Su Wan'er's fingertips froze a layer of frost on Lin Mo's palm. The uncontrollable spirit energy of her cold marrow body spilled outward, dyeing the vines at the entrance of the Sword Tomb ice blue. She watched the boy's unsteady back and suddenly recalled that snowy night three years ago—when the starving and cold little beggar curled up in a corner of the dilapidated temple, and it was these warm hands that had pressed half a baked cake into her arms.

  "You always do this," she murmured, her voice lost in the howling sword wind. "Even when you can barely stand, you still want to protect me."

  Lin Mo's back visibly stiffened. The blood pact totem on his right hand was burning through his meridians, and each step left charred footprints on the bluestone slabs. The wailing from deep within the Sword Tomb grew clearer, like thousands of lost souls weeping blood in his ears. This was no metaphor—when they turned the last stone step, the sight before Su Wan'er made her bite her lip hard to suppress a scream.

  Countless broken swords were impaled in a hill of corpses. Some skeletons still wore the robes of the Qingyun Sect, while many others were bizarre beast bones. The most horrifying was the massive black sword in the center, which pierced through a bronze corpse puppet with three heads and six arms. Dark red blood oozed from its wounds, congealing into the words "Zhan Yuan" on the hilt.

  "Don't look into its eyes," Lin Mo suddenly covered Su Wan'er's eyes, while he locked gazes with the vertical pupil on the corpse puppet's forehead. Deep within that pupil emerged images from twelve years ago: Qing Li kneeling in the Sword Tomb, holding a baby and pressing the jade pendant to the child's heart; the corpse puppet's bronze hand piercing her back, droplets of blood falling onto the crying baby's face.

  "Mother..." A sweet coppery taste surged in Lin Mo's throat. He saw his mother smiling, her bloodied fingers forming seals—that was the "ritual" spell recorded in the Beast Pearl. The corpse puppet suddenly let out a deafening roar, and the chains wrapped around the sword snapped one by one!

  Su Wan'er was thrown into the air by the shockwave. She flipped mid-air, her cold marrow spirit instinctively forming an ice shield, but it was instantly melted by the black flames spewed from the corpse puppet. At the critical moment, the green-eyed golden-feathered sparrow burst from Lin Mo's robes, its tail feathers expanding into a golden cage.

  "Run!" Qing Zhu's ethereal figure appeared much fainter than usual. "The Zhan Yuan sword is devouring my soul power..."

  Before she could finish, the corpse puppet's bronze hand had already pierced through the golden cage. Lin Mo suddenly laughed. He let the claws pierce his shoulder, the blood-stained fingers pressing against the puppet's forehead: "So you’ve been eroded by the Heavenly Refinement Array too."

  The blood pact totem spread from his fingertips, and the corpse puppet's movements abruptly halted. Those memories, settled for millennia, surged into Lin Mo's consciousness like a flood—he saw the first sect master wielding the Zhan Yuan sword to cleave through the sea of the underworld, saw the master of the Tianji Pavilion carving curse runes into the sword's body, and finally froze on the moment when Qing Li embedded the jade pendant into the core of the sword array.

  "Mo'er." His mother's voice suddenly echoed in the Sword Tomb. "If you hear this, it means I have failed."

  Lin Mo turned sharply. Qing Li's lingering soul rose from the Zhan Yuan sword, her translucent fingers gently caressing his cheek: "The Heavenly Refinement Array needs three keys: the Beast Pearl, a cold marrow body, and the blood of a close relative. I replaced your fate with the jade pendant, but the Tianji Pavilion..."

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  The lingering soul suddenly twisted, and Qing Li's face contorted in pain. The vertical pupil on the corpse puppet's forehead oozed black blood, slowly dragging her soul back into the sword!

  "Don't—!" Lin Mo frantically formed seals as twelve beastly shadows burst forth from the blood pact. But the corpse puppet opened its massive mouth, swallowing both the beast shadows and the green-eyed golden-feathered sparrow. Su Wan'er suddenly embraced him from behind, her cold marrow spirit forming an ice cocoon around them both.

  "Your mother left something in the sword array," the girl whispered, her breath brushing against his ear. "Look at the heart of the corpse puppet."

  Amidst the glimmering light refracted by the ice crystals, a faint blue glow flowed within the corpse puppet's chest cavity. Lin Mo suddenly understood what his mother had done back then—she had sealed half of the Beast Pearl here!

  The corpse puppet's claws tore through the ice cocoon. Su Wan'er suddenly pushed Lin Mo away, allowing the bronze hand to pierce through her right shoulder. Blood splattered onto the Zhan Yuan sword, causing its dark blade to shimmer with silver-white patterns!

  "Cold marrow condensed blood..." Qing Zhu's voice trembled with tears. "That foolish girl is forcing an awakening!"

  The intense pain reminded Su Wan'er of that morning when she was abandoned in the snow. Her birth mother had said while cutting open her wrist with a hairpin, "Wan'er, your blood is too cold; it cannot sustain life." At this moment, the cold marrow spirit infused into the sword body along with her blood, and the Zhan Yuan sword emitted a dragon-like roar, while the corpse puppet's movements suddenly slowed.

  Lin Mo's pupils completely transformed into beast-like slits. He plunged his bare hand into the corpse puppet's chest, grasping the blue light within. At that instant, the other half of the Beast Pearl emerged from his brow. The two pearls spun and merged, and amidst the burst of light, Qing Li's final memory surfaced—

  On a night of pouring rain, the seven elders knelt at the feet of the master of the Tianji Pavilion. Beneath them lay three hundred corpses of Qingyun disciples, their blood pooling into a formation. The master plunged a soul-piercing nail into Xiao Han's heart: "Watch closely how your senior sister is turned into a key."

  "So everyone has been lying to me..." Lin Mo's nails dug deeply into his palm. The fused Beast Pearl sank into his dantian, and the Sword Tomb suddenly trembled. The Zhan Yuan sword soared into the air, its sword spirit transforming into a man in dark robes who landed before him: "Now that you know, do you still want to inherit this mother-slaying sword?"

  Su Wan'er suddenly grasped the sword hilt. Extreme cold spread from her palm, freezing the sword spirit in place. "He doesn’t need your approval." The girl’s hair was laced with ice crystals, her pupils turned a silvery white like frost, "What Aunt Qing Li exchanged her life for is not for you to judge!"

  The sword spirit revealed a playful smile. He raised his hand and lightly tapped, causing a blood-red curse mark to appear on Su Wan’er’s neck: "Little cold marrow body, do you know you won't live past eighteen?" His fingertip moved to Lin Mo's heart, "And you, with each use of the Beast Pearl, increase the risk of becoming a Taotie puppet."

  At that moment, the corpse puppet completely disintegrated. The purple-robed elder's maniacal laughter echoed from the depths: "Thank you, young friend, for helping me break the last seal!" The entire Sword Tomb began to sink, the red light of the Heavenly Refinement Array penetrating the rock layers.

  Lin Mo suddenly drove the Zhan Yuan sword into the ground. The fused Beast Pearl roared within him, and he distinctly felt countless bloodlines resonating from miles away—the Lei Ze Kui Niu of the Northern Wilderness, the Xuan Gui of the South Sea, and the Zhu Yan of the Western Extremes... These ancient clans were kneeling before the Qingyun Sect.

  "This is not inheritance." He grasped Su Wan'er’s cold hand, and the Zhan Yuan sword erupted with a beam of light that pierced heaven and earth. "This is about rewriting the rules."

  The sword spirit's figure dissipated in the light beam, and his last words carried a sense of relief: "Qing Li, your son is braver than any of us..."