"Ah—!!!"
That scream was so shrill it surpassed the range of sound, carrying invisible spatial ripples that spread directly through every inch of this withered world.
The last trace of core will in the black-robed emperor's savage face met the most fundamental nemesis of its existence beneath the unreserved blooming of this ninth-grade lotus.
A lotus had nine grades; each grade was another heaven.
At that moment, in the nine-grade lotus blooming deep within Lin Ming's soul, every petal flowed with a completely different radiance.
The lowest three grades showed a deep, dark gold—the foundation of endurance and transformation; the middle three grades shone with bright pure gold, symbolizing the tendency toward purification and manifestation; the highest three grades were dyed with noble purple-gold, radiating a majesty above the mundane.
The light was like a tide, yet not a violent torrent. It was like the first ray of light at the birth of heaven and earth, carrying an irrefutable principle of existence as it illuminated that black core, a mass of ancient, solidified hatred, madness, and will to annihilate.
"No... impossible..."
Under the lotus's illumination, the dark will, for the first time, sent out thought-waves that could be understood. Those waves were filled with indescribable horror.
"A mere mortal soul... how could there be... such essence..."
It was not being crushed by violence. It was being denied and reconstructed from the most fundamental definition of its existence.
If Lin Ming's golden soul body had been struggling evenly against the darkness before, then the nine-grade lotus now blooming had already surpassed the level of confrontation.
It hovered silently at the center of the withered world. Its roots sank into the void, its stem pierced through law, its petals unfurled at ease, and the entire world resonated with it.
This was not