34: Three years of life

Deathly silence was the eternal theme of this snowy, icy cavern.

Three hundred frozen corpses, like the most devout believers, surrounded the massive ancient bronze furnace in the center, hands clasped together, forming a tragic and desperate circle.

Without exception, their chests were eerily hollow—where the spiritual cores, the source of a cultivator's power, should have been, were now all removed and densely embedded into the bottom of the bronze furnace, flickering with the last light before death.

On the furnace body, eight ancient seal characters, etched like iron strokes and silver hooks, seemed to be the final testament branded by three hundred sages with their lives: "Burn my remaining life, continue the lamp of myriad laws."

Su Qingzhu's face was ashen white as snow, her voice trembling uncontrollably from extreme shock: "They… they actually refined themselves… into fuel?"

This scene was too horrific; even Zhang Xuanyi, who was accustomed to the bizarre, felt a heavy blow to his heart.

This was not a formation, nor a sacrifice; this was a transmission of will, a desperate act of igniting a lamp of hope with three hundred lives.

Just then, A Yuan, who had been silent, suddenly knelt to the ground with a thud, his tender face pressing against the cold surface.

He closed his eyes tightly, his hands covering the ice inscribed with runes, his lips moving silently, as if listening to whispers from the depths of the netherworld.

"I can hear…" A Yuan's voice was hollow and distant, carrying a vicissitudes of life (deep sense of time/experience) that didn't belong to his age, "They are singing… they are singing a song… 'May I believe in the true path, death without regret.'"

Before his words finished, the entire ice cavern seemed to echo with that sorrowful yet resolute song, the final resonance left by three hundred departed souls in the long river of time and space.

Zhang Xuanyi took a deep breath, suppressing the turmoil in his heart.

He knew this was not the time for sentiment.

He took out a tattered "Heart Imprint Yellow Paper" from his embrace, pointed his fingers like a sword, and, using his own spiritual power as ink, quickly replicated an incredibly complex "life-extending talisman" onto the yellow paper.

"Go!"

He let out a low shout, and the yellow paper seemed to be endowed with life, transforming into a streak of light that accurately slapped onto the bronze furnace with a "thwack!"

Buzz—

As if a giant beast that had slept for a thousand years was awakened, the entire bronze furnace emitted a muffled tremor.

At the bottom of the furnace, the three hundred spiritual cores simultaneously lit up with faint glows, like candles in the wind, yet stubbornly converging towards the furnace core.

A barely visible wisp of flame ignited out of thin air in the furnace core.

In the flickering firelight, a phantom figure slowly emerged.

It was an old Daoist in a gray Daoist robe, his face withered, but his eyes were astonishingly bright.

He was the last of these three hundred people; in the phantom, he held his own, and the last, spiritual core, and tremblingly placed it into the furnace core.

"Foolish children… do not fear." The old Daoist's voice came across time and space, filled with endless compassion and weariness, "As long as this furnace does not extinguish, there will always be a lamp lit in our Daoist sect's Black Market."

The phantom dissipated, but the tiny flame in the furnace core suddenly dimmed, as if it could go out at any moment.

"Ah—!"

A piercing shriek tore through the deathly silence of the ice cavern.

A Yuan suddenly looked up, two lines of bloody tears flowing from his eyes. He stared fixedly at the flickering flame, his face filled with indescribable pain, as if every flicker of the flame's burn seared his very soul.

"Senior Brother! Turn it off! Please turn it off!" He screamed at Xuanyi, his voice completely distorted, "They're hurting! I can feel it! Their lingering souls are being burned! It hurts so much!"

Xuanyi's heart tightened; how could he not know?

This "life-extending talisman" ignited not only the spiritual cores but also the lingering souls and obsessions attached to them.

Every flicker of firelight was a repeated torment for three hundred souls.

But he couldn't turn it off.

"A Yuan, hold on!" Xuanyi gritted his back teeth, his eyes bloodshot, "This lamp is the last node of this street stall's spiritual pulse (vein)! Once it's off, the spiritual pulse will be completely severed, and all our previous efforts, the sacrifice of these three hundred predecessors, will all be in vain!"

He acted decisively, grabbing three bottles of "Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid" from the street stall's shelf. These were his most treasured possessions, containing pure energy.

He twisted open the caps and was about to inject the spiritual liquid into the furnace core to forcibly sustain the flame.

However, the moment he made his move, the system's warning sounded in his mind like a resounding bell:

"Warning: Energy source mismatch. Injection will cause the furnace core to collapse."

"Warning: This is heart fire, not to be sustained by external force."

Xuanyi's movements stopped abruptly, cold sweat instantly soaking his back.

Heart fire?

What did that mean?

Just as he was racking his brains, an ancient figure silently appeared beside him.

It was the mysterious Old Accountant who had always followed the street stall.

The Old Accountant didn't even look at Xuanyi; he simply pulled out a few rusty copper coins from his sleeve and scattered them casually.

The copper coins landed, automatically arranging themselves into a "Li" trigram from the Bagua.

"Li is fire, fire is heart," the Old Accountant's voice was hoarse and ancient, as if from the end of time, "The firewood is old, no longer able to burn. To ignite a new fire, first burn the old heart."

Burn the old heart… ignite a new fire… Xuanyi felt as if struck by lightning, instantly understanding!

