379: Reversing life and death, the elder sheds blood.

Inside the Command Hall.

Under Lin Fan's dead gaze, the blood-red words "Cannot Resurrect" seemed unable to withstand the look condensed with endless regret and killing intent.

Crack.

A faint, crisp sound, like shattering glass, exploded in Lin Fan's Sea of Consciousness.

Those four words, along with their surrounding blood-colored border, shattered inch by inch, transforming into a sky full of data streams.

A new line of System prompts, shimmering with a faint white light, appeared in their place.

[Warning: The 'Termination' concept suffered by target unit 'Li Hanyue' has been successfully stripped away.]

[Re-evaluating life status...]

[Evaluation complete: Target unit's Soul Origin remains, conforming to resurrection protocol.]

Lin Fan's heart, which had sunk into an icy sea, was at this moment violently pulled up by an invisible hand, and began to beat fiercely once more.

It succeeded.

That gamble, staking everything, absurd to the extreme.

He won.

"System!"

He croaked, using all his strength to issue the only command of his life at this moment.

"Resurrect her!"

[Resurrection command confirmed.]

[As the target unit is not the Host, this resurrection will consume one special reward privilege and deduct 10% of the Host's existence value limit. Confirm?]

"Confirm!"

Lin Fan did not hesitate in the slightest.

Let alone 10%, even if it meant stripping him of 99% of his existence value limit, he wouldn't bat an eye.

[Privilege confirmed.]

[Initiating resurrection procedure...]

Buzz.

Lin Fan's body, which had just become semi-transparent due to his existence value dropping to zero, had some core substance drawn from it again, becoming even more ethereal, as if it could completely dissipate at any moment.

But he didn't care.

All his attention was focused on the empty Void Realm before him.

There, a faint light appeared out of thin air.

It was not the cold light of data, but a gentle Soul light, carrying a wisp of familiar sharp Sword Intent.

Immediately after, came a second point, a third point.

Countless light points were born from nothingness, like a time-reversed dance of fireflies, slowly beginning to converge.

They outlined a slender yet stubborn silhouette.

That terrifying figure, who had once unhesitatingly stood before him, taking on the ultimate termination for him, was being forcibly pulled back to reality from the abyss of "non-existence."

Zhao Linger, kneeling on the ground, desperately covered her mouth with her hand, preventing herself from crying out loud.

Yet, tears poured wildly from between her fingers like broken pearls.

These were not tears of sorrow.

They were tears of surviving a calamity, of recovering what was lost, of ecstatic joy at witnessing a miracle... Meanwhile.

Somewhere unknown in the Chaos Void.

There was no space-time, no matter, only absolute, pure "Order."

Countless crystal-like Law chains constructed an unimaginably magnificent Divine Hall.

In the center of the Divine Hall.

The Elder, clad in dark golden armor, was seated on a throne.

Before him floated a wisp of black data stream.

That was precisely the "mutated sample" he had just retrieved from the low-level slave.

"A virus polluting the concept of termination..."

The Elder's will was cold and indifferent, tinged with a researcher's curiosity.

In his eyes, as dead as neutron stars, the image of that data stream was reflected, and endless Law runes flickered deep within his pupils, beginning the most fundamental analysis.

He wanted to see what kind of "Impurities" dared to defile the supreme truth of the Universe.

His Divine Thought transformed into an invisible probe, carefully touching the wisp of black data stream.

The probe easily peeled away the outer layer of disguised "mutated" data.

Then, he "saw" the core.

It was not some chaotic impurity.

It was a perfectly closed-loop Karma bomb, cleverly "grafted" together.

One end was his own "Termination" brand.

The other end was his own, newly opened high-dimensional data transmission channel.

The sole purpose of this closed loop was... backlash.

"No..."

The Elder's eternal will, for the first time, experienced an emotional fluctuation named "horror."

But it was already too late.

The moment his Divine Thought touched this Karma closed loop, the logic bomb was detonated.

Boom!

The "Termination" brand, which he had personally retrieved, suddenly erupted.

It didn't attack anything.

It simply returned the way it came, along the data channel established by the Elder himself, in an irresistible manner that conformed to the logic of "Order."

Then, precisely, it struck its original source.

