When the ghostly mist of the Sanzu River swept over the ninth floating corpse, Li Wuhen's mask of sorrow and joy began to backfire.

  This yin-yang face brought out from the Thousand Puppet Pavilion kept changing expressions, with tear marks on the left side carved like knife cuts, and red cinnabar smile lines on the right. When the seventh wandering soul was scattered by the lantern of the ferryman, the skin suddenly wriggled as if it had come alive, and Li Wuhen felt a pair of icy hands kneading his brain.

  "Take control of your emotions." The old blind man lifted the severed limbs from the water surface with his cane, and the dead flesh immediately turned into silver star dust, "In the Yellow Spring Crossing, feeling too much emotion is forbidden, especially for those who are about to die."

  A whirlpool suddenly erupted in front of the ferryboat. Slave girl Anu's puppet strings shot out from the bottom of the pool, but they were no longer the moon-white celestial silkworm silk —— the saintess of the witch-sacrificing clan who fell eight hundred years ago was nailed to the dragon bone mast, and the puppet threads hanging from her hair were all spun from the memories of the dead, now piercing into the brows of each passenger.

  "Back then when I taught her how to braid her hair..." The old blind man suddenly coughed violently, and what leaked from between his fingers was actually gold powder, "...she always said she wanted to weave through all the causes and effects in the world."

  Li Wuhen staggered in the flood of memories. He saw the Celestial Court of Judgment twelve hundred years ago, where the old blind man was not yet blind, with eighty-one tokens of patrol officers hanging from his waist; he saw the previous life of Anu holding the broken divine rank falling into the abyss, her spine being refined into a measuring ruler; and he also saw the true purpose of the desolate bone totem on his chest —— that was the imprint for verifying blood oath contracts.

  The mask of sorrow and joy suddenly shattered. When the laughing face on the right side fell off, Li Wuhen felt an extreme sadness rush into his throat, but what came out was uncontrollable laughter. The ghost fire revealed his grotesque appearance at that moment: a bloody tear in the left eye, and a mouth cracked up to the ear.

  When the ferry reached the middle stream, the ten Yama statues suddenly broke through the water. These supposed stone carvings of the underworld deities were covered with silver thread worms, their bloody and blurred hands holding a jade plaque: the auspicious time of the year Bing Shen in the Yang World, which was exactly the time when Li Wuhen killed the supervisor Old Chen.

  Li Wuhen's desolate bones uncontrollably pierced through his body surface. His first rib transformed into a ghostly spear pointing towards the old blind man, but it softened abruptly upon touching the tattered robe —— a faded concentric victory pendant fell out of the old beggar's embrace, inscribed inside: Wei Xu Xiang Xing, Qing Xiao Qi Xue.

  Seventy-two tolls of the mourning bell fell from the sky. Suddenly, Li Wuhen remembered Ling Qingxiao's final gaze, beneath her carefully calculated gentle waves lay an abyss of deep resentment. At this moment, the water surface illusion changed abruptly, and he caught sight of a black-robed man on the observation platform of the Nine Heavens City peeling the spirit altar of a young godling —— the golden snake pattern on his wrist shared the same origin as Ling Qingxiao's heart ailment.

  Anu's shadow emitted a tremulous sound like a copper bell in the soul fog: "Those who sow causes will reap consequences."

  All the passengers suddenly began to combust, their three souls and seven spirits turning into fireflies flying towards the bottom cabin of the ferryboat. Li Wuhen tore apart the mask of sorrow and joy, and the roar mixed with fragments of internal organs shook down the paper money from the sky: "Anu! Is this what you call shared karma?"

  The ferryboat capsized at this moment.

  The crackling sound produced by residual souls when the Styx froze resembled the whispers of countless wronged ghosts. Soaked in the freezing resentment water of the nine nether springs, the stench-filled ice chips were drilling into his joints. The desolate bone totem on his collarbone lit up with a dull red glow, projecting the reflections of seventy-two ghost gates onto the ice surface —— within each gate hole, there were mirror ghosts from previous lives hovering.

  "When the eye of the Yellow Spring opens, your desire to survive will become your death warrant." The old blind man stirred the ice cave with his cane, and the sacrificial altar made of mermaid bones appeared in the whirlpool. This fallen deity who once presided over the thirty-three heavens' boundary patrol office, his face was currently being eroded by some kind of curse: the left half showed the handsome features of a twenty-year-old youth, while the right half was the rotten flesh of a thousand-year-old corpse.

