The Bronze Sarcophagus crashed into the ice of the Return to Void, the fox tail within the eye socket of the Black Tortoise Skeleton burning away its final wisp of Ancestral Fire. Su Jiuli’s lingering embers drifted along the Destiny Pattern etched into the sarcophagus lid. From the fissures, Star Sand leaked out, coalescing into the phantom image of an armillary sphere. Floating at the heart of the disc was half a jade pendant, its cracks oozing blood-red inscriptions of the Wu Clan—the very same source as the Destiny Pattern Lin Xuan had left behind before he dissipated. She channeled the faint soul-light within her embers; the moment the fire licked the jade, a thunderous roar of snapping chains erupted from deep within the sarcophagus.
"The tribulation awakens the Four Symbols; the Return to Void shall serve as the offering..."
The lingering voice of the First Generation Patriarch seeped from the jade, and the armillary sphere suddenly reversed its rotation. Beneath the ice, twelve Soul Lamps rose. The foreheads of the benevolent spirits flickering within the wicks were each branded with a Marriage Covenant. As the foremost spirit turned to face her—it was the young Lin Xuan, holding a bronze blade, its tip dripping with the blood from the moment she had gouged out her own heart in her first life!
Chapter 160