143: Chapter 143 Unification of Power: The Best Time to Eradicate the Curse

The moment the re-forging of the samsara seal was completed, the entire Netherworld fell into a deathly silence.

It wasn't that there was no sound—on the contrary, the worshiping voices of ten thousand ghosts, the humming of laws being repaired, and the sound of the River of Oblivion surging once more all rang out at the same moment, yet they eerily merged into a higher-dimensional 'silence.'

Lin Chen hovered at the highest point of the newly established Netherworld.

In his hand, he held the complete samsara seal. The body of the seal displayed an indescribable color—neither black nor white, but more like the 'existence' itself left after all colors had collapsed. Billions of tiny runes flowed across the seal's surface, each corresponding to a fundamental law of the Netherworld.

"So that's how it is."

Lin Chen whispered to himself.

His voice was very soft, yet it spread clearly to every corner of the Netherworld. Every ghost who heard this voice, no matter what they were doing, instinctively prostrated themselves on the ground—it wasn't fear, but a realization from the depths of their souls: the speaker was the sole ruler of this place.

The instant the samsara seal fully resonated with his bloodline, a torrent of information flooded into his consciousness.

He 'saw' how the First Generation Underworld Lord established this order, 'saw' the original appearance of the samsara seal, and 'saw' the tragic great war that led to the shattering of the Netherworld—as well as the fragments of truth hidden in the shadows of history.

But what was clearest was his absolute control over the Netherworld at this moment.

No system prompts were needed, nor any rituals. With just a single thought—

"Manifest."

Lin Chen uttered a single word.

In the sky of the Netherworld, countless translucent lines suddenly emerged. These lines were intricate and interwoven, forming a three-dimensional network that covered the entire plane. Every line represented the trajectory of a law; every node was a location of a key authority.

Zhang Hao looked up at the sky, his mouth agape: "This... what is this?"

"They are the 'blood vessels' and 'nerves' of the Netherworld," Su Qingyu explained softly, having walked to his side at some point. "Lin Chen can now directly see and manipulate the underlying architecture of the Netherworld."

As if to verify her words, Lin Chen raised his left hand and made a gentle grasping motion toward the void.

A thousand miles away, a wasteland that had just begun to collapse due to unstable laws instantly stopped its collapse. The shattered space pieced itself back together like a video playing in reverse, the cracked earth healed automatically, and even the scattered ghost qi obediently returned to its original place.

The entire process was silent and invisible.

There was no dazzling light, no ear-splitting roar; it was as natural as... as a person casually tidying up their own desk.

"Authority unified," Lei Xiao knelt on one knee, his voice as a Ghost General who once commanded a hundred thousand underworld soldiers trembling with irrepressible emotion. "True unification of authority... even the First Generation Underworld Lord at his peak was only thus."

Little Red Clothes sat on the roof of the arsenal, swinging her small legs. The skeleton doll in her arms suddenly spoke, emitting a naive yet clear child's voice: "Boss... so amazing..."

The entire Netherworld and all its beings were feeling this change in their own ways.

And Lin Chen, at the center of the change, was currently doing something that seemed trivial—

He closed his eyes.

Not to rest, but to perform a deeper kind of 'perception.'

With the samsara seal in hand and Netherworld Authority in his grasp, his perception range had long since broken through the limits of the plane. He 'saw' the living world, saw the reincarnation channels still in operation, and saw the countless names flickering on the Book of Life and Death...

Then, he 'looked' back to his side.

Su Qingyu stood there. The curse within her body, from the perspective of the Lord of the Underworld, now presented a completely different form.

It was no longer a mass of blurry black qi, but a precise, malicious, almost artistic 'pollution program.'

The core of the curse was a pitch-black seed, deeply rooted at the source of her bloodline. The seed's surface was covered in tens of thousands of miniature runes, each slowly rotating and continuously releasing two things: a devouring field for the host's vitality, and... some kind of signal.

"A positioning signal," Lin Chen opened his eyes, a cold light flashing in them.

He finally understood.

Why would the Netherworld Saintess place such a curse on her own descendants? If it were just for torture, there were simpler and cruder methods. If it were for control, it shouldn't have been designed so complexly.

The truth was: this curse itself was a precise 'beacon.'

After the Netherworld Saintess was corrupted and controlled by the Void Devourer, her bloodline became a medium for spreading pollution. Every cursed descendant was equivalent to having a signal transmitter installed in their bloodline—as long as the curse was still active, the Void Devourer could locate this bloodline branch at any time.

And the final stage of the curse's outbreak, the moment the host completely perished...

