"Don't touch me."
Bai Qianshuang didn't turn around. She only raised her left hand and pressed it firmly against the gray-white tendrils spreading relentlessly over her shoulder.
The contamination crawled deeper along her meridians toward her origin. Every inch it spread felt like countless eyes opening inside her very bones.
Luo Xi stopped half a step away; her fingertips had already condensed into an icy blue chill, yet she hesitated to reach out.
She knew why Bai Qianshuang wouldn't let her touch her.
If her power made contact with the contamination, that thing would likely follow the cold energy and burrow into her body in reverse. Then it wouldn't be a rescue—it would be both of them falling together.
Bai Qianshuang glanced down at her right arm.
The gray-white tendrils had already crawled past her shoulder. Several tiny eyeballs pushed out from the edges of the wound, staring at her without blinking.
The next moment, without the slightest hesitation, she grabbed her sword hilt with her left hand and swung it back in one clean motion.
The sword flashed like snow.
Her right arm was severed clean at the shoulder!
Blood splattered across the ground, only to be frozen into thin frost by her sword intent. The fallen arm was already devoured by the gray-white contamination, writhing as fine tentacles sprouted from it.
Luo Xi's pupils contracted sharply. "Qianshuang!"
Bai Qianshuang's face turned pale for an instant. The Emperor Seal on her forehead blazed with intense light, forcibly cutting off the last trace of gray-white corruption that tried to burrow into her origin.
The severed arm twitched on the ground. Its fingers crawled like spiders, and an eye split open in the palm, still lunging toward Bai Qianshuang.
Luo Xi raised her hand and clenched it. Icy blue cold descended, sealing the severed arm inside a block of crystal ice. Then she shattered it with a single explosive motion.
Shards of ice scattered everywhere.
The gray-white eyeball inside was still turning, but the Emperor Seal's cold glare soon ground it down until no movement remained.
Luo Xi swiftly produced a jade bottle and tipped out a pill that shimmered with a pale golden aura, pressing it to Bai Qianshuang's lips.
"Take it."
Bai Qianshuang didn't pretend to be strong. She swallowed the pill.
It dissolved the moment it touched her tongue, and a gentle medicinal warmth spread quickly through her limbs and bones. The flesh at the severed shoulder began to slowly writhe: first stopping the bleeding, then sprouting new bone buds.
But the recovery was slow.
Outer god injuries didn't damage ordinary flesh—they struck at the origin and the residual marks of the Emperor Seal. Even the best pills could only stabilize her condition.
Luo Xi stared at her face. "Are you alright, Qianshuang?"
Bai Qianshuang gripped her sword again with her left hand, her breathing slightly ragged, but she shook her head.
"I'm fine. The origin is just damaged. My arm can be restored with the pill."
But Luo Xi knew the words "origin damaged" were far more serious than a broken arm.
In a normal cultivation system, it was almost like someone had slashed the very foundation of her realm.
The figure inside the door watched them quietly.
It had no face, but beneath its film of light, layer after layer of agonized faces surfaced, then slowly condensed into the outline from Ye Chuan's memory.
"Damn it... it's still using Chuanchuan's face," Luo Xi said coldly.
The figure tilted its head.
The face beneath the light membrane rippled like water. Its corners slowly pulled upward, imitating a faint smile.
"The... door... open..."
It raised its hand.
In the next instant, both Bai Qianshuang and Luo Xi felt a bone-piercing cold.
They dodged almost simultaneously.
The spot where they had been standing split open without a sound!
"Its attacks don't rely on distance!" Luo Xi said. "It's like—if it can see us, it can reach us."
Bai Qianshuang nodded, holding her sword left-handed. "Then don't let it see us."
As she spoke, she slashed violently.
The snow-white sword light didn't strike the figure directly. Instead, it exploded midair into countless scattered sword-snowflakes, instantly blinding all sight before the twenty-second-level door.
Luo Xi followed immediately.
Her icy blue Emperor Seal expanded, merging cold energy with the sword-snow, turning the entire space into a reverse-blizzard.
Every flake of snow was a sword intent.
The figure stood at the heart of the blizzard. The face beneath its membrane shifted constantly, as if searching for their positions.
Bai Qianshuang's figure suddenly appeared behind it.
She held her sword in her left hand, the blade skimming across the ground before rising in an upward arc that traced a nearly transparent line of snow.
The strike was impossibly fast. She compressed all her sword intent into a single thread aimed directly at the figure's neck.
At the same moment, Luo Xi struck.
Dozens of crystal ice chains shot out from the void, engraved with Emperor Seal patterns, forcibly sealing off the space around the figure.
