A low hum resounded in the void, and the second ring of the Seven Locks of Martyrdom suddenly unfolded.
After Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan successfully passed the causal challenge of [Forget Cause and Seal the Brush], a Fate Soul Array Wheel composed of hundreds of Soul Brushes reappeared deep within the void of the main hall of the Annihilated Night Church. At its core, a "Blank Life Seal" burning with black and blue soul flames slowly rotated.
Immediately afterwards, a chilling notification, almost freezing one's consciousness, emanated from the depths of the array wheel:
[Second Ring: Constructed Cognition Spontaneous Combustion]
Detect the integrity, structural stability, and logical consistency of the target's soul consciousness;
If there are any omissions, alterations, recastings, or falsifications, the Fate Soul Burning mechanism will be automatically triggered;
--The Spiritual Sense self-immolated, the destiny trajectory collapsed, and the Soul Seal was annihilated.
The "Lock of Spontaneous Combustion" is neither an attack nor a seal, but a kind of "self-falsifying annihilation".
It will not kill proactively.
It will only activate your deepest contradictions and hypocrisy, then let your Fate Soul burn in a "Does Not Exist paradox".
In an instant, invisible flames erupted beneath Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan's feet, seemingly rising from the very root of their Fate Soul. The flames were not physical, yet they burned like a scorching sun in their minds. Their vision underwent a bizarre transformation—
The entire church disappeared.
The world has become countless shattered mirrors, and within each mirror, the deepest structural logic of each Fate Soul emerges.
Before Qin Yu's eyes appeared a "book of interwoven destinies," a "chain of Fate Trajectory Reconstruction" that he had constructed through dozens of life-and-death experiences.
Each page of the book is burning gently.
Page after page questioned him, "Who are you?"
"How can you control fate?"
You never truly existed.
Before Yao Zhiyan, the scene of her childhood—the moment when the Spirit Scepter broke and her soul was in chaos—appeared, with countless remnants of musical notes coiling around her like dead snakes in the phantom.
"You are dead."
"You are merely a phantom, existing only by borrowing another's life."
"Your existence is based on the charity of others."
This is the logic of constructing combustion:
If one cannot prove the integrity of one's consciousness, the flames will burn away the self from the deepest part of the soul.
Qin Yu lightly raised his hand, Book of Fate Law flipped open with a bang, revealing the thirteenth page:
[Fate Trajectory Profiling, A Deep Understanding]!
Instantly, a Fate Soul -reversing technique emanating from the depths of his consciousness was released—the entire mirror world abruptly reversed, the pages rearranged, and his destiny trajectory was set as follows:
"This body is formed because of its Nameless, and it moves because of the unknown."
"No logical justification is needed; the Fate Soul is complete."
The mirror trembled violently, and all the burning soul pages in front of Qin Yu suddenly went out!
Yao Zhiyan closed her eyes and murmured softly, her words piercing the soul:
"Sound originates from the heart; my existence does not depend on external causes."
"This staff is not for borrowing life, but only for continuing its sound."
In an instant—the shattered Sonic Soul Scepter in her sea of consciousness transformed into the shape of starlight, merging with the Sovereign Scepter and releasing a melody of soul-sounding aurora!
Boom!!
The flames burning around them instantly extinguished, and their consciousness returned to its proper place!
Second Ring --
[Constructed Cognition Spontaneous Combustion - Judgment Failed - Lock Ring Collapsed]!
As the array collapsed, a soul pen fell from the void, burning itself out and releasing a chain of annihilation seal.
The interior structure of the church before them changed once more, with tiered staircases made of soul-drawn ink appearing, leading directly to the central altar.
The seventh-order sealing pattern on the church altar suddenly lit up, floating and solidifying into a black and white interwoven page of the Soul Scripture. The space around the entire church suddenly closed, and a closed world woven from "Resonance of Fate Soul and Recognition Annihilation Consciousness Logic" slowly unfolded.
--This realm is called [Annihilate Souls and Inscribe Cognition].
In this gray, burning theater, the space around Qin Yu and Yao Zhiyan began to disintegrate into lines of black text—their names, their experiences, every skill they unleashed, every word they uttered.
