Chapter 916: with translation of chapter title

Causal lines spurting from the rotting corpse's chest cavity pinned Yan Buji at the brow, while Lao Gui's withered bone finger joints drilled into his flesh from the spine.

Lin Qingli's Ice Soul Sword slashed the causal lines, sending out black sparks, but the blade was rebounded into a spider‑web crack: "These lines..."

"Causal threads? They're tied to this Lao Gui's linked‑fortune person's qi luck!" Yan Buji couldn't move, his eyes wide as he stared at Lin Qingli.

Lin Qingli was also extremely anxious; he knew that if Yan Buji fell, she also wouldn't survive.

"Old geezer, you've got good taste." Lao Gui's skull burst from Yan Buji's nape, his jawbone opening and closing to spew a foul green mist: "Once I swallow this kid's dao body, I'll make a new outfit out of your extreme‑cold life."

Yan Buji suddenly bellowed, and sticky black mist sprayed from every pore.

The Swallow Desire Pot spun wildly at his dantian, countless tentacles congealed from greed, wrath, and lust crawling from its mouth: "Want to eat me? First taste the seven emotions and six desires!"

Lao Gui's soul fire in his eye sockets suddenly contracted, and the fate wheel woven from causal lines abruptly stalled.

Those tentacles actually invaded backward along the causal lines, each tip showing the twisted visage of a cultivator—exactly the myriad souls refined by the Swallow Desire Pot!

"Nice move! Too bad...." The withered bone hand slammed into Yan Buji's crown, only to be blocked by a scroll at the entrance of his sea of consciousness.

On the scroll there was also a banner; around it, instead of divine sense, a boiling black vortex churned, countless desires surging from its depths.

Blood from Yan Buji's seven orifices turned into sticky black fluid, his voice like ten thousand people screaming simultaneously: "My Swallow Desire Pot holds eighty‑four thousand kinds of desire—enough to feed you for three thousand years!"

Countless causal lines suddenly contracted, Yan Buji realized the same fate markings as Lao Gui had appeared on his palm—since fate and causality are one, his Imperial Sovereign cultivation method had made slight progress, so he naturally knew how dire his situation was!

Yan Buji's consciousness drifted in the tide of desire, while Lao Gui's remnant soul turned into millions of bone‑eating worms gnawing at his spiritual platform.

Lin Qingli gritted his teeth in anger and drew out his natal Ice Soul.

"Stupid woman..." He forcibly gathered his scattering soul, and the Swallow Desire Pot exploded in his sea of consciousness. The eighty‑four thousand strands of desire turned into a gluttonous maw that devoured Lao Gui's bone‑eating worms in reverse; each worm swallowed caused the maw to sprout another human face.

Lao Gui's remnant soul struggled in the desire: "You're mad! These desires will pollute your Dao Foundation!"

"Dao Foundation?" Yan Buji's soul suddenly appeared atop the glutton's head, his body covered in black Dao markings: "My Dao is desire itself!"

He thrust both hands into his temples, pulling out two chains congealed from greed and wrath, and dragged Lao Gui's remnant soul into the abyss of desire.

Lin Qingli's Ice Soul suddenly stabbed into Yan Buji's chest, the extreme‑cold Dao resonance temporarily freezing the runaway desire: "Wake up! Your flesh is undergoing an aberration!"

In reality, half of Yan Buji's body had already transformed into a ferocious demon, his Asura armor split by swollen muscles, and the Sea Kun hammer and Spirit‑sealing Seal were fusing into a twisted mound of flesh.

Lao Gui's withered bone had completely merged into his spine, and the fate tree's roots were drilling into his brain from the seven orifices.

"Use... use the Luo Zhi needle..." Yan Buji squeezed out a few words from between his teeth, his right eye suddenly bursting open as Lao Gui's bone hand shot out: "Strike my Chest Center point!"

Lin Qingli's Ice Soul Sword was entangled by the fate tree's roots; in desperation he bit his tongue tip, spraying his natal essence blood.

The blood mist condensed into a miniature skull, temporarily halting Yan Buji's rampaging flesh.

As the Luo Zhi needle, carrying void turbulence, pierced his chest, the entire fate tree suddenly convulsed violently.

"How dare you, junior!" Lao Gui's voice echoed from Yan Buji's throat: "My fate wheel has already fused with countless cultivators of the Western Desert..."

"Damn your ancestors!" Yan Buji's left hand suddenly clamped his own neck while his right tore out a half‑segment of spine bone and thrust it into the fate tree's core: "I even devour myself—what's there to fear from your pathetic remnant soul!"

The Swallow Desire Pot exploded inside the fate tree, the years‑long hoarded desire flooding back like a breached dam.

Lao Gui's fate wheel was corroded by desire into countless holes, and the causalities he had devoured began to backlash.

When the void turbulence subsided, Yan Buji lay beside the jade‑green lake, his skin covered in fading black Dao markings. Lin Qingli's ice silk wrapped around his chest, barely plugging a bowl‑sized wound. Lao Gui's withered bones littered the lake surface, each piece dissolving into black slime.

Inside the sea of consciousness, the blood waves had become a vortex; Lao Gui's remnant soul was torn into fragments, each piece still shouting: "You think swallowing desire will win you? My fate wheel has long since assimilated with the oasis!"

Yan Buji's soul suddenly surged, his skin surface covered in dense ancient seal script—the sign that the Essence Law had been driven to its extreme.

He stepped on the blood wave toward the vortex's center, the Swallow Desire Pot in his palm transforming into a black long blade: "Assimilation? I'll devour your oasis together with you!"

The long blade split the sea of consciousness's firmament, and the real‑world jade‑green lake water suddenly poured in backward.

Lao Gui let out a terrified howl: "You dare to use the sea of consciousness to receive material substance!"

"This is true devouring!" Yan Buji's pupils turned completely dark‑gold, the long blade sweeping up lake water into myriad black dragons. The dragons tore at the fate tree's branches and trunks; each bite weakened Lao Gui's remnant soul a fraction.

In reality, Lin Qingli saw an astonishing sight: Yan Buji's flesh was merging with the fate tree, the bark's surface showing his anguished face.

She gritted her teeth and pressed her natal Ice Soul against the tree trunk again; frost spread along the veins, temporarily slowing the fusion.

Lao Gui's withered bone drilled out from the tree's core, his fingertips entwined with the last three golden causal lines: "Junior, look whose fate this is!"

At the ends of the lines hung the phantom silhouettes of Lin Qingli, the Reverse‑Fate Candle Night, and Yan Buji's three souls and seven spirits.

Yan Buji's long blade suddenly stalled; Lao Gui seized the moment to drive a causal line into his brow: "You thought I'd be unprepared? These three are enough for me to..."

His words were cut off abruptly.

Yan Buji's left hand suddenly pierced his own chest, gripping Lao Gui's fate‑wheel core hidden in his heart. Dark‑gold Dao markings followed the wheel's lines, wildly corroding: "I've been waiting for you to reveal your trump card!"

The Swallow Desire Pot appeared above the fate wheel, its mouth spewing a desire flood now mixed with the Essence Law's Dao resonance. Lao Gui's fate wheel began to disintegrate, and he finally realized the desires he had devoured had already been transmuted into pure energy: "You... you altered the Swallow Desire Pot's rules!"

"This is making full use of things." Yan Buji crushed the fate‑wheel core, Lao Gui's remnant soul flickering like a candle in the wind: "Feed the pot with your causal lines, nurture the law with your fate wheel—this great gift, I accept!"