are we... free?" The first thawed Primeval cultivator trembled as he touched a drifting snowflake, watching ice melt into water on his palm—the first liquid motion Amberglow had witnessed in millennia.
Xuan had no time to reply. The distant chaos storm swelled with renewed fury—the pungent reek of Ancient Flesh surged closer. Jin crashed through the melting mirrors aboard her Bone Vessel, its prow carved from Pangu-bone now battered: "The Primogeniturge's Bloodtide arrives! Xuan! Channel the resonance between Stillness and Chaos!"
While Xuan stormed the Amberglow, Jin had plunged into the Ancient Fringe, wresting the Fragment of Chaos from a crumbling flesh-citadel. Now both fragments hummed within Xuan. A sudden epiphany struck. He fused the frost of Stillness with the seething chaos of Disorder in his palms.
*BOOM—*
For the first time, a complete phantom of the Sky-Cleaving Axe materialized. Its blade flowed with the facets of ice and the pulsing veins of living flesh, while undying starlight burned at its core. This was no mere fusion of power; it was the true resonance of the Three Antiquity Laws within Pangu's bloodline. Wherever the phantom axe passed, lingering stasis fields vaporized and distant flesh-flames sputtered into purity.
"The legendary Sky-Cleaving Axe..." Jin whispered as her Emberfire Banner spontaneously mended, its surface blooming with the complete star-map from Pangu's primordial moment. "So only the Three Antiquity Residue can claim the fragments..."
Before she finished, the stench of the Bloodriver choked the air. A vortex composed of twelve flesh-citadels tore at Amberglow's borders. The Primogeniturge's projection rose from crimson fog, her million flesh-tentacles now armored with Primeval ice-shards and Elder starlight—clearly strengthened by consuming other domains of Law.
"Residue of Time! Do you think gathering two shards grants you the right to challenge ME?" The Primogeniturge's central eye snapped open at the vortex's heart. "MY flesh has ALREADY DEVOURED the Elder Emberfire Altar!"
Xuan gripped the phantom axe, feeling the Three Antiquity powers cycling within him. This time, he didn't split his body. Instead, the frost of Stillness poured into the blade, the chaos of Disorder boiled in the haft, and the Emberfire at his brow blazed as the axe's soul. When the axe fell, it rent a gash in the void linking the Three Antiquities—Stillness's frost halted tentacle-regeneration, while Chaos's power hurled the ice-shards back into the Primogeniturge.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" For the first time, raw terror flickered in the Primogeniturge's projection. The swallowed Primeval ice-shards regenerated within the chaos. "You... you FORCE a SYMBIOSIS between the Laws?"
Xuan charged the blood-soaked altar at the vortex center—there floated the corrupted Fragment of Chaos. As the Emberfire-forged edge of the Sky-Cleaving Axe touched it, a titanic resonance erupted. Flesh-runes coating the fragment shattered, revealing the original axe-glyphs from Creation. Pure instinct drove Xuan to channel the fused power of both Stillness and Chaos Fragments into the phantom axe. Its true, physical form solidified within the chaos, its blade bearing the jagged notch left when Pangu had exhausted himself cleaving the heavens.
"Primogeniturge, you err," Xuan's voice rolled like creation's first thunderclap. "The Three Laws were never tools for mutual devouring. They were intended as a crucible for symbiosis!"
The axe fell. The boundary between Amberglow and the Flesh-Citadels fused violently. Where Stillness's frost clashed with Chaos's churning power, a new law bloomed—an ethos allowing dynamic flux and static perfection to coexist. The Primogeniturge's Bloodtide recoiled beneath this cosmic shockwave. Twelve totem-pillars within the flesh-citadels snapped, freeing the imprisoned Ancient warriors within.
In the rubble of Amberglow Citadel, Xuan stood gazing at the complete Sky-Cleaving Axe now solid in his grasp. Three interwoven patterns glowed along its blade, each murmuring tales of the Three Antiquity past and future. Jin approached, pointing towards the newly coalescing border shimmering in the distance: "Look. A Symbiotic Borderland has formed where Primeval and Ancient meet. The first zone of peace since the Wars began."
Xuan nodded. The axe's weight was heavy—not just the heft of the artifact, but the hopes of millions. He knew the Fragment of Flux awaited in the Elder Ruins. And the curtain on the final Three Antiquity War had just risen with the reforging of this axe in his hands.
"Next," Xuan turned his gaze deep into the chaotic void, where the rumble of Karmic Fire sounded like distant drums, "The Elder Ruins. With this Sky-Cleaving Axe, we will ignite the Elder Emberfire to illuminate every corner of this dying Cocoon."
In Amberglow's fading light, the axe-blade refracted triune radiance onto an unprecedented scene: Primeval cultivators and Ancient mutants stood silent, exchanging their first peaceful gaze. This wasn't the end, but the true beginning of the Breaking—now that the Three Laws commenced their symbiosis, the decisive move of the Great War already rested firmly within Xuan's grasp.