Chapter 53

As the bronze Star Mark writhed across Su Jiuli’s forehead, the candle flame in Lin Xuan’s right eye socket suddenly collapsed. He staggered, gripping the remains of the altar’s pillar, his fingers digging into the fangs of the taotie carvings. The embers of the Afterlife Candle hissed within his hollow eye socket; every grain of ash reflected the tear-stained faces of three hundred child corpses—the innocent souls the First Generation Patriarch had fused into the Star Orbit, now wailing within Lin Xuan’s own bloodline. "Junior Sister!" Lin Xuan roared, hurling a blood-stained bronze dagger. The blade pierced the Star Mark chains controlled by the First Generation fox corpse, but as it touched the center of Su Jiuli’s brow, it dissolved into a handful of Star Sand. The grains fell into her clouding pupils, reflecting a scene from deep within the Celestial Fox Ancestral Tomb: pus and blood welled up on the surface of the nine Bronze Pillars, coalescing into the missing final chapter of the Soul Burial Formula.