Chapter 338 - 337: Sha Luo (6)

Lin Yuan took advantage of the opening.

His Dao Fruit rotated, and the surrounding rain gathered into thin streams that traced the connections Bai Qingyue had stabilized. Golden-purple thunder followed the streams, illuminating the points where the silver lines intersected and revealing the underlying pattern that governed the entire network.

The more clearly Lin Yuan perceived those intersections, the more apparent it became that Sha Luo’s technique relied upon a limited number of central connections to coordinate the movements of the surrounding regions.

He raised his right hand.

"Thunder Rain Dao, Three Rebirths."

The three principles circulated through his body, and a thin bolt of lightning shot toward one of the central intersections.

Sha Luo immediately reacted.

The silver rings spun violently, and the spatial connections surrounding the intersection began to rearrange themselves. However, Bai Qingyue’s binding seals held the surrounding lines in place, preventing the entire structure from changing before Lin Yuan’s attack could arrive. The lightning struck the intersection and released a sharp explosion, causing the connected silver lines to flicker.

A second bolt followed.

Then a third.

Each strike targeted a different point within the central structure, and the golden-purple thunder spread through the network without destroying the surrounding space.

Lin Yuan was not attempting to collapse Sha Luo’s domain through overwhelming force, because doing so could damage the ancient spatial foundation of the Sacred Grounds. Instead, he was disrupting the relationships that allowed the domain to coordinate its many separate regions.

Sha Luo’s expression finally changed.

She raised both clawed hands and attempted to withdraw the affected connections, but the crystalline seals continued to hold them in place. Her spatial comprehension was deeper than that of her siblings, yet Bai Qingyue’s binding technique had created a problem she could not ignore.

The longer the seals remained attached to the network, the more time Lin Yuan gained to examine the structure, and every additional moment made it harder for Sha Luo to restore the domain to its original arrangement.

"Do you truly believe a few bindings can restrain me?" Sha Luo demanded.

She clenched her massive fists.

The silver rings released a violent pulse, and the spatial pressure surrounding Bai Qingyue increased dramatically. The crystalline seals began to crack, while the ground beneath Sha Luo’s own six scorpion limbs split apart under the force of the distortion.

Sha Luo was attempting to use her domain and demonic strength to crush the bindings, forcing the surrounding spatial relationships to exert pressure upon the fixed connections until the seals could no longer withstand the strain.

Bai Qingyue’s body trembled.

The force pressing against her was far greater than she had anticipated, and she immediately understood that Sha Luo’s mastery of spatial laws exceeded the strength of the binding technique she had just employed. Nevertheless, she did not withdraw her Qi, because she could see that Lin Yuan had already identified several weaknesses within the network and was preparing to exploit them.

She stamped her foot against the ground.

A brilliant blue light spread through the earth, forming a vast pattern beneath her body. The pattern resembled an ancient lotus surrounded by a ring of smaller seals, each one connected to the others through thin strands of Heaven and Earth luck. The surrounding spiritual Qi surged toward the formation, and the blue bindings strengthened as Bai Qingyue drew upon the full authority of her unique foundation.

"Celestial Fortune Domain!"

The ground shook.

The crystalline pattern expanded across the battlefield, creating a second domain that overlapped with Sha Luo’s spatial network. Unlike the silver rings, Bai Qingyue’s domain did not attempt to rearrange the surrounding space. Its purpose was to establish a stable territory in which the principles of binding and suppression could operate with greater authority, allowing her to reinforce the connections that Lin Yuan needed to examine.

The two domains collided.

Silver light and crystalline blue energy spread across the mountains, and the ancient laws of the Sacred Grounds trembled beneath the pressure. Sha Luo’s spatial network attempted to rearrange the fortune domain, while Bai Qingyue’s binding seals sought to stabilize the connections before they could shift. Neither side could immediately overwhelm the other, and the resulting struggle created a narrow but valuable opening within the battlefield.

Lin Yuan moved.

He did not attack Sha Luo directly.

Instead, he stepped toward the center of the silver network and raised both hands, allowing the principles of Thunder, Rain, and Three Rebirths to circulate through his body.

The golden-purple lightning spread across the central connections, while silver-blue rain traced the relationships between them, revealing the sequence through which the entire domain adjusted itself whenever Sha Luo changed a spatial coordinate.

The answer finally became clear.

Sha Luo’s domain was not a collection of independent connections, nor was it a completely unified structure.

It was a hierarchy, with several central relationships coordinating the changes made by the surrounding connections, and those central relationships depended upon the ancient spatial foundation of the Sacred Grounds to remain stable. By manipulating those central points, Sha Luo could control the behavior of the entire domain without directly governing every connection herself.

That was the true source of her advantage.

It was also the key to overcoming her.

Lin Yuan’s eyes shone with golden-purple light. "I understand now. You do not need to control every connection because the network is organized around a few central relationships. As long as those relationships remain stable, the rest of the domain will adjust itself according to the structure you established."

He raised his right hand, and a dense bolt of thunder gathered around his palm.

"But if the central relationships are disrupted, the surrounding connections will no longer know which arrangement they are supposed to follow."

Sha Luo’s expression turned grave.

For the first time, she recognized that Lin Yuan had identified a weakness that could not be dismissed through a simple increase in power. Her domain remained far more sophisticated than those used by her younger brothers, and its foundations were deeply integrated with the ancient laws of the Sacred Grounds.

Nevertheless, the hierarchy that made the technique efficient also created a dependency, and Lin Yuan had discovered where that dependency lay.

She immediately changed her approach.

The silver rings collapsed inward, drawing the surrounding spatial connections toward her body. The entire network began to contract, and the pressure around the central intersections increased until the silver lines shone with an almost blinding brilliance.

Sha Luo intended to compress the domain into a much smaller structure, eliminating the need for the distributed network that Lin Yuan had begun to understand.

Bai Qingyue’s eyes widened.

"Yuan, she is pulling the domain back!"

A/N: For anyone wondering how Bai Qingyue knows this techniques she is using, she already cultivated them during her previous cultivation journey, the only difference is the increase in strength of them after absorbing and using heaven and earth luck laced Qi to power them