  Anu's puppet strings emerged from the ice cracks, flowing with the Golden Cicada Gu poison inside the fine threads. Just as Li Wuhen grasped one of them, the scene before his eyes shattered into cyan-colored memory crystals:

  In the year the northern sky collapsed, the Nine Heavens Divine Clan was slaughtering members of the Witch Sacrifice Clan on the observation platform under the moonlight. Fifteen-year-old Anu was hung on the flagpole with an iron hook piercing through her butterfly bone, while the boiling demon blood pool below floated with the remains of her fellow clansmen. She saw countless multi-eyed tentacles protruding from the torn gap in the sky —— that was the chaotic devil god who had taken interest in the heavenly contract.

  "Sad?" The old blind man, who was still a patrol officer back then, wiped away her tears, the Zhuque seal in his palm burned red on the young girl's neck, "Love and hate will all become road signs, guiding deeper deprivation."

  At the instant the memory fragments shattered, the remaining half of the vermilion smiling face of the detached mask of sorrow and joy suddenly bit into Li Wuhen's throat. The senses went haywire in proliferation: his tongue tasted the sweet and pungent flavor when Anu sacrificed her witch blood, his fingertips touched the scorching pain when the old blind man peeled off the fallen god's mark, and his nostrils were filled with the putrid smell of fermented meat from the demon blood pool.

  The sound of galloping horses resounded beneath the ice layer. Seventy-two skeletal chariots broke through the ice, and the bronze bells hanging on the chariot shafts formed an ominous prophecy: "At the third watch of the hour of Yin, undress, a red snake coiled around the neck, do not weep." Li Wuhen's chest cavity resonated six times according to the prophecy, and his third rib suddenly pierced through the flesh, transforming into a demon-subduing staff carved with images of blissful Buddhas.

  "The northern yin wind has risen!" The last junior official on the ferryboat let out a sharp scream like tearing silk. Those sallow-faced ghosts were gouging out their eyes collectively, and after the swollen eyeballs were thrown into the ice hole, the frozen resentment water began to reverse-flow, releasing mandala flower poison vapor.

  Suddenly, the old blind man started burning his purple palace embryo towards the southern star position. Fragments of his soul in the transformation phase collided in the air, producing discordant crane cries, shattering the mirror ghosts rushing towards Li Wuhen into ice chips: "Pinpoint the Greedy Wolf Sha in your meridians —— the heavenly pollution technique of the Yellow Spring Crossing has invaded your heart vessels!"

  The crying pattern on the left face of the mask of sorrow and joy suddenly appeared in the center of the abyss whirlpool. That hoarse sobbing carried the hatred of ten reincarnations: "Li Wuhen... when you carved the desolate bones on my delivery bed..." Skeletal hands climbed onto his ankles, and Li Wuhen's temples throbbed as strange memories moved under his skin —— eight hundred years ago, a woman in labor had her child cut out by him, and the infant's spine contained the spirit nail that could suppress desolate bones.

  Anu's puppet strings suddenly became hot. Seven hundred wails of the Witch Sacrifice Clan were injected into Li Wuhen's consciousness through the threads, driving out the distorted false memories. In the reflection on the ice surface, the real scene appeared: when the Great Wall of the Northern Frontier collapsed, two hundred thousand civilians voluntarily sacrificed themselves to build the Asura Pagoda, with the neck pattern of the maiden leading the group matching the tattoo mentioned in the prophecy of a red snake coiled around the neck.

  "This is the Mirror-Derived Nightmare Technique of the Trace-Soul Sect." The old blind man spat out pitch-black nails of blood, "Regarding the incident seven hundred years ago..." Pinkish tentacles sprouted from the decayed flesh of his incomplete right face, cutting off his words abruptly.

  At the moment the gust of wind split the netherworld, Li Wuhen saw a blood river cart scraping over a mountain of corpses far away. On the sandalwood sedan chair pulled by eight oxen, a veiled woman lay slanted, and when the golden bells on her ankles rang, half of the Yellow Spring Crossing's wandering souls were sucked into the folds of her wedding dress. It was the ghost marriage procession of the Princess of the Northern Frontier —— this ghost, transcribed into the Book of Life and Death eight hundred times, had arrived at the crossing to harvest offerings.

