Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Broken Chain

“Strike—!!”

Lin Mo’s roar merged with the singing of his sword, tearing a rift through the shrieking abyss. The blade’s arc, condensed to utmost darkness and its edge rending minuscule fractures in space, did not strike directly at the black pillar enveloping Su Li. Instead, like a surgeon’s scalpel, it slashed precisely between the pillar and the dark golden sphere below—at the intangible node where viscous, deathly energy flowed to sustain it.

Screech—!!!

This time, it was not the silent annihilation of before. It was as if a searing iron had been pressed to oil-soaked leather—a soul-shivering, sharp clang, as though the chains of law themselves were forcibly severed, drowned out the roar of the abyss. At the node where the sword arc cut, the tar-like black energy halted abruptly, then erupted in a shower of ominous, crimson sparks. Countless web-like, black cracks radiated madly from the incision point, spreading both upward and downward.

“Ahhh—!!”

Within the pillar, Su Li, who was being rapidly refined and disintegrated, let out a twisted, agonized scream—not a cry of salvation, but the terror of having her connection violently severed, a pain even more horrifying than the refinement itself. She felt her soul torn in two. Everything belonging to ‘Su Li’—her memories, cultivation, vitality—was abruptly halted in the part being extracted by the broken pillar, yet a massive, reverse force was yanking her remaining consciousness back into her nearly shattered body.

With a dull sound, the viscous, deathly black pillar, at the instant its node was severed by the sword arc, twisted and swelled like a venomous snake grasped by the throat. It issued a muffled explosion and burst apart, scattering as lifeless gray-black energy, like dying smoke, swiftly devoured and assimilated by the rolling, resentful black haze rising from the filthy blood lake below.

Without the pillar’s support, Su Li’s ravaged body fell like a kite with a snapped string, plunging from the side wall of the passage. Her left arm and half her shoulder had vanished entirely in the refinement, the wound covered in strange, grayish crystals that no longer bled but exuded a thick aura of death. Her one remaining eye barely opened a slit, its pupil unfocused, reflecting the blurred figure of Lin Mo above, shrouded in gray-black ice crystals and wielding his fierce sword, before darkness claimed her utterly.

Roar—!!!

The heart of the Immortal Refining Furnace—the immense dark golden sphere—erupted with an unprecedented, furious howl. The entire sphere trembled violently, countless writhing black runes on its surface flickering madly. The severed connection not only meant its imminent ‘meal’ was snatched away, but its operating laws had been blasphemously challenged. A torrent thicker and more deathly than before, as if containing the ultimate despair of billions of lost souls, surged from the sphere’s surface like a breached river of the underworld—not as a pillar, but as an overwhelming tide of destruction, crashing down upon Lin Mo, who was still plummeting rapidly, and the cursed sword in his hand.

Meanwhile—

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Within the boiling blood lake below, countless resentful blood demons that had previously soared skyward sensed the fury of the core, unleashing ear-shattering screeches. Abandoning their chaotic forms, they converged and fused madly. In an instant, a colossus formed from billions of viscous blood and twisted faces, towering a hundred yards high, rose from the ground. The giant had no features, only a gaping mouth endlessly opening and closing, dripping foul blood and emitting a silent, venomous roar. An enormous hand, pieced together from countless bones and filthy blood, radiated the terror of tainted souls and annihilated spiritual light, reaching for Lin Mo with deadly intent.

Above, the deathly torrent crashed down like a river of the underworld.

Below, the blood prison giant’s filthy claw reached for his heart.

A true dead-end, certain death.

“Ugh…” Lin Mo’s body groaned under the double assault. The sword strike that severed the link had nearly exhausted all his forceful power and had thoroughly enraged the two conflicting wills within him.

The Sword Spirit of the No Return Blade’s intent was cold and wild: [Ant! Reckless! Break the furnace! Sever the core!] The sword’s ghostly glow flashed madly, trying once more to force Lin Mo’s arm to gather the last remnants of strength and thrust at the furious dark golden sphere. It sought to fulfill its final mission—shatter the demonic furnace’s core that had refined its master.

