"Hou Ji—!!!"
Cheng Xi's roar, carrying newborn strength and piercing pain, exploded amid the violent energy turbulence of Biyou Cave Heaven! The blood-red scene at Xianyang's Beacon Tower branded itself onto his newly formed Dao Heart like a red-hot iron. The fallen figures of the Wu Clan warriors, Meng Tian's bloody battle, and Lord Tongtian's solitary silhouette standing against the Zixiao Divine Lightning overlapped before him. A determination mixed with grief, fury, and the resolve to stake everything erupted from his chest!
Buzz—!!!
The Qingping Sword Sheath in his arms completely awakened! It was no longer merely a vessel for Sword Intent; it became a source of power! Vast, ancient, all-severing Sky-Severing Will surged wildly into every part of Cheng Xi's body like a breached river of stars! This incomparably domineering power carried Lord Tongtian's eternal arrogance and the edge to shatter all laws, colliding and merging violently with the gray light of the Chaos Origin Point and the sword intent that defied delusions within him!
"Arghhh—!"
Cheng Xi's body violently trembled in midair, countless fine bloody cracks instantly splitting open across his body surface! The chaotic "disordered variable" and Sky-Severing's "destructive edge" clashed and tore through his fragile meridians, as though they would burst and annihilate this mortal body entirely! The agony was like billions of steel needles piercing his soul!
[Warning! High-dimensional energy infusion! Attribute conflict! Fusion rate of Chaos Origin Point and Sky-Severing Sword Intent: 17%... Host's physical body load limit being exceeded... Collapse risk: 98%...]
The system's warnings were drowned out by the torrent of power. Yet at the brink of destruction, Cheng Xi's soul erupted with unprecedented clarity amid the agony! The bloodshed at the Beacon Tower, the Wu Clan's sacrifice, Lord Tongtian's solitude, the Heavenly Dao's cold shackles... all of it became blazing kindling, igniting the imperishable flame deep within his Dao Heart!
"Power... I need power!"
"Not submission! Not escape!"
"It is breaking the deadlock! It is protection! It is cutting apart these damned shackles!"
"Chaos! Sword Intent! Merge for me—!"
A silent roar arose from the depths of his soul! He no longer passively endured it, but actively took control! With that Chaos Origin Point as the core, he forcibly guided and melded the violent Sky-Severing Sword Intent! Chaos's "disorderly" nature no longer fought the Sword Intent's "ordered sharpness." Instead, it became a strange adhesive and catalyst, giving the mighty Sword Intent unpredictable variables in its finer details, making it more sinister, nimble, and filled with the potential to destroy established rules!
Screech!
What erupted from the bloody cracks across his body surface was no longer pure blood, but streams of energy mixed with Chaos's gray radiance and Intercepting Heaven Sword Qi, flickering with a dangerous blue-gray gleam! Like living tentacles, those energy streams twisted and stretched through the air, radiating a heart-palpitating aura!
[Fusion rate of Chaos Origin Point and Sky-Severing Sword Intent: 39%... 51%... Host's physical body undergoing mutation... Load limit exceeded!... New energy attribute determined: Chaos Sword Essence (prototype)...]
Boom!
Cheng Xi suddenly raised his head! Chaos-gray light flowed through his left eye, deep as an abyss, as if it contained the disorder of Cosmic birth and death; blue-white sword light burst from his right eye, with Unparalleled Sharpness, as if it would cut through every illusion before him! A new, violent power founded upon Chaos Variables and the beginnings of the Sky-Severing Edge finally took initial shape within him! Though still violent and unstable, it had found an outlet!
He stood upon the precarious Sky-Severing single-plank bridge, ignoring the roaring Chaos Vortex below. His gaze pierced through the collapsing chaos of the cave heaven and locked onto the distant direction of Xianyang! There, blood and fire reached the heavens, his close friends had fallen, and there was also... that dark-golden demonic egg about to begin devouring everything!
"Lu Buwei! Demon! Just wait for me...!"
Cheng Xi's voice was hoarse, like metal grinding against metal, filled with bone-deep Killing Intent. With difficulty, he raised his hand and formed a sword with two fingers. The newborn, violent Chaos Sword Essence within him crazily gathered at his fingertips! Blue-gray light flickered unstably, twisting the surrounding space and making it wail!
However, Just as he was about to disregard everything and unleash this immature power in an attempt to slash towards the Mount Li Demonic Lair from afar—
"Foolish child!"
Lord Tongtian's figure, resisting the Zixiao Divine Lightning head-on, suddenly shook amid the light of destruction! His eyes, which reflected the ages, pierced through space and fell upon Cheng Xi, carrying a trace of barely perceptible exhaustion and an even deeper resolve.
"Your Dao foundation is not yet stable, yet you force immature power into motion. Do you wish to destroy yourself?!"
