Strange Paths to Immortality

rift... it's a hole in the universe's skin."

Luna's starlight gown flickered as she aimed a probe at the 裂隙. "I'm detecting frequencies beyond anything in our reality. It's like... music made of physics."

Before anyone could respond, a silver tendril shot from the rift, piercing the ground where Chen Jiuzhang stood. The earth beneath him turned into a crystalline structure, pulsing with the same silvery energy. "It's trying to restructure the realm!" Lyra shouted, flipping through a floating memory scroll.

Su Nian whipped her chains at the tendril, but they bounced off the crystalline surface. "Great, first we fight shadows, now we fight the laws of physics!"

Zhang Chengying, still weak from his earlier possession, pointed to the rift's edge. "Look—those are the same symbols from the Harmony Pool, but inverted!"

Chen Jiuzhang closed his eyes, feeling the key's connection to the silver energy. Images flooded his mind: a race of beings made of pure light and shadow, constructing the Gui Xu Secret Realm as a buffer between dimensions. "The rift... it's a distress signal from the architects," he said, opening his eyes. "They built this place to contain the primal darkness, but now something's tearing through from the other side."

As if on cue, a massive, silver - skinned creature emerged from the rift. Its body was composed of swirling energy, and its eyes were portals to endless starfields. "The Weave Breaker," Wu Laogou whispered, his voice filled with awe. "It feasts on the fabric of realities."

The creature raised its hand, and a wave of silver energy washed over the group. Chen Jiuzhang stepped forward, merging his light and dark energy to form a purple shield. The shield held, but the strain caused shadows to creep up his neck.

"You can't block it forever," Lyra said, projecting a map of the realm onto the air. "There are five ancient obelisks that once stabilized the Primordial Weave. If we can activate them, maybe we can seal the rift."

Su Nian nodded, chains ready. "I'll take the eastern obelisk. Zhang, you go west."

Luna and Lyra headed south, while Chen Jiuzhang and Wu Laogou faced the Weave Breaker. "Why are you helping us?" Chen Jiuzhang asked as they ran.

Wu Laogou looked at his hands, still trembling from the shadow fragment's influence. "Because I finally remember... I was one of the architects' apprentices. And the Chen family? They were meant to be the realm's last line of defense—not its prison."

As the group split up, the Weave Breaker let out a cosmic shriek, and the silver rift expanded tenfold. The Gui Xu Secret Realm was about to become a battlefield for forces beyond their understanding, and the fate of not just the realm, but the entire universe, hung in the balance.