As Crown Prince Purple Green’s voice echoed, countless butterflies erged from the collapsing ink-wash painting, enveloping Xu Qing in a swirling storm.
With each flutter, they released tricolored dust that filled the surroundings, forming...
A Cage of Fate!
A Cage of Fate treated life as the trajectory of stars, using the authority of fate to intercept and fold these paths into hexagonal prisons.
Those trapped inside would find all their actions—whether divine abilities, spells, or any other movents—twisted and influenced by the power of fate, looping back to form a self-returning closed cycle. .
Like being lost in an inescapable maze.
This was the nature of the cage, and with fate layered atop it...
It beca an endless cycle of self-repeating fate!
Now, within the dense tricolored dust, Xu Qing faced precisely this scenario.
He stepped forward, shattering the void, only to reappear behind his original position.
Even his Ordinance Law t the sa fate.
Every action beca a closed loop.
Xu Qing frowned slightly and halted, ceasing all movent. Standing still, his eyes deepened as he observed the Cage of Fate.
It was at this mont that the cyclical nature of fate silently manifested within the cage.
A historical scene replaced the tricolored dust, unfolding around Xu Qing.
Blurred figures began appearing beside him—n and won, old and young.
The environnt rapidly transford as well. No longer shrouded in mist, the outlines of buildings erged.
These figures and structures multiplied at an astonishing rate. Within re monts...
A city from Xu Qing’s mories materialized before him!
Along with it ca a cacophony of voices!
"Fresh candied hawthorns!"
"May next year bring a bountiful harvest."
"Everyone, maintain order! No crowding!"
"Elders, co take a look at our sacrificial paper—it burns with tricolored smoke!"
Countless voices flooded Xu Qing’s ears simultaneously, causing him to shudder where he stood.
Nearby, a group of children dashed past, clutching wooden figurines.
"Hurry! The ceremony is about to start!"
Watching this, Xu Qing trembled. The scene before him was none other than his childhood mories of Peerless City!
His body was no longer that of an adult but had regressed to the age of seven.
The mont this realization struck, a woman’s gentle voice spoke behind him.
"Qing’er, why have you stopped? Are you waiting for your big brother?"
The voice was achingly familiar—yet also distant.
Familiar, because it was etched eternally in Xu Qing’s mories.
Distant, because he hadn’t heard it in so very long...
That gentle voice was like a boulder as vast as the heavens, crashing into the sea of his heart and stirring endless tidal waves.
Trembling, Xu Qing turned around.
And saw... the two most important figures from his past.
"Father... Mother..."
Xu Qing whispered.
Before him stood a middle-aged man, weathered yet handso, and a slender woman with boundless tenderness in her eyes.
Both gazed at him with concern.
"This child, his eyes are red again," the man sighed.
The woman crouched down, gently stroking Xu Qing’s head, her voice filled with affection.
"Qing’er, you’re a little man now. You mustn’t cry every ti your brother leaves. Co... let Mother hold you."
She lifted him into her arms, kissing his cheek before pointing into the distance.
"Don’t cry. Your brother went to buy you candied hawthorns. He’ll be back soon."
"Look over there—today is the Divine Prayer Festival. The ceremony is about to begin."
Holding little Xu Qing, she gazed toward the city center, where a towering wooden altar stood.
A hundred prisoners knelt upon it, their heads bowed. Before them, a figure in crimson robes raised his arms to the sky, chanting in an archaic cadence that echoed throughout the city:
"In the year Tianqi 135, in Nanhuang, as the moon lingers near the ghostly lodgings at nightfall..."
"We ants, groveling in the land of twin capitals, dare offer this foul sacrifice to the fragnted-face god!"
"When the jade disc fell and turtle’s legs snapped, at the first glimpse of your pupils—the crimson sun lted into molten iron, boiling the five lakes;
the stars shattered into arrows, piercing the nine wilds."
"Now ruins still spew ghostly flas, the living gnaw on grave soil, yet the blood clotting between your lashes still reflects the gasps of mortal souls!"
"O god!"
"We beg for the scraps that slip through your teeth—our stolen embers of life!"
"We beg for the shadows cast by your brow—our hovels of refuge!"
"Today we offer a hundred prisoners—their gouged eyes as candles to sear your lids, their carved livers as oil to seal your sockets!"
"May your eyes stay shut!"
"May you slumber long!"
"Pray that you... do not open your eyes!"
As the chant resounded, the entire populace of Peerless City bowed their heads and repeated in unison:
"Pray that you... do not open your eyes!"
Yet the very mont these countless voices rged and spread across the land...
The sacred, oppressive fragnted-face suspended in the sky—Its eternally closed eyes—suddenly...
Parted slightly!
Its gaze fell upon Peerless City.
And thus, tragedy descended upon the mortal world.
