Dissociation and Haze

What just happened? For a split second, Yellowbeard felt a bone-deep chill... In the blink of an eye, a howling storm rushed up from behind. Just as the Seeds of Heroes weathered the counterattacks of the stone-faced artificers and stormed into the great hall, thunder detonated. A massive surge of quicksilver rushed forth as if boiling, silver streamers shooting outward in all directions! Like countless hands reaching out from the dark—dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands... Slender and icy cold, dancing bewitchingly, rising and falling in silence. Cruelly taking control of everything. Piercing whistles filled the air without pause as innumerable silver threads rapidly extended and grew, enveloping the entire hall. Impossibly light, as fine as specks of dust. Though seemingly fragile enough to snap in half with a mere breath, once severed they would instantly link with other threads like living things, taking root where they fell and proliferating once more. Amidst the tempest and collisions, roaring flames, billowing shockwaves, and spine-chilling chaos, those seemingly insignificant silver threads were torn to shreds, severed, and vaporized over and over... yet in the very next breath, they mended, spread, and multiplied exponentially! In the snap of a finger, vision was overwhelmed by an endless expanse of pale white. So dazzling, yet so frigid. It didn't even distinguish friend from foe... hungrily reaching out toward him. "You bastard, what the hell are you doing?!" Hair standing on end, Yellowbeard couldn't tell whether he had plunged into an ice cave or a smelting furnace. By pure instinct, he raised the Shield of the Precipice and bellowed. Instantly, roiling flames and smoke billowed out, vaporizing all quicksilver that crossed into his perimeter and repelling it outward. He glared at Ji Jue. "Ah, my bad. Forgot to turn off friendly fire." Ji Jue offered an awkward grin and slapped his forehead, the picture of innocence. Yellowbeard said nothing. Dead silence. Dead silence fell without warning. The entire world abruptly went quiet. In the hall cloaked in silver light, nothing remained but a deathly hush, all thunderous roars and crashes extinguished. There was only a faint pattering, like falling rain. Open your eyes, and nothing could be seen; yet close them, and one could practically sense it... the sparks flaring through that expanse of pale white, innumerable, rising and falling in turns, magnificent as the Milky Way! Creation of Non-Offensive enveloped all. Every spark was a minuscule dissociation; every drop of rain was a wail of rupture. Dissociation after dissociation, like exquisitely precise scalpels penetrating every conceivable opening, the cracking sounds cascading in a chain reaction. So precise not a shred of spiritus was wasted, so ingenious that not a single motion was superfluous. The pervasive quicksilver mist had seeped into every crevice, every mangled corpse, and every craftwork, smoothly embarking on its division, peeling, and devastation. If Ji Jue's previous Dissociation Art was a brutal demolition akin to targeted blasting, then this was a slow, endless, despairing death by a thousand cuts. Pure white blossoms flickered in the mist, blooming silently across everything, assimilating all, before swiftly fading away like an illusion. In mere seconds, the mist had completely dispersed. And then, nothing remained. No opponents or enemies were left in sight—only empty robes, masks scattered across the floor, and handfuls of pale gray ash. Taken care of? No... "They got away," Ji Jue sighed in realization. "Quick reflexes." They'd run! Though they looked stiff and sluggish on the outside, their reactions were astonishingly fast. A few more seconds and they would have been dismantled and dissociated down to nothing. But before that could happen, the rampaging stone-faced artificers seemed to hollow themselves out, severing and abandoning every part that had been assimilated, before abruptly vanishing without a trace. Like breaking down the whole into parts—severing hands and feet, gouging out eyes, stripping bones... taking apart every component of their bodies and retreating in piecemeal echelons? They looked like a crowd, but in truth, were they just one entity? Now things were getting interesting... Ji Jue stroked his chin in thought. Noticing the gaze beside him, he shrugged helplessly. "What's that look for, Grand Craftsman? You can't blame me for slacking off, can you?" "..." Yellowbeard was struck dumb, unable to utter a word. He only felt that certain dogs loved to bark just as much as they loved to bite... Barking was one thing, but this one wasn't even operating on the same