Chapter 107: Heavenly Witch Clan Spirit Bone

Thick black mist seeped from the cracks in the Bronze Star Disk, and the moment Cheng Xi's Fox Fire touched the mist, it turned an eerie purple.

She pressed against her throbbing temple; those memories sealed by the Qingfu patterns were awakening.

The High Priestess had been deceived by Ye Wujin, falling into a trap and being captured. Moonlight shone through the broken windows of the Yi Zhuang, casting the shadows of the woman's nine fox tails onto the wall. Ye Wujin pressed a Peach Wood Nail into her collarbone, "When the Twenty-Eight Mansions return to their positions, I will obtain what I desire..."

"Cheng Xi!" Jiang Zhongqiao's sword sheath struck heavily against the back of her knee.

Cheng Xi jolted awake, discovering her hands were uncontrollably forming the Sacrificial Seal, her fingertips only half an inch from her heart.

Two forces were tearing wildly within her Qi sea; the Fox Fire and Phoenix Fire clashed and bit at each other, devouring her lifespan with every rotation.

The Seven Fox God Statues suddenly opened their eyes simultaneously, the Moon Sundial in their hands began to rotate in reverse, and the light spots cast by the star map pieced together the Qingqiu Mountain and River Map on the ground.

Cheng Xi suddenly vomited a mouthful of black blood; the blood droplets hovered in mid-air, transforming into seven burning butterflies that lunged toward the center of the Moon Sundial.

"This is... Blood Pact Resonance?" Jiang Zhongqiao hacked away the spider silk wrapped around his ankles, suddenly catching a glimpse of scale-like patterns emerging on the back of Cheng Xi's neck, "Your back!"

Cheng Xi reached back and touched the cold, hard protrusions; those Qingfu patterns were molting into Candle Dragon Scales, and in the gaps between each scale, Ye Wujin's curse power surged.

A deafening sound of chains snapping came from beneath the Altar, and the Bronze Star Disk exploded with a boom, revealing the bottomless abyss suppressed beneath it.

"You have finally come!" The voice from the abyss resonated with the Fox Fire in Cheng Xi's dantian, causing her meridians to burn inch by inch.

At this moment, the Fox Fire surged violently, and amidst the excruciating pain, Cheng Xi saw the scenes sealed deep within the High Priestess's memories.

On a blood-moon night a hundred years ago, the still-young High Priestess lay on the ground, and a man with Candle Dragon Essence Blood condensing at his fingertips was slowly injecting it into her crown.

"The Fox Clan High Priestess will become the most perfect vessel," the man chuckled softly while stroking the flame pattern on her brow, "Once I unlock the Record of Rebirth, this body will be just right to carry the power of the Candle Dragon..."

"So the High Priestess is the eye of the formation!" Cheng Xi suddenly surged up, nine streams of Fox Fire entwined with Phoenix Fire, blasting toward the nearest statue.

The Moon Sundial received this beam of light mixed with dual powers, and the remaining six statues lit up one after another. When the seventh beam pierced the dome, Cheng Xi heard the sound of her own skull cracking.

Just then, Li Zhi'an descended from the sky, a sword formation unfolding in mid-air; eighty-one light swords formed a cage barrier, temporarily blocking the miasma pouring out of the abyss.

"Use the Peach Wood Nail!" Li Zhi'an tossed the Star Dial Bronze Pillar he had pulled from the blood pool to Cheng Xi.

Cheng Xi backhanded the bronze pillar into her heart; as the blood soaked into the Qingfu patterns on the pillar, a massive Fox Head Dharma Image appeared over the entire Altar.

Under the shroud of the Dharma Image, the true "Record of Rebirth" appeared in her shattered sea of consciousness—it was not a book at all, but a Star Orbit Map engraved on the spine of the first Nine-Tailed Heavenly Fox.

"Kan-three, Zhen-seven, stars shift and constellations turn!" Cheng Xi's blood-stained fingers traced through the void.

The Fox God Statues shifted in response, and the light beams projected by the Moon Sundial wove into a Star Net above the abyss. The Candle Dragon Eye, just about to crawl out from the fissure, was scorched by the Star Net and let out a heaven-shaking roar.

Li Zhi'an pressed against Cheng Xi's bleeding chest with a livid face: "Are you using your lifespan to calculate the star orbits?"

At the location of her heart where his hand touched, the same Twenty-Eight Mansions pattern as the Bronze Star Disk was emerging.

