"Nooooo!"
A furious scream tore through the ruined streets.
The Mountain River Martial Hall Leader, who had been standing behind the Empress Dowager, suddenly rushed forward like a maddened beast. His robes whipped violently in the wind as he poured every trace of his cultivation into his body, his eyes filled with hatred as he watched the Yin Rift rapidly close.
The ritual had failed.
The Vicious Soul had been destroyed.
The Yin Rift that they had spent so much effort opening was being sealed before it could unleash the true catastrophe they had planned.
Everything they had sacrificed, everything they had prepared, all the lives that had been thrown into the ritual, were about to become meaningless.
The cult leader could not accept it.
He knew that once the rift closed, their greatest opportunity would disappear.
He also knew that if the Empress Dowager successfully completed the sealing formation, the remaining cultists would have no chance of reversing everything.
Therefore, he could only kill her.
If he could interrupt her before the formation was completed, perhaps there would still be a chance.
His figure shot through the smoke.
His hand formed a strange seal as the remaining Yin Qi around him churned violently, gathering towards his palm.
"Die!"
His palm was only moments away from striking the Empress Dowager's back.
But before it could land, a figure suddenly appeared between them.
Lin Sheng had already noticed him.
He turned his head slightly, his eyes cold.
The next instant, his palm shot forward.
Boom!
The Mountain River Hall Leader's expression changed.
A terrifying force struck his chest before he could even react.
His body was sent flying backwards like a kite whose string had suddenly been severed.
He crossed several dozen metres in an instant.
Then—
BOOM!
His body smashed through the first building.
The entire structure collapsed beneath the impact.
His momentum did not stop.
He crashed through another building.
Then another.
Walls exploded into fragments, roof tiles scattered through the air and thick clouds of dust rolled through the streets as his body continued tearing through the ruins.
Only after destroying several buildings did he finally crash into the ground.
Rumble!
A deep crater formed beneath him.
The cult leader coughed violently, blood spraying from his mouth as he struggled to push himself upright.
His internal organs felt as though they had been turned upside down.
His chest burned with unbearable pain.
He had not even seen Lin Sheng's attack clearly.
The gap between them was simply too enormous.
The cult leader gritted his teeth.
"No..."
He refused to believe it.
He forced himself upright and immediately began forming hand seals.
"Ghosts of the Underworld, answer my call!"
His voice echoed through the ruins.
The remaining Yin Qi began to churn.
His fingers moved rapidly, forming one seal after another as he attempted to summon the ghosts that had previously answered his commands.
But nothing happened.
The cult leader froze.
He tried again.
"Summon!"
Still nothing.
The surrounding Yin Qi was rapidly being burned away by the Solar Flame.
The Yin Rift was closing.
Without the enormous source of Yin Qi that had previously filled the entire region, his ghost summoning techniques had become almost useless.
His expression gradually became one of despair.
He was a Soul Emergence cultivator, a cultivator who had opened his Niwan Palace and begun preparing the soul for its eventual transformation from Yin Soul into Yang Spirit.
Among ordinary Daoists, such cultivation was already extremely powerful.
But standing before Lin Sheng, none of that mattered.
The man before him was an External Grandmaster whose physical body had reached an unimaginable level.
The cult leader slowly looked towards Lin Sheng.
Lin Sheng stood amidst the ruins, his robes barely disturbed.
The enormous destruction surrounding him only made his figure appear even more imposing.
The cult leader suddenly laughed.
"Hahaha..."
His laughter was bitter.
"So this is how it ends?"
Lin Sheng looked at him without speaking.
The cult leader's gaze shifted towards the Empress Dowager, then towards the closing rift, and finally towards the countless ruins surrounding them.
His eyes contained unwillingness.
"Today..."
His voice became hoarse.
"You may have stopped us."
He slowly wiped the blood from his mouth.
"But if not today, then tomorrow."
His expression became fanatical.
"The fire will descend someday."
"The Incense Fire Cult will never disappear."
Those were his final words.
Lin Sheng's eyes remained cold.
A strand of Solar Flame descended from his fingertips.
The flame touched the cult leader's body.
Whoosh!
His entire body ignited.
There was no opportunity to resist.
His flesh rapidly turned black before disintegrating into ash.
The wind swept across the ruins.
The ashes scattered.
The Mountain River Martial Hall Leader, one of the people responsible for the disaster that had nearly destroyed Dongtai Prefecture, had died without leaving behind even a corpse.
At almost the same moment, the Empress Dowager finally completed the sealing.
The countless invocation runes floating above the Yin Rift suddenly trembled.
Then they activated simultaneously.
Hum!
A vast formation emerged above the fractured earth.
Golden light intertwined with countless mysterious Daoist characters as the formation descended towards the enormous rift.
The ground trembled violently.
The enormous crack that had split the earth began slowly closing.
