Tang San's Sea God Trident never stopped.
The golden glow of the trident had built to its limit. The vortex formed by its three prongs dragged out a shrill howl as it cleaved down toward the top of Hu Liena's head.
He didn't care about any betrothal gifts.
The first two—the Primordial Spirit Bead and the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron—had arrived without anyone threatening her.
They'd gone through the motions of Heaven's will, played out a round of chanting Buddhist hymns, then obediently floated to Hu Liena.
This time was no different.
Before the betrothal gift could land, he would take her down first. The cauldron was on her. If she was finished, the cauldron would have no master.
He had calculated it all perfectly.
The trident's prongs were less than a foot from Hu Liena's forehead—
The sky split open.
There was no sound, no warning.
An invisible force cleaved the dark night sky straight down the middle, opening a narrow, perfectly straight fissure. There was no light within it, only an utterly pure sharpness pouring down.
Tang San's trident stopped.
He hadn't pulled back.
It had stopped.
The instant that sharpness touched the trident's prongs, the golden vortices shattered layer by layer, and the Sea God's Power peeled off the shaft in great swaths.
Tang San's entire arm spasmed violently—he wanted to retreat, to back away, to pull the Sea God Trident back.
He couldn't move.
An unreasonable force of suppression pinned him and the trident in place.
"Crack."
A crisp snapping sound.
A new line appeared on the shaft of the trident. It wasn't a physical crack—the golden divine light had been forcibly torn open from within.
The divine artifact had been damaged.
Tang San's heart clenched.
He didn't look up. He didn't need to.
The thing falling from the fissure in the sky had already forced its presence deep into the Divine Souls of everyone there.
A sword.
Its blade was translucent, neither reflective nor dazzling, yet in the night it was clear enough to dazzle the eye.
It descended slowly from tens of thousands of feet above, without a sound.
Even the wind dared not stir.
The air throughout Spirit City froze in that moment.
It wasn't silence. Everything capable of making a sound had instinctively shut its mouth.
The chirping insects fell silent, the night wind stopped, and even the dogs barking in the distant military camp went quiet.
The blade seemed to have no edge.
Yet everyone who let their gaze touch the sword felt a sharp stab in their Divine Soul.
It wasn't pain. It was the feeling of being stripped completely bare.
Every disguise, every cover, every shameful thought hidden in the deepest corners of their hearts was laid bare.
At the hilt, an ancient Yin-Yang Fish pattern slowly rotated.
Two words were engraved on the guard.
Severing Thought.
The strokes were vigorous and powerful, every line carrying the resolve to cut through all worldly attachments.
Buddhist chanting rose again between heaven and earth, crossing endless stretches of time and space to reach every person's ears, clear as day.
"The third layer of the Celestial Master Betrothal Gift—the Severing Thought Sword!"
"To celebrate the Celestial Master's Grand Wedding!"
A pause.
"This sword severs the inner demons of the world and cuts off all evil thoughts!"
"It cuts corporeal forms, and it cuts incorporeal Divine Souls!"
"The sword moves with its master's heart. It protects its master of its own accord and can fight in its master's stead!"
No one in the square responded.
It wasn't that they didn't want to. They couldn't.
Chrysanthemum Douluo Yue Guan stood at the edge of the square, both legs shaking like a sieve.
Three gifts. The third.
The Primordial Spirit Bead governed Martial Soul bloodlines. The Fate-Suppressing Cauldron governed the foundations of one's fate. The Severing Thought Sword governed the Divine Soul and the mind.
Three betrothal gifts, covering three dimensions. Together, they blocked off every path along which a Soul Master could grow.
These weren't betrothal gifts. They were building Hu Liena into an airtight monster, brick by brick.
And these were only the first three of eighteen layers.
Fifteen more remained.
Chrysanthemum Douluo's knees buckled, and he nearly fell to his knees.
Ghost Douluo Gui Mei lay sprawled in the rubble, his old face devoid of expression—because he was completely numb.
He'd lived nearly two hundred years and thought he'd seen everything.
Tonight had taught him how to start over.
In midair, Tang Hao's one arm hung at his side, and the Clear Sky Hammer remained suspended without coming down.
His only intact arm trembled. It wasn't a side effect of Ring Detonation—it was because of that sword.
Severing Thought.
