Chapter 876 - 876: 876: The Weight of Primordial Laws

Having anticipated the collapse, Xiao leaped forward and caught Zhongli before he struck the floor, kneeling beside him with wide, frantic eyes.

Rex Lapis was utterly pale, his eyes clamped shut, his lips tinged with a faint shade of violet.

Panic gripped Xiao's chest, turning desperate eyes toward the surrounding illuminated adepti.

"Quickly! An Enchanted Golden Apple! Alchemical draughts! Hurry!"

Bosacius scrambled through his pouches, holding an Enchanted Golden Apple against Zhongli's mouth with trembling hands, yet no matter how he pleaded, the Lord of Geo failed to part his lips.

The ancient sovereign had slipped completely beyond waking reality.

Had Zhongli's chest not retained a faint, lingering warmth, Xiao would have believed his lord had perished on the spot.

"Rex Lapis! My Lord! Can you hear my voice?!"

Xiao called out repeatedly, his cadence tight with frantic urgency.

Within the depths of his consciousness, Zhongli felt as though he had tumbled into a lightless, bottomless abyss, surrounded on every side by suffocating dark water.

A deafening roar hammered against his eardrums, threatening to shatter his skull.

His mind was a storm of static and pain, feeling as if a titan's sledgehammer were striking down upon his soul without pause.

He wanted to struggle, yet even the will to move a finger had been drained away.

Across the table, Ningguang and Guizhong were in no better condition, their eyes sealed shut as they slumped limply against Ryen's chest.

Neither possessed the strength to shift their limbs.

Ryen had anticipated the backlash, yet watching the women suffer still brought a sharp pang of sympathy to his chest.

Their spiritual endurance had merely been siphoned clean; they had sustained no authentic bodily injury, meaning a day or two of quiet rest would restore their vigor.

"Ryen, what has happened to Rex Lapis?" Xiao asked, his voice cracking with helpless anxiety.

"Set your mind at ease," Ryen replied gently, his voice carrying a calm, steadying resonance. "His mental stamina has simply been drained dry, leaving him temporarily unable to process the physical world."

"A day or two of deep rest will see him whole once more."

Xiao let out a slow, shuddering breath, though his brow remained knit in worry.

"Then... alchemical draughts or Enchanted Golden Apples... are they entirely useless?"

"Useful?" Ryen turned to Xiao with an amused, sympathetic chuckle.

"He cannot even part his lips to swallow, so how do you propose feeding him?"

"Furthermore, what he exhausted was no ordinary mental fatigue; it was the foundational spiritual consciousness that sustains living vitality."

"To put it plainly, his soul's reserve was siphoned away in an instant. Within the unique parameters of this universe, his fullness bar will gradually restore his vitality so long as he does not die."

"Had this occurred under the skies of Teyvat, he would have been rendered a comatose husk on the spot."

"Still, claiming there is no remedy is not entirely accurate."

Ryen shook his head, a playful smirk touching his lips.

"One method is simple: execute him on the spot to trigger a Totem of Undying, guaranteeing he revives at full health."

Xiao's face froze in utter dismay, his voice dropping to a distressed whisper.

"Is... is there truly no alternative?"

"Of course there is."

Ryen shrugged lightly. Retrieving an Enchanted Golden Apple, he bit off a small piece, leaned down, and pressed his lips gently against Ningguang's mouth, passing the sweet, golden pulp directly into her throat.

Turning his head, he repeated the process with Guizhong.

Having shared the restorative fruit, the two women finally fluttered their eyelids open, consciousness slowly returning to their features.

Yet their frames remained heavy with lingering, profound exhaustion.

The golden fruit replenished a modest portion of their mental vitality, but completely restoring depleted soul force in a single breath was beyond its limits.

Healing spiritual essence was an arduous process, though consuming several more apples over the coming days would speed their recovery.

Watching Ryen revive Ningguang and Guizhong through intimate mouth-to-mouth feeding, Xiao stood frozen in suffocating, absolute awkwardness.

That method...

Whether Xiao could stomach performing such an act was not the issue; the insurmountable problem was Rex Lapis.

His Lord would undoubtedly banish him from the mountains upon waking.

