The Third Betrothal Gift, Severing Thought Sword!

The Sea God Trident in Tang San's hand did not stop.

The golden halberd radiance had been charged to its limit, and the vortex condensed by the three blades dragged a piercing whistle as it cleaved down toward the top of Hu Liena's head.

He did not care about any betrothal gifts.

The previous two—the Primordial Spirit Bead and the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron—had both descended without posing any threat.

They followed the procedure of the Heavenly Dao, performed a play of Sanskrit chants, and then obediently floated before Hu Liena.

This time was no different.

Before the betrothal gift could land, he would take the person down first; the cauldron was tied to the person, and if the person was crippled, the cauldron would have no master.

He had calculated this account with absolute clarity.

The halberd blade was less than a foot from Hu Liena's forehead—

The sky split open.

There was no sound, no warning.

The pitch-black night sky was sliced open by an invisible force from the very center, creating a straight fissure. There was no light within the gap, only an extremely pure, sharp aura pouring down.

Tang San's Sea God Trident stopped.

It was not that he had pulled back.

It simply stopped.

The moment that sharp aura landed on the halberd blade, the golden vortex shattered layer by layer, and the power of the Sea God peeled off the shaft in large flakes.

Tang San's entire arm spasmed violently—he wanted to withdraw, to retreat, to pull the Sea God Trident back.

He could not move.

An unreasonable suppressive force nailed both him and the Sea God Trident to the spot.

"Crack."

A crisp sound of shattering.

A mark appeared on the shaft of the Sea God Trident, not a physical crack—it was a line of golden divine light being torn open from within.

The divine artifact was damaged.

Tang San's heart constricted violently.

He did not look up. He did not need to.

The thing falling from the fissure in the sky had already forcibly injected its presence into the depths of every person's soul present.

A sword.

The blade was translucent, neither reflecting light nor dazzling, yet it was so clear in the night that it was blinding.

It fell slowly from ten thousand feet in the air, silent and soundless.

Even the wind dared not move.

The air in the entire Martial Soul City solidified at this moment.

It was not silence—it was that everything capable of making a sound had instinctively shut its mouth.

The chirping of insects ceased, the night wind stopped, and the barking of dogs in the distant military camp went mute.

The blade appeared to have no edge.

Yet, everyone who touched that sword with their gaze felt their soul being fiercely pricked.

It was not pain—it was a sense of being completely stripped bare.

All disguises, all concealments, and those unsightly thoughts hidden in the deepest parts of their hearts were all illuminated thoroughly.

On the hilt, a primitive Taiji Yin-Yang fish pattern rotated slowly.

Two characters were inscribed on the crossguard.

Severing Thought.

The brushstrokes were vigorous, every stroke exuding the determination to sever all manner of obsessions.

Sanskrit chants rose again between heaven and earth, crossing endless time and space, falling clearly and unmistakably into everyone's ears.

"The third layer of the Celestial Master's betrothal gift—Severing Thought Sword!"

"In celebration of the Celestial Master's grand wedding!"

A pause.

"This sword—severs inner demons of the world, cuts off all evil thoughts!"

"It severs tangible entities, and even more so, it severs intangible souls!"

"The sword moves with the heart, protects its master autonomously, and can fight on behalf of its master!"

No one on the plaza responded.

It was not that they did not want to, but that they could not.

Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan stood at the edge of the plaza, his legs trembling like a sieve.

Three items now. The third one.

The Primordial Spirit Bead governs martial soul bloodlines. The Fate-Suppressing Cauldron governs the foundation of destiny. The Severing Thought Sword governs the spirit and state of mind.

Three betrothal gifts, three dimensions, sealing off every possible path of growth for a soul master.

This isn't a betrothal gift; this is brick by brick forging Hu Liena into a flawless monster.

And this is only the first three of eighteen layers.

There are fifteen more to go.

Chrysanthemum Douluo's knees went weak, and he nearly collapsed to the ground.

Ghost Douluo Gui Mei lay sprawled in a pile of rubble, his old face devoid of any emotion—because he was already completely numb.

He had lived for nearly two hundred years and thought he had seen it all.

Tonight taught him how to be a person all over again.

High in the air, Tang Hao's lone arm hung at his side, the Clear Sky Hammer suspended in mid-air, unable to descend.

That one remaining arm was shaking. It wasn't the aftereffects of detonating his rings—it was that sword.