His Martial Soul let out a mournful wail within him. It wasn't angry or resisting. It was screaming one word with all its might—run.
In all his years, Tang Hao had never received such a signal from his own Martial Soul.
The Clear Sky Hammer. The foremost Supreme Martial Soul. Said to have the greatest attack power under heaven.
At this moment, in the face of this sword, it was afraid.
At the other end of the sky, Bibi Dong hovered with the Rakshasa Demon Scythe hanging at her side.
Her purplish-black Soul Power retreated uncontrollably. Once it shrank to within three inches of her body, it couldn't be pushed outward again.
Severing inner demons, cutting off evil thoughts.
Those six words were precise to the point of cruelty.
The Demon Fox bloodline was naturally vulnerable to the invasion of evil spirits. In the later stages of cultivation, inner demons were its greatest danger.
The Primordial Spirit Bead had purified the remnants of past evils. The Severing Thought Sword cut off the threat of future inner demons.
One followed the other. Seamless as a single piece of silk.
Bibi Dong's right hand—the one still healing from the burn inflicted by Dao Qi—trembled faintly inside her sleeve.
She was on the verge of becoming a god. She'd spent a lifetime plotting and scheming.
Yet faced with every step of Shen Yichen's plans, she was left with only one feeling—
She'd been utterly outclassed.
It wasn't a crushing defeat in terms of strength.
When it came to "considering Hu Liena's best interests," the man she'd never even met had left her, her own master, so far behind she couldn't begin to catch up.
At the other end of the square, beside the wall—
Dai Mubai leaned against the shattered wall and stared up at the sword in the sky, petrified.
The web between his thumb and forefinger was still bleeding after Hu Liena had sent him flying with her three fox tails. Now there was another sword that could cut the Divine Soul.
He turned to look at Tang San.
Tang San was still pinned in place.
His hand clamped around the trident's shaft, all five fingers trembling from the strain.
The crack in the Sea God Trident had widened. Strands of golden divine light leaked from the fissure.
Two words squeezed from Tang San's throat.
"How... could this..."
No one answered him.
The strike he'd poured his remaining Sea God's Power into, giving it everything he had—had been stopped by the aftershock of a sword that hadn't even landed.
The aftershock.
The sword hadn't targeted him at all. As it descended, it had simply released a wisp of sharpness of its own accord.
One wisp was enough to crush his all-out attack. Enough to crack the Sea God Trident.
No gap of ten or twenty levels could explain this difference.
The Severing Thought Sword emerged completely from the fissure in the heavens and came to a stop above the Pope Palace.
The Daoist aura on its blade pulsed faintly as the whole sword slowly turned once.
Then it flew toward Hu Liena.
Its tip tilted slightly, tracing an almost invisible arc. It moved unhurriedly, with a confidence as deep-rooted as its very bones.
Hu Liena stood in the square, strewn with rubble and bloodstains.
Blood still ran from her left shoulder, the wound on her cheek burned fiercely, and her three fox tails were smeared with scorch marks and dark red blood. She was battered from head to toe.
Yet she was smiling.
Her lips were pressed together, the curve so slight that almost no one could see it.
The Fox Seal between her brows throbbed rapidly, burning hot.
Every time, it came when she was in the greatest danger. Every time.
The Primordial Spirit Bead had arrived when she'd been trapped in her bedchamber for three days and nights.
The Fate-Suppressing Cauldron had come when Tang San's suppression of her fate had first emerged.
And the Severing Thought Sword had arrived when she was a foot away from having her head split open by the trident.
No matter how far away he was, the things belonging to that man she'd never met always appeared before her at precisely the right moment.
The Severing Thought Sword stopped three inches in front of her.
Its clear blade reflected her battered appearance—blood, dust, and loose strands of hair stuck to her face. She was nothing like the pristine Holy Maiden in the Cultivation Room.
Yet the presence emanating from the sword held no trace of disdain.
Only closeness.
A certainty of belonging, without the slightest reservation.
Hu Liena reached out.
The instant her fingertip touched the hilt, a cool current flowed into her.
It wasn't the warmth of the Primordial Spirit Bead, nor the weight of the Fate-Suppressing Cauldron.
It was cool. It was clean.
Every tangled thought in her mind—fear, anger, pain, unease—was cut away in a single stroke, leaving behind a clear, open stillness.
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