Nine-tier Sword Formation; Purgatory of Agony

The moment Gu Changyuan forcefully stopped in front of Ye Qingxue, a formless, intangible, yet supreme power enveloped her entire body, like the gentlest stream of water, yet also the most unbreakable shackle.

Ye Qingxue only felt that the destructive power, which was frantically burning her life essence and on the verge of erupting...

...was gently pressed down by an invisible giant hand. All the boiling vital blood, burning soul light, and condensed forbidden runes...

...were all forcibly solidified and sealed!

Not only that, a mighty power of creation surged into her body. The lifespan and origin essence she had just depleted by activating the secret technique unexpectedly began to reverse and recover.

This act of reversing life and death and defying the rules of the Heavenly Dao immediately triggered a drastic change in the weather!

Rumble!!!

The sky, originally churned by the battlefield's murderous aura and spiritual energy, suddenly gathered boundless, heavy dark clouds.

Within the clouds, terrifying purple, black, and blood-red lightning frantically darted and intertwined, emitting deafening roars.

A vast, majestic aura of destruction locked down, its target pointing straight at Gu Changyuan.

Gu Changyuan's expression at this moment could no longer be described as merely ugly; it was as black as the bottom of a pot, so gloomy that it could drip water.

As he forcibly halted Ye Qingxue's suicidal secret technique, the suppressed, monstrous anger boiled in his chest like a chaotic volcano about to erupt!

He didn't even look up at the terrifying tribulation clouds that blotted out the sky. Instead, he coldly squeezed two words through his teeth. His voice wasn't loud, but it seemed to contain a chill that could cause ten thousand Daos to crumble:

Nine Tribulations.

As the two words left his mouth, it was like the laws of the world followed his command!

Clang!!!

Above the boundless tribulation clouds, the void was suddenly torn open with nine massive rifts.

Nine giant swords, varying in shape but all as massive as mountains and wreathed in chaotic auras and laws of destruction, thrust down from the rifts with a resounding boom.

The nine swords were like nine apocalyptic divine punishments. They didn't slash at any living creature, but hacked straight into the gathered tribulation clouds themselves.

Under the supreme sharpness of the nine swords, the terrifying tribulation clouds containing the wrath of the Heavenly Dao were directly and utterly torn apart, shredded, and annihilated.

Only the phantoms of the nine giant swords, suspended at a supreme height, slowly rotating and emitting a silent, soul-freezing coercion, proved the unimaginable scene that had just occurred.

The moment the phantoms of the Nine Tribulation Swords existed, the entire space fell into a deathly silence and solidification.

An absolute suppressive force that transcended realms and cognition enveloped thousands of miles around.

Besides the three women—Ye Qingxue, Yue Lingxi, and Luo Qingchen—who were deliberately protected by Gu Changyuan's aura, all enemies present were suppressed as if by an invisible giant mountain.

The two mutated beasts were frozen in mid-air in their pouncing postures, then crashed down.

They instinctively wanted to burrow into the ground and flee, only to find that even the earth beneath them was imprisoned by that power, becoming harder than divine iron.

They could only let out desperate, suppressed, and barely audible hisses.

Within a radius of a thousand miles, all mutated beasts that sensed this terrifying aura, regardless of their strength, were frightened out of their wits and let out miserable howls.

They fled madly for their lives into the distance, forming a temporary forbidden zone.

The two huge formations below didn't even struggle under this absolute power suppression. Their formation patterns collapsed inch by inch, their spiritual light instantly dimmed, and they completely turned into nothingness.

Immediately after, countless streams of baleful aura, exuding extreme coldness, agony, and destruction...

...spawned out of thin air from the void and accurately drilled into the seven orifices and pores of the ten suppressed cultivators, invading their limbs, bones, meridians, dantians, and even their divine souls and seas of consciousness.

Arghhhhh!!!

Miserable screams that didn't even sound human instantly erupted from their mouths!

But they couldn't even roll around; they could only twitch violently in place like pinned bugs.

They felt every inch of pain in their bodies and souls magnified a hundred, a thousand times!

Endless, varied, and extreme agony that reached the deepest part of their souls never ceased.

Whenever they were about to faint or have their souls collapse because they couldn't endure it, a faint, mocking life force would surge in.

It pulled them back from the edge of collapse, ensuring they remained conscious, and then... they continued to endure that never-ending purgatory of pain.

Gu Changyuan casually shielded out the annoying, miserable screams and beastly howls below, restoring peace to the surroundings.

The gloominess and anger on his face slowly faded, turning into a complex, indescribable expression—there was heartache, lingering fear, and relief.

He slowly turned around and looked at the woman in white behind him, who had just been ready to burn everything for him and her junior sisters, but was now standing frozen in place like a statue.

Ye Qingxue stared blankly at that familiar silhouette she had dreamed of for a thousand years, which was now so real that she didn't dare to breathe. Her mind was a complete blank.

Slowly and with extreme difficulty, she raised her slightly trembling right hand and reached out toward Gu Changyuan at a snail's pace.

Her five fingers stiffly curled a little, then tremblingly opened a bit, as if wanting to touch him, yet stopping at the last inch, not daring to reach out any further.

Her movements were cautious, carrying a nearly pious fear.

She was afraid.

She was afraid that everything before her was just a hallucination before death, her final extravagant hope and nightmare while burning her divine soul.

She was afraid that if she reached out, it would be like popping a bubble, causing this hard-to-see phantom of her master to completely dissipate, leaving her without even this false comfort.

Leaving her in eternal darkness, unable to see even this last meeting.

Ye Qingxue's expression at this moment had lost its usual icy sharpness.

She just widened her clear, beautiful eyes—now full of confusion and vulnerability—and stared at Gu Changyuan unblinkingly.

Her lips moved slightly, but no sound came out. As if she had lost her voice, she silently and repeatedly echoed a call in her heart:

Mas... ter...?