Malice of Reincarnation

There were no dazzling sword shadows filling the sky, only a single sword line as thin as a silk thread, pitch black, so dark it seemed to swallow even light itself.

This strike was even more terrifying and resolute than the one that had just shattered the Heavenly Dao Jade Tablet!

Every killing intent, every law, and the overwhelming grievance and fury accumulated over two lifetimes, were all perfectly condensed into that faint, almost imperceptible black sword line, which, at a speed transcending both time and space, shot straight for Bai Yujing's brow.

Faced with this world-shattering, god-fearing, ghost-wailing blow, there was not the slightest decrease in the mockery on Bai Yujing's face. Instead, he let out an extremely contemptuous sneer.

"Is this the extent of your progress? A mere parlor trick, and you dare to show off before me?"

In the face of the deadly black line that was instantly upon his brow, Bai Yujing didn't even bother to dodge. He simply raised his right hand in a languid, almost lazy gesture.

He pressed his index and middle fingers together, and at their tips there flickered a strange, sinister dark-golden light, as if it contained some kind of higher-dimensional law.

A crisp metallic clang, so sharp it sent a jolt of pain through every eardrum present, rang out throughout the heavens and the earth.

Every surviving prodigy in the area gasped sharply, their eyes bulging nearly out of their sockets, as if they had just witnessed the most inconceivable miracle in the world!

The strike that had condensed all of Ye Xuan's cultivation, the Heartsevering Slash capable of obliterating any mighty figure of the Fusion Stage at a single blow, had been... clamped mid-air between two fingers! Bai Yujing's two fingers, no more, no less.

The terrifying black sword energy erupted in violent explosions and writhed frantically between Bai Yujing's fingertips, like a black flood dragon pinned by its throat, trying to tear apart that dark-golden glow. Yet no matter how ferociously the sword energy raged, it couldn't advance even an inch forward! It couldn't even sever a single strand of Bai Yujing's hair.

"Ye Xuan, do you really think that after groveling in survival for a few decades and reforging this broken foundation, you could turn the tables on me?"

A cruel arc curled at the corner of Bai Yujing's mouth, and with a sudden burst of destructive might from his fingertips—

"Crack!"

A sickeningly crisp snap.

The black sword line, condensed to its absolute limit, proudly claimed to split heaven and rend earth, was crushed by his bare hand into black specks of light that scattered through the air.

He looked at Ye Xuan, whose eyes were slightly narrowed in the distance, a nearly pathological excitement flickering in Bai Yujing's gaze.

It was the unique, perverse pleasure of a hunter staring at prey that had just fallen into the ultimate trap.

"Ye Xuan, your despair is far from enough."

An uncontrollable blaze of fury instantly devoured Ye Xuan's reason.

His killing intent erupted like a substantive volcano, crimson blood-qi surging skyward, and even the space within tens of yards around him was slit open with countless black cracks by that pure, raw rage!

"I'll kill you!"

Yet, in the very next instant, just as that extreme madness and fury was about to completely incinerate Ye Xuan's sanity—

The protective golden gleam of the Samsara Heavenly Scripture flashed across his spiritual platform.

In Ye Xuan's blood-red eyes, the violent killing intent came to a strange, eerie halt for a single heartbeat.

Then, those boiling-hot emotions cooled down with a terrifying speed, enough to make anyone's skin crawl.

He did not lash out in blind fury as Bai Yujing had expected, nor did he let out any hysterical roar. He simply stared cold and hard into Bai Yujing's eyes.

In his mind, countless scattered threads of information, like lightning bolts tearing through the darkness of night, began to intricately weave and link together!

Xia Lengyue from his previous life...

Bai Ningbing's betrayal in this life...

The malice that had followed him like a shadow across reincarnation...

"Something's wrong."

Ye Xuan deeply inhaled the air heavy with the scent of blood.

When he spoke again, his voice was unnervingly calm, calm like a pool of dead water, yet it made the wild laughter on Bai Yujing's face in the distance stutter for a split second.

Ye Xuan slowly raised the Sun-Slaying Divine Sword, pointing its tip directly at Bai Yujing, and spoke word by word: "Your strength is absolutely not that of the Void Refinement stage. If you really were only at the Void Refinement stage, that blow I just unleashed might not have killed you, but you would have lost at least half your life. There is no way you could be my match."

Ye Xuan gave a slight lift of his chin, his eyes revealing an absolute, proud confidence of one who had seen through everything: "In all the world, within the same realm, I, Ye Xuan, am the truly undefeated one. The fact that you could counter me proves that you are not at the Void Refinement stage."

Hearing this, Bai Yujing's laughter abruptly cut off. He narrowed his eyes, scrutinized Ye Xuan anew, and for the first time, a glimmer of genuine surprise flickered across his face.

"To recover your reason in an instant under such extreme fury, and see straight to the heart of things. Ye Xuan, you really do live up to your title of Child of Destiny. Yes, I have indeed hidden my cultivation. The laws here cannot suppress me." Bai Yujing admitted with a cold laugh.

"Who sent you?"

Ye Xuan did not bother responding to his arrogance. Instead, he pressed forward like a ruthless interrogator, his tone ice-cold. His mind was sharpened to an extreme edge, cutting straight to the core:

"From Xia Lengyue of the previous life, to Bai Ningbing of this one—this is no coincidence!"

"Why do you target me life after life after life? What is it that you, or rather the existence behind you, are truly after from me?!"

Faced with Ye Xuan's meticulous, devastating line of interrogation, Bai Yujing froze for a moment, then the expression on his face twisted into something increasingly contorted and bizarre, tinged with a hint of pity.

"What am I after from you? Hahaha, Ye Xuan, you think too highly of yourself. You're nothing more than an ant I toy with in the palm of my hand, a disposable crop I harvest life after life. What could I possibly need to scheme for from you?"

Bai Yujing gave a cold sneer: "It wasn't just Xia Lengyue, let me tell you the truth—even your wife from your previous life, Nightfall of the Amorous Sect, I, too, have tasted her."

He licked his lips, revealing a lewd, wicked smile: "When I spent that one night of spring breeze with Ye Qingcheng, it was a wish fulfilled. The flavor of that night, I still savor it even now."

Ye Qingcheng!

That was a memory from an even earlier life of his!

Anyone who heard those words would be driven into maddened rage.

And yet.

Ye Xuan merely watched him quietly, his gaze burning like a torch. In that moment, his divine sense operated at its absolute peak, locking on tightly to the circulation of Bai Yujing's energy.

Then—

Suddenly.

A deeply mocking arc lifted at the corner of Ye Xuan's mouth.

He sheathed the divine sword, looking at Bai Yujing with a pitiful, condescending expression, as if watching a clown, and spoke calmly.

"That is strange, then."

Ye Xuan's voice was not loud, but it carried clearly in every direction: "Since you claim to have lived across three lifetimes, having tasted countless women, going so far as to have partaken of my wife…"

He paused, his eyes full of mockery: "Then why is it that, to this very day, you are still a virgin of pure yang?"

The moment those words left his mouth—

The entire place went dead silent!

Bai Ningbing froze. Ying'er, in the distance, froze. All the prodigies watching froze.

And Bai Yujing's handsome face, which had been filled with arrogance and lechery just moments before, was now thoroughly rigid!

The color of his face rushed from white to red, from red to green, until finally it turned a livid purple, the color of a bruised liver.

And deep within his gaze, there flickered an utterly venomous, maniacal hatred—the hatred of a man whose most painful, most unspeakable secret had just been publicly exposed before everyone.