"Ryen... is there truly no other way?" Xiao asked once more, his cheeks burning with mortification.

Ryen laughed softly, shaking his head.

"Then you must simply wait. In roughly half an hour, he will regain enough surface consciousness to register his surroundings."

"When that moment arrives, you may feed him restorative alchemical draughts."

"Take note, however: throughout the remainder of today, he will command neither physical strength nor mental focus. It is best that he remains within this block world to recuperate."

"Crossing back into Teyvat will only stall the recovery of his soul."

Xiao exchanged a relieved glance with Bosacius, bowing his head in quiet acceptance.

"Ryen... I feel so terribly hollow..."

Ningguang and Guizhong were awake, yet complete lethargy weighed down their limbs, leaving them unable to lift so much as a finger.

Ryen brushed gentle kisses against their foreheads, his voice soft and soothing.

"What you severed moments ago was one of the world's root laws; profound fatigue is entirely natural."

"There is no lasting harm; tomorrow will see you moving freely once more."

Ningguang wished to nod, yet lacking the strength to move her neck, she merely blinked her long lashes with faint, weary confusion.

"We modified merely two parameters, and we did so pooling the strength of three administrators... Why does this feel vastly more punishing than when I adjusted the sun, moon, and stars entirely on my own?"

Ryen chuckled, gently brushing a stray lock of hair from her cheek.

"Because the two are fundamentally incomparable. What you altered today was an immutable primordial law."

"Within this universe, monsters spawning from the dark is an absolute constant, an ingrained concept woven into the root architecture of reality."

"It mirrors the natural law in Teyvat where the ambient energy of the Ley Lines continuously sparks the manifestation of wild monsters."

"Severing that rule within Redstone Tech City is equivalent to altering the Ley Line network across an entire province of Liyue, declaring that regardless of how densely elemental energy gathers, no monster shall ever materialize."

"You rewrote a foundational concept of the cosmos; how could it not drain your essence?"

Ningguang let out a long, exhausted sigh.

"Is that the truth of it... I assumed the remaining proposals on our ledger were of equal weight."

"It seems I underestimated the undertaking. Anchoring the rest of our parameters will require far more time than anticipated."

Ryen stroked her cheek with reassuring warmth.

"There is no hurry. We shall take it one step at a time."

With Ryen tending to them, Ningguang and Guizhong could speak with ease, whereas Zhongli remained flat on the rug, entirely motionless.

Across the circle, Venti shrank back into his chair, muttering beneath his breath.

"So tinkering with world parameters carries such terrifying agony? I originally contemplated claiming a server administrator post for the novelty, but it seems such glorious privileges are far better suited for others."

Diluc turned a flat, unimpressed gaze toward him.

"What makes you assume the council would ever consent to your appointment in the first place?"

"Hey! Why must you wound my pride so casually?!"

"Entrusting administrator authority to you invites disaster; none of us could guarantee you wouldn't rewrite our realm with absurd, drunken rules."

Venti spread his hands with a breezy, unabashed grin.

"Ehe!"

Jean had opened her lips to defend her god, yet catching his shameless wink, she realized Diluc had struck the absolute truth, choosing to look away in silent resignation.

"There is no reason to view the authority like a venomous beast," Ryen noted, holding the women close as an amused smile touched his lips.

"Altering root source code is fundamentally equivalent to manipulating the underlying logic of cosmic laws."

"Such an opportunity is something even the Heavenly Principles has never held."

"Source code and cosmic laws are merely different expressions of the exact same truth. By manipulating code, your consciousness touches the foundational levers of reality."

"Gazing directly upon the laws of existence is a blessing beyond measure."

"The ancient gods stand supreme because they are born from laws and nurtured by laws; their growth is simply the gradual comprehension of their native concepts."

"The Heavenly Principles operates under identical mechanics, striving to enforce absolute dominion over the laws of Teyvat."

"Touching the source code of this block world grants your soul the foundational bedrock required to comprehend cosmic authority."

"Both your combat parameters and your core life tier will experience a steady, permanent ascension."

The moment the words fell, Guizhong chimed in with breathless excitement.