Before his words had faded, Lord Tongtian, enduring the terrifying pressure of the Zixiao Divine Lightning, suddenly reached with his free left hand toward the phantom of the World Purifying Green Lotus within the spiritual pool below!
"Qingping as the guide! Chaos as the vessel! Go—!"
Buzz!
That enormous phantom of a green lotus abruptly erupted with unprecedented radiance. Its petals fell away one after another, turning into streams of incomparably condensed green light! These streams of light were not attacks. Instead, they instantly wrapped around Cheng Xi's entire body, forming an enigmatic phantom of a green Lotus Platform that enveloped him along with the Sky-Severing single-plank bridge beneath his feet!
At the Same Time, an emerald sword light condensed to the extreme, containing a trace of the Tongtian Origin Mark, shot from Lord Tongtian's fingertips and instantly entered the Qingping Sword Sheath in Cheng Xi's hand!
"This is a wisp of my Origin Mark. It can help you temporarily wield the Chaos Sword Essence and protect your Dao foundation from collapse! Return to Xianyang at once! That place... is where your sword will be honed, and also the source where calamity begins!"
Lord Tongtian's voice carried an urgency unlike anything before. Clearly, resisting Hongjun's Heavenly Dao's Will head-on was an immense burden even for him!
Rumble!
The might of the Zixiao Divine Lightning surged once more! The radiance of the green lotus's true body beneath Lord Tongtian swayed violently, and a faint crack silently appeared along the edge of its Lotus Platform!
Cheng Xi only felt an irresistible, gentle force wrap around his whole body. The Sky-Severing single-plank bridge beneath his feet instantly Turned into a blue-gray streak of light, piercing through layer upon layer of collapsing space and shooting toward Xianyang at a speed beyond thought!
"Master!" Cheng Xi looked back and saw only the apocalyptic sight of the cave heaven completely collapsing beneath the Zixiao Divine Lightning, along with Lord Tongtian's straight-backed figure amid the destructive radiance, solitary and sharp as a sword! An indescribable sense of tragedy and responsibility weighed heavily upon his heart.
He knew that what Lord Tongtian had bought for him was the final stretch of time—and... a road stained with blood!
Shady Ravine of Mount Li, bone altar.
The heartbeat of the massive dark-golden egg was like a war drum, shaking the entire Underground Cave until it hummed. The scale-like patterns across its shell wriggled madly, greedily absorbing the Calamity Qi filling the air as the Heavenly Dao Shackles loosened. The intent emanated from within the egg was full of brutality, greed, and impatience to break free of its shell.
"Soon... very soon..." The black-robed demonic person prostrated himself beneath the altar, his ghostly green eyes filled with fanaticism and reverence.
Lu Buwei stood to one side, his face shifting between light and shadow beneath the ghostly green phosphorescent flames. The faint sensation of "loosening" lingering at his fingertips had long vanished, replaced by an even deeper oppression. Had the sounds of battle from the direction of Xianyang Palace weakened? Had Meng Tian and those three damned Wu Clan barbarians... been dealt with? Then why was the unease in his heart growing stronger and stronger?
Suddenly!
At the top of the altar, the massive dark-golden egg, pulsating at its limit, abruptly froze!
Then—
Crack!
A crisp yet heart-palpitating sound of shattering sounded!
From the top of the eggshell, a huge, savage claw covered in dark-golden scales suddenly punched through the tough shell and stretched out! Its talons curved like hooks, gleaming with metallic cold light and wreathed in thick black-red evil qi! A primordial, vicious aura far more terrifying than the black-robed demonic person's, filled with chaos, destruction, and extreme hunger, swept through the entire Underground Cave like a tangible storm!
"Holy Lord!!!" The black-robed demonic person trembled with excitement and threw himself fully to the ground.
Lu Buwei's pupils constricted, and his heart pounded wildly! It had succeeded! The Holy Lord was finally about to descend into the world! Yet as he looked at that monstrous claw which had broken through the shell, neither human nor beast, and felt that purely destructive, vicious aura, the unease deep in his heart instantly became an icy chill. This power... seemed somewhat... different from the power he had imagined would help him control Great Qin?
Before he could think any further—
Whoosh—!
A blue-gray streak of light, like a meteor tearing through the night sky, ignored the obstruction of the thick mountain. Carrying an edge that could sever all things and the restless throb of Chaos and Disorder, it violently pierced through the rock above the Underground Cave and descended! As the light faded, it revealed a figure standing upon a phantom blue-gray single-plank bridge, his whole body enveloped in the glow of a green Lotus Platform, chaos and sword light flashing in his eyes—Cheng Xi!
His gaze instantly locked onto the savage claw extending from the top of the altar, as well as the hungry shriek emanating from within the eggshell, enough to make souls tremble!
"Demon! Your time of death... has come!" Cheng Xi's voice was ice-cold and piercing. The Qingping Sword Sheath in his hand erupted with unprecedented radiance! Within the sheath, that Tongtian Origin Mark was fully activated!
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