Almost the entire upper atmosphere of this little 'world' was slowly filled with rumbling black thunderclouds. They were everywhere yet nowhere.

The glyphs were able to 'see' them in a way and quickly moved above them so as not to get caught up inside. All the other lifeforms living on the landmass below could, in a sense, 'feel' the clouds, but not actually see them.

Many of them looked up to the skies trying to find any signs of them. They could feel the charged atmosphere and the fast-moving winds. It felt like a storm was fast approaching and it truly was, but not one meant for their eyes.

Hao Xuan's consciousness entered the same space he had created for himself when trying to understand Chaos Laws all those days ago. (CH 527)

He was standing atop a lone cloudy peak, at the edge of a cliff. All around him were the same black clouds that were in the world outside, or maybe they were a mirrored reflection of each other.

"Initiation of the Chaos Gates: Influence."

The words chained together forming a sentence.

Hao Xuan was standing at the cliff's edge, or rather he WAS the cliff since his feet were a part of it. In front of him was the churning chaos that he had seen at the edge of the universe on Meng's boat and in Baracus's recordings.

It stirred endlessly, in a state of perpetual and constant change. Hao Xuan gazed at some of the shapes that he had seen coming in and out of the shadowy darkness many times before and at this moment, he was starting to recognize some of them.

Random things ranging from household objects all the way to small animals and even some flowers he had never personally seen before could be observed in there.

The first time he had invoked the Law of Chaos, he had barely understood anything. Now he could stare at the Chaos and make certain things out without losing track of them. It was progress.

'But...why them?' Hao Xuan asked himself.

Why was he seeing these things specifically? What significance did they have?

He stared at the tumulous chaos for what felt like an eternity but still couldn't find a relation between them. The only thing they had in common was that Hao Xuan 'knew' of their existence. He knew they existed somewhere out there, even if he hadn't seen them himself.

He looked down at his feet that were one with the rocky cliff and then at the chaos in front of him. All he had to do was take one single step to break free from those restraints but how could he? And more importantly, go where?

There was nothing but Chaos in front of him, nothing else at all. His mind was still not able to think in a different way. If he had a teacher most of these questions would be answered but alas, it was not meant to be. He would have to discover for himself through trial and deadly error what was right for him.

Thinking about how he got to this point, Hao Xuan couldn't help but recall the words from the visualization technique.

"Create for yourself hurdles and pass through them one by one, at the end awaits the prize."

'But what is the prize?'

Hao Xuan himself had created the hurdles for himself. But there was no prize. What was he supposed to reach?

'Reach?' he frowned.

'What was the first thing I heard? "Order within, Chaos without!" was it?'

He had already seen it so many times before. Without order, there was no chaos. And without Chaos, order could not exist. Everything else was insignificant at this point.

Hao Xuan closed his eyes, letting his mind and soul freely expand outwards.

"Order within," he mumbled inside the cocoon, summoning a shadow above it. It was his mind palace, the main palace that housed his soul and all the severs.

"Chaos without," the chaos energy within his body rampaged through his meridians, eliciting a similarly powerful response from the sea of clouds in the sky.

"The soul is the embodiment of order, housed within the mind palace. The Immaterial."

"The body is the vessel for the Chaos, spreading its influence and reach into the world. The Material."

This wasn't some sort of universal truth, it was Hao Xuan's own unique way of understanding the world around him.

*BOOOOM*

Thunder roared both inside Hao Xuan's body and outside.

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