At this moment, those words are being erased page by page from their Fate Soul book.
Their figures began to blur in each other's eyes.
The sound became distant.
Even my own thoughts began to feel empty and wavering, as if they were being swallowed up by something.
[Annihilate Souls and Inscribe Cognition]:
Write into the enemy's soul mapping to create logical interference of "it Does Not Exist";
Those caught up in it will gradually lose the "concept" of their own existence, be forgotten by everything around them, and eventually become unable to even define themselves, completely "self-destructing".
A tattered page boldly proclaimed. "You never existed here."
Qin Yu's eyes sharpened, and the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword in his hand suddenly unleashed a world-slaying azure light, releasing its tenth form:
[Sever the Main Narrative]!
As the sword light swept past, the pages of the book in the entire enclosed world seemed to have their fundamental logic stripped away, twisting, burning, and dissipating into the void.
The theater collapses, and the cause and effect are reconstructed!
"You can cut off one of my assets, but you can't cut off my existence," Qin Yu said coldly.
Boom--!
[Annihilate Souls and Inscribe Cognition] The world was destroyed, the seventh-order causal lock ring in the center of the Annihilated Night Church was completely shattered, the fragmented pages collapsed automatically, and millions of soul lights appeared and dissipated above the church dome.
At this time--
Deep within the church altar, a throne that had never been seen before slowly rose, and on the throne, a tall figure shrouded in a black, decaying holy robe slowly rose to his feet.
He wore a tattered robe, riddled with holes that looked as if pierced by Fate Brush, from which seemed to come the wailing of ten thousand souls.
He wore a towering bishop's crown, with an obliterated cross engraved in the center, resembling a miswritten seal of cause and effect;
In his left hand he held an ancient bronze lantern, within which hung a faint blue-white spiritual flame—not light, but "the consciousness of the dead."
His eye sockets were pitch black and empty, with only two dark red soul eyes, like lava from the abyss, emerging from their depths.
A strong aura of "Fate Soul alteration" surged around him, as if his every move could rewrite the script of death for all living beings.
He didn't speak, but merely stood up, and the entire structure of the Annihilated Night Church trembled;
The void outside the church also seemed to fall into some kind of "unwritten" Fate-Cause boundary.
He slowly took a step forward.
Inside the Annihilated Night Church, the seventh-order causal seal had completely collapsed. Amidst the ruins and broken pillars, heavy divine souls loomed like dark clouds descending upon the world. As the last wisp of the "Annihilate Souls and Inscribe Cognition" ring shattered, the dim divine fire that had shone for a moment was extinguished in silence.
The dark old man standing in the center of the church was clad in a tattered priest's robe and wore an ancient crown. His face was withered like a corpse, but his eyes burned with azure soul fire. In his hand he held a ghostly blue lamp, which swayed without wind, as if a thousand whispers of the dead were wailing within it.
The atmosphere around them suddenly froze.
The old man did not speak, but slowly opened his mouth and uttered several inexplicable incantations accompanied by a series of eerie sounds.
The voice was deep, hoarse, and ancient, like a dead voice released after being sealed away for ten thousand years, echoing throughout the Annihilated Night Church, like the sound of a fallen kingdom rising from the abyss of the underworld:
"──Záhh'guul... qeth'en vaa... ir'thur nahl'deir..."
The incantation seemed to belong to no particular language system of any era; with each syllable uttered, the void trembled. Strands of black and gold began to appear in the surrounding space, like the memories of the dead slowly shattering in reality.
Yao Zhiyan frowned and exclaimed, "This is... the 'Sacrificial Language' of the Abyss of Departed Souls! It's a language long abandoned by fate, and it shouldn't exist in this world at all!"
Qin Yu's gaze sharpened as he sensed a faint disturbance, a "soul-shaking" disturbance, appearing at the edge of his sea of consciousness. He turned his palm, and the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword slowly emerged, its sharpness yet to be revealed, first suppressing the illusory curse power.
The old man slowly raised his head, a faint grin spreading across his face, a smile that resembled the weeping of the dead. He uttered another incantation—
"Ka'thaa... viro'kaash... serenth'dal..."
At that moment, the entire church seemed to be "awakened" by something.
