Chapter 2908

Such a venture failed, blood was the price, sacrifice the consequence.

Under Zhong Shengguang's plea, the Great Square Vase sealed these painful, despairing memories, allowing the soldiers and civilians of Panlong to relive their history of resistance once more within the vase's world.

This was not a mere historical replay, but a brand-new confrontation of fate, for the Great Square Vase brought from reality into the Panlong world the most precious variable:

He Lingchuan!

He is the key to Panlongcheng breaking through its predetermined fate.

Over these many years, He Lingchuan has done many things in both the Panlong world and reality, known to the Great Square Vase, and thus the current Red General also knows.

Originally two parallel worlds, they now intersect because of He Lingchuan.

He is the medium, he is the variable, he is the breaker of the impasse!

By his own death, he balanced the causal lines between the two worlds. Now, the Great Square Vase's obstacle between illusion and reality has been completely cleared!

And the Red General herself also has her own mission.

The valor of over two hundred years ago, the endurance of over two hundred years, the tempering of the Panlong world—together they forged her as she is today!

Old dreams, this morning—all memories merged into one.

Ah, only today do I know I am myself.

Under the gaze of all in Panlongcheng, the red light on the Red General's body suddenly retracted inward.

When she opened her eyes again, her expression had become as calm and composed as Sun Fuling's, her voice especially gentle: "The final link in the Tiger Wing General's fate has not yet been fastened, because—

—"

She gently stroked He Lingchuan's hair, a gesture that in the past only Sun Fuling would make.

Then she placed the Dream Cocoon on He Lingchuan's forehead: "His trial is not yet over."

And thus, thread by thread, smoke was drawn from He Lingchuan's seven orifices into the Dream Cocoon.

This is the Dream Cocoon after being transformed by Chaos.

But by doing this, she provoked dissatisfaction from others, or rather, from something else.

The black fire beside He Lingchuan surged upward with a whoosh, enveloping her as well, forming a sealed small world—a dark canopy.

Here there was only rolling smoke, only her and He Lingchuan, the Panlong soldiers all isolated outside.

Only now did Xu Shichu and others see the black karmic fire appear; though astonished, they could not move due to the stagnation of time.

From the karmic flood emerged a colossal serpent head, which spat at her in dissatisfaction: "How dare you interfere? This is our agreement with He Lingchuan, and it has nothing to do with you!"

To resolve the crisis between the two worlds, He Lingchuan previously made a pact with karma: he could use karma for a short time, but after dawn, facing karma's reckoning, he could no longer resist or evade.

Now the sun has risen, and karma demands he fulfill his promise.

"His body and soul are already scattered—he has fulfilled his promise to you." The Red General spoke bluntly, "Death eliminates karma, from this moment on!"

Karma on a person does not dissipate or diminish unless through death. Thus, while He Lingchuan achieved his grand hegemony over the past decade or more, his karmic sins have only accumulated.

Conversely, is not the untimely death of people in this world also a consequence drawn by karmic obstacles and sins?

To pay with one's life is the ultimate way of settling debts. Causality also demands reason, so death eliminates karma.

"It should be so, but you barged in and used the Dream Cocoon to take his memories!" The karma-serpent accused her of deception, "You want to replicate He Lingchuan's soul and spirit, then revive him, is that it?"

Memory constitutes personality; memory shapes the soul.

What the Red General did was, before karma completely consumed He Lingchuan, manually craft a doppelgänger for him.

"You are wrong—this is called 'cutting'!" The Red General laughed, "The fate entangled with you has just taught us to emulate true immortals and heavenly demons, to carve out a doppelgänger, dump all sins and karma onto it, then sever ties with the true self. After dawn, karma will take only this doppelgänger."

This is not nonsense, but advice given to He Lingchuan by the Fate Serpent before his final entry into the Panlong world.

"Absurd!" the black serpent roared, opening its blood-filled maw to lunge at her, "Hand over the Dream Cocoon, or we will devour you too!"

The Red General did not dodge.

The black serpent passed straight through her body, but grasped nothing. This scene resembled when Siming Zhenjun initially received protection from the floating lamp, becoming immune to harm within this scene.

"What foolishness are you committing? I died in battle two hundred years ago, with no karma on me, no opening for you to exploit!" The Red General of the Panlong era slaughtered like hemp, her karmic crimes towering, and in the end she indeed paid with her life.

Death eliminates karma, after all.

She calmly picked up the Floating Life Blade from the ground, flourished it: "Now it's my turn."

She had dwelled in the Great Square Vase for two hundred years; nothing that happened here exists in reality, so naturally she accumulated no karmic sins.

Karma cannot harm her now, just as a person cannot harm air.

But with a light slash, the black smoke within seven feet was scattered.

The karma-serpent lowered its head to gaze at the wound, tone especially astonished: "How is this possible!"

It knows the Floating Life Blade can cut the formless and intangible, yet even when He Lingchuan wields it, he has never wounded it!

Karma is absolutely not something humans can dispel.

"What are you pretending?" The Red General scoffed, "Who let you, a lofty fate deity, mingle with karma to plot against He Lingchuan? I damaged karma, so you too must suffer!"

These two are temporarily bound together—harm one, harm both.

The black serpent murmured: "He Lingchuan must endure the trial of fate. Karma's reckoning is also his inescapable fate!"

To bear sin is to bear causality. Is this not fate's pull?

Karma and fate naturally intertwine. Thus, the double-headed serpent He Lingchuan previously saw—the black serpent's body is formed from karma.

In an instant, within the dark canopy, a flood surged forth, rolling waves rushing toward the Red General.

The flood is the serpent's body.

This move, "Fate Flood," He Lingchuan once used against Bai Zhantian in the Ming Sha Forest battle. It can be said Bai Zhantian was nearly drowned to death by the Fate Flood, even if he comprehended a new ultimate move at his last breath, he could not escape being overturned by the flood's embrace.

In an instant, the karma-serpent likewise employed this tactic against the Red General.

The stratagem devised by the Nine Abysses Great Emperor is truly effective.

A peculiar scene appeared:

The Red General was actually swept along by the Fate Flood, just like Bai Zhantian, being drawn into the water!

No matter how she struggled upstream, the torrent would only wash her farther from the snake's head.

Countless resentful spirits emerged from within the torrent, all reaching out to snatch her dream cocoon. Karma could not harm her, but as long as they seized this dream cocoon, the objective would be achieved.