Eschewing flashy nas, Lin Hui settled on the most fundantal array.
[Basic Protection Barrier: A complex, three-dinsional defensive array proposed by Lin Hui and jointly designed by dozens of array masters. Operating at the Blood Ancestor tier, it is capable of blocking hostile entities up to the sa level. Enemies entering the array suffer a 20% suppression to their cultivation, while allies receive a corresponding 20% boost. The energy furnace's consumption rate scales dynamically with the cultivation suppression. Energy Requirent: Energy Crystals, Internal Force, True Force, Purified Blood, Void Force. Available Evolutionary Branches: 4.]
Without hesitation, Lin Hui locked onto the Basic Protection Barrier and opened its evolutionary branches.
[1—Xuantian True Temple]
[2—Iron Armor Hunyuan Array]
[3—Multi-Elent Mixed Protection Grand Array]
[4—Nine Skies Thunder Sound]
The last na gave him pause. He read through each entry in turn.
[Xuantian True Temple: The core defensive grand array of the Xuantian Dao. It vastly expands the spatial footprint of the deploynt area. By stretching spatial volu, dampening the five senses, and weaving in a confounding maze, it traps intruders within. The baseline defensive strength receives a minor enhancent.]
[Iron Armor Hunyuan Array: The core array of the Iron Armor Sect. It exponentially bolsters the physical resilience of the array's outer layer, encasing the periter in a fifteen-ter-thick shell of high-strength cosmic alloy. This defensive layer automatically regenerates by drawing power from the array core. The baseline defensive strength receives an ultra-massive enhancent.]
[Multi-Elent Mixed Protection Grand Array: The masterpiece of Elental Emperor Domile. Built upon the principles of a nine-elent mixed-chain ultra-neutrino reaction, its outright defensive strength is modest, but it boasts unparalleled energy endurance. Under normal operations, the furnace core requires replacent only once every three thousand years. The baseline defensive strength receives a slight enhancent.]
[Nine Skies Thunder Sound: The core array of the Nine Skies Gate. Using wind to command wind, it siphons an endless stream of power from the Wind Disaster to sustain itself. Internally, it mitigates the Wind Disaster's corrosive effects on sect mbers, boosting their cultivation by half a realm. Externally, it harnesses chaotic Disaster Energy to suppress hostile entities over a vast area. Because the Wind Disaster operates at an exceptionally high tier, those beneath it will inevitably suffer a fifty percent cultivation suppression, regardless of their own realm. Wind and thunder in tandem; a clear source and a calm mind. The baseline defensive strength receives a massive enhancent.]
He stared at the last entry for a long mont.
He didn't want to choose it. Yet he had little choice—the branch was simply too perfect for the Clear Wind Dao. Infinite energy, a massive boost in defensive strength, suppression, resistance against the Wind Disaster's erosion, and the half-realm cultivation boost on top. He wasn't certain exactly how that half-realm was calculated, but no matter how he weighed it, the final option was the undeniable best.
Still, his eyes lingered on the words Nine Skies.
He made the selection.
[Required Resources: 210 years of Reserve Energy, 210 years of Reserve Mind-Spirit. Required Ti: 260 years. Confirm evolution to Nine Skies Thunder Sound?]
Yes.
The mont he confird it, the Blood Seal text at the bottom of his vision began to refresh in rapid succession.
Boom!!
At that exact mont, low and imnse, the rolling thunder of distant explosions reached him from the east—from the direction of the Crystal Sea.
His mind-spirit stirred. He vanished in a flash, streaking toward the source. Black Cloud City fell away behind him. He swept over the broad expanse of the Jade Sea, and soon the salt-white gleam of the Crystal Sea spread out ahead.
The ambient temperature began to climb.
Once inside the Crystal Sea, Lin Hui shielded himself with the Surrounding Wind and pressed forward another few seconds before slowing to a halt. Hovering a hundred ters above the surface, he looked down.
From the white-crusted sea below, a familiar red silhouette was rising, one hand casually gripping a golden, spike-covered humanoid monster by the neck. Massive craters from recent explosions pocked the surrounding area, though the pale seawater was already surging back in to fill them.
The stench of blood and scorched hide hung in the air.
The red silhouette looked up and saw him. It was Gongsun Xinlian.
"Why are you here?" she asked, surprised.
"I heard the commotion." Lin Hui swept his gaze across the churning water. "What's the situation?"
"Two Divine Descendants of the Mist God pantheon have succumbed to Corruption," she said. "This rarely happened in the past—their lifespans far exceed ours; it shouldn't be happening at all. This one fled from the pantheon's territory." She hefted the golden figure in her grip.
Crack.
The corpse shattered, dissolving into countless flecks of golden light before vanishing entirely.
"That's two in the last few days," she muttered, a trace of exhaustion in her face. "These Corrupted Mist Gods are different. The mont the Night Mist rolls in, they reappear the very next day in the sa spot to cause carnage. There's no killing them permanently."
"Has Brother Xie not returned? Did the ssage reach him?" Lin Hui frowned.
"It did, but no reply. I suspect they've already engaged and are pinned down."
"Start pulling back our defenses. With the way things stand... if the Sea Cry rift stirs up anything more..." Lin Hui left the rest unsaid.
