Baleful Blade Pierces the Heavens, Shattering Curse Shadows; Yin Condenses, Dissipating to Release Ethereal Aura

Zhao Cheng frowned slightly and withdrew the Great Halberd. "As expected, it won't work."

He could sense that although True Essence could scatter the surface layer of misfortune's power, it could not eradicate the source.

Those gray shadows resembled intangible mental force even more; once shattered, they gathered again, making them harder to deal with than tangible things.

"This thing... is more like condensed spiritual power, or perhaps threads of fate lurking in the unseen."

He pondered for a moment. "Brute force is useless against it. We need to find its root."

As his words fell, Zhao Cheng circulated the Heavenly Star Constellation True Technique once more. This time, however, he was not gathering True Essence. Instead, he used his Acupoints to contemplate the heavenly stars, extending along the faintly appearing threads of stellar principles between heaven and earth.

The three hundred and sixty major Acupoints aligned like fixed stars. Before long, amidst the countless crisscrossing threads, he precisely caught the one connected to Lord Changping.

The thread was gray-black throughout, stained with dense blood-soaked Killing Intent and venomous resentment. One end was tied to Lord Changping's brow, while the other wound southward, toward Chen Commandery.

Tracing the thread back to its source, his thoughts drifted like wisps of smoke over the ruins of Handan, skimmed across the muddy waves of the Yellow River, and passed through the dense forests of Chen Commandery...

Soon, an enormous altar shrouded in mist appeared within his mind.

This was not something he truly saw, but an image revealed through divination.

Within that image, the gigantic altar towered into the clouds. Around it stood many worshipped statues of gods whose faces could not be seen, each dozens of times taller than the altar itself.

The tallest among them seemed boundless. No matter how far