The Elder's body.

"Pfft!"

There was no sound.

But at the level of rules, a terrifying and unparalleled explosion occurred.

The Elder's body, constructed from supreme Laws, trembled violently.

He extended a finger, pointing it at his glabella, attempting to forcibly sever this backlash originating from himself.

However, the "Termination" concept was originally part of his power.

To sever it was to self-terminate.

To resist it was to use his own power against his own power.

This was an unsolvable dead end.

Tiny black cracks, centered on his glabella, began to spread across his Divine Soul Origin.

That was the terrifying sight Li Hanyue had once endured, being erased from the Foundation of existence.

The high and mighty chess player was checkmated in his own game by his most prized chess piece.

"Ugh, ahhh!"

A roar, suppressing endless pain and humiliation, erupted for the first time from the mouth of this god-like being.

He abruptly raised his hand, and with sheer force, tore off a small piece of his cracked Divine Soul Origin, then fiercely threw it into the Void Realm.

A brave man cutting off his own arm!

The moment the Divine Soul fragment left his body, it was completely annihilated by the "Termination" concept.

On the throne, the Elder's body trembled violently.

He suddenly opened his mouth.

A drop of golden blood fell from his mouth, hitting the crystalline Law ground with a soft "sizzle," corroding an unfathomably deep pit into the eternally Indestructible ground.

The Elder's gaze pierced through infinite dimensions, locking onto the direction of the Tomb of the Epoch.

In that gaze, there was no longer the high and mighty indifference.

Only rage that could incinerate the Nine Heavens, and a trace of... indelible, monstrous humiliation from being bitten by an ant... In the Command Hall.

The converging light points finally condensed into a complete form.

Li Hanyue's figure reappeared before everyone.

She lay quietly in mid-air, eyes tightly closed, her face pale without a trace of color, as if merely asleep.

Lin Fan's ethereal body swayed, and he rushed forward, tightly, tightly embracing her cold body.

Feeling the real touch and faint heartbeat in his arms, Lin Fan's heart, which had been hanging by a thread, finally returned to its place.

He lowered his head, his face buried in her neck, greedily inhaling her recovered scent.

It was at this moment.

A series of System prompts, like a timely rain, furiously scrolled across his Sea of Consciousness.

[Ding! Detected Host has completed Epic Achievement: Reversing Termination!]

[Congratulations to Host for successfully deceiving and severely injuring a High-dimensional Rule Controller for the first time as a Mortal!]

[Death Method Judgment: Conceptual Erasure (Unsuccessful).]

[Impact Level Judgment: Cross-dimensional.]

[Overall Rating: mythic-grade!]

[Calculating mythic-grade Death Rewards...]

[Congratulations to Host, you have obtained Divine-Grade Passive Skill: Karma Tampering (V1.0)!]

[Congratulations to Host, you have obtained Unique Title: Rule Defier!]

[Congratulations to Host, existence value limit permanently increased by 100%!]

A series of rewards invigorated Lin Fan, who was almost at his wit's end.

He didn't even have time to examine them closely.

His attention was firmly drawn to a detail on the forehead of the woman in his arms.

There, on her smooth skin, at some unknown point, an dark golden mark, like a miniature Shackle of the Soul, had appeared.

Shackle of the Soul.

Although much fainter than those on the slave miners, Lin Fan would never mistake its form or aura.

This was left by that Elder.

A mark, a contingency, a brand representing humiliation.

Lin Fan reached out, his fingertip wanting to smooth away the mark.

A bone-chilling cold, accompanied by a rule of absolute "subordination," emanated from his fingertip, shocking him like an electric current.

The anger that had just subsided, mixed with endless pity and guilt for Li Hanyue, once again condensed into a volcano about to erupt in his chest.

He saved her life.

But he let her bear the mark of a slave.

Lin Fan held the unconscious woman in his arms and slowly raised his head.

His crimson eyes coldly stared at the description of the new skill on the System panel.

[Karma Tampering (V1.0): Passive. When you suffer a fatal attack, you can consume all your existence value to perform a logical grafting of part of the 'Karma' of this attack.]

His fingertip gently traced the cold Shackle of the Soul mark on Li Hanyue's forehead.