He understood!

The system's "energy mismatch" didn't refer to the type of energy, but to the "origin" of the energy!

The Three Caverns True Qi Liquid was an external substance, but this furnace fire was ignited by three hundred "hearts"!

To sustain it, he also had to use a "heart"!

A living, beating heart!

No, not digging out a heart.

What the Old Accountant meant by "burn the old heart" was to burn something belonging to oneself, one's most fundamental essence!

Xuanyi slammed the street stall, and a black, intricately patterned reverse fate altering compass shot out—it was that forbidden item, the "reverse fate altering compass"!

This item could reverse cause and effect, extracting fate!

"My heart is my fate!" Xuanyi roared, pointing the compass at his chest and fiercely twisting it!

"Reverse! Extract!"

The compass spun wildly, and an indescribable sense of weakness instantly swept through Xuanyi's entire body.

He clearly felt that something most precious in his life was being forcibly stripped away.

His hair turned a touch of gray before his eyes, and the vibrancy on his face also dimmed.

"Warning: Host's three years of lifespan are being extracted!"

Three years!

A wisp of incomparably pure, decaying death qi was drawn from Xuanyi's crown, transforming into a gray stream of air, guided by the compass, and fiercely injected into the bottom of the bronze furnace!

Boom—!

In an instant, it was as if a ladle of cold water had been poured into boiling oil!

The flickering flame, on receiving this "lifespan" fuel, suddenly exploded!

No longer a faint flicker, but a pillar of fiery light that shot skyward, illuminating the entire ice cavern as bright as day!

In the flames, the stiff faces of the three hundred ice corpses slowly relaxed, their lips curving slightly upward, as if in endless pain, they had finally found release, revealing a heartfelt smile.

They no longer hurt.

However, another anomaly occurred!

"Senior Brother…" A Yuan looked at the soaring flames, a resolute smile appearing on his blood-tear-stained face, "They don't hurt anymore… Now, it's my turn."

To everyone's horror, A Yuan suddenly lunged towards the bronze furnace, and just as the furnace fire was about to stabilize and take shape, he fiercely plunged his tender hands into the flames that could burn metal and melt stone!

"I volunteer to take the fire!" He roared skyward, pain and defiance intertwined on his face, "I'm not afraid of the pain!"

Sizzle—

The sound of burning flesh was bone-chilling, but A Yuan held on tightly, not retreating an inch!

Just then, the "Karmic Abacus" on his back, which had been silent, suddenly erupted with unprecedented light. The abacus beads rattled frantically, emitting crackling sounds!

On the back of the abacus, countless new golden patterns appeared out of thin air!

Upon closer inspection, they were three hundred delicate yet resilient chains!

One end of the chains connected to the three hundred smiling ice corpses, while the other end converged towards A Yuan's hands in the raging flames!

That was… the power of vows! The undying power of the grand vows of three hundred sages after their death!

"I volunteer to take the fire"—this roar had become the key to drawing in this immense power of vows!

A Yuan acted as a bridge, drawing these three hundred powers of vows from the other side of death to this side of reality!

Rumble!

The flames in the bronze furnace changed dramatically again, their color shifting from crimson to a pure, sacred golden!

The golden flames no longer shot skyward but, as if possessing sentience, automatically branched off, forming a thick golden river of light that surged majestically into Xuanyi's street stall!

"Ding! Detecting a massive, pure source of vow power!"

"Special artifact 'Heart-Chilling Furnace' has been activated!"

"Unlocking street stall special mechanism: 'Vow Power Endurance'!"

"Vow Power Endurance: The street stall's core will be driven by vow power, providing sustainable energy for seven days."

"During this period, the effectiveness of all items will increase by thirty percent."

The system's roar echoed in Xuanyi's mind. He looked at everything before him, his heart filled with an overwhelming sense of shock.

The snow stopped.

A ray of morning light pierced through the entrance of the ice cavern, illuminating the dust.

The golden flames had completely merged into the street stall. The bronze furnace returned to its cold state, but the eight characters "Burn my remaining life, continue the lamp of myriad laws" on its body seemed to be coated with a faint golden glow.

A Yuan fell straight down, unconscious.

His hands were charred black, a horrific sight.

Xuanyi silently walked forward, gently carrying the weakened boy onto his back, as if handling a rare treasure.

He looked up, gazing towards the sun-drenched south outside the ice cavern.

"Last stop," he said softly, as if speaking to A Yuan, and also to himself, "We… are returning to Mount Longhu."

As his words fell, the incomplete star map on the street stall behind him finally lit up with its last light.

The nine light points representing the Nine Black Markets were now all illuminated, connected by golden lines, forming a perfect, unending circle.

A never-before-seen prompt, carrying a sense of ultimate destiny, slowly appeared on Xuanyi's retina:

"Nine Markets become one, the heart anchor will form."

"Final test: Master of the Cloth, return to your position."

Xuanyi, carrying A Yuan, began to walk towards the light.

The Iron Lady's figure appeared beside him like a phantom, clearing the way for him with wind.

However, the wind and snow, which had just ceased, suddenly picked up again without warning.

Only this time, the wind was no longer naturally biting.

In that wind, there was a non-human chill, and… a cold, heaven-spanning gaze, slowly cast from the ends of the earth, disturbed by their astonishing feat, now looming over them.