Meanwhile, the remnant fragment of the Void Scripture in his chest, after unleashing that sword, swiftly dimmed. Numerous ancient glyphs flickered like candles in the wind, unstable. It had already reached its limit resisting the No Return Sword’s intent, and now suffered severe backlash from forcefully erupting the ‘Void Power’ to sever the link, transmitting a tearing wail, nearly collapsing entirely. Those chaotic memory fragments—burning immortal halls, melting golden figures, defiant eyes—evoked by Su Li’s tragedy, were now shattered by the sword’s wild will and the threat of death, leaving only the primal urge to survive screaming within.

In this moment of dual chaos—mind and strength teetering on collapse—

Buzz!

Deep within the Void Scripture fragment, where deathly silence reigned, the ‘reversed seed’ emerald glow suddenly throbbed violently.

It seemed to sense something from the furious torrent spewing from the furnace’s core—a presence it craved desperately. Not vitality, but rather… a fundamental force, the essence of all things returning to silence—a power of ultimate ending.

A faint yet extraordinarily greedy and sinister suction emerged, no longer needing Lin Mo’s guidance, ignoring even the fragment’s wailing and the sword’s oppression. Like a hyena scenting carrion, it abruptly reached out from the dim mark on Lin Mo’s chest, targeting the deathly torrent above.

The instant this suction appeared, the descending black torrent seemed… to hesitate ever so slightly, as if the river of death had encountered a tiny black hole attempting to swallow it.

“Roar?!” The furnace core’s will sensed this anomaly; the runes on the sphere flickered in a moment of disorder. It could not comprehend why a tiny ‘meal’ would emit a suction similar to its own essence, yet tinged with alien greed. Though weak, this force pointed subtly to the very heart of its power.

This thousandth-of-a-second pause and confusion was, for the sword spirit within Lin Mo, a unique opportunity.

[Silence! Extinction! No! Return!] The cold intent, with ultimate resolve, exploded in Lin Mo’s consciousness like a powder keg.

His right hand, encased in gray-black ice crystals, tightly gripping the sword hilt, rose uncontrollably. The No Return Blade’s tip was no longer a thrust, but a… point.

It lightly tapped the palm of the colossal, filthy hand formed from billions of blood demons’ resentment that had reached for him.

No earth-shattering collision.

A hair-thin, utterly pure black sword light shot silently from the blade’s tip, instantly piercing the giant’s palm.

Time seemed to freeze.

In the next moment—

From the point of contact, a cold, solitary, severing ‘No Return’ intent erupted noiselessly like a plague.

Crack… crack-crack…

Fine gray-black cracks instantly covered the enormous, sky-shrouding hand. Wherever the cracks passed, blood coagulated and faded, twisted faces vanished with silent screams. The entire hand, along with the massive body of the blood prison giant connected to it, as if struck by absolute zero, in a fraction of a breath… silently… dissolved into drifting gray-black ashes.

One sword!

Annihilated ten thousand demons!

Yet the price was tragic.

“Ugh—!” Lin Mo spat a mouthful of blood, no longer dark red but mixed with fragments of organs and flecks of gray-black ice crystal. Forced to unleash this sword, the No Return Sword’s intent, like a dying flare, rampaged within him. Agony from severed meridians swept through his body. The Void Scripture fragment in his chest emitted a silent cry, its light extinguished, the twisted glyphs breaking apart like burned paper. The fragment itself was riddled with fissures, on the verge of total collapse.

Worse still, the deathly black torrent above, though delayed a moment by the reversed seed’s disturbance, now crashed down like a mountain. With the last protection of the No Return Sword’s intent gone, Lin Mo’s ruined body and the cowering reversed seed would instantly be refined into nothing.

Death was already upon him.

Just as his consciousness was about to be swallowed by the black torrent—

Below!

At the core of the dark golden sphere, trembling violently from the backlash of the blood prison giant’s instant annihilation, among the madly flickering black runes, a tiny fissure suddenly opened.

Within the fissure, not the anticipated terror of a deeper energy core—

But a patch of absolute nothingness.

No light. No darkness. No energy. No matter. Not even the concept of ‘existence.’

Only an indescribable, all-assimilating, ultimate extinction—the breath of origin—leaked from that slender crack.

The instant this breath escaped!

Within Lin Mo, the reversed seed’s emerald glow, which had been cowering and shivering under the torrent, exploded with ravenous, unprecedented agitation, like a starved beast scenting the most alluring blood.

Its suction surged a hundredfold, a thousandfold—not tentative, but a flood of desire, heedless of the torrent above or its own survival, madly locked onto the ultimate void leaking from the sphere’s fissure.