Chapter 195: But You Still Haven't Won!

Go all out!

Those two words burned like poisonous fire inside Liu Xuanyin’s mind as it teetered on the brink of collapse.

They consumed the last shred of fear and hesitation, leaving only reckless madness and the resolute determination to die together!

He knew it was a trap, a mockery, but he had no choice!

If he didn’t seize this chance of “charity,” he wouldn’t even have the right to struggle one last time!

“With my blood I sacrifice my soul! Open, Nine Netherworlds! Ten thousand ghosts, gnaw the gods!”

Liu Xuanyin roared hoarsely, his voice shrill as a night owl screaming blood!

He suddenly bit his tongue, and a great mouthful of dark cyan, almost black, stinking, perversely fluctuating Vital Essence and Blood spurted out.

He did not spray it toward Gu Qingwan; he poured it all over his rapidly shifting hands and onto the ground beneath his feet!

In an instant, the dark cyan mist around his body swelled, nearly turning into solid substance.

It produced an unprecedented, violent resonance with the dark-red, evil-array runes carved into the ground and surrounding walls!

The skin exposed on his face and hands visibly dried and withered, as if vast amounts of vitality were being siphoned away in an instant.

But those gray-white pupils erupted with an almost burning, hysterical, crazed light!

“Earth Veins reverse surge! Yin Malevolence returns to its source!”

“Ten thousand ghosts fuse their spirits, help me slay the righteous!!!”

His hands suddenly fixed into an extremely twisted hand seal, as if his fingers were being bent to break, then slammed down hard!

Rumble—!

This time it was not just the cave trembling; the whole mountain belly groaned under unbearable strain!

A blindingly pale earth-vein yin energy, ten times fiercer than before, mixed with an ink-thick ultimate yin Earthly Malevolence.

Like an ancient beast utterly enraged, it erupted violently from every inch of floor and fissure in the cave walls!

The yin energy no longer gushed like a spring; it formed countless pale, crazily spinning tornadoes connecting floor to ceiling!

Inside those whirlwinds, the countless trapped, refined yin spirits and lingering regrets no longer wailed in pain.

Under the force of some evil secret method, they were forcibly fused, emitting synchronized shrieks filled with boundless rancor and a hunger for destruction.

They coalesced into a terrifying spiritual torrent capable of ripping souls apart!

The dark-red array runes on the cave ceiling and walls flared as if they might ignite.

They flashed, extended, and interwove madly, driving the Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land’s sealing and weakening power to the limit,

and even began, faintly and in reverse, to extract the earth-vein yin energy and Liu Xuanyin’s blood-soul force.

Those powers transformed into dark-red, chain-like phantoms reeking of metallic blood and rot, reaching out from the void

like countless venomous snakes, winding toward Gu Qingwan, attempting to seal and corrupt her at the fundamental rules level!

At the same time, the two super Malevolent Deities deep in the cave also moved.

Spurred by Liu Xuanyin’s blood sacrifice and his full stimulation of the array, they launched an unprecedented, frenzied counterattack!

The Thousand-Faced Dream Fiend’s flickering core of ghostly green suddenly erupted with a backflash of piercing light!

Its enormous, formless shadow stopped trying to repair itself and, in a self-destructive posture, abruptly collapsed and condensed inward!

All the emerald mist, warped dreams, and mental pollution were forcibly compressed into a single point.

It condensed into a perfectly refined green beam that made Lu Yuan’s very soul feel as if needles were piercing it, a beam that seemed capable of dragging consciousness into an eternal nightmare abyss...

Soundless, yet lightning-fast, it struck toward the center of Gu Qingwan’s brow!

This was the Dream Fiend burning its faux-divine pseudo-god core, discarding most of its form to launch an utterly pure soul-erasure strike!

The Ten-Thousand-Filth Mother let out a silent scream full of violence and ruin!

Its filthy sac bloated to the extreme, and the countless holes on its surface ruptured simultaneously; what erupted was no longer just puslike floods,

but matter mixed with its core filth essence!

Countless fragments of filth-children corpses and the earth-vein’s poisonous miasma, black as ink and warping the space itself with supreme filth, spewed forth as... a breath of destruction!

Where that breath passed, even the gushing earth-vein yin energy and the dark-red array chain phantoms were instantly polluted, corroded, and assimilated!

Meanwhile, above the sac a pale-white mist coalesced with overlapping human faces.

They emitted not cries but profane, curse-laden utterances — as if from the depths of the Nine Netherworlds themselves — blasting at the core of existence, the “filth incantations”!

This time, Liu Xuanyin no longer held back — or rather, he had nothing left to hold back.

He burned his blood and soul, thoroughly stimulating the array, even beginning to shake the foundations that connected the Spirit-Locking Forbidden Land and the Nine Nether God-Refining Array.

He was willing to cause permanent damage if necessary, to squeeze out every ounce of power!

The two super Malevolent Deities were likewise driven to the brink, launching death-defying blows that could maim their own origins or plunge them in rank.