"It will open a temporary portal," Lin Chen said in a low voice, "allowing the power of the Void to descend directly and completely pollute the area where the host is located."

Quite a clever trick.

Using a bloodline curse that lasted for thousands of years to construct an automatically operating pollution delivery system covering countless planes. Each cursed person's death was a precision pollution strike.

That Su Qingyu had lived until now was already a miracle among miracles.

"But now," Lin Chen looked at the samsara seal in his hand, "it's time to end this error."

With a slight thought, a soft halo lit up on the surface of the samsara seal. The halo spread out and condensed in mid-air into an extremely complex three-dimensional formation—the manifestation of all healing, purifying, and restructuring laws of the Netherworld.

Zhang Hao's eyes widened: "Is the Boss going to..."

"Root out the curse," Su Qingyu's mother, Lin Chens Mother, had also come out at some point. She clenched her hands tightly, her knuckles white. "He can do it... he really can do it..."

This kind woman had labored her whole life for her daughter's curse and never stopped worrying even after becoming a ghost in death. At this moment, looking at that young figure in the sky, tears fell silently—not of sadness, but of hope suppressed for too long, finally breaking through.

Su Qingyu herself was actually the calmest.

She looked up at Lin Chen, at the figure surrounded by ten thousand halos of law, and a smile slowly formed at the corners of her mouth.

Since when did she start believing in him?

Was it when he said "I'll help you" by the River of Oblivion? Was it when he burned trillions of nether talismans to forcibly suppress the curse? Or was it even earlier, in that small rental house in the living world, when he said with an indifferent face, "Curse? Let me see"?

It didn't matter anymore.

She only knew that the Lin Chen standing here now already possessed the power to rewrite fate.

And the first fate he wanted to rewrite was hers.

In the sky, Lin Chen completed the final deduction.

"The curse is rooted at the source of the bloodline; to cure it, it must be stripped from the source," he seemed to be talking to himself, yet also giving orders to the Netherworld laws. "But stripping it will trigger the curse's ultimate counterattack—that portal will be forced open."

"Therefore, the cure is in three steps."

He held up three fingers, folding one down for each step he mentioned.

"First, construct an absolute isolation barrier. Use the power of the samsara seal to create a temporary 'law vacuum zone' around Su Qingyu, cutting off all contact between the curse and the outside world."

The samsara seal's light flared brilliantly, and an invisible barrier quietly formed, completely enveloping Su Qingyu. Inside the barrier, all laws temporarily ceased to function—including the portal laws the curse attempted to trigger.

"Second, reverse tracing."

Lin Chen's eyes glowed with a deep light. His gaze penetrated Su Qingyu's body, tracing upstream along the bloodline, past her mother Lin Chens Mother, past countless generations of ancestors, all the way back to... that original pollution node.

The moment the Netherworld Saintess swallowed the black bead.

Time seemed to flow backward as countless memory fragments flashed before his eyes. Lin Chen didn't get distracted by those historical truths; his goal was clear—find the 'root' of the curse seed, and then...

"Third," he folded down his last finger, "buy out the ownership."

This wasn't a metaphor.

After fully controlling the Netherworld Authority, Lin Chen's understanding of the 'system' had reached a new height. The so-called 'money system' was essentially the manifestation of the Netherworld's highest authority—an authority capable of directly 'trading' with the fundamental rules of the multiverse.

And at this moment, the object he wanted to trade for was: the 'ownership' of the part of the 'Netherworld Saintess Curse' within Su Qingyu's bloodline.

"In the name of the Lord of the Underworld," Lin Chen's voice resounded at the level of law, "I initiate a forced acquisition of the abnormal state numbered 'Nether Curse - Thousand-Face Variant - Su Branch' within this segment of bloodline."

In the Netherworld sky, those law lines suddenly vibrated violently.

A 'contract' composed purely of rules emerged out of thin air, filled with clauses written in the most ancient Nether Script. The first party of the contract was the Lord of the Underworld, Lin Chen; the second party was... the segment of twisted law that the curse itself relied upon.

Acquisition price: 1 nether talisman.

Reason: This asset (the curse) has caused continuous damage to the Netherworld Matriarch (Su Qingyu), violating Article 3, Clause 7 of the 'Netherworld Core Rights Protection Law.' Ownership is now being forcibly reclaimed according to the law.

This operation left everyone stunned.

"Can... you even do that?" Zhang Hao's jaw nearly hit the floor. "Directly talking law with a curse?"

"It's not talking law," Lei Xiao said with difficulty, "it's the Underworld Lord using his authority to pronounce the curse's 'illegality' from the level of rules, and then confiscating it according to law..."