Every structure began dissolving as if millennia of decay compressed into monts, their essence rising skyward.
Countless mortals twisted into monstrous abominations, their howls of bloodlust filling the air as they slaughtered indiscriminately.
Life withered at a terrifying pace.
Death reigned supre.
Those not transford t even grimr fates—their bodies disintegrated into offerings amidst the dissolution.
Before Xu Qing’s eyes, the world turned crimson as desperate screams of terror and despair rged with the falling rain of blood.
Including... his parents.
The middle-aged man dissolved into nothingness.
Little Xu Qing tumbled to the ground—
Because the woman who had been holding him... had lted into a pool of blood.
Peerless City beca the river of the underworld, and the blood rain... baptized the mortal realm.
Drenched in blood, seven-year-old Xu Qing sat numbly in the downpour.
This scene—he had lived through it. Every detail was etched into his soul.
"Father... Mother..."
An indescribable sorrow stord through his heart like thunder.
Tears stread down his face as he stared at the blood staining his clothes—his mother’s remains.
Ti passed. As buildings crumbled, monsters and corpses faded, and the bloody rain continued... a figure erged in the distance.
Holding a candied hawthorn, he walked through the crimson downpour, each step squelching in the sticky blood, until he stood before Xu Qing.
The treat in his hand was now dyed even redder by the rain.
He bent down, reaching out to pat Xu Qing’s head.
"Brother, don’t cry."
...
Inside the Purple Green Kingdom’s imperial palace, Crown Prince Purple Green murmured softly.
anwhile, outside the hall, his other self stood before the Cage of Fate, His right hand subrged in the tricolored dust.
Watching this, Crown Prince Purple Green’s eyes glead with profound depth.
"As for your divine form... I’ll take that now."
His gaze shifted toward the distant Mount Morning Glow.
Almost simultaneously—back in Fenghai County—Mount Morning Glow suddenly quaked!
An overwhelming divine might erupted from within, exploding outward like a volcanic eruption.
The cultivators maintaining the sealing formation—Zhou Zhengli and the others—were instantly sent flying, blood spraying from their mouths as the spell collapsed.
Without Xu Qing’s suppression, Crown Prince Purple Green’s divine power was unstoppable.
Even Old Master Seventh, standing atop the mountain, shuddered violently.
Despite being a Sumr Immortal, he was powerless to resist.
The formation beneath his feet shattered inch by inch, crumbling irreparably.
In the next instant, the entire array collapsed completely.
A divine aura surged from the ruins of the formation—
Xu Qing’s divine form!
It shot into the sky with terrifying pressure and montum, streaking like a cot toward...
The Sky Devouring Region!
The Purple Green Kingdom!
In a flash, it appeared inside the imperial palace, before Crown Prince Purple Green on his throne!
Studying the divine form, Crown Prince Purple Green sighed.
"Little brother, you truly weren’t prepared."
As he murmured, Crown Prince Purple Green raised his right hand and seized the divine form by the throat, preparing to absorb it.
But in that instant—
An anomaly occurred!
Crown Prince Purple Green’s expression changed abruptly—the first flicker of surprise since the battle began.
He imdiately released his grip, hurling the divine form away.
But it was too late.
He had already absorbed a portion.
His body convulsed violently as the discarded divine form suddenly glead—its shape transforming in midair!
It beca a shard of mirror!
The Ordinance of Mi Ming!
And as the mirror shard appeared, a finger abruptly extended from within at lightning speed—
Piercing toward Crown Prince Purple Green!
Everything happened in the span of a breath.
For the first ti since his resurrection, Crown Prince Purple Green faced mortal peril—a crisis that engulfed his entire being!
Outside the hall, the other Crown Prince imrsed in the Cage of Fate vanished instantly—
Reappearing inside the palace to shield Purple Green of this age!
The finger struck.
The shielding body trembled, visibly disintegrating. Within a single breath...
Both Crown Prince Purple Green’s avatar and the mirror-born finger annihilated into nothingness.
On the throne, Crown Prince Purple Green coughed up golden blood, his breathing uneven as he looked toward the collapsing Cage of Fate outside.
The tricolored dust dissipated.
Within the fading mist, a seven-year-old child stepped forward.
With each step, he aged by a year.
By the ti he fully erged—
An adult Xu Qing stood there, gazing calmly at Crown Prince Purple Green in the hall.
"What a pity..."
Inside the palace, Crown Prince Purple Green wiped the blood from his lips. For the first ti, his eyes held genuine emotion—finally settling on admiration.
...
anwhile, in the Fourth Star Ring, atop a colossal celestial body, Immortal Lord Mi Ming opened his eyes and withdrew his finger.
He sighed softly.
"Just a little more."
Behind him sat another figure in ditation—
Xu Qing’s true divine form, now suppressed beneath him!
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