The sword line fell. Space itself was severed!
The figure's neck was finally sliced open. A thin crack gaped.
From within the gray-white membrane poured countless overlapping screams, as if ten thousand mouths were wailing at once.
But the next second, the crack sealed itself shut.
The figure raised its hand and pressed it gently toward Bai Qianshuang.
She retreated at once, yet blood still burst across her chest. She was flung backward, slamming into the tower wall, coughing up a mouthful of blood.
The cold light in Luo Xi's eyes sharpened.
She clasped her hands in a seal. The Emperor Seal on her forehead burned like a frozen blue sun, dropping the temperature on this floor to its extreme.
"Seal."
One word fell.
The ground, the tower walls, and the void itself all froze instantly.
Layer upon layer of ice stacked into a giant coffin, sealing both the figure and the entrance to the twenty-second level inside.
Luo Xi's face turned pale rapidly.
This move drained her immensely. But the figure merely stood at the center of the ice coffin, slowly looking up.
It was useless.
Bai Qianshuang forced herself to stand. She slashed through the gray-white threads spreading around her, her face even paler than before.
"We can't drag this out."
Luo Xi's breathing quickened. "Its power seems limitless. No matter how much we shatter, it replenishes from the tower itself."
Bai Qianshuang looked at the tower walls.
Most of the ancient runes had already been swallowed by gray-white light. Every time they struck, the runes glowed a little brighter.
"The tower itself is the anchor," Bai Qianshuang said quietly. "The longer we fight, the faster it locks onto reality."
"They're finding this place."
Luo Xi fell silent for a moment.
She understood the meaning perfectly well.
But neither of them suggested retreating.
Because both knew: when Ye Chuan wasn't here, this place could only be held by them.
The figure inside the door stepped forward again.
It finally emerged halfway from the darkness of the twenty-second level.
Bai Qianshuang and Luo Xi attacked together.
Sword light and ice interwove within the tower. Pure white and frozen blue continuously tore through the gray mist.
The two fought close and far in perfect synchronization.
Bai Qianshuang severed the invisible strikes.
Luo Xi sealed off the space and held back the spread of contamination.
But every time the figure was cut open, it healed. Every time it was sealed in ice, new eyes grew from within the frozen layers, eventually corrupting the ice itself.
Time passed, minute by minute.
The twenty-first floor was riddled with scars.
The tower walls cracked. The ground caved in.
Bai Qianshuang could only continue holding her sword in her left hand. The blade itself was now covered in fine cracks.
With every strike she made, her face grew a shade whiter. The weakness from her damaged origin was slowly consuming her power.
Luo Xi was in no better state.
The Emperor Seal on her forehead flickered, its light unstable. Her cold energy was no longer as pure as before. Several threads of gray-white contamination coiled around her sleeve, which she forcibly suppressed.
Yet the figure remained calm.
"The... door... open..."
It raised its hand again.
This time, every eye in the entire floor opened at once.
Countless gazes fell upon the two women. Bai Qianshuang and Luo Xi's bodies froze almost simultaneously!
The shadow's power began to gather onto Luo Xi.
Not good!
No...
"Luo Xuan Sword Intent!" Bai Qianshuang bit the tip of her tongue, and the radiance around her shot up into the sky, forcibly severing the restraints with her sword intent!
She stepped forward and stood in front of Luo Xi!
The shadow struck.
A thunderous crash rang out as Bai Qianshuang's chest caved in violently. She was sent flying backward, crashing through half the tower wall, blood scattering in the air!
Luo Xi's expression changed drastically. "Qianshuang!"
But at that very moment, a figure appeared out of nowhere, catching Bai Qianshuang mid-flight.
The next instant, the entire tower was locked down by a terrifying force, as if time and space itself had come to a standstill.
Di Lin, his voice like thunder from the heavens,
"Who dares to touch my wife?!"

tions: attribute allocation, analysis, proficiency, and simulation. Specializing in mechanical alchemy, from crafting sorcerous battle armor to handcrafting mechanical maidens, his mechanical legion conquers endless realms... Relying on his wits, he begins with a student-teacher romance, wins over a female director, enslaves a female assassin and a underworld queen, becoming the husband of a Grand Duchess... He enslaves the Goddess of Magic from the divine realm, developing his power simultaneously in both the Wizard World and the Realm of Gods...

ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!

orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"

lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...