Before he could finish, the contract was sealed.

The curse seed trembled violently, trying to resist, but before a rule contract personally drafted by the Lord of the Underworld, any resistance was futile. Those precise pollution runes went out one by one, and cracks began to appear on the surface of the black seed.

Then, Lin Chen did a fourth thing—

Something not written in the outline, but something he felt he had to do.

"Since I've bought it," he said calmly, "how I dispose of it is my freedom."

He raised his right hand toward the shattering curse seed, his five fingers slowly closing into a fist.

"With the power of the curse, nourish the host."

"With the energy of pollution, reshape the foundation."

"This is not punishment—this is return to the original owner."

Boom!

The curse seed exploded completely, but what exploded wasn't destructive energy, but life essence that had been forcibly reversed, purified, and transformed!

This essence was originally extracted from Su Qingyu's ancestors over a thousand years; now, with interest, it was all poured back into Su Qingyu's body!

"Ah—" Su Qingyu couldn't help but let out a soft moan.

It wasn't pain, but an indescribable... sense of fullness.

The thousand-year deficit was instantly filled, the life force depleted by the curse was returned manifold, and even the pure bloodline power that originally belonged to the Netherworld Saintess—after removing the pollution—merged into her body as well.

Her aura began to skyrocket.

From ordinary Fierce Ghost level, to Ghost General level, to Ghost King level... finally stabilizing at a level that even made Lei Xiao feel a sense of heart-palpitation.

The light faded.

Su Qingyu slowly opened her eyes.

She seemed to have no major changes, but a closer look revealed a faint golden halo deep in her eyes; her soul body was condensed to a near-substantial degree; with every move, laws faintly flowed with her.

Most importantly, the shadow-like chill inside her body had vanished.

Completely vanished.

"Suc... success?" Lin Chens Mother asked tremblingly.

Su Qingyu looked down at her hands, then raised her head to look at her mother, nodding vigorously: "Yes. Success."

Lin Chens Mother covered her mouth and burst into tears.

It was a cry of liberation, a cry of joy, the cry of a mother who had carried a burden for far too long and could finally let it down.

Zhang Hao wiped the corner of his eye: "Damn, sand got in my eyes..."

Little Red Clothes held her doll, tilted her head, and then started clapping her hands: "Good... good..."

Throughout the Netherworld, all ghosts who perceived this scene spontaneously bowed in this direction—both in awe of the Underworld Lord and as a blessing for the Queen of the Underworld.

And Lin Chen slowly descended from the sky.

The samsara seal in his hand had returned to tranquility, turning back into that ancient seal. But the sense of majesty about him had not diminished in the slightest.

He walked up to Su Qingyu, looked at her brand-new appearance, and nodded: "How do you feel?"

"Better than ever before." Su Qingyu smiled, then bowed deeply. "Thank you, Lin Chen."

"Why thank me?" Lin Chen waved his hand. "You are my person; it's only right that I cure you."

He said this casually, but Su Qingyu's cheeks flushed slightly upon hearing it.

But Lin Chen's next sentence made the atmosphere instantly solemn.

He looked at her, his gaze calm yet profound:

"The curse is cured, but some things aren't over yet."

"How many of the Netherworld Saintess's memory fragments did you inherit?"

Su Qingyu was startled, then understood his meaning. She closed her eyes to sense for a moment, and when she opened them again, a flash of complexity appeared: "Quite a lot... especially the part before and after she was polluted."

"That's good," Lin Chen nodded. "Those memories are the key clues to finding the mastermind."

He turned around, looking toward the endless distance of the Netherworld, his voice not loud but clearly reaching everyone present:

"The curse was just a tool; the one who cast it is the enemy."

"And now that the tool is dealt with, it's time to find the tool's owner."

After saying that, he looked back at Su Qingyu and asked the question set in the outline, which was also the most appropriate thing to ask right now:

"Are you ready to make a final break with your past fate?"

Su Qingyu took a deep breath.

The hesitation, complexity, and sentiment in her eyes eventually all settled into determination.

"I've been ready for a long time."

She walked to Lin Chen's side and stood shoulder to shoulder with him, looking in the same direction.

"From the day I decided to come to the Netherworld with you, I've been ready."

The wind of the Netherworld blew past, lifting the corners of their clothes.

Behind them were the ten thousand ghosts who had already submitted, the reincarnation cycle with its rebuilt order, and the foundation they had built with their own hands.

Before them was the old enemy yet to be settled with, the deeper hidden darkness, and the ultimate truth.

And they were already standing at the starting line.

Authority unified, the curse removed.

Next—

It's time to settle the final account.