Chapter 245 - 244: Ninth Floor

The old man looked at Lin Yuan, his expression one of gentle, melancholic pity.

"The mortal dust ends here, child," the Guardian spoke, its voice not a simulated echo, but a perfect replication of a true sovereign’s divine decree.

The old man raised a single finger.

He did not cast a spell. He did not swing a sword. He simply commanded the space around Lin Yuan to collapse.

It was a domain of absolute, spatial suppression. The void contracted violently, forming an invisible, conceptual vice around Lin Yuan’s body. The pressure was astronomical. Lin Yuan’s Rank 10 Ancient Beast Body let out a terrifying, grinding groan as his bones were subjected to millions of pounds of force. His Dao Intent was instantly snuffed out, entirely suppressed by the higher-realm authority of the pseudo-Primordial Spirit.

Lin Yuan dropped to one knee, the polished starmetal floor cracking beneath him. He was completely immobilized, his Qi forcibly locked within his meridians.

"To ascend requires shedding the mortal shell," the old man lectured softly, walking slowly toward the kneeling cultivator. "You possess a formidable foundation, but you are still bound by the dust. Yield, and be expelled. Resist, and be erased."

Lin Yuan knelt there, his head bowed, the crushing weight of a Half-Step Soul Transformation expert threatening to shatter his spine.

But then, a slow, chilling sound echoed across the platform of cosmic dust.

Lin Yuan was laughing.

It was a low chuckle that vibrated with an arrogance so profound it seemed to mock the very Heavens that had designed this crucible.

Lin Yuan slowly raised his head. His pristine robes were torn, and blood leaked from his lip, but his expression was one of flawless, terrifying sovereignty.

"Mortal dust?" Lin Yuan whispered, his voice cutting through the spatial suppression like a razor blade through silk. "You believe I am bound by the dust simply because I have not forged a Primordial Spirit?"

Lin Yuan’s deep purple eyes vanished.

In their place, a terrifying, rotating tri-colored light erupted—black, white, and a deep, bloody crimson. The light was so intense, so conceptually heavy, that the spatial vice crushing him began to violently tremble and fracture.

"I do not shed the dust, old man," Lin Yuan declared, standing up slowly, his indestructible muscles forcefully snapping the invisible chains of the domain. "I transcend it."

Lin Yuan reached deep into the absolute core of his spiritual sea, and unleashed the Tri-Dao Intersection: Three Rebirths within the Thunder Rain.

Wooooom!

An explosion of catastrophic energy erupted from Lin Yuan’s body. It was not a blast of force; it was the detonation of a supreme law.

A massive, tri-colored halo of black, white, and crimson light expanded outward, completely shattering the old man’s spatial suppression. The halo did not stop at the edges of the platform. It was an Origin Dao aura, fueled by the conceptual essence of the reincarnation cycle itself.

It was so profound, so unthinkably ancient, that it could not be contained by the internal array of the Nine-Tiered Sky.

The aura violently bled through the physical walls of the artifact.

Outside, floating in the sky above Sky Jade City, the massive, towering structure of the Nine-Tiered Sky violently shuddered.

A low, resonant hum echoed across the continent, a sound that bypassed the eardrums and vibrated directly within the soul of every living creature in the Grand Court.

From the ninth floor of the glowing pagoda, a visible, tri-colored shockwave of black, white, and crimson light pulsed outward into the real world. It washed over the amphitheater, carrying with it the terrifying scent of the abyss, the cycle of life, and the inevitability of death.

High upon their thrones at the absolute zenith of the arena, the Five Emperors reacted instantaneously.

Emperor Tianxu, the Qilin Emperor who had maintained a facade of serene indifference for the entire tournament, violently stood up. His eyes widened in sheer shock.

Emperor Xiyan’s White Tiger aura sputtered and died, the warlord dropping his wine cup as he stared at the pagoda. Emperor Nanheng, Emperor Beiming, and Emperor Dongyu all rose from their thrones, their Void Refinement auras flaring uncontrollably in response to the supreme law bleeding into their reality.

"Is that..." Emperor Nanheng gasped, her voice trembling, pointing a finger at the tri-colored halo pulsing from the pagoda.

"It cannot be," Emperor Dongyu whispered, his Azure Dragon aura shrinking back in instinctive reverence.

"The Three Rebirths Aura!" Emperor Tianxu declared, his voice booming across the stunned, silent Grand Court, completely abandoning all political decorum. "By the Ancestors, that is the Dao of Three Rebirths!"

The words struck the tens of thousands of cultivators like a physical blow. The absolute pinnacle of the Central Continent was openly displaying shock.

"Three Rebirths?!" a grand elder of the Wan Jian Sword Sect shrieked, falling to his knees in terror. "An unparalleled path to the cycle of reincarnation! Who is casting it?! Who possesses such a monstrous law?!"

The entire amphitheater collectively turned their gaze to the jade monolith.

There were only two names left inside the pagoda. Xuan Mingzhe and Lin Yuan.

But Xuan Mingzhe was a tri-Dao cultivator of Gravity, Space, and Annihilation. He had never displayed an affinity for Rebirth or Reincarnation. Furthermore, the tri-colored aura was currently erupting explicitly from the ninth floor of the pagoda. Xuan Mingzhe had currently cleared that floor.

The realization hit the crowd with the force of a falling continent.

"It is him," Lord Zhao Shenming whispered, tears of joy streaming down his face as he looked at the tri-colored light painting the evening sky. "He has unleashed it."

"It has to be him!" a Chu elder screamed, clutching his head in absolute despair. "It has to be the Zhao anomaly! Is that why he can do all this while remaining at the Early Stage of Spirit Severing?! Because he holds the Three Rebirths Dao as an arsenal?!"

The Emperors above were conversing rapidly, their voices echoing over the chaotic crowd, entirely unable to contain their awe.