186: Chapter 186 With the jade pendant inside her body, can Xu Ruyu withstand the impending death?

"Boom—!!!"

The Nine Nether Soul-Locking Grand Array, which had slowed slightly due to Granny Liu's appearance, erupted with a ferocity several times greater than before at this moment!

Nine pitch-black light pillars spun frantically, the Soul shadows within shrieking even more shrilly. The thick, inseparable aura of death and destruction, like nine awakened nether dragons, opened their massive maws and lunged to devour Xu Ruyu at the center!

The blood-colored chains of the Spirit-Locking Great Array also burst with light, frantically draining all spiritual energy within range, and even began to faintly erode space, intending to turn this area completely into a spiritless dead zone!

Xu Ruyu was at the heart of the storm. The sliver of consciousness he had barely stabilized because of Granny Liu's appearance was instantly crushed to powder under this intensified, terrifying suppression!

He didn't even have the strength to spit blood. His vision was completely submerged in endless darkness and cold. He felt his Soul was about to be torn to pieces by those endless Soul shrieks and yanked from his shell by the chains!

It's over...

This was his last thought before his consciousness sank.

...

In the distance, that hunched figure paused slightly as she was about to turn into the side path of the Hall of Power Transmission.

Granny Liu did not look back.

But it was as if she had seen everything happening on the Law Execution Platform with her own eyes, heard Xiao Nianyin's cold and resolute command, and felt that surging aura of destruction.

On her aged face, the wrinkles seemed to deepen. In those cloudy eyes that had seen through the world, the last spark of hope slowly went out.

Replacing it was a deep disappointment, and... a touch of knowing indifference.

She shook her head gently and sighed in a voice only she could hear: "Stubborn and foolish... bringing calamity upon yourself..."

"Stubborn and foolish... bringing calamity upon yourself..."

Then, she looked up at the sky above the Hehuan Sect, which was illuminated eerily by the Formation's light, as if speaking to the void, or perhaps just stating an upcoming fact.

Her old, raspy voice carried a strange penetrating power. Though soft, it seemed to cross space and echo clearly in the depths of the Divine Souls of Xiao Nianyin and a few sharp-sensing Elders:

"Xiao Yatou..."

"Even the person 'That One' favored, you dare to harbor such murderous intent and commit such extreme acts..."

"It seems your position as Sect Master of the Hehuan Sect has indeed reached its end. It's time... for someone else to sit there."

She paused, her tone so calm it was heart-palpitating, yet it contained a pity that understood destiny:

"Just wait."

"Wait until 'That One' returns from silence, until that boy's life hangs by a thread and triggers Karma..."

"You will then know why your Master, back then, risked severing the bond of Master and disciple and adamantly refused to let you Cultivate the Mystic Maidens Sun-Stealing Art..."

"A Saint Realm obtained through theft... is ultimately just a reflection in the water, a castle in the air."

"The path you've blocked was never someone else's survival..."

"But your own, and the final future... of this Hehuan Sect."

After speaking, Granny Liu stayed no longer. Leaning on her cane, she walked away slowly, her figure completely disappearing into the shadows toward the Hall of Power Transmission, as if she had never appeared.

Only those final words, like a prophecy or a curse, lingered in Xiao Nianyin's heart with a chilling resonance, causing her resolute mind—which had just issued the kill order—to feel a tiny, yet unignorable chill.

The Mystic Maidens Sun-Stealing Art... her Master's adamant opposition... the person 'That One' favored...

Several broken clues collided in her heart.

But the arrow had left the string; the Formation was fully active!

Looking at Xu Ruyu in the center of the Formation, whose aura was already as weak as a candle in the wind and about to be completely swallowed, the frost on Xiao Nianyin's beautiful face thickened. She forced down the strangeness in her heart, and the harshness returned to her eyes.

"No matter who is behind you or what Karma exists!

Today, I shall go against heaven and seize this Opportunity!"

"Suppress him—for me!"

She pointed her slender jade finger downward resolutely!

The Nine Nether shrieked, the chains clanged, and the light of destruction instantly swallowed the green-robed figure completely!

The outcome seemed certain.

However, no one knew that at the final moment before Xu Ruyu's consciousness sank into the boundless darkness, deep within that cracked and long-silent jade pendant on his chest, a warmth so faint it was almost non-existent struggled with extreme difficulty... and gave one last throb.

As if on a distant shore, some existence that had slept for endless ages, silent as heaven and earth, was tugged by a faint but incredibly familiar thread of Karma at the edge of the deepest dream...

And gently,

Furrowed their brow.

The ferocity of the Nine Nether Soul-Locking Grand Array was pushed to the extreme under Xiao Nianyin's resolute command. The Soul shadows in the pitch-black light pillars almost solidified, turning into countless ghost claws. Carrying Soul-tearing shrieks and life-extinguishing Death Qi, they clawed down fiercely at the dying green-robed figure in the center!

The blood-colored chains of the Spirit-Locking Great Array were like venomous pythons coiling around him, shrinking frantically to strangle and drain his last bit of protective power and physical life force!

Death was within reach.

Xu Ruyu's consciousness drifted in the boundless darkness and bone-chilling cold, like a dying candle in a storm.

The agonizing pain of his body disintegrating and the tearing sensation in his Divine Soul became blurry and distant.

Only one thought flickered stubbornly like an obsession before vanishing completely—energy... I need energy... deeper, more fundamental energy that isn't locked by this ghostly Formation!

Right at the threshold where his consciousness was about to return to nothingness—

At his chest, the Fairy Qing Tian Jade Pendant, already covered in cracks and completely silent, finally... shattered at its core after enduring the repeated impact of unimaginable Formation pressure and Saint Realm killing intent.

It wasn't completely destroyed; rather, it was as if it had completed its final mission and actively released its final Seal.

"Pop..."

A crisp sound, so faint it was almost non-existent, rippled across Xu Ruyu's heart.

Then, the jade pendant turned into a gentle warm current. It was no longer just transmitting power from the outside but, like mercury seeping into the ground, it fused directly into Xu Ruyu's flesh, Meridians, and even deeper into his cells and energy pathways!

This wasn't devouring or refining; it was a higher-level Fusion and Awakening!

Within the jade pendant, that Sword Qi of Fairy Qing Tian that had been silent for three hundred years—its final and most exquisite wisp of Origin Sword Intent—did not directly turn into power for attack or defense. Instead, it became a "seed," a seed of "cognition of energy essence" and "supreme Sword Dao Concept," deeply planted in Xu Ruyu's collapsing Sea of Consciousness and energy circulation core!

In an instant, Xu Ruyu's Void Source Energy Perception, which was already different from ordinary people due to the True Explanation of Taixu Source Energy, was expanded to an unprecedented level!