The moment the Star Net shattered at Ye Wujin's fingertips, Cheng Xi saw clearly the High Priestess's face, which was completely different from the one in the portrait. An eighteen or nineteen-year-old girl in white stepped through the moonlight from the abyss, an Astrolabe hanging at her waist.

The star map on Cheng Xi's heart suddenly began to rotate in reverse, the Twenty-Eight Mansions patterns turning into chains that pierced through her skin and flesh, echoing with the astrolabe in the other's hand.

"The star orbits you carved on the Fox Clan throne back then, weren't they meant to welcome the return of the Fox Clan's future king?" Cheng Xi said through gritted teeth.

Just then, Jiang Zhongqiao's sword tip suddenly turned; a blinding green light erupted from the jade pendant at his wrist, and the Kunlun Jade embedded in the sword tassel perfectly matched the star dial patterns!

"The Jiang Family ancestral teachings..." His pupils contracted violently; those memories buried deep in his bloodline surged out. The Jiang Family had always guarded the Qinghe Academy, and he had always thought it was to teach and educate—could it be that it wasn't?

"Dean Jiang, what are you doing?" Li Zhi'an's sword tip blocked Jiang Zhongqiao's sword, rebuking him in a deep voice.

Cheng Xi was pierced through the back by fragments, the wounds burning with black Candle Dragon flames.

Just as Cheng Xi's heart was about to be swallowed by the star map, Jiang Zhongqiao suddenly bit his tongue and dotted his essence blood onto the center of the jade pendant.

Within the emerald spiritual light, scenes of the High Priestess's past life appeared: the Nine-Tailed Fox King held the Star Dial Bronze Pillar and personally sealed the youth-like Ye Wujin into the Return Ruins.

"So it was you!" The awakened youth Ye Wujin looked at Jiang Zhongqiao and clapped his hands in laughter. The Greedy Wolf Star on the astrolabe suddenly shone brightly, "You tricked me into swallowing the Candle Dragon Inverse Scale back then; after a hundred lifetimes of reincarnation, I never expected the Jiang Family to have become the watchdog of Qinghe Academy."

Cheng Xi's sea of consciousness was collapsing. Amidst countless memory fragments of past and present lives, she saw Ye Wujin at different stages always watching the High Priestess: the wandering Daoist who put the Peach Wood Nail on her at age seven, the astrologer who gifted her the astrolabe at fifteen—the Demon Lord now smiling with his brows and eyes were all the same person!

Ignoring Ye Wujin's questioning, Jiang Zhongqiao suddenly reversed his sword formation; eighty-one light swords changed direction and pierced into his own vital acupuncture points, using the Jiang Family's secret technique to forcibly suppress the High Priestess's soul power within Cheng Xi.

"Use the Peach Wood Nail..." He threw the piece of Star Dial Bronze Pillar while bleeding from his seven orifices.

Cheng Xi tremblingly raised the bronze pillar; the star map on her heart guided him to look at the southeast corner of the Altar, where the phantom of the Yi Zhuang courtyard vaguely appeared.

Just as the bronze pillar was about to pierce into her heart's vital point, Ye Wujin's astrolabe suddenly exploded, but what burst out were not metal fragments, but nine blood-stained broken fox tail bones.

The Long Sword in Li Zhi'an's hand shattered.

"Very good!"

Silver blood gushed from the wounds where Ye Wujin had been pierced by the Star Dial beams, "You actually dared to use the last piece of Heavenly Witch Clan Spirit Bone to cast a curse..."

His figure flickered in the moonlight, finally dissipating into stardust across the sky, "Very well, just you wait!"

Cheng Xi stumbled to her knees, discovering a Dragon Scale embedded in the star map on her heart.

Li Zhi'an was pressed against her back, continuously pouring his spiritual power into her meridians.

"Xixi, how are you?"

"I won't die." Cheng Xi waved her hand, letting Li Zhi'an withdraw his spiritual power, and turned her head to look at Jiang Zhongqiao, "Dean, how are you?"

"I won't die either," Jiang Zhongqiao said with a bitter smile.

Li Zhi'an sat beside Cheng Xi, his face pale and silent, leaning against the stone wall with his palms trembling slightly.

Cheng Xi sensed that something was wrong with the person beside her, and suddenly recalled the words Ye Wujin had said earlier: Heavenly Witch Clan Spirit Bone...

She grabbed Li Zhi'an's hand, her fingertips probing toward his wrist.