What?!
Everyone froze at those words.
This body was both a scapegoat to die in his place and a vessel for a soul's return?
How could that possibly work?
"Senior, what do you mean?" Lin Xuanshu could not help asking.
The old woman drew a deep breath, a light of almost mad wisdom flickering in her cloudy eyes.
"What the Heavenly Dao wants to kill is your essence, Li Xiang—the rules within you that violate its underlying logic."
"So this body must use your bloodline as its template to fool the Heavenly Dao's lock on you."
"And Zhong'er is now Yin Tianzi. His soul contains the vastest, purest netherworld essence in the Netherworld." The old woman looked at Li Xiang.
"Once this body has absorbed enough of the netherworld essence Zhong'er supplies, its standing will be forcibly raised to a level that makes even the Heavenly Dao wary."
"When that happens, the Heavenly Dao Tribulation will descend, and this body will bear the brunt of it."
"And what we must do..."
The old woman's voice abruptly rose, carrying the resolve of someone staking everything on a single throw.
"Is act at the absolute instant when the Heavenly Dao Tribulation shatters this body and erases your 'essence imprint'!"
"Have Zhong'er sever his karmic ties as Yin Tianzi, send his soul surging upstream, and plunge straight into this immaculate body, shattered by heavenly lightning but not yet utterly annihilated!"
"Borrow the might of the Heavenly Dao Tribulation to wash away every disguise and impurity in this body!"
"Borrow that single thread of life amid destruction to let Zhong'er rise anew from the ashes!"
"This is the true meaning of 'death's extremity gives birth'! This is truly stealing the heavens and swapping out the sun!"
Silence.
Deathly silence.
After hearing the old woman's