A bone arrow tore through the pitch-black seawater, its arrowhead igniting with the ghostly blue fox fire of the Heaven-Burning Mark. Lin Xuan flipped over, stepping across the wreckage of the Bronze Pillars. The moment the Xuanming heavy water condensed into an ice shield, the arrow’s silhouette suddenly twisted into a nine-tailed fire fox, its fangs snapping toward the Astrolabe at the center of the pillars!
"How dare a traitor of Qingqiu act so recklessly!"
A withered female voice exploded from the ocean abyss. An old woman in a green robe arrived, riding the waves atop a Black Tortoise Turtle Shell. She pointed her bone staff into the void, causing the volley of Heaven-Burning arrows to suddenly change direction, pinning the elderly man in the straw cloak firmly against a Bronze Pillar. The purple-black pus and blood erupting from the old man’s chest coalesced into the secret runes of the Heavenly Secret Pavilion, which were identical to the Reverse Forbidden Art found on the bottom of the Star Remains ship!
"The Lu family has stolen and practiced forbidden arts for three hundred years; today, it is time to settle the score!" The old woman’s bone staff shattered three Bronze Pillars. The Star Sand sealed within leaked out, condensing into a phantom of Su Jiuli from three hundred years ago. A broken piece of a Star Palace sword was pierced through the phantom’s heart, the hilt wrapped in a faded Qingqiu ribbon—it was the very object Lin Xuan had used to tie his hair in his past life!
Lin Xuan’s Star Mark burned with a sudden, searing pain, and memories surged like a tide: on a night when a blood moon hung in the sky, he had personally plunged his sword into Su Jiuli’s Purple Mansion, though only to seal the fragment of the First Generation Patriarch’s Destiny Soul residing within her. The submarine altar cracked open with a roar, revealing a boiling pool of blood beneath. Resting at the bottom of the pool were nine fox corpses, their tail bones shattered and each brow embedded with a Star Mark nail.
"Look at what these thieves have done to your kin!" The old woman stirred the bloody waves with her staff, and a secret scroll of the Star Palace floated up from the pool. The annotations on the first page of *The Blood-Refining Star Sand Record* were chilling: "Qingqiu fox blood is excellent for quenching arrows." The signature was none other than the Star Mark of Lin Xuan’s past life!
A cold laugh from the Nether Palace Master echoed from the blood pool: "Do you understand now why the nine-tailed foxes fear fire?" A Bronze Sarcophagus rose, breaking through the waves. The Big Dipper constellation on its lid used fox tails as nails. The Astrolabe suddenly spiraled out of control toward the Dubhe position, and Su Jiuli’s remnant soul was torn by the celestial power, dragged into the sarcophagus. The branding of the tail scales resonated eerily with the seven-star formation.
"Open!"
The old woman’s bone staff erupted with Heaven-Burning karmic fire, and the phantom of a Qingqiu ancestor leapt from the flames. Lin Xuan bit his tongue, using his blood as a guide to paint the final chapter of the *Inverse Star Manual* in mid-air. The moment the blood talisman touched the sarcophagus, the seventy-two Bronze Pillars wailed in unison, and nine fox-headed stelae rose from the seabed—the inscriptions on them actually recorded the "achievements" of Lin Xuan’s past life in slaughtering the Fox Clan!
"In the third year of Showa, I beheaded the nine-tailed fox in the East Sea and used its tail bones to forge the Po Jun arrow..."
Blood beads seeped from the small seal script on the stelae, and the hand holding Lin Xuan’s sword trembled violently. The shockwave from the bursting sarcophagus lid capsized the Star Remains ship. He grabbed Su Jiuli’s flying remnant soul, only to discover that the strand of soul light contained half of a Star Palace jade pendant—it was the perfect match for the piece in his own pocket, together completing the name of the First Generation Patriarch!
The blood pool suddenly boiled like lava, and half of the First Generation Patriarch’s face emerged from the surface: "My good disciple, is this reunion gift..." Before he could finish, a giant claw covered in a Reverse Scale extended from the bottom of the pool, its palm etched with a Taotie eye that wept pitch-black tears. Lin Xuan’s Star Mark suddenly reversed its flow, and his sword from his past life flew toward him from the void. Yet, the markings emerging along the spine of the blade were not Star Palace inscriptions, but the Heaven-Burning Curse of the Qingqiu Fox Clan!
"Clang—"
The nine fox-headed stelae suddenly projected a Star Chart, and the old woman’s disguise faded within the light screen. The Heaven-Burning Mark on her forehead split open, revealing a Star Palace Forbidden Seal beneath—it was of the same origin as the seal on Su Jiuli’s heart! The tremor on the seabed intensified, and the sound of breaking chains echoed from the depths of the blood pool. A gargantuan entity was climbing upward along the cluster of Bronze Pillars; the sound of its scales scraping against the metal caused the Black Tortoise Star Mark to dim with every passing inch.
Amidst the surging blood, Lin Xuan caught a glimpse of the terrifying truth: nine Dragon-Prison Nails were driven into the creature’s spine, each one tethering the remnant soul of a Star Palace disciple. When it finally wrenched itself free from the chains, the face of the last soul light was none other than his own, as a youth!
The keel of the Star Remains ship suddenly shattered, and the runes at the bottom of the ship turned into streaks of light, escaping into the deep sea. Lin Xuan clutched Su Jiuli’s remnant soul and leapt onto the turtle shell. As he looked back, he was struck by a chilling realization—within the right pupil of the First Generation Patriarch’s face in the blood pool, the very thing dancing there was the Greedy Wolf Star Mark from his own heart!