Chapter 54

As nine pairs of bronze eyes opened, Lin Xuan’s spine was pinned against the rock wall of the Guixu. In his arms, the petrified Su Jiuli crumbled; the debris fell into the abyss, transforming into three hundred Bronze Divination Bamboo Slips that hovered in the air. The blood-stained inscriptions on the slips pieced together the fragmented *Lianshan* hexagram. Where the hexagram pointed, the rock wall seeped a foul-smelling bronze pus—the very soul-paste the First Generation Patriarch used to refine the monks of the Star Palace. Lin Xuan snapped three of his ribs, the jagged bones piercing into the rock crevices. As his blood flowed along the Taotie patterns, it awakened an Azure Dragon Reverse Scale dormant within the strata of the Guixu. Where the scale peeled away, an ancient Star Palace scroll emerged; the runes of the *Soul Burial Formula* within the scroll began to crawl along the lines of blood toward his left eye.