  The fragments of the mask of sorrow and joy suddenly regrew in reverse. The decaying smile spread from the neck to the left chest, and every heartbeat of Li Wuhen's heart gushed out foul pus. The soul-stabilizing talisman thrown by the old blind man spontaneously combusted three inches away from him, and Anu's puppet strings turned blood coral red —— it was a sign that the forbidden art of the Witch Sacrifice Clan, the Bone-Blood Pact, was activated.

  "What are you going to trade?!"

  Li Wuhen roared on the edge of mental disintegration, seeing Anu's three souls separating from her seven spirits, the girl's eyes hollow like sacrificial lambs: "With the memories of eight hundred bowls of Meng Po soup on my journey of reincarnation."

  As the Bone-Blood Pact's red line penetrated the ice river, Li Wuhen tasted the cruelest truth: originally, every newborn of the Witch Sacrifice Clan had a cause-and-effect needle inserted into their forehead, their souls forever incomplete, destined to be patches for the heavenly contract. Anu had been missing her earth soul since infancy, her gentleness and timidity nothing more than a forged personality container created by the Reincarnation Office.

  The Styx surged up a hundred-foot-high blood foam. The bride's ghost fire of the princess collided with the Bone-Blood Pact barrier, and in the bursting sparks, countless fragments of memories floated: when Ling Qingxiao fell, what scattered wasn't just gold powder, but also the silver threadworms woven by the Nine Heavens Imperial Guard Army; when the old blind man shed his skin, the white bone arm exposed embedded with the main seal of the Patrol Office; the desolate bones in Li Wuhen's chest suddenly awakened the third Kuí pattern —— that was the curse mark of killing the first generation patrol officer.

  At the instant the ice surface cracked, Li Wuhen grabbed the old blind man's broken primordial soul and leaped into the Omen Bone Boat. This boat, composed of a hundred Buddha cultivators' brow bones, was melting, and with each stroke of the oar, it chanted the Past-Life Spell. Anu's residual soul condensed into a translucent human form at the stern of the boat, tearing off the rotting flesh from Li Wuhen's neck and applying it to the hollow chest: "It's time to meet our creator."

  When the first tentacle of Chaos wrapped around the Omen Bone Boat, the stele on the eastern bank of the ferry crossing revealed bloody characters:

  On the day the red snake breaks the ice, the desolate bones devour the master, those whose five aggregates have not emptied shall bury their bones to feed the celestial master.

  As the Nine Nether Fires licked the Broken Dragon Stone, Li Wuhen saw the essence of alchemy —— it was nothing more than the crystallization of thirteen thousand kinds of suffering.

  The old blind man was shedding the scales of his left arm. Each scale glowing with a purple light was a thousand-hammered Thunder Punishment Bone, and when it fell into the magma, the sparks revealed the glyphs of the seventy-two heavens' craftwork scrolls. The desolate bones under Li Wuhen's ribs suddenly contracted, and he suddenly realized that this fallen deity was recasting the main seal of the Patrol Office —— a forbidden art using living person's bones and tendons as the base.

  "Watch carefully, this is the price of 'blood forging'."

  On the corrupted right face of the old blind man, green-gold spiritual juice seeped from the rotting flesh. When he immersed the prototype of the main seal into the "Pure Soul Liquid" extracted from Anu's brow, the surface of the artifact boiled with wailing ghost faces, each face's features melting and reshaping in the fire.

  Three refining wedges were driven into Li Wuhen's mind sea. He was forced to accept the secret transmission of the Ten Thousand Artifacts Manual: the alchemy on the Canglan Continent was divided into three realms of "Blood Casting", "Soul Tempering", and "Heaven Scraping". The highest realm of Heaven Scraping required intercepting the rules of heaven as spiritual guidance, and the truth of the slaughter of the Witch Sacrifice Clan eight thousand years ago was that their pupil techniques could see the cracks in the heavenly way —— that was the perfect material for alchemy.

  "This item is called [Tian Si Ling], your mother used it to blind me back then." The old blind man suddenly threw a half-section of a green jade earring. The moment Li Wuhen caught it, the earring transformed into an ice spike and stabbed into his skull —— memories of the battlefield three hundred years ago surged forth: the rain-soaked witch altar, the pregnant Ling Qingxiao used this object to shred the protective light of the first generation patrol officer, the thick divine blood seeping into the ground vein gave birth to the Heartless Herb.

  Anu's weak soul shadow suddenly solidified. Her fingertips surged with the unique crimson soul flame of the Witch Sacrifice Clan, pressing Li Wuhen's right palm towards the thunder punishment bone in the magma: "Try the sensation of pricking causality."