Severing Thought.

His martial soul let out a shrill, mournful cry within his body. Not in anger, not in resistance, but desperately screaming one word—run.

For the first time in his life, Tang Hao received such a signal from his own martial soul.

The Clear Sky Hammer. The supreme martial soul, number one. Renowned for having the greatest attack power under the heavens.

At this moment, in front of this sword, it was afraid.

Bibi Dong hovered at the other end of the sky, the Rakshasa Demon Scythe hanging by her side.

Her purple-black soul power retracted uncontrollably, shrinking to within three inches of her skin, unable to be pushed out any further.

Sever the heart demon, cut off evil thoughts.

These six words were precise to the point of cruelty.

The Demon Fox lineage is naturally susceptible to the erosion of evil spirits; in the later stages of cultivation, heart demons are the greatest hidden danger.

The Primordial Spirit Bead purified the remnants of past evil, while the Severing Thought Sword severed the threat of future heart demons.

Echoing each other. Flawless.

Bibi Dong's right hand—the one scorched by Daoist energy that had yet to heal—trembled slightly within her sleeve.

She was a person on the verge of becoming a god. She had schemed her entire life.

Yet, facing every step of Shen Yichen's layout, she was left with only one feeling—

She had been crushed.

Not a crushing defeat in terms of brute force.

But in the matter of "considering things for Hu Liena," she, the master, had been left in the dust by a man she had never even met.

At the other end of the plaza, against the base of a wall.

Dai Mubai leaned against the shattered perimeter wall, head tilted back to look at the sword in the sky, his entire body petrified.

The tiger's maw, just whipped by Hu Liena's three fox tails, was still bleeding. Now, a sword that could sever the soul had appeared.

He turned his head to look at Tang San.

Tang San was still nailed to the spot.

His hand gripped the shaft of the Sea God Trident, his five fingers trembling uncontrollably from the excessive force.

The cracks on the Sea God Trident had widened by another fraction, and golden divine light leaked out in wisps from the fissures.

Two words squeezed out of Tang San's throat.

"How... is this possible..."

No one answered him.

The strike he had unleashed with all his might, infused with his remaining Sea God power—had been blocked by the mere shockwave of a sword that hadn't even landed yet.

A shockwave.

That sword had never targeted him from start to finish. It had simply, in the process of descending, naturally leaked a sliver of its sharpness.

A sliver, enough to crush his full-strength strike. Enough to crack the Sea God Trident.

This kind of gap could not be explained by ten or twenty levels of power.

The Severing Thought Sword completely detached from the rift in the sky, hovering above the Pope Palace.

The Daoist rhythm on the blade pulsed faintly, and the entire sword slowly rotated once.

Then, it flew toward Hu Liena.

The tip of the sword tilted slightly, carving out an almost invisible arc. It moved neither fast nor slow, carrying a sense of composure that was ingrained to the bone.

Hu Liena stood in the plaza, littered with rubble and stained with blood.

Her left shoulder was still bleeding, the wound on her cheek burned with a stinging heat, and her three fox tails were scorched and matted with dark red blood. She was in a state of absolute disarray.

Yet, she was smiling.

Her lips were pressed together in a curve so slight that others would barely notice.

The Fox Seal between her brows pulsed rapidly, searing hot.

It happened every time she was in the greatest danger. Every single time.

The Primordial Spirit Bead had descended when she was trapped in her bedchamber for three days and three nights.

The Fate-Suppressing Cauldron had arrived just as the pressure from Tang San's destiny began to manifest.

The Severing Thought Sword—it had arrived when she was a mere foot away from having her skull split by a trident.

That man she had never met, no matter how far apart they were, always managed to have his items appear before her at the most opportune moment.

The Severing Thought Sword hovered three inches in front of her.

The clear blade reflected her battered and wretched appearance—blood, dust, and stray hairs clinging to her face, a far cry from the pristine Saintess in the cultivation room.

Yet, the aura emanating from the sword held not a hint of disdain.

Only intimacy.

A sense of certainty, a feeling of belonging without reservation.

Hu Liena reached out her hand.

The moment her fingertips touched the hilt, a wave of coolness surged into her.

It was not the warmth of the Primordial Spirit Bead, nor the heaviness of the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron.

It was cold, and it was clean.

Everything chaotic in her mind—fear, anger, pain, unease—was severed in one stroke, leaving behind a vast, clear void.