Grievously Wounded, Fallen

That withered figure, already as dried-up as rotten wood, remained fixed where it had stood before the rune formation exploded, looking incomparably lonely.

A trace of an extremely complicated, indescribable emotion flickered deep within Ling Haonan's cloudy eyes.

Weariness? Despair? Regret? Melancholy? There was no anger, no unwillingness—only a calmness bordering on emptiness.

After spending hundreds of years painstakingly planning, even using his broken body as the catalyst, he had laid down a heaven-shaking scheme. He had successfully deceived all of the Central Plains, and was on the verge of devouring the Mystic Pill and sending Ling Yuan into the realm of an eight-star Dou Sheng, fighting for a glimmer of prosperity for the Spirit Clan...

At this moment.

It had shattered completely.

Silence enveloped him. He merely stood there, allowing the aftershock of the destructive sea of fire to scorch his withered body...

In terms of strength, the Spirit Clan naturally still held the advantage. Xiao Yan's group had merely broken the great rune formation; they could not change their disadvantage against Dou Sheng experts. Although Ling Yuan had failed to completely absorb the Pill Tower Ancestor's origin, the aura surging around him was clearly stronger than before. He was still the strongest person here.

Yet the difference in strength no longer held any meaning. The Spirit Clan had not come to the Pill Tower intending to slaughter every last one of them.

With the rune formation gone, the other members of the Spirit Clan naturally had a chance to defeat or even kill the Pill Tower Ancestor, but that would not increase the Spirit Clan's strength in the slightest.

The Pill Tower Ancestor would never give Ling Yuan another chance to absorb him. If the final plan failed, he would surely choose to self-destruct. Naturally, the Spirit