Chapter 501: Truth Gradually Illuminated

The cold moon hung like a hook, the Ice Coffin Group in the valley reflected countless ghostly silhouettes under the blood‑red moonlight. Lín Jìn's fingertip just touched the rune on the nine‑hundredth Ice Coffin, and the coffin surface suddenly displayed a fragment of his infant memory—Pavilion Master Xuanfeng's hand was inserting a snake‑pattern jade hairpin into his soft Fontanelle, the hairpin's tail extending a luminous umbilical cord into the void.

"This isn't a formation..." Ao Li's Dragon Chant Sword suddenly emitted a wail, its hilt's vertical pupil shedding blood tears, "it's an opened cocoon mouth."

###**I. The Shedding Time Scroll**

When Lín Jìn activated the pocket‑watch fragment and embedded it into the Ice Coffin's Array Eye, the entire valley's space‑time suddenly folded. The nine‑hundred Ice Coffins projected ring‑shaped light screens, each displaying a brutal Reincarnation: fifteen‑year‑old Ao Li thrust a sword into his birth mother's heart; three hundred years ago, a Dragon Clan Elder slashed a close friend; in the mirrored world countless Lín Jìn's were having their Soul shredded by the pocket‑watch gears...

"The karmic image is not a substance!" Ao Li suddenly swung the sword at the light screen; the instant Sword Qi pierced it, all images merged. At the center of the screen, Ling Yue's true form appeared—her left half resembled Ao Li's mother in her youth, her right half was the rotting corpse of Lín Jìn's master, and countless luminous umbilical cords extended from her body, linking every Ice Coffin across space‑time.

###**II. Blood‑Feeding Array Core**

From the cracks of the defensive formation seeped a syrup‑like substance; the Mo School cultivator Wang Yan was inadvertently contaminated, and his skin instantly became covered with snake scales. He cackled madly as he charged toward the Array Eye, his body melting into a pool of black water en route, within which a miniature dark altar floated. Lín Jìn's pocket‑watch suddenly disassembled on its own, its gears shooting out and embedding into the altar's recess—each gear engraved with a different cultivator's birth chart.

"So we are all offerings..." Ao Li's Inverse Scale Sword pierced the ground, Dragon Blood rose along the Sword Mark. When the blood line reached the nearest Ice Coffin, the Coffin Lid suddenly reflected Pavilion Master Xuanfeng's face: "Good child, you have finally learned to water the cocoon chamber with Dragon Blood."

###**III. Twin‑Moon Door‑Knocking**

The second blood moon in the heavens shattered completely, its lunar light cascading like a waterfall. Cultivators bathed in the moonlight suddenly froze as a group; their shadows detached from their bodies, and the snake scales on their necks blossomed into flowers. Lín Jìn's pocket‑watch chain coiled around Ao Li's wrist, and at the instant a certain reflection was about to touch her dragon horn, it activated and then halted.

In the frozen space‑time, a terrifying truth was revealed: at the heart position of each cultivator's shadow was embedded a miniature Ice Coffin, within which slept the Soul of their closest kin. Ao Li's reflection was the most bizarre—her shadow's abdomen bulged, a half‑infant arm was tearing the veil, and the Inverse Scale on the infant's brow matched the pattern on Lín Jìn's pocket‑watch.

###**IV. The Cocoon Path Opens**

When Lín Jìn pressed the karmic image against the Ice Coffin's Array Eye, the nine‑hundred coffins suddenly rose like a forest. The runes on the Coffin Lid detached from the coffins and interwove in the air, forming a ring‑shaped cocoon path. The inner wall of the cocoon path was lined with pulsating vessels, but they flowed not with blood but with solidified time—cultivators who had died three days earlier struggled in a river of blood, their screams resonating with future wails into a bizarre Lullaby.

"Go!" Ao Li grabbed Lín Jìn and leapt into the cocoon path, the Dragon Chant Sword cleaving the viscous Space‑Time Chaos. Wherever Sword Qi passed, the truth hidden for ten thousand years surfaced: the so‑called Ling Yue's true body was, in fact, a forbidden child born from the union of the First Generation Dragon Clan and a space‑time traveler. And each Ice Coffin that suppressed her bore the remorse of a parricide.

###**V. The Cocoon‑Feeder's Finale**

At the end of the cocoon path stood a towering giant cocoon, its shell surface engraved with Dragon Clan nursery rhymes. When Ao Li recited the final line, "Ten thousand cocoons turn to ash, never to be known," the cocoon shell suddenly became transparent—inside slept The Girl Ling Yue, and the other end of the umbilical cord coiled around her abdomen was connected to the core gear of Lín Jìn's pocket‑watch.

"Welcome home." Ling Yue's voice resonated simultaneously in both of their Consciousness Seas. Ao Li's dragon horn suddenly snapped, and from the break sprouted luminous vines that pierced Lín Jìn's chest. In excruciating pain, they finally saw the full picture of Reincarnation: in every space‑time, Ao Li must slay their beloved, using that remorse to nourish Ling Yue; and every Lín Jìn is destined to become the pocket‑watch's puppet, forging the wails of parricides into new cocoon shells.

###**Conclusion, The Moment of Breaking the Cocoon**

When the defensive formation completely collapsed, the giant cocoon erupted with nine‑colored aurora. Within the light pillars appeared the tragic scenes of nine hundred space‑times: Pavilion Master Xuanfeng swapping facial skin before a mirror; Shen Mo implanting snake eggs into a cultivator's dantian; countless Ao Li carrying Lín Jìn's corpse toward an Ice Coffin...

Ao Li's Inverse Scale Sword suddenly reversed its edge, piercing their own Dragon Soul Pearl. From the shattered pearl light flew countless Dragon Souls, gnawing at the cocoon path's inner wall, tearing a sliver of hope in the absolute darkness. At that moment, Lín Jìn's pocket‑watch was completely shattered, its gears solidifying into a key shape that was inserted into Ling Yue's heart—where, suddenly revealed, was the peach‑blossom ferry crossing where the two first met.

"It's time to awaken." Ling Yue's body suddenly weathered away, and amidst the sky‑filled glow appeared the white‑haired, aged Pavilion Master Xuanfeng. The snake‑pattern jade hairpin in his hand snapped inch by inch, and from its core fell half a Dragon Scale—exactly the Inverse Scale that had been torn from Ao Li's mother three hundred years ago.

The blood‑red moonlight suddenly turned silver, and from the depths of the collapsed valley came a baby's wail. When the final Ice Coffin fragment sank into the earth vein, Ao Li, cradled in Lín Jìn's blood‑stained embrace, saw: in the newborn sunrise, a world without cocoon shells was slowly unfurling its first tender leaf.