frequency or wavelength. There was simply no communicating with him! Whatever, let him bark. If he wanted to bite, let him bite someone else, as long as he didn't snap at him. He coldly pulled his gaze back and strode ahead. Leaving Ji Jue behind, sighing with helpless lamentation. The bond really had faded! Back in the Dream of Huaxu, weren't we good friends fighting shoulder to shoulder?! I haven't even asked if you've got any fusion bombs! For real, brother, do you? Can I touch one...? Gazing upon the sheer scale and volume accumulated across generations of artisans in Haze Workshop, Ji Jue couldn't help a twinge of wistful envy and embarrassment. Big workshops were truly wonderful—wealthy, vast properties, lacking nothing. Unlike him, poor pitiful soul with nothing to his name, forced to go out and split a group order with his peers. He didn't even have a single fusion bomb! Couldn't we just burden the Federation a little bit more...? Boom! In the trembling castle, ahead of them, the corridor ceiling suddenly shattered. A yellowish-brown blur plummeted from above, smashed through the floor, and tore past with a roar, disappearing who-knew-where. It looked like an impossibly long snake, yet it had no scales, covered instead in a dense coat of fine fur. It resembled... a dachshund? Ji Jue's eyes went wide. *It can get that long?!* *Gulp, gulp, gulp...* As if it were devouring something unknown, huge bulges swelled along the dachshund's belly, sliding from front to back. And right before their eyes, the dachshund's body ballooned again, twisting into a knotted heap of fur, out of which popped the upper half of a young girl. The Veterinarian! "Yo, busy?" The youthful-looking artificer grinned at them. "The Captain wants you two to pick up the pace and deal with the workshop core. Hmm, I don't mind you taking your time to do fine work, but if you're any slower, that kid Hu Jian might get beaten to death..." "Understood," Yellowbeard said impassively, continuing forward. The Veterinarian took no offense, turning her smiling gaze to Ji Jue. "Hey kid, want to team up with me? Just pick a lock for me, and I'll split the haul fifty-fifty!" Yellowbeard paused in his tracks, frowning as he cast a cold glance over. That Ji Jue might be a total dog, but anyone who had worked with him knew just how capable and hassle-free he was... No matter how much Yellowbeard disliked the brat, he couldn't let someone poach him right under his nose! "Thank you for the kind offer, but I'll pass," Ji Jue declined with a smile and a wave of his hand. "My meager skills are only fit for assisting the Grand Craftsman here." An artificer's word was as trustworthy as a ghost's promise. Once the lock was picked, what use would he be? If she took off with the loot, where was he supposed to track her down? Even if she gave him half, wasn't half a pile of garbage still "half"? When it came to teamwork, an old acquaintance like Yellowbeard—whose every trick was known—was the safest bet! The Veterinarian started to say something more, but Yellowbeard cut her off. "Despina, mind your own business." "...Is that so? What a shame." The Veterinarian shook her head, looking not in the least disappointed, and vanished back into the knotted fur of the dachshund. Amidst the rumbling, the endless dachshund continued to stretch and tunnel wildly through the castle... Meanwhile, Yellowbeard was already regretting his choice. Because Ji Jue had latched onto him again like a plaster, grinning and throwing him knowing winks that clearly said *I got you*. "I knew the Grand Craftsman still cherished all those good times we shared!" Ji Jue sighed with theatrical emotion, paused, and abruptly pivoted: "So... could you cut me a bigger share later? The kid's still young, gotta nourish growing bones..." Listening to the relentless dog yapping, Yellowbeard's face twitched uncontrollably. Seriously, why don't you just get lost?! Another earth-shattering roar shook the castle violently. The massive castle underwent a sudden transformation, walls, floors, and ceilings stretching, shifting, and reassembling. Before the change could settle, Ji Jue shouted, "Grand Craftsman, down!" Yellowbeard didn't hesitate. He raised his flamberge and slashed down! The ground split open, and they leaped into the darkness, plummeting downward. Before they could even find their footing, hideous gargoyles stirred to life in the dark... As if specifically adapted against Isis's assimilation, the outer shells of these gargoyles were entirely spiritus insulators, wrapped layer upon layer, offering zero opening or opportunity for corrosion or dissociation. This time, Ji Jue couldn't afford to slack off. Time was running short. If he didn't fleece