"Precisely! Ryen speaks absolute truth! The instant I engaged the server administrator perspective, my consciousness bore witness to the tangible manifestation of countless primordial laws."

"I severed a root law with my own intent."

"That singular act granted me immense clarity regarding the nature of my own authority. Put simply, the fundamental essence of cosmic law became transparent to my mind."

"I hold an intuitive conviction that once we finalize every municipal parameter, the sheer volume of cosmic logic we comprehend will elevate our life tier beyond that of premier gods."

"A maiden's intuition is never mistaken."

Before her voice could settle, a series of ragged, quiet coughs drifted from the floor as Zhongli slowly forced his golden eyes open.

His complexion remained pale, his deep voice carrying a faint, hollow rasp.

"It is... as they say."

"Though altering world laws demands an astronomical toll from the spirit..."

"Compared to the harvest reaped by the soul, the cost is utterly trivial."

"The privilege to gaze upon the naked mechanisms of cosmic law is something even the ruler of Celestia has never known."

"My comprehension of worldly principles has deepened profoundly. By severing that conceptual chain, the underlying architecture of existence became clear to my senses."

"I can perceive my fundamental life tier ascending to a higher plane, though charting the precise boundary of that growth remains difficult."

Witnessing their sovereign return to consciousness, Xiao beamed with overwhelming relief, quickly uncorking a restorative draught and holding the rim against Zhongli's lips.

"Rex Lapis, drink."

"My gratitude, Xiao."

Zhongli parted his lips with visible effort, swallowing a few mouthfuls of the cool liquid, allowing a wisp of clarity to wash through his battered consciousness.

Yet his limbs remained entirely numb.

A heavy, suffocating wave of drowsiness washed over him like a rising tide.

Beside him, Ningguang and Guizhong could no longer fight the exhaustion, their heads slumping against Ryen's shoulders as they drifted into deep, peaceful slumber.

"To think the process carries zero lethal peril, exacting merely temporary exhaustion... yet the reward is a direct audience with the laws of creation," Greater Lord Rukkhadevata murmured softly, looking upon Zhongli with undisguised, reverent admiration.

"The mantle of a server administrator is a genuine pathway toward transcending mortal divinity."

Only beings who had walked the path of authentic godhood could comprehend what cosmic laws truly meant to living consciousness.

In scholarly terms, it was akin to humanity deciphering the fundamental biological code of their own existence, unlocking the authority to consciously direct their own evolution.

The mortal delegates could not fully grasp the metaphysical depths of cosmic law, yet witnessing the deep, collective envy shining across the eyes of the ancient Archons was enough to elevate the concept to an absolute summit in their minds.

"Cosmic laws..."

Scaramouche's eyes burned with cold, hungry fire, his knuckles whitening as he clenched his fists.

"The essential catalyst for elevating the foundational life tier..."

Through modded armaments and alchemical cultivation, their combat parameters had indeed crossed into the threshold of gods, yet compared to authentic, ancient deities, a vast chasm remained in their fundamental life tier.

Even with his combat parameters rivaling a mid-tier deity, standing before a newly awakened god like Nahida still stirred an instinctive, suffocating pressure in his chest.

It was an unyielding hierarchy of biological existence, the innate terror felt by lesser forms of life before higher planes of being.

Commanding the destructive force of a god did not make one a god.

Previously, Scaramouche had assumed that divine divergence stemmed from the possession of a Gnosis; now, the veil was ripped away.

It all originated from cosmic laws.

He could not even perceive the laws of reality, whereas ancient Archons were born swimming in those currents, holding an insurmountable head start from the dawn of creation.

At that moment, Scaramouche burned with unprecedented, ravenous desire to claim the mantle of a server administrator.

Yet he swiftly gathered his wandering thoughts, reining in his ambition.

Should Snezhnaya secure its first three administrator seats upon completing their municipal trials, those mantles would naturally fall upon the Tsaritsa, Rosalyne, and Arlecchino.

He held no reason to despair; Snezhnaya would hardly settle for a single settlement.

As a high-ranking commander of the court, missing the first wave merely meant claiming his seat in the second.

He had endured centuries of waiting; an additional year or two was a trifle.