  Amidst the smell of scorched flesh, Li Wuhen's meridians were tempered with purple gold patterns. This was his first touch of the "Soul Tempering" threshold —— the incipient artifact in his palm jumped like a living thing, the five hundred years of earth fiend condensed in the stone marrow formed an eight-legged spider-like vengeful spirit shape. When the hundredth artifact pattern appeared, the desolate bone totem suddenly burst forth with blood spines, exploding the entire molten bone anvil into powder.

  "Vile product." The mockery from the abyss stirred up flames. The sleeping chaos devil god manifested a shadow in the magma, its tail vertebrae extending chains of flesh with seven hundred alchemy master corpses strung on them, "Using souls as ingredients is ultimately a theft of heaven's art."

  Anu's face suddenly cracked with porcelain-like fissures, a sign that the hidden [Celestial Counterfeit Vessel] inside her was about to collapse. This object was crafted by the first generation witch sacrificer using divine-demon hybrid blood, capable of transforming the wearer into a perfect vessel for artifacts. She tore open her chest to reveal organs arranged like constellations, each playing scenes from different timelines: the ten-thousand craftsman tomb beneath the Nine Heavens City, the forbidden artifact embryos collected by the Hanging Mirror Office, and the bloody surgery implanting the desolate bones during Li Wuhen's birth...

  "The truly supreme alchemists have all become weapons." The old blind man sprinkled ashes of Heartless Herb into the void. Amidst the burning ashes, golden small characters floated —— remnants of the Witch Alchemy Canon [Star Carving Record]. Li Wuhen glimpsed the method for making the [Kui Ox Drum]: requiring the heart of a thunder beast, the tongues of ninety-nine close relatives carved out as drum nails, and finally quenched with the tears of a patricide.

  Suddenly, the magma pool surged upward into a waterfall. Anu grabbed a bronze key from the fire and inserted it into her own crown. With the crisp sound of spring mechanisms turning, her three souls and seven spirits disintegrated into the most primitive alchemical spirit guides. Li Wuhen saw every strand of soul entwined with sealing chains —— these were the [Artifact Slave Seals] engraved on her soul body by the first generation patrol office.

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  "Accept my physical form." Anu's final residual sound resonated with metallic clangs, "Your desolate bones... can be refined into... a sheath to countermand heavenly decrees..."

  When seven calamity thunders split the crust, Li Wuhen was embedding Anu's spine into his right arm. The desolate bones soaked in the bloodline of the Witch Sacrifice Clan grew dragon scale patterns, and the hatred and grievances transformed through the alchemical rules coalesced into a blade fierce enough to cleave space. Suddenly, the old blind man bit his tongue and painted a portal with fallen god's blood —— behind it stood the ten-thousand-year collection of various heavenly artifacts by the Patrol Office, each artifact emitting sticky sounds of flesh growing.

  "Pick a coffin that suits your fancy." The old blind man's eyes fragmented like discarded slag, "The vehicle needed for the Yellow Spring Road must be ignited with life essence."

  Li Wuhen's palm brushed against the scroll of the God Sealing List. This treasure reputed to confer titles to the heavenly way transmitted baby cries from within, its artifact spirit having been refined into an immortal state; the crack in the Heaven Measuring Ruler spawned teeth gnawing on the rule currents in the void; the most horrifying was the human-faced cauldron identical in appearance to Anu, the silver threadworms inside forming a prophecy: "When the red snake appears, the desolate bones nourish the shrine."

  When Li Wuhen gripped the Star Burning Spear tightly, the chaos devil god's tentacles suddenly contracted. This weapon, which had slaughtered twelve demon cities, now resonated fatefully with the desolate bones. Dense causal filaments climbed out of the magma, each connecting to his past memories of killings —— this was the greatest fetter of alchemists: when the artifact is completed, one must bear the consequences.

  "Have you chosen?" The old blind man snapped two ribs and threw them into the fire pit, "The artifact trigger for the Devil Weeping Weapon Dissolving Array requires pure Yin life force." His spine suddenly arched into an eerie curve, and the shattered main seal of the Patrol Office reformed into a bronze beast face —— precisely the artifact-devouring beast rumored to feast on alchemists.

  Li Wuhen's pupils split into three blood-red flames. Under the support of the Senluo Alchemy Law, he clearly saw the final destination of Anu's primordial spirit: that faint soul was imprisoned in the Demon Repelling Bell atop the Nine Heavens City, enduring three thousand six hundred strikes of the soul-crushing mace daily —— solely to extract the purest "grief" artifact spirit.