something soon, his peers would pluck the place clean! With a snap of his fingers, a wisp of purplish-black lightning flared from his fingertips. Zhanlu shot forth, accompanied by roaring purplish-black thunder like a rampaging truck. Under the chained blessing of Shock Comes with Trembling, it effortlessly tore a breach through the swarm of gargoyles. Immediately following, an eerie flame spread. Lacking any warmth, it instead sapped every drop of heat from the air, plunging the entire underground cavern into a frozen vault. Silently, it burned the lunging gargoyles into flying ash. "Isis?" Ji Jue asked. [Northeast, two o'clock. Strong spiritus activity detected.] Ji Jue flicked his fingers again. Zhanlu flew true, piercing through the wall amidst a barrage of explosive roars, severing something within as firelight erupted from the breach. The massive castle shuddered once more, its transformations stuttering for an instant and losing their fluidity. Through the fissure, a thread of dim silver light snaked silently onward, seeping into the castle's unseen, shadowy corners, spreading without taking overt action. Like contrast dye injected into blood vessels, it mapped out every structure within the workshop. Tearing through disguises and parting curtains, even a fragmentary glimpse was enough to discern the general layout beneath the complex sequences and deceptions. Only, in Ji Jue's perception, the shifts throughout the workshop felt less like craftwork and more... like a living creature?! Boom! Just an instant's distraction, and a gale slammed into them. Yellowbeard grunted, raising the Shield of the Precipice once more to ward off a bizarre blade that materialized out of thin air! Without warning, the shattered stone fragments littering the ground coalesced! Though they had been cleaved and smashed to bits, countless shards were now drawn together by an invisible gravitational pull, floating midair as a dense sphere. Without any herald, a blade hundreds of meters long burst forth! The obsidian-like blade bore not a single seam or scar; within it, layers of spiritus circuits illuminated as blessings of the Barren Ruins lineage surged and shifted. No forging, no crucible, not even a fabrication process like that of Non-Offensive... In the blink of an eye, a blessed craftwork had materialized before them! Its strike parried to no effect, the blade snapped back inside. The stone sphere rumbled and reshaped, revealing dozens of eerily familiar stone masks across its surface. Behind the masks, eyes snapped open—crimson and baleful. Right under their very noses... It had come alive?! The aura of the Barren Ruins abruptly swapped to Tianyuan. A tidal wave of telekinesis erupted from thin air, sweeping out in all directions and blasting away the spreading quicksilver. The Blessing—[Golden Rules and Jade Precepts] manifested, establishing a rule: within the domain of the telekinesis, all fluids were banned! Erecting an impregnable fortress from thin air, it used the steadfastness of Tianyuan to repel Isis's infiltration and assimilation. Immediately after, the fury of Entropy surged from within the domain. Minute sparks carrying immense heat showered forth, triggering a relentless succession of explosions against the Shield of the Precipice! Within a single second, the stone sphere transformed several times, its aura rising and plummeting as one craftwork after another manifested, making it impossible to pin down where its true form lay. No, that wasn't it... Ji Jue realized with a start: everything he saw *was* the true form. It was just changing so fast that no countermeasure could be found in time. What was merely a sphere of pieced-together gargoyle remnants now acted like endless craftworks in an artificer's hands, shifting without limit! Yes—transformation! "Fascinating." The moment realization dawned, Ji Jue burst into laughter. No wonder back when Haze was leading the pack, Hu Jian's Transmutation branch looked like a kid brother trailing behind! When it came to transformation, Haze was the true progenitor! Under the scrutiny of the Mirror of Contained Forms, he saw clearly into the sphere's core. Amidst crucible-like heat, vast networks of spiritus circuits moved like living creatures—rising, falling, linking, severing. With every shift, it transformed into an entirely different craftwork! One change a house, two changes a flower... It was practically assembling building blocks! Except the "blocks" in these stone-faced artificers' hands were pre-segmented spiritus circuits, structural frames, and blessings stored within the workshop. Craftworks that seemed whole were in fact composed of modular pieces pre-designated with distinct functions... No wonder