197: The sword opens the gates of heaven, annihilating a half-step Nascent Soul cultivator!

This sword strike was unleashed.

The world fell silent.

No light burst forth.

It didn't even stir a breath of wind or raise a speck of dust.

It was like an illusion.

The most absurd dream of a dying person facing a cataclysmic disaster.

However, this unremarkable sword strike plunged the entire world into an absolute, eerie silence.

High above the sky, the dark purple "star," wrapped in endless destructive Divine Might, was enough to wipe Qingzhou City entirely off the map.

Its unrivaled downward momentum suddenly halted!

Time twisted at this moment.

Space froze at this moment.

Everything in existence waited for a final verdict amidst this strange stillness.

Inside the City Lord's Mansion, Shen Qiming, who had been preparing to accompany his son to the Yellow Springs, found his outstretched hand frozen in mid-air.

The bloody tears on his face had not yet dried, but his pupils reflected an incomprehensible sight.

Shen Zongdao, standing beside him, was rigid as a stone statue, his mouth slightly agape but unable to utter a sound, his eyes hollow and dead.

What... happened?

In the wreckage of the heaven burning tower ship, Song Xuanyi's bloody face instantly froze.

His eyes, filled with madness and malice, were fixed intently on the ground below.

He saw it.

A line.

A gray thread, subtle to the extreme, seemingly not existing in this dimension.

That thread extended from the hands of that golden core ant, disregarding space, time, and the terrifying Divine Might capable of twisting all techniques and crushing a Nascent Soul.

It was neither a beam of light nor Sword Qi.

It was a line—an absolute line dividing all things, appearing out of thin air on the canvas of heaven and earth!

It simply, effortlessly, touched the final killer move—the sphere that concentrated all the energy from his fifteen hundred years of Dao path, his soul transformation dao fruit, and his Fifth-Tier War Magic Treasure.

"What... is this?"

A chill deeper than death, a profound sense of absurdity capable of overturning his lifelong understanding of cultivation, instantly flooded Song Xuanyi's consciousness!

He couldn't understand it.

He completely failed to understand!

His fifteen hundred years of arduous cultivation, and all his understanding of the Laws of Heaven and Earth, screamed at him that the object before him absolutely should not exist!

There was no Magic Power, no Law, not even a trace of killing intent on that gray line!

It was like a dividing line casually drawn by a Painter on a scroll.

The next moment.

Under Song Xuanyi's gaze, which was filled with endless horror and incomprehension, as if he had seen a ghost.

His final, proud strike, for which he had risked everything.

That dark purple destructive "star."

Was silently, smoothly, and mirror-like... cut open by that gray line, right down the middle.

There was no earth-shattering explosion as expected.

There was no destructive halo from colliding energy.

The world-destroying power was so docile before the gray line that it seemed nonexistent.

The "star" containing the power of world annihilation was effortlessly split into two, as if it had originally been pieced together from two halves.

The cut was so smooth it resembled a perfect work of art, reflecting Song Xuanyi's face, utterly distorted by extreme terror.

"No..."

Song Xuanyi let out a wail that originated from the depths of his Divine Soul!

His worldview, all his cultivation knowledge accumulated over fifteen hundred years, was completely and utterly shattered by this illogical sword strike at this moment!

This is impossible!

This is absolutely impossible!

This violates all Natural Laws in the world! It violates every iron rule of the Cultivation World!

How could a Golden Core Cultivator cut through an attack from a Mid-stage Soul Transformation expert?!

However, the gray thread did not stop after slicing the star.

It seemed to possess its own will.

It passed through the two halves of the star that were breaking apart, through the wreckage of the disintegrating tower ship, and through layers of twisted space.

Finally, in a manner that transcended all perception, it lightly imprinted itself upon Song Xuanyi's bloody forehead.

Song Xuanyi's body trembled violently.

He felt that all his thoughts and memories were completely locked down by a higher, incomprehensible, and indescribable Dao.

He wanted to struggle, but his Divine Soul was immobilized, like a pinned specimen.

He wanted to roar, but his throat couldn't produce a single syllable.

He could only watch helplessly as the gray line gently sliced across the Origin of his Divine Soul.

"Wh...at... is... this..."

He used the last vestige of strength in his life to squeeze out these fragmented and disjointed syllables from the depths of his Divine Soul.

Even upon death, he couldn't understand.

What exactly had he been defeated by?

The next instant.

Starting from his forehead, gray cracks rapidly spread across his entire body like a spiderweb.

His body, his indestructible Nascent Soul Dharma Body, his Half-step Soul Transformation soul transformation dao fruit burning with its final light, along with the segment of his Divine Soul in his Sea of Consciousness carrying fifteen hundred years of memories... all silently broke apart inch by inch!

Peeling away piece by piece!

Finally, turning into the smallest particles.

Like a sand sculpture scattered by the wind, he completely vanished between heaven and earth.

Not a single drop of blood remained.

Not a trace of his existence was left behind.

Song Xuanyi, Half-step Soul Transformation Old Ancestor of the Ziyang Song Family.

His Body and Soul Utterly Destroyed!

At the exact moment he completely vanished.

High above the sky, the dark purple star of destruction, which had been split in two, finally lost control completely!

It transformed into two halves of a deadly meteor, burning with the flames of destruction, grazing the eastern and western edges of Qingzhou City, and plummeting violently toward the distance with unstoppable momentum!

Boom—!!!

Boom—!!!

Two massive explosions, a hundred times more terrifying than any preceding blast, roared almost simultaneously from dozens of miles away!

Before the terrifying sound waves arrived, the destructive light and heat reached them first!

The ground of the entire Qingzhou City violently heaved upward!

It was as if an Ancient Giant Beast had fiercely rolled over deep underground!

Inside the city, all the conscious Cultivators, including Shen Qiming and Shen Zongdao, were sent staggering by the terrifying shockwave, their Qi and blood churning, and their eardrums ringing loudly!

They looked in horror toward the direction of the massive explosions.

They saw that in the wilderness mountains tens of miles to the east and west of Qingzhou City.

Two dark purple mushroom clouds, covering the sky and carrying ominous purple electric arcs, slowly rose, soaring into the heavens and staining the firmament the color of doom!

The terrifying energy storm transformed into visible white Qi waves, instantly leveling the continuous mountain range!

Two horrifying giant pits, over a hundred miles in diameter, bottomless, and with edges constantly vitrifying, appeared in everyone's view! The edges of the pits were molten lava, radiating a chilling aura of destruction.

Everyone was stunned.

They couldn't imagine what the scene would have been like if these two halves of the "star" had deviated even slightly and landed inside Qingzhou City.

The entire city would have been completely erased from the map in an instant!

And the mastermind behind it all... that Half-step Soul Transformation Old Monster who sacrificed everything and sought to destroy everything... was dead?

Slayed by their Shen Family's Grand Elder, the young man who, in everyone's eyes, was still just a Golden Core Cultivator?

The end of despair was not hope, but an incomprehensible void.

At this moment, silence descended upon Qingzhou City, both inside and out—a silence so profound that a pin dropping could be heard.

Everyone's brains completely shut down and went blank due to this overly absurd and subversive scene.