Chapter 55

When the fox corpse of the First Generation Patriarch crushed the eyeball, Lin Xuan's spine split open. Star sand splattered from the shattered pupil, the grains coated with a reeking soul paste, scorching Big Dipper eclipse marks onto the surface of the Bronze Sarcophagus. The bronze lamps in the hands of the nine Celestial Fox stone statues suddenly went out, their wick embers condensing into chains that dragged Lin Xuan's mangled body toward the fox corpse in the sarcophagus. The rotting fingertips of the fox corpse pierced into Lin Xuan's eye sockets. The gouged-out star sand condensed in its palm into a miniature Guixu Eye of the Sea, deep within which floated old scrolls of the Star Palace—the residual chapters of the *Sacrificial Star Ritual* within were being rewritten by the hair strands of the First Generation Patriarch. Lin Xuan's throat bones emitted a shattered roar, and the bloody mist he expelled actually contained fragments of bronze bamboo slips.