Combining the array manipulator who burned his blood and soul, the two desperate deities, and the doubly stirred evil array forces...

This strike’s might exceeded that “final killing blow” from before by several, several times!

The cave was utterly drowned in destructive energy and light!

Pale-white yin tornadoes, dark-red array chains, emerald dream beams, ink-black filth breath, profane filth incantations...

All the attacks no longer struck separately; like a disciplined army, guided precisely by Liu Xuanyin’s soul-burning intent, they converged from all directions — from matter to mind, from energy to rule — forming a seamless, three-dimensional death net without a single blind spot.

They completely... engulfed the moon-white figure hanging in midair!

Sizzle—!

Roar—!

Crash—!

Compared with before, explosions, annihilations, corrosion, and psychic shocks multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, again detonated with a deafening roar!

This time, even the cave’s once-unyielding rock walls began to crack and collapse on a large scale.

Boulders mixed with filth-corroded sludge crashed down!

The entire space seemed poised to be torn apart by the clash of these horrifying energies!

Even though Lu Yuan was relatively far away and partly shielded by Gu Qingwan’s leftover black-red mist, the violent blast threw him violently, slamming him against the rock wall.

For a moment Lu Yuan felt as if his organs had shifted, his vision dimmed, and his ears filled with ringing.

He gritted his teeth against the pain and dizziness, forcing his gaze toward the explosion’s center.

This attack’s power was clearly far beyond the last one!

Qingwan... could she still be as relaxed as before?

Why didn’t she dodge?

Why did she take it head-on?

Under Lu Yuan’s shocked, uncertain stare, under Liu Xuanyin’s look filled with madness and expectation — perhaps mixed with a sliver of desperate luck —

and in the gaze of the two deities, whose breath sagged after their life-risking strike yet still fixed on the target —

all the attacks, without the slightest deviation, landed solidly and completely... upon Gu Qingwan!

The emerald dream beam struck her brow.

The black filth breath swallowed her body.

The profane filth incantations assaulted the essence of her being.

Countless dark-red array chains entwined her limbs and torso.

The raging yin tornadoes devoured and tore her apart...

No evasion, no parry, no defensive movement or flash of light.

Gu Qingwan just hung there quietly in midair, allowing this final strike — composed of the Liu Family’s last frenzy and despair and multiplied in terribleness manyfold from before — to utterly drown her.

Time seemed to freeze at that instant.

Then—

Chew...

A sound, extremely faint yet imbued with some odd rhythmic tremor, came from the explosion’s core.

It wasn’t the roar of energy being annihilated, nor the cracking of collapsing matter.

It sounded more like... a plucked string.

Or perhaps it was space itself emitting a tiny groan under a pressure beyond its limit.

Immediately after, at the storm’s center where all those destructive energies converged,

all the light, all the energy, all the shockwaves... seemed to be gently “brushed” by an invisible hand, producing a momentary stasis and distortion.

Then, in the instant Lu Yuan’s pupils shrank and Liu Xuanyin’s crazed expression froze,

and under the horrified “gaze” of the two deities who abruptly stopped “staring”!

The explosion’s light and energy, like a retreating tide, began to rapidly contract and collapse toward a single point...

Not dispersed, not canceled.

But as if forced by some incomprehensible, irresistible power, they were “compressed,” “absorbed,” “gathered” inward!

Within a single breath, that world-shattering energy storm vanished without a trace, as if it had never appeared.

Only the lingering scorched stench and corrosive odor in the air,

and the surrounding shattered rock walls and scattered debris, attested to the reality of the prior horror.

At the storm’s center, Gu Qingwan’s figure reemerged, clear again.

Her moon-white qipao remained spotless; even the flowing cloud pattern showed as clearly as before.

The white hair ribbon still loosely bound her dark hair.

The thin mist that veiled her face still faintly lingered.

She hung there quietly, her posture seemingly unchanged from before.

No — there was a tiny, almost imperceptible difference.

Her body tilted backward... ever so slightly.

Truly only a whisper of a tilt; if Lu Yuan hadn’t been staring fixedly, he would have missed it.

The movement didn’t look like she’d been knocked back by force.

It was more like an ordinary person standing in a breeze, whose body reflexively sways a hair when a slightly stronger gust passes.

Then she steadied.

Even the small spot of darkness slowly rotating at her fingertip remained perfectly undisturbed, turning steadily in its own rhythm.

She bowed her head a touch, seeming to glance at the moon-white qipao on her chest, then as if merely adjusting her neck casually.

Then she lowered her head again.

Her blood-red heavy pupils, veiled by the thin mist, looked once more toward the opposite side through the last dissipating wisp of energy.

They looked at Liu Xuanyin, whose face was no longer merely pale but deathly gray, whose final madness and glimmer of luck had been entirely extinguished, leaving only boundless emptiness and despair.

They also swept across the two super deities, whose breaths were utterly exhausted, their enormous phantoms trembling slightly, exuding thick fear and submission.