Stone and earth were pulled towards one another as though an invisible hand was forcibly pushing the land back together.
Rumble!
Another earthquake shook the entire region.
Buildings that had already been damaged collapsed completely, while surviving walls trembled and dust poured from their roofs.
But this time, there was no Yin Qi erupting from beneath the earth.
The rift was closing.
The catastrophe was finally coming to an end.
The surviving cultists witnessed this scene from different parts of the ruined city.
Some stood frozen.
Others stared at the ashes of their leader.
The fanaticism that had previously filled their eyes was gone.
Their ritual had failed.
Their Vicious Soul had been destroyed.
Their leader was dead.
And their enemies had survived.
"Run!"
Someone finally shouted.
The remaining cultists immediately scattered.
They no longer cared about fighting.
They needed to escape.
They needed to report what had happened.
The Incense Fire Cult had to know that the ritual in Dongtai Prefecture had failed.
Several cultists rushed into the ruined streets, but before they could get far, figures wearing the uniforms of the Mingyuan Division appeared from the surrounding alleys.
"Don't let them escape!"
The division members immediately charged.
The cultists were already disoriented, their morale completely shattered. Some attempted to resist, but they were quickly overwhelmed and restrained.
The few who tried to flee through the ruins were intercepted by the Demon Suppression Division.
Chains wrapped around their limbs.
Martial artists struck them down.
Daoists sealed their cultivation.
Within a short period, the surviving cultists were captured one after another.
The great ritual had ended.
But the price had been enormous.
Lin Sheng stood silently in the middle of the ruined city.
His eyes swept across the surroundings.
For several miles in every direction, the city had been devastated.
Entire streets had disappeared.
Buildings had collapsed into piles of rubble.
Blood stained the ground.
The once bustling streets of Dongtai Prefecture had become almost unrecognisable.
The destruction caused by the eruption of Yin Qi alone had been terrifying.
Ordinary people who had been caught within its range had died before they even understood what was happening, their Yang energy devoured by the countless ghosts that had poured from the rift.
Even martial artists and members of the various divisions had suffered casualties.
Some had been killed by the ghosts.
Others had died when the Yin Qi erupted.
There were also those who had fallen during the fierce battle between the Su Family and the invading forces.
The victory had been decisive.
But it was far from clean.
Lin Sheng's expression became slightly solemn.
Dongtai Prefecture had survived.
That alone was fortunate.
But the city would remember this day for a long time.
---
Several days passed.
The immediate chaos had finally subsided.
The Yin Qi that had filled the city was gradually dissipating, especially after the Empress Dowager's sealing formation had completely stabilised the area around the former rift.
The remaining ghosts had either been destroyed, captured or fled into distant regions.
The streets, however, were another matter.
There was no technique that could instantly rebuild an entire city.
The Prefectural Commander had no choice but to open the city treasury.
Large amounts of silver were released for reconstruction.
Workers began clearing rubble from the streets.
Carpenters repaired damaged houses.
Masons rebuilt collapsed walls.
The Yamen organised the surviving residents and temporarily relocated those who had lost their homes.
The city slowly began to recover.
But every repaired street carried traces of the disaster.
Some families would never return.
Some houses would never again hear the voices of the people who once lived inside them.
The price of the victory could not be measured merely in silver.
---
At the Su Family courtyard, the atmosphere was considerably quieter.
Su Yang sat inside a room with bandages wrapped around his chest and shoulders.
His injuries were no longer life-threatening, but the battle had still left him exhausted.
Shen Bing sat nearby, similarly recovering.
Although Lin Sheng's healing pill had saved Su Yang from serious internal injuries, his body still required time to recover completely.
Su Yang looked towards the courtyard outside.
The Su Family had survived.
But when he thought about the people who had fallen during the battle, his expression became heavy.
They had won.
Yet there were fewer people celebrating the victory than there should have been.
Shen Bing remained silent beside him.
After a long while, Su Yang finally sighed.
"We really survived."
His voice was quiet.
Shen Bing looked at him.
"Because Master arrived."
Su Yang nodded.
He remembered the moment Lin Sheng appeared.
He remembered the Astral Gang expert holding him down. He remembered thinking that he was about to die.
Then he remembered the single hand that had seized the expert's neck and the terrifying mental strength that had shattered his soul.
Most importantly, he remembered what happened afterwards. He needed Strength.... True Strength.
The entire battlefield had fallen silent beneath Lin Sheng's overwhelming Qi-Blood. He had became arrogant but the battle had humbled him.
Su Yang clenched his fist.
"Master's strength..."
He shook his head.
"Until now, I still didn't understand just how strong he was."
Shen Bing's eyes also contained a trace of awe.
Neither of them had expected that the quiet man who had taught them would possess such terrifying strength.
Outside the courtyard, the surviving Su Family members moved quietly through the grounds.
There was no celebration. No laughter.
They were alive. For now, that was enough.