  Suddenly, blood characters left by Ling Qingxiao long ago floated out from the ashes of the molten bone anvil: "Born as an artifact embryo, destined to shatter the Celestial Heights." The desolate bones of Li Wuhen suddenly grew wildly, the vicious blade cutting through space sent the old blind man smashing against the rock wall. As the entire Nine Nether Refining Cave began collapsing, amidst the black spiritual liquid spurting from the broken causal filaments, the satisfied smile of the chaos devil god surfaced.

  At this moment, the depths of the earth reverberated with the tolling of the Chaos Bell, shattering seventy-two bloodline restrictions. Li Wuhen's tongue tasted the bittersweet tang of fate breaking —— from the depths of the molten bone anvil rose the ancient witch sacrificer's resentful artifact [Sorrowful Dragon Earring], its curved edges firmly biting into a segment of the heavenly way rules...

  When the gears of the Six Paths of Rebirth rusted and seized, a hundred thousand alchemy masters were tearing their own lifebound treasures.

  When Li Wuhen's desolate bone vicious blade cut through the confines of the Patrol Office's Celestial Prison, he collided with this frenzied banquet of Artifact Extermination. Shards of the Seven Treasures Crystal Tower were embedded in an elder's eye sockets, his severed fingers entangled with alchemy threads strangling his own primordial soul; a young female cultivator hugged the broken Nine Heavens Ringed Jade Pendant, the strings piercing through her throat, resonating with the trembling notes of flaying and tendon extraction.

  "It's the Spirit Devouring Miasma of the [Artifact Plague Beast]." Worm-like patterns bulged at the old blind man's throat, "These fools' alchemy incantations were laced with the true name of the devil gods."

  The Sorrowful Dragon Earring imprint behind Li Wuhen's ear suddenly bled. This rebellious artifact born from the molten bone anvil was now transmitting warnings from ancient witch sacrificers: in the void, nine myriad compound eyes had opened, each recording the entire process of an alchemist descending into madness —— the chaos devil gods were collecting the frenzy of alchemy as weapons.

  Anu's residual soul screamed sharply in the vicious blade. Li Wuhen's wrist bones suddenly erupted with scales, and the desolate bones autonomously split the approaching gilt urn. What exploded out of the urn was not alchemy materials, but fragments of Ling Qingxiao's memories locked in the Illusory Sea: Eight hundred years ago, on the platform where she was stripped of her desolate bones, there lay nine artifacts closely related to Li Wuhen's life.

  "You living are the most perfect artifact embryo." In the memory, the executioner who resembled Li Wuhen used the Star Burning Spear to sever Ling Qingxiao's Achilles tendon, "When you give birth to this child, remember to use his umbilical cord blood to temper the blade."

  Li Wuhen's spine emitted a cracking sound. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the Sorrowful Dragon Earring drilled into his bone marrow, burning an extreme sensation beyond pain into his nerves —— that was the collective fear of two hundred thousand alchemists being torn apart by the Artifact Plague Beast. Silver fluid streamed from his right eye, while his left eye reflected the truth of the Patrol Office's Celestial Prison: the place suppressed was never criminals, but those who could see through the flaws of the heavenly way —— the "Celestial Eye Observers".

  Suddenly, the old blind man untied his hair. Seven bronze bells dropped between the strands of his pale hair, their jingling melodies precisely the sound wave manifestation of the [Star Carving Record]'s artifact patterns: "Use the Star Scorching Seal to block their mudan palaces!"

  Li Wuhen's desolate bone vicious blade suddenly split into thousands. Each blade shadow carved blood runes in the air, pinning the rampaging alchemy masters in mid-air. When the three thousand six hundredth rune was completed, a purplish-black snow descended from the dome of the prison —— it was the tooth dregs shed by the Artifact Plague Beast, turning anyone who touched it into alchemy puppets.

  Anu's residual soul suddenly took on a human form. A red snake coiling around her neck glowed, and in her palm rested a rapidly spinning Witch Sacrifice Fate Disk: "Third watch of the hour of Shen, southwest Xun position!"

