There were no guards at the pyramid's entrance, only two heavy obsidian doors.

Carved upon the doors was a massive, blindfolded bull's head, its horns curving toward the heavens and covered in profound runes.

Bai Cheng pressed her palm against the door, and the Power of Space permeated through.

The runes on the door suddenly flared to life, rebounding with a majestic, colossal force intended to push her away.

This wasn't an energy impact, but rather a manifestation of rules that embodied the concept of rejection.

"As expected... a guardian of laws."

Bai Cheng's gaze sharpened, and silver-white light surged from her palm, forcibly twisting the spatial structure around the stone doors and causing local turbulence in the rejecting rules.

"Open!"

With a soft 'crack,' it wasn't the stone doors shattering, but rather the rules upon them being briefly shielded.

The two giant doors slid inward silently.

Behind the doors was a wide staircase extending downward, leading deep underground.

The air was scorching and dry; the walls on both sides of the stairs were embedded with self-illuminating crimson crystals, casting a dim light.

After descending several hundred meters along the stairs, the path ahead suddenly opened up.

A massive underground cavern came into view.

In the center of the cavern, instead of the expected deep well, there was a huge circular altar over fifty meters in diameter.

The altar was constructed from a certain dark-gold metal and crystal, its surface covered in bull runes similar to those on the stone doors, currently emitting a hazy, dark-golden glow.

Directly above the altar floated a fist-sized, slowly rotating dark-golden crystal core.

Inside the crystal core, it seemed as if countless grains of sand were flowing, and it felt as if the pulse of the earth was vibrating.

Surging Earth-elemental Law Power and a trace of an even higher-level, thick artistic conception of stability and weight diffused from it, enveloping the entire cavern.

At the edge of the altar sat a burly man with an extremely stalwart build.

He was nearly three meters tall, with knotted muscles and bronze-colored skin, wearing heavy leather ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) armor covered in dark-golden metal plates and a helmet adorned with curved bull horns.

His features were rugged, his eyes were tightly shut, and there was a clear dark-golden bull mark at the center of his forehead.

He wasn't cultivating, but rather... breathing.

With every inhalation, a trace of the dark-golden Law Radiance permeating the cavern would converge toward him;

With every exhalation, a wisp of extremely faint pink mist would diffuse from the pores all over his body, merging into the omnipresent pale-pink haze in the air.

Sensing Bai Cheng's arrival, the giant man slowly opened his eyes.

His pupils were pure gold with no whites, and his gaze was as heavy and settled as a mountain range.

"To be able to pass through the sandstorm barrier, break through the puppet array, and reach this place... Outsider, you are faster than expected."

His voice was low and thick, like muffled thunder from deep within the earth. "I am the wielder of the Eye of the Sand, Taurus, Atum."

Bai Cheng stood her ground, her silver eyes calmly watching him. "Plundering the laws of this place, extracting the life force and hope of the residents—who do you serve?"

Atum slowly stood up, and the ground shook along with him.

He did not answer directly, but instead raised his hand to point at the dark-golden crystal core above the altar:

"Do you see it?...The law core formed by hundreds of millions of years of leyline accumulation on this island was originally just dormant. But I have given it the form of rules, allowing it to truly be used by me.

The meager vitality and emotions of those ants are but a small price to pay to activate and maintain this power."

"For your leader? The fellow hiding in the Mist Source Core, collecting emotions and special laws?" Bai Cheng pressed. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Atum's golden pupils contracted slightly. "You know quite a bit. It seems that Pisces, that trash, and my immature clone have provided you with a lot of information."

He didn't deny it, but instead admitted it frankly. "Indeed, we Twelve Zodiac Generals each have our duties.

Pisces is responsible for the preliminary collection and conversion of emotions, while I, Taurus, am responsible for seeking out and stabilizing special leyline laws."

He clenched his massive fist, dark-golden energy flowing between his fingers, carrying a suffocating sense of pressure:

"The leader's great undertaking requires Law Powers of different natures as a foundation.

Emotions are the 'guide,' while stable laws like this 'immovable core' are the 'base'.

Your intrusion has interrupted the stable harvest here.

Now, use your power to compensate for this loss."

Before his voice had even faded, Atum took a step forward.

There was no world-shaking momentum, but the entire cavern seemed to tilt with this single step.

An indescribable sense of heaviness instantly enveloped Bai Cheng; it wasn't an increase in gravity, but a suppression acting on the soul and energy levels, causing her Power of Space to experience a moment of stagnation.

"Rule Domain: Prison of a Thousand Jun!"

Atum growled, and dark-golden light erupted from him as the center, filling the entire cavern.

Bai Cheng immediately felt her body become incredibly heavy; every movement required several times the effort, and even her thoughts seemed to be dragged down in speed.

Spatial blinking became difficult, and silver spatial ripples were clearly suppressed and delayed within the dark-golden domain.

Atum himself was unaffected; his massive body burst forward at a speed inconsistent with his size, throwing a punch.

Before the fist even arrived, the heavy rules condensed to the extreme had already compressed the air, forming a visible dark-golden shockwave.

A sharp light flashed in Bai Cheng's silver eyes as she forcibly twisted the space in front of her.

"Spatial Fold!"

The shockwave slammed into the distorted spatial layer; most of the power was deflected and shunted away, striking the cavern walls and blasting apart large sections of rock.

But a portion of the rule power still penetrated the defense, shaking Bai Cheng's blood and qi, forcing her back half a step.

"It's useless." Atum's voice was calm as he pressed closer step by step. "Within my Rule Domain, all 'lightness','swiftness', and 'change' are suppressed.

Your spatial ability is indeed special, but its foundation is still a form of change. Here, you cannot even exert fifty percent of your full strength."

He swung his fist again; this time the punch was slower but heavier, as if dragging the weight of the entire earth.

The dark-golden fist energy was as solid as substance, locking down all of Bai Cheng's evasion routes.

Bai Cheng did not meet it head-on, nor did she attempt to blink over a long distance. She compressed her Power of Space to the extreme, concentrating it in her palms.

"Rules are not invincible; there are always limits to what they can carry and nodes in their operation," she whispered to herself, meeting the mountain-like fist energy with both palms.

"Spatial Collapse: Point!"

She wasn't opposing that heaviness, but rather forcibly creating a micro-scale spatial collapse singularity at the very core of the fist energy's condensation point.

The dark-golden fist energy collided with the silver singularity.

There was no loud bang, only a disturbing, strange sound, as if the very structure of matter was being forcibly crushed and twisted.

The vast energy and rule power condensed within the fist energy were frantically devoured, disrupted, and annihilated by that tiny singularity.

Atum's expression changed slightly; he felt the power of his punch vanish as if it had disappeared into the ocean.