132: Chapter 132 A Glimpse of the Truth: Was the Saintess Also a Victim?

The anomaly from the Star Map Fragment brought everyone to an abrupt halt.

The black fragment grew hot and trembled in Lin Chen's palm. In the miniature star map it projected, the area representing the "Soul Vortex" flickered intermittently. Astonishingly, the cracks on Su Qingyu's neck glowed and faded in perfect sync, pulsating rhythmically like breathing!

"This..." Zhang Hao gasped, sucking in a cold breath, "Boss, is this thing... greeting Su Qingyu's curse?!"

Su Qingyu's face turned deathly pale. She instinctively covered her neck, feeling a strange, burning heat and throbbing deep within the cracks, as if something was about to awaken.

Lin Chen's gaze sharpened like a blade. His right hand clenched violently, and vast Nether Lord power mixed with a massive amount of nether talisman energy transformed into countless golden chains, instantly sealing the black fragment layer by layer!

"Hum—"

The fragment struggled violently, the star map patterns on its surface flashing wildly as it attempted to resist Lin Chen's suppression. Deep within those patterns, fine, vein-like dark red threads faintly surfaced—the mark of the God of a Thousand Faces' corrupting power!

"Hmph, thinking of rebelling in front of me?" Lin Chen sneered, the golden light in his palm blazing brightly.

[Ding! Detected high-level pollution-rules construct: 'Twisted Star Map Fragment (Bound Target: Netherworld Saintess Bloodline Curse).' Initiating forced purification protocol... Consuming 50 billion nether talismans... Purifying...]

The golden chains tightened abruptly. The fragment emitted a sizzling, corrosive sound. Those dark red threads twisted and struggled like living creatures, ultimately shattering and evaporating inch by inch within the golden radiance.

Three breaths later, the fragment fell completely silent, its temperature returning to normal. The star map patterns on its surface became pure and dull, no longer resonating with Su Qingyu's curse.

But Lin Chen's expression grew even graver.

Through the purification process, he had deciphered the truth behind the fragment's connection to the curse—

This was no coincidence.

This fragment was originally a specially crafted "Navigator" and "Activator" by the Thousand Faces Cult for the "Netherworld Saintess Bloodline Curse"!

"So that's it..." Lin Chen looked at the gradually calming, yet still present, cracks on Su Qingyu's neck, his voice icy. "Your curse was never just about creating a vessel or nourishment."

Su Qingyu's breath hitched: "Then what is it..."

"It's a 'Beacon,' and also a 'Quality Inspection Instrument,'" Lin Chen enunciated each word clearly. "The Thousand Faces Cult disseminated this cursed bloodline, letting it circulate in the world. When a curse bearer comes into contact with sufficiently pure Netherworld power—such as my Nether Lord Bloodline, or like when fusing with Saintess memory fragments just now—the curse enters an 'activated state.'"

He raised the now-purified fragment in his hand. "And this thing's function is to immediately sense an activated curse and guide its bearer... or anyone who wants to help her... to the 'Soul Vortex.'"

Zhang Hao listened, horrified. "So... if we want to help Steward Su completely resolve the curse, we have to go to that damn vortex? But that's clearly one of the enemy's strongholds!"

"More than that," Lin Chen said, a cold light flashing in his eyes. "From the residual information in the fragment, this curse has an even more insidious function—when it's stimulated to fully erupt by the environment of the 'Soul Vortex,' the bearer won't just become a perfect vessel. Everything about 'Nether Lord' and 'Netherworld' contained within her soul, bloodline, and memories—all 'cognitions' and 'authority imprints'—will be forcibly extracted and refined by the vortex, becoming the... final 'catalyst' for forging the 'key of the soul.'"

He looked at Su Qingyu. "In your memories, the Saintess was forced to swallow a fragment of the Void Devourer. But the Thousand Faces Cult's plan is more malicious—they intend to cultivate all the Saintess bloodlines scattered outside, which might contain Nether Lord authority information, into 'living Key Embryos,' ultimately sending them to the Soul Vortex to be drained of all value."

Su Qingyu felt a chill run through her entire body, her fingers digging into her palms.

She remembered the despair in the Saintess's memory as she swallowed the fragment, remembered her own suffering under the curse, remembered her mother Lin Chens Mother's Humble desire for reincarnation... All of this actually stemmed from a cold, precise, and malicious plan that had lasted for who knows how many tens of thousands of years!

Their lineage, from the very first Saintess, was destined to be sacrificial offerings!

"So..." Su Qingyu's voice trembled, yet carried a resolute understanding. "The Saintess back then... perhaps it wasn't just corruption. It's very likely that before she was completely lost, she caught a glimpse of this plan. Could part of her 'betrayal' and 'fall' have been... to sever the bloodline's transmission? She just failed, and the bloodline and curse were still passed down..."

This speculation made the whole truth even more cruel.

Lin Chen was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Possibly. In the Tombstone Guardian's memories, his evaluation of the Saintess was complex, hatred tinged with regret. If the Saintess had fallen purely voluntarily, an old-timer like the Tombstone Guardian wouldn't have retained that shred of regret."

He stored the purified fragment. Although it no longer resonated with the curse, the pure star map information on it still held value.

"However, now is not the time for lamentation," Lin Chen said, his tone regaining its coolness. "Since we know their plan, we have a direction to break it."

"Boss, you mean..." Lei Xiao asked gravely.

"They bound the curse to the star map—it's an overt scheme to force us to the Soul Vortex," Lin Chen said, a cold, arrogant curve lifting the corner of his mouth. "Then we'll go. But not by being led by the nose."

He looked at Su Qingyu. "Your curse is now in a 'semi-activated' state. The forced link to the star map has been severed by me, so it's temporarily safe. But we're going to use this state."

"Use it?" Su Qingyu was bewildered.

"Yes," Lin Chen said, a calculating gleam flashing in his eyes. "Since the curse will be stimulated to fully erupt by the Soul Vortex's environment... then before it erupts, we'll find the vortex first and 'remodel' the environment there... my way."

Zhang Hao blinked. "Boss, you wouldn't be thinking of..."

"Buying the Soul Vortex too?" Lin Chen laughed. "That kind of polluted place isn't worth it—buying it would just cost more money to purify."

His gaze turned towards the depths of the Netherworld in the distance, as if piercing through endless void to see that enormous vortex composed of countless suffering souls.

"My plan is—at their most confident 'home ground,' in the way they least expect..."

"To blow that damn vortex to smithereens."

(Hook: The moment Lin Chen uttered "blow the vortex," a faint yet clear sound, like billions of tons of metal twisting and snapping, suddenly rumbled from deep within the Netherworld earth beneath their feet! Immediately after, the flow of Yin energy across all regions of the Netherworld experienced a momentary disturbance, as if some "pillar" maintaining the Netherworld's balance had just fractured! Lin Chen's system interface automatically popped up, flashing with a blood-red warning: [Alert! Detected unknown disintegration of Netherworld core rules node 'Well of Reincarnation'! Collapse countdown: 71 hours, 59 minutes, 58 seconds...])