As the Female Infant’s nine burning fox tails swept across the star coffin, the Star Seed within suddenly shattered. Three thousand fragments of the Star Core coalesced into a soul-locking chain, pinning Lin Xuan’s limbs to the void. Blood-red light erupted from the Calamity Mark on his forehead, reflecting the ancient prophecy carved into the bottom of the star coffin—a poem written in tears upon the snow by Su Jiuli when they first met.
"The calamity ends... the stars fall..." the Female Infant uttered, her words like shards of ice. The golden bells on her fox tails shattered the waters of the Reincarnation Pond.
Nine bronze altars rose from the depths of the pool, upon which lay the Star Remains of Lin Xuan after each of his past lives. A Star Seed was embedded in the chest of every skeleton, and the scenes manifesting on the shells of those seeds left Lin Xuan gasping for air: the end of every reincarnation was always him plunging the astrolabe into Su Jiuli’s dantian with his own hands.
Chapter 29