  The ground exploded with a blood spring. Seven coffins burst out of the soil, their lids arranged in the pattern of the Big Dipper formed by divine-killing nails. Li Wuhen's tongue pressed against the Sorrowful Dragon Earring imprint, activating the coffin indicated by the Xun position on the Fate Disk with witch blood. Instead of corpses, what emerged from the coffin was the grievance qi from the city ablaze with heavenly fire three hundred years ago —— it coagulated into a ruler carved with repentance edicts.

  "Heavenly Way Punishing Artifact!" A sealed master shrieked in agony, "Why is the Punishment Ruler here?"

  The old blind man's single eye flashed with a green light. He suddenly slashed his wrist and splashed the fallen god's blood onto the ruler: "Because this isn't a creation of the Heavenly Way at all —— it was the counterfeit artifact used by the first generation patrol officer to alter destiny!"

  The moment the blood splashed onto the ruler, the disguised merit gold light on its surface crumbled, revealing dense eye ball carvings underneath. Each eye reflected the sins of the Patrol Office: the Ritual of Stripping Infant Eyes from Witch Sacrifice Clans; the lie of draining the four seas' aquatic souls to mend the heavens; the imperial decree recorded in the Secret Archives of the Nine Heavens City detailing the confinement of millions of mortals as fodder for the Artifact Plague Beasts...

  Li Wuhen's desolate bone totem on his neck began to burn. The tentacles of the chaos devil god pierced through the crust and into his crown, but the Sorrowful Dragon Earring cut against the tentacles, forcibly dragging out a fragment of the heavenly way's essence. He saw the form of that essence —— a bronze devil face wrapped in swaddling clothes, its umbilical cord connected to the grievances of the myriad worlds.

  "What you think is the Heavenly Way is merely..." The devil god's whisper collapsed half the prison, interrupted by the explosion of Anu's soul core. In the blazing radiance of the girl's dissolving soul, the Witch Sacrifice Clan's guarded secret for ten thousand years was revealed: on the back of all heavenly contracts, written in devil god blood, was the same verdict ——"Insufficient sacrifices fall into eternal cycles of artifact rebirth."

  The screams of ten thousand alchemy masters resonated at this moment. Li Wuhen's right arm automatically flew the Sorrowful Dragon Earring, absorbing all the artifact patterns they had spent their lives cultivating. The town prison's suppression stele exploded, and the escaped prisoners suddenly shed their human skins —— all were revealed to be incarnations of the Artifact Plague Beasts, drooling liquids that corroded souls.

  "Southwest Fire Position." The old blind man's forehead erupted with the Patrol Office main seal, freezing the approaching Artifact Plague Beasts into statues, "Burn the Star Scorching Seal with subterranean poison flames!"

  Li Wuhen leapt onto the falling pieces of the suppression stele and into the magma. The desolate bone dragon greedily devoured the poisonous fire in his dantian, transforming his meridians into carriers capable of withstanding heavenly punishment. When the final stroke of the Star Scorching Seal formed on his chest, the sun temples of all alchemists across the three realms burst with blood lines —— a blood oath suddenly appeared in their minds: either assist Li Wuhen in splitting the heavens or be enslaved by the Artifact Plague Beasts eternally.

  At this moment, Anu's residual soul completely dissipated, her last trace of spirit seeping into the vicious blade. Li Wuhen's vision pierced through the boiling rock sea, seeing the souls confined in the Nine Heavens City's Demon Repelling Bell being refined into artifact spirits. Among the numb faces were Ling Qingxiao, ancestors of the Witch Sacrifice Clan, and even his own previous life's heavenly soul that had been gouged out.

  "It's time for us to become the chess players." The old blind man tore open his chest, revealing a heart composed of three thousand alchemy seals, "Let's start by overturning this chaotic forge ——"

  When the Sorrowful Dragon Earring crashed into the main hall of the Patrol Office, the gears of the Six Paths of Rebirth re-engaged. Waves of reversed causality passed through, freezing the Artifact Plague Beasts into uncompleted artifact embryos. Li Wuhen stepped through the spatial fractures toward the Demon Repelling Bell, dragging the Star Scorching Seal behind him, leaving eight bloody characters in the sky:

  "If life is an artifact embryo, why fear heavenly forging?"

  When the Primordial Artifact List manifested, three thousand bloody pillars rose in the direction of the Nine Heavens City —— that was the chaos devil gods pouring out the seven emotions and six desires.

  Li Wuhen's desolate bone vicious blade sliced open a spatial rift, colliding head-on with a metal storm formed by ancient weapons. Leading the charge was the [Life and Death Urn], spraying corrosive flesh venom, with eighty thousand human faces embedded in its mouth repeating in different dialects: "An artifact must not surpass its master, nor can it tolerate heavenly laws!"