those stone-faced artificers could scatter into pieces and retreat in batches at a moment's notice; they were never a single entity from the start, but had been modified into countless disparate components! Separated from the workshop, such adaptability might have had flaws or blind spots, but inside the workshop, backed by an endless supply of spiritus and crucible power, it was practically without flaw. Uniting parts into a whole at any moment, and breaking the whole back into parts just as freely. Effortlessly shifting between "All" and "One"... Gathering into desolate disaster, soaring and transfiguring. Scattering into hazy dust, concealing form and shadow. This dance of gathering and scattering, this shifting between substance and void—this was the true essence of Haze! What fine stuff! A truly marvelous thing! Ji Jue's eyes practically glowed red with greed. He couldn't help clapping in admiration and awe. A pity that, as great as it was, there was one glaring flaw... Why didn't such a wonderful thing have *his* name on it? No! The real question was—why was Haze's name written on *his* legacy? In that instant, Regeneration Form—activate! His steel hand rose, pointing forward. His heart pumped, channeling spiritus. Blinding arcs of lightning flared from the seams of metal, and under the circulation and distillation of Calamity Essence, the spirit essence of Zhanlu shrieked and howled. Pushing to the limit, running on full overload. His steel frame suddenly turned scorching red. From a palm on the verge of melting, intense light, nurtured to the absolute extreme, erupted outward! The entire subterranean space plunged into momentary darkness as eye-searing purple lightning surged forth in a straight line, locking onto the constantly shifting core within the stone sphere! As if an invisible blade rode within the lightning, spinning forward to pierce everything with crushing ruin, arriving in the blink of an eye! Illuminated by the blazing brilliance, the expressions on the stone masks seemed to twist in panic. In under half a second, the attack had fully charged and unleashed without warning, frightening even Yellowbeard into leaping backward. Yet in that impossibly tight window, the internal structure of the stone sphere shifted again! Fluid and frictionless. It segued instantly from Tianyuan to Barren Ruins, then channeled toward the Eternal Gate... Dozens of stone masks overlapped, coalescing into an aged, contorted visage whose eyes burned with furious light. Out of thin air, countless iron and stones gathered into an iron wall rising from the ground; under the blessing of Immovable as a Mountain, the entire workshop trembled. But it was too late—there wasn't even time to redirect the impact. Zhanlu was the blade! As the blade pierced through, all heat converged to a single point, converting instantly into pure kinetic impact; when the enemy tried to redirect the shock, it condensed once more, turning into thunder. In the span of a breath, under Isis's manipulation, it underwent nine transformations, each triggering a violent explosion. Under such high-frequency impacts and shifting attributes, even Immovable as a Mountain was forcefully breached... It had only bought a single second. And in that one second, the stone sphere seized the opportunity to leap backward through empty space. Flash! Did it make it? So it seemed... Before it even fully emerged from the void, the colossal stone face of the elder beheld... a sinister figure already waiting at the exact point of its arrival. Upon the steel chassis, a smile was ever so gentle. A hand reached out. Waiting for the stone face to deliver itself right into the trap... Trying to pull off a Flash right in front of him? Come on, did you think my Doomsday Express was just for show? Back when the enemy first channeled the blessing, Ji Jue had already calculated the landing coordinates. All that remained was unleashing the reflexes and speed of a wolf: six engine thrusters fired, accelerating from zero to a hundred in a tenth of a second. Ji Jue rocketed through the air like an artillery shell. Waiting for that contorted, dumbfounded stone face to present itself right before his eyes. *Smack!* With a crisp slap, the scorching metal hand clamped onto the stone face. It didn't even have time to transform again... Gathering and scattering without form? That was impressive indeed. Unfortunately, what gathers gathers, and what scatters scatters! If it was originally scattered, no matter how it gathered, it remained fundamentally dispersed! The more transformations, the more gaps; the faster the shift, the bigger the flaws. And that was why it had a lethal bane—a veritable natural enemy! [Dissociation Art: Jingzhen]!