The already shattered walls began to writhe strangely the moment the incantation was cast, as if the church itself had gained consciousness and began to whisper the names of the dead. Semi-transparent phantoms emerged in the light and shadow, slowly approaching Qin Yu and his companion.
Azure Ring whispered in Qin Yu's mind, "... This incantation can awaken the remnants of the deceased who have been 'written and erased,' existing only in the soul's dead realm after the Annihilation Seal—it's not attacking you, but summoning the entire church's history of death."
Yao Zhiyan gripped the hand seal tightly and asked softly, "Senior brother... what should we do now?"
Qin Yu stared at the dark old man spewing deathly incantations, his gaze unwavering. He said in a low voice, "Let's observe. If he's merely awakening the dead, then we'll send him into complete slumber."
Deep within the Annihilated Night Church, as the dark elder uttered his final, deathly words, the entire church suddenly trembled violently.
Spell Continuation:
"──Zuun'thalar... Veeh'naru... Draal'ethen... Qorth'murr..."
At this moment, the whispers of the souls were no longer indistinct murmurs, but transformed into concrete "chains of deathly whispers," like fragments of souls entwining and swirling in the air. In the void, one after another, strange incantation marks manifested at the top of the sky, forming an inverted "coffin of soul prison texts"!
Each word is composed of the syllables of the deceased, and each talisman seals the obsessions and lamentations of countless souls!
"He wants to use incantations as seals, words as souls, and the entire church as a tomb—to seal us into this 'Annihilation Remnant Consciousness'!" Qin Yu's expression was stern as he instantly understood the structure of the incantation.
The old man didn't move, yet three rings of the dead appeared behind him, each engraved with:
[Soul sacrifice], [Memory sealed], [Existence sealed].
The triple causal logic is forcibly rewriting the "definition of life" for all living beings in this space.
Yao Zhiyan suddenly felt a tremor in her heart, as if her name was being erased bit by bit from the depths of her consciousness, as if she were being stripped of her right to "exist." She immediately cried out in a low voice:
"Mystic Sound Ring Art · Azure Feather Spirit-Control Chapter - Sound the Heavens and Halt the Curse!"
In an instant, an invisible sound condensed into a spinning wheel in her palm, engraved with soul-sound divine patterns of intertwined wings and surrounding stars. She suddenly hurled it into the air!
Boom!
In an instant, a ring of golden-white sound waves erupted above the entire church, transforming into layers of sound walls that briefly suppressed the spell structure released by the dark old man.
At the same time, Qin Yu had already set off.
The Book of Fate Law suddenly appeared behind him, while the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword transformed into a silver-blue sky light that severed Mieyin, cleaving through the central node of the Soul Prison incantation with a single strike.
"Fate Cause Master Seal - Soul Annihilation of Tracks!"
Boom!!!
With the force of a sword and a brush, Qin Yu wrote the four characters "Annihilation," "Soul," "Severance," and "Trajectory" in the air.
As the four words fell, countless incantations in the void shattered violently. The "textual coffin" formed by the death words burst open from the middle, as if a causal shackle had been severed!
"Ughhhh!!!"
The dark old man let out a scream for the first time as the backlash from the incantation surged directly into his own soul shell. The ghostly blue soul lamp in his hand shook violently, and a deep crack appeared in its soul pattern.
Heavy rumbling came from the four walls of the church. Countless phantoms of the dead that he had awakened dissipated one by one as the spell collapsed, returning to silence like the receding tide.
Yao Zhiyan gracefully landed back beside Qin Yu, panting slightly as she asked, "Senior brother, that spell just now... it wasn't an ordinary incantation. The language he spoke sounded like..."
"It's the Death Curse of the Epoch Deep Realm —a spell recorded in the 'Book of Non-Fate Sequence,' not belonging to the Source of Epochless," Qin Yu said calmly. "He has already touched the lower layer of the Fate Soul Realm. If he completes the spell, the entire Star Abyss will be transformed into the 'Dead Cognition Book Domain.'"
As he finished speaking, the Source-Extinguishing Divine Sword slowly began to rotate. His gaze was icy as he looked at the old man who had not yet fallen.
"Let's continue, how many more spells are there?"