Wind and storm combined and crackled as the wind dragon and storm tiger revolved around the cocoon. Space deformed like putty and was sucked within as the silver and gray threads merged and vanished. Zhang Lie frowned and scrutinized the cocoon more closely—rather than vanishing, they had transformed into the formless energy of time, colorless, shapeless, tasteless, but influencing the world all the while.

The gold and black threads of karma continued to weave around each other, twining and twining until they formed a single thread of dark gold.

Dragon-like lightning, tiger-like storm, formless time, timeless space—those four disparate energies combined...