  Suddenly, the old blind man ripped out his left eye and embedded it into the ground. This eye, fused with thirty-six heavenly work patterns, rapidly expanded and instantly transformed into a ravenous Taotie Cauldron swallowing ten thousand artifacts. The incoming ancient weapons melted upon contact with the cauldron, turning into black iron water, and within it echoed shrill sucking sounds —— the Artifact Plague Beasts were devouring the essences of the weapons.

  "Don't touch the quenched iron rain!" Anu's voice lingering in the vicious blade suddenly sharpened. Li Wuhen's spine arched unnaturally, and the golden Taotie pattern carved on his back by the Sorrowful Dragon Earring flowed madly —— the highest level [Great Alchemy Form] forbidden technique of the Witch Sacrifice Clan had been activated.

  The falling iron rain suddenly solidified. The bricks peeling off the walls of the Nine Heavens City exposed shocking truths: each brick sealed a live artifact embryo, their distorted faces protruding from the wall surfaces, their wails converging into a sonic shockwave. Li Wuhen's eardrums excreted golden threadworms, and these winged insects transmitted ancient secrets: the first generation patrol officer was originally a traitor of the Witch Sacrifice Clan, and the heavenly way seal on his forehead was cast from the forehead bone of a sacred maiden as a token of allegiance.

  A mournful phoenix cry tore through the clouds. Li Wuhen saw the crimson-feathered golden-crowned fire phoenix diving through the clouds —— it was the clan deity of the Witch Sacrifice Remnant Clan that should have gone extinct a thousand years ago. Between the phoenix's feathers fell stars, from which emerged a brown-robed woman who bore a seven-tenths resemblance to Ling Qingxiao, with a red snake totem moving along her collarbone.

  "You've ultimately become a living sacrifice." The woman's voice carried the crackling sound of cooling lava, "Ling Qingxiao risked her life to save you from the artifact embryo cycle, yet you willingly jumped into the chaotic forge."

  Suddenly, the old blind man lunged forward, pressing the shattered main seal onto the woman's crown, but it disintegrated upon touching the curse mark on her forehead. The bronze hairpin in her hair gleamed with a dim light, bearing the original inscription of the first generation patrol office: "She indeed makes a good vessel —— if it weren't for you leaking the star chart of the witch clan's birthing chamber, would we have had to hide the truth of the heavenly way by exterminating the entire clan?"

  The Sorrowful Dragon Earring trembled as it pierced Li Wuhen's palm. In the throes of intense pain, he glimpsed buried memories: the young old blind man infiltrated the Witch Sacrifice Clan for ten years, deceiving the sacred maiden's feelings to steal the [Fate Dial], allowing the patrol office to accurately locate every newborn with heavenly insight. Years ago, Ling Qingxiao fled while pregnant because the fetus in her womb could perceive the essence of the Artifact Plague Beast.

  The fire phoenix suddenly swooped down. The moment the wind lifted her veil, Li Wuhen's heart seemed pierced by the Sorrowful Dragon Earring —— the crack soul nail on this woman's forehead was identical in source and pattern to the one Ling Qingxiao used to self-inflict harm. The artifact patterns on her arms were alive, eighty-one eye-shaped seals roaming beneath her skin: "I'm called Ling Qingshuang, so am I... your aunt?"

  Suddenly, a dragon-like vibration sounded from the direction of the Nine Heavens City. The blood-red edict of the Primordial Artifact List covering three thousand miles of the sky began descending, and every alchemist named in the edict immediately erupted with blood-red artifact patterns, as if every drop of blood in their bodies rearranged itself. Li Wuhen's right arm vicious blade suddenly lost control, slicing off three of his fingers —— those severed fingers transformed into miniature Artifact Plague Beasts upon hitting the ground, their teeth clutching his altered destiny lines.

  "Hurry, cast the Fate Dial!" Ling Qingshuang's red snake totem emerged from her skin, condensing into a red python sword to slice through the blood-red edict, "Use the desolate bones to channel the starlight from outside chaos!"

  Li Wuhen inserted his severed fingers into the earth veins. The desolate bone dragon greedily consumed the energy of the blood-red edict, spawning countless stars at his joints. When the first ray of light from outside this world illuminated the land, the surface of the Primordial Artifact List began to rot —— the so-called rankings of divine weapons were originally a huge piece of human skin, and the list flowed with the spinal fluids of thirty-three generations of alchemy masters.