Mist Gods falling to Corruption. Abnormal disasters erupting everywhere. Increasingly violent sea storms. Freezing orbs of light. Corrupted entities that refused to stay dead. And the Sea Cry rift looming overhead, threatening to tear open at any mont—the situation had reached a critical boiling point.
In the distance, the broken hulls of ships drifted on the current. The wreckage told the story clearly enough: a fleet had been attacked, its survivors sending out a distress signal that had brought Gongsun Xinlian here.
"Let's head back," she said quietly.
Neither had any appetite for talk. By now, most navigational routes around Black Cloud City had been severed. The Blood Ancestors were marshaling armies and consolidating forces just to keep a handful of lifeline channels open—and even that could not hold indefinitely.
In the surrounding oceans, sea beast populations were exploding, fueled by rapid mutations and unnatural enhancents. The salvage fleets run by martial artists and Called Ones were taking heavy losses. Unable to weather the escalating danger, smaller independent fishing fleets were being absorbed into the larger factions one by one.
On returning to Black Cloud, Lin Hui skipped his usual route and went straight to Clear Erald Mountain. The Clear Wind Dao Academy and the Lin Manor had both relocated there, settling into a vast, newly constructed compound.
Gongsun Xinlian accompanied him inside, stepping into halls decorated precisely like the originals she rembered.
The two of them sat cross-legged in the study. Li Yuanyuan moved quietly to serve tea and refreshnts, then bowed and withdrew. A stick of mind-soothing incense burned at the side, trailing a thin, steady column of grayish-white smoke.
Gongsun Xinlian studied him. For a Mistborn, eight years was barely a breath—brief, unremarkable.
But the man across from her had changed. The profound aura she had once felt from him was gone entirely. He looked no different from an ordinary mortal, yet sothing about him was subtly, unsettlingly wrong: his features and build achieved a proportion that no mortal body could naturally hold. Flawless in a way that felt unreal. She had encountered that sa quality only once before—in the Clear Wind Dao's legendary Clear Wind Sword.
"If you hadn't granted those three basic seals over these past years, I wouldn't have had the strength to manage half of what's happened," Gongsun Xinlian said softly.
"You're part of the Clear Wind Dao. There's no need to talk as though we're strangers," Lin Hui replied with a faint smile.
He knew she hadn't co simply for conversation—not during a crisis like this. He waited.
"With Big Brother gone, Second Brother and I have been running ourselves ragged trying to hold everything together. After a long discussion, we've decided to relocate all Outer City residents into the Inner City." She t his eyes. "What do you think?"
"What about the radiation?" Lin Hui frowned. "Can the Outer City residents survive it?"
"It's better than dying to sea beasts or a sudden eruption of Sea Cry energy. We've bought ourselves about half a year to slow the pollution's spread. In the anti, the Inner City can use the floating mountain and the Moon Tower together to power an isolation array—drawing on True Force and Void Force to feed it indefinitely. As long as the Circulation Realm experts and High-Tier Called Ones are present, keeping it supplied won't be a problem." Gongsun Xinlian had clearly worked through this already.
Lin Hui was quiet.
It was a brutal choice. Many would refuse to leave the Outer City—that was inevitable. But once the migration began, the Outer City's defenses would be effectively abandoned. Those who stayed would die at once; those who moved inward might only be deferring the sa fate. The Outer City surrounding Black Cloud still held more than ten million people.
"Pulling back is the right call," Lin Hui said at last. "I support it."
"That's all I needed to hear." Gongsun Xinlian managed a thin smile.
The three siblings had spent years bleeding to build what they had, and now they were surrendering tens of millions in a single decision. The moral weight of it would not go unfelt—Corruption outbreaks inside the Inner City would follow, fed by grief and despair. Without a large population to distribute the systemic load, the martial artists and Called Ones within would face slow, grinding attrition.
"I'll head back now." Gongsun Xinlian rose, but she didn't vanish imdiately. She walked toward the courtyard gate at a asured pace, then stopped without warning.
"Lin Hui... I don't know why, but I have a bad feeling."
"About Big Brother?"
"More than that." She raised her head, gazing through the array barrier at the vast Sea Cry rift hanging over Black Cloud City like a wound across the sky. "We've seen polluting forces invade before. None have ever hit this hard. My brothers and I have endured nearly ten thousand years, and we've made it this far because you've been here to anchor things. But the other cities don't have Black Cloud's strength. Five of them have already fallen—their City Lords gone with them..."
"Even the City Lords?" Lin Hui's frown deepened.
"Yes. Whatever the Sea Cry rift carries, it seems to act directly against the Mistborn's cycle of infinite rebirth." She turned to look at him. "Dao Master."
The shift in address was deliberate.
"If—and I an if—I die... the position of Black Cloud's City Lord—"
"I won't take it." He held her gaze without flinching. "I want to protect the people around : my family, my friends, those I love. Beyond that, I have no claim and no desire for the weight of it."
He understood what she was asking him to carry. Black Cloud City was the work of her siblings' lifetis. If they fell and the mortal population was shattered, everyone bound to them—family, disciples, every thread of connection—would be dragged toward Corruption and ruin. He understood the burden completely. But understanding it was not the sa as taking it on.
He had his own world to protect.
"..."
"I understand," Gongsun Xinlian said softly.
She stood still for a mont, and then her figure slowly dissolved into the air and was gone.
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