“The Heavenly Dao... is troubled,” the Daoist said softly. His voice held neither sorrow nor joy, only the faintest hint of puzzlement. In his perception, which was one with the Dao, something seemed to have seeped into the web of Heavenly Dao laws that sustained all the heavens, a substance that should have been formless and traceless: an exceedingly minute yet strangely “viscous” impurity. It was no specific energy or physical thing, but more like a conceptual “poison,” slowly “contaminating” the workings of the rules. It was especially corrosive to “barriers” and “contracts” that depended on the order of heaven and earth.
“Not a human calamity, but a natural disaster. Its nature... eats away at the foundations of the Dao, diminishes spiritual essence, and returns all things to silence...” The Daoist tried to trace its source with his supreme Dao-consciousness, only to find that the “poison” seemed to be everywhere and yet nowhere to be found. Like a reflection of flowers in a mirror or the moon in water, it vanished without a trace at the slightest touch, leaving behind only a heart-rending sense of nothingness.