  Suddenly, Ling Qingshuang broke her bronze hairpin. Not blood but concentrated nine nether winds surged from the broken end. She plunged the tip into the fire phoenix's heart, and the golden crow fire instantly reshaped the spatial-temporal rules within a hundred-mile radius: "The true alchemy art of the witch clan isn't creating artifacts, it's creating heavens!"

  The old blind man let out a dying animal's howl. His body was being devoured by the suddenly violent main seal of the patrol office, his organs being eaten by the artifact spirits sealed within the seal. Li Wuhen's temples throbbed as deliberately erased memories resurfaced: at the age of five, it was the old blind man who used the [Ritual of Cleansing] to peel away his heavenly insight, implanting the desolate bones to suppress his spiritual awareness.

  "Excellent Forge Saint!" Ling Qingshuang crushed half of the old blind man's body, "Even emotions have been refined into artifact spirit divisions, no wonder you survived three great calamities."

  The fragments of the ruined main seal suddenly reassembled into a bronze ancient mirror. The reality reflected in the mirror was not the present, but the deepest secrets of the Nine Heavens City: Ling Qingxiao was pierced through the shoulder blades by iron chains, soaking in the blood pool for refining artifacts. The artifact patterns on the pool floor were extracting streaks of golden light from her abdomen —— that was the fragment of chaos essence taken from Li Wuhen at birth.

  The Sorrowful Dragon Earring suddenly let out a dragon cry. Li Wuhen's backbone pierced through his flesh, transforming into a dragon bone whip, wrapping around the chaos energy and splitting the void. This strike directly tore a hole in the Nine Heavens City's sky-covering array, releasing tens of thousands of sealed artifact spirits. The moment the Primordial Artifact List completely collapsed, all the souls refined into artifacts began to burn, and the night sky seemed to rain down in green.

  Ling Qingshuang seized the opportunity to form seals. The witch clan's Star-Burning Fire flowed through her seven orifices, condensing into a vast furnace that blocked out the sun and moon: "Using the souls of all beings as charcoal, the truth of chaos as the embryo —— today we're not recasting artifacts, but the destinies that have been altered!"

  When Li Wuhen leapt into the furnace, he saw Anu's residual soul emerge from the vicious blade. The girl's hands formed the seal of rebirth, and the blood pact on her brow resonated with Ling Qingshuang's —— it turned out she was the true inheritor of the Witch Sacrifice Sacred Mark, willingly severing her reincarnation cycle to guide the awakening of heavenly insight beside Li Wuhen.

  Nine layers of artifact calamity descended simultaneously. The mother body of the Artifact Plague Beast emerged from the earth veins, a blood-covered mountain range spanning thousands of miles dotted with alchemy furnaces spewing not earthly fire but solidified despair. Suddenly, the old blind man's residual soul let out a shrill scream, his spirit being a million-piece puppet made of alchemy incantations.

  At this moment, the true form of the chaos devil god was revealed —— a colossal metal statue pieced together from billions of evil weapons, each artifact pattern a shackle binding all beings. In the palm of the giant statue was a wheel of fate, engraved with the emblem of the first generation patrol officer.

  "Turns out the crack in the Heavenly Way... is a keyhole." Li Wuhen allowed the furnace to melt his flesh and blood, his soul fire becoming increasingly fierce, "That key —— isn't it the beings you've killed?"

  When the Sorrowful Dragon Earring pierced through the center of the fate dial, the artifact patterns of the three realms lit up simultaneously. Countless alchemists suddenly turned their weapons around, hurling their life-bound treasures towards the chaos devil god. An unprecedented forging sound echoed throughout the heavens and earth —— it was the collective resentment forging new celestial rules.

  In the final moment, the fire phoenix carrying Ling Qingxiao's residual soul collided into the core of chaos. Ling Qingshuang ignited her last witch blood, branding a complete red snake totem on Li Wuhen's forehead: "Go wake up those pretending to sleep."

  When dawn pierced through the calamity ash, what stood on the earth were no longer evil weapons, but the true forms of all beings remade by artifact patterns. The Sorrowful Dragon Earring in Li Wuhen's hand had turned into ordinary iron, while in every crack in the sky grew the unique Heartless Flowers of the Witch Sacrifice Clan —— their delicate roots were slowly strangling the chaos colossus.