As the purple tribulation lightning chain shattered the clouds, the blood array in Lin Xuan’s palm suddenly spun in reverse. The Big Dipper formation morphed into streaks of light, sinking into the severed tail of Su Jiuli. A third eye cracked open upon her forehead—and within those pupils leapt the very Taotie Phantom of the Nether Palace Master!
"Sever the Star!"
Lin Xuan swept his fingers across the void, and fragments of the Star Core coalesced into a three-foot azure blade. The moment the sword tip touched the lightning chain, a sound like grinding metal echoed through the firmament. The bound Dubhe star trembled violently, its surface weeping black tears of blood from the Taotie eyes, causing the surrounding space to collapse into nothingness.
Su Jiuli suddenly reached out, gripping Lin Xuan’s vital points, a golden bell brand glowing on her palm. "The cause you planted three hundred years ago must now be repaid!" As fox fire surged through his meridians, Lin Xuan saw the Big Dipper Star-Locking Nails emerge from his own spine—each nail tethered to the Soul-Devouring Chains of the Nether Palace!
*Clang!*
Chains descended from the void as the Star-Fishing Old Man appeared, stepping upon the tribulation lightning. In his hand, the fishing rod had been replaced by a bronze Fate Disk, its surface etched with the Twenty-Eight Mansions in reverse order. "My good apprentice, are you satisfied with how this Star Remains has been nurtured?"
The Star Core sword suddenly flew from his grasp toward the Fate Disk, and the Star Marks on Lin Xuan’s body began to flow backward. A crimson light shot from Su Jiuli’s third eye, projecting a cruel truth into his sea of consciousness: on the night the Star Palace fell three hundred years ago, it was he himself who had personally forged the Imprisoned Dragon Star Monarch into the formation’s eye!
"No!"
Amidst his roar, the Taotie eyes on the surface of Dubhe fell away. The giant eyes transformed into a bronze cauldron in the void, and what boiled within was none other than the blood marrow of the North Sea Flood Dragon Clan! The Star-Fishing Old Man laughed madly as he threw the Fate Disk; the Twenty-Eight Mansions star chart aligned perfectly with the Taotie patterns on the cauldron, and the entire sky began to twist and collapse.
"Does Brother know why I kept your star soul until now?"
The voice of the Imprisoned Dragon Star Monarch emanated from the cauldron, and Lin Xuan’s shattered Astrolabe suddenly began to reassemble. Su Jiuli’s severed tail ignited with hellfire, and within the flames emerged the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox stele from the forbidden grounds of Qingqiu. The forbidden techniques recorded on the stele transformed into streams of light, branding the "Inverse Star Art" onto Lin Xuan’s back.
"With my fox blood, I sacrifice to the reincarnation wheel!"
Su Jiuli severed all nine of her tails, a rain of blood drenching the Star Core sword. The moment Lin Xuan gripped the blade, the memories sealed three hundred years ago flooded back—the night he gouged out the Yaoguang Star Core was not an act of betrayal, but a desperate measure to suppress the void fissure torn open by the Nether Palace Master!
"Po Jun!"
As the blade pierced the bronze cauldron, the seventh star of the Big Dipper, Yaoguang, suddenly blazed with light. The Taotie patterns on the cauldron let out a miserable wail, and spiderweb cracks appeared on the Star-Fishing Old Man’s Fate Disk. The phantom of the Imprisoned Dragon Star Monarch leapt from the cauldron, the half-star core held in its palm resonating with Lin Xuan’s heart.
"It is too late..." The Star-Fishing Old Man suddenly crushed his own left eye. "The Devouring of the Sun by the Greedy Wolf is already a foregone conclusion!"
The shattered eyeball turned into a bloody mist, and seventy-two Calamity Stars fell from the heavens. Within each star was sealed the corpse of a great master from the immortal sects, with a Reverse Scale embedded in the center of each forehead. Su Jiuli’s third eye suddenly wept blood as she perceived the trajectory of the falling Calamity Stars—it was the Heaven-Mending Formation chart that the Qingqiu Fox Clan had guarded for generations!
"So, what you intended to refine was..."
Before the words could leave his lips, the laughter of the Nether Palace Master echoed from every Calamity Star: "Star Lord, are you satisfied with this ten-thousand-immortal gift of mine?" The bronze cauldron exploded, and the blood marrow inside condensed into a demonic shadow ten thousand feet tall. The shadow raised a hand, seized the Dubhe star, and crushed it into Star Sand, scattering it upon the mortal world!
The Star-Locking Nails on Lin Xuan’s back shattered, and the Star Core sword, having absorbed the Star Sand, reforged its true form. Taotie eyes opened on the hilt, and a vision of the galaxy flowed along the spine of the blade. Su Jiuli’s fox blood seeped into the sword, sketching a nine-tailed crest beside the Taotie eyes.
"Come!"
The Imprisoned Dragon Star Monarch suddenly transformed into light and merged into the blade, and dragon scales appeared on Lin Xuan’s hand as he gripped it. The Star-Fishing Old Man’s Fate Disk shattered completely, and he lunged madly toward the swarm of Calamity Stars. "If I cannot have it, then we shall all perish together!"
The seventy-two Calamity Stars ignited simultaneously, their falling trajectories weaving into a cage that imprisoned the heavens. Lin Xuan swung his sword toward the void, but the blade passed through the phantom of the Nether Palace Master and struck Su Jiuli. Her Star Core suddenly tore itself from her chest, resonating eerily with the swarm of Calamity Stars—
"Finally, the moment has arrived..."
The true form of the Nether Palace Master crawled out from Su Jiuli’s third eye, his hand, covered in Reverse Scales, clutching the Star Core. Through the blood-red light, Lin Xuan saw clearly that the face of this arch-enemy was seven parts identical to his own, save for the Star Palace Forbidden Seal on his forehead!
A whirlpool of reincarnation suddenly tore open above the Nine Heavens, and the ruins of the Star Palace from three hundred years ago descended from the rift. Lin Xuan saw a headless corpse in star robes kneeling beside the throne in the center of the ruins—it was his own remains from a past life!
"Welcome back, Star Lord!"
Amidst the worship of ten thousand Resentful Spirits, the Nether Palace Master pressed the Star Core into his own forehead. The Star Core sword in Lin Xuan’s hand suddenly turned its edge, uncontrollably piercing toward his own throat. At the final threshold between life and death, the last of the fox fire ignited in Su Jiuli’s remaining tail bone—
Within that flame leapt the pure, brilliant light of the Yaoguang Star Core!