A clear, cold, calm voice, without any emotional fluctuation, once again echoed through the deathly silent cave.

It sounded like the final death knell, striking deep into the souls of Liu Xuanyin and the two deities:

“This time, acceptable.”

She paused, as if delivering a fair, considered judgment.

“But only that.”

Lu Yuan slumped against the cold rock wall; his back throbbed painfully, his chest felt tight and breathless, and the buzzing in his ears had not fully faded.

But he had no time to care for these sensations; his eyes widened, his mouth agape.

In a near-dazed stare, he fixed on the moon-white figure now clearly visible in midair.

What just happened?!

That world-shattering force that nearly collapsed the entire cave — the combined might of Liu Xuanyin’s burning blood-soul and the two super deities’ desperate origins,

and the doubly-triggered evil arrays’ ultimate strike... just... disappeared?

The whole process had been eerily calm.

Qingwan’s body had only, if that could be called an impact, tilted barely, by the teeniest fraction backward?

No, it couldn’t even be called tilting.

It looked more like standing on high ground when a slightly strong breeze brushes the cloak, and the body naturally wobbles a fraction.

Then nothing more.

The moon-white qipao didn’t crease.

The white hair ribbon remained pristine.

The darkness at her fingertips rotated evenly. Even the faint mist of pure black darkness around her showed no ripple.

Lu Yuan, of course, knew how terrifyingly strong Qingwan was.

But...

Now it seemed...

Lu Yuan felt how little he still knew about her...

Those thoughts flickered away.

Right now the most important thing was to save the old man!

Of course, with Qingwan being so overwhelming, rescuing the old man should be a piece of cake, shouldn’t it?

Lu Yuan struggled to rise, wanting to urge Gu Qingwan to finish this “game” and go below to save him.

But seeing Gu Qingwan still floating calmly, as if waiting for something, or perhaps merely enjoying the opponent’s despair,

Lu Yuan swallowed his words.

Gu Qingwan’s calm, indifferent voice rolled through the cave like a final verdict, dousing the last embers of madness in Liu Xuanyin’s eyes like a bucket of ice water.

Liu Xuanyin stood there, trembling slightly from having burned his Vital Essence and spirit to forcibly trigger the array.

His skin was cracked and dry like old bark; his breath decayed to the extreme, and even maintaining his stance required effort.

But now the hysterical madness and desperation on him had strangely vanished.

In its place was an extreme, bone-deep calm.

That calm was not acceptance; it was the dead-quiet clarity left after utterly recognizing reality and abandoning all unrealistic illusions.

He slowly raised his head; those gray-white, deathlike pupils no longer bloodshot or frenzied.

They merely gazed hollowly at the moon-white figure that seemed to tower above all.

His mouth twitched as if to smile, but it only pulled at cracked, peeling skin, looking oddly bitter.

“Heh... heh...”

A hoarse, dry laugh, like an old bellows being wrung, croaked from his throat.

There was no unwillingness or anger in the laughter, only a kind of near-numb resignation.

“Indeed... only that.”

Liu Xuanyin paused; his gaze shifted faintly for a breath, briefly sweeping the lower rock wall where Lu Yuan struggled to stand.

Then he refocused on Gu Qingwan.

“Gu Qingwan...”

His voice was low, slow; every word seemed to cost immense effort.

“The Liu Family... has lost.”

“It is I... who underestimated you.”

“Or rather, we never truly comprehended what you... really are.”

He slowly, laboriously raised a withered hand and pointed toward the cave’s depths —

the direction toward the Nine Nether God-Refining Array’s core, where Li Xiuye was imprisoned.

“Li Xiuye... is still below.”

“Locked by the Nine Nether Soul-Refining Chains on the Yin Malevolence Soul-Refining Platform, suffering the torment of soul-refinement.”

“His zhenran is drained by seventy to eighty percent; his soul has been half-eroded by Yin Malevolence.”

Liu Xuanyin’s words were clear and calm, as if he were stating a fact no longer connected to him.

“The ‘Nine Nether Soul-Refining Chains’ and the ‘Yin Malevolence Soul-Refining Platform’ are the core pivot of the array.”

“They have deep links with the earth veins, with the array, and with those two godlike bodies...”

He turned slightly, indicating the two super deities behind him, their breaths withered yet still exuding a terrifyingly evil aura.

“With a single thought, or if I die completely, my soul scattered,

or if I sense an irresistible outside force trying to rescue...”

“the Nine Nether Soul-Refining Chains will instantly shred Li Xiuye’s soul and body, and simultaneously detonate part of the accumulated earth Yin Malevolence on the Soul-Refining Platform.”

“Though it may not kill you, it would be trivial to utterly annihilate Li Xiuye’s spirit and form, leaving no bones behind.”

Liu Xuanyin lifted his deathlike gray-white eyes and, calmly staring into Gu Qingwan’s blood-red heavy pupils beyond the mist, said slowly:

“I have lost.”

“But you still haven’t won!”