71: A divine embryo undergoes a shocking transformation, drawing the shadow of a dragon; a blood curse devours the soul, igniting the purple-gold!

Weng!!!

The moment the wisp of Primordial Chaos Fire from Jiang Linfeng's fingertip entered the gap of the crystal coffin, it was as if a solar spark containing the Origin of life and death of Chaos had been cast into an eternally frozen abyss!

Rumble—!!!!

The core space of the entire Cold Crystal Palace shook violently! The viscous, flowing ice-blue star river marrow instantly became violently turbulent, like an enraged deep-sea behemoth! Countless frozen starlight fragments scattered within were shaken loose from their constraints, shooting out like out-of-control meteors in the narrow space, striking the peerlessly tough profound ice barriers and exploding into a sky full of fragmented brilliance! The Chaos Starlight Chains wrapped around the coffin shook violently, emitting a rapid, piercing metallic hum, as if they would snap at any moment!

Inside the crystal coffin—

That wisp of Primordial Chaos Fire, carrying Jiang Linfeng's Origin will and capable of incinerating stardust, did not cause a world-shaking explosion upon contact with the extreme ice Origin mixed with purple blood mist inside the coffin. Instead, it was as if it had opened a forbidden valve sealed for eons!

Chi chi chi... The Laws of extreme heat and extreme cold clashed and annihilated each other frantically on a microscopic level! A terrifying will originating from ancient times, like a slumbering primordial malevolent god being forcibly dragged awake, suddenly erupted!

Roar—!!!

It wasn't a real roar, but a terrifying Dragon's cry that directly shook the Divine Soul and crushed the will! The moment this Dragon's cry rang out, the flow of time in the entire core space seemed to warp! With the crystal coffin as the center, an invisible shockwave carrying Supreme majesty and destructive, tyrannical aura spread out violently!

The hand Jiang Linfeng had placed on the edge of the coffin shook violently! That wisp of Primordial Chaos Fire was bitten and devoured by more than half by an invisible giant mouth! A terrifying backlash force—cold, overbearing, and carrying a sense of decay and erosion—surged along the connection of the Primordial Chaos Fire, striking his outstretched fingertip like a maggot on a bone!

"Eh?" Jiang Linfeng's brow furrowed truly for the first time! This wasn't a backlash mixed with a Heart Demon of jealousy like Ning Yudie's, but a more ancient, purer Law curse from the Bloodline Origin! It carried a terrifying will that wanted to completely devour and assimilate the "defiler" from Soul to body!

Boom!

Above his fingertip, Chaos Qi instantly erupted like a volcanic explosion! Brilliant gray-gold divine patterns immediately covered his entire palm, forcibly isolating that eerie erosive curse power! Two equally Supreme but opposing forces collided violently within an inch, silently yet causing the surrounding spatial barriers to instantly fill with web-like black cracks!

However, this was only the beginning!

Amidst the violent tremors of the crystal coffin, the lid was pried open by a palm's width by a ferocious force! A thicker purple blood mist billowed out! At the very core of the churning mist, upon the body of the woman who had been quietly slumbering, the flowing dark purple blood veins suddenly lit up with a piercing purple-gold light, like awakening demonic Dragons!

This light did not dissipate; it converged!

Above her tightly closed eyelids, right in the center of her forehead! The power of all the dark purple blood veins converged frantically. The Void Realm warped and vibrated as an ancient demonic emblem—so complex it was hard to describe, appearing as if composed of countless tangled Dragon-shaped runes—slowly emerged!

The moment the demonic emblem appeared—

Weng!

On the ceiling of the entire Cold Crystal Palace, the star charts naturally formed by the power of the stars drawn by Jiang Xuanchen suddenly brightened! The brilliant starlight was forcibly restrained and twisted, turning into a thick pillar of starlight that, ignoring spatial barriers, blasted with pinpoint accuracy into the crystal coffin!

The target—that suddenly surfaced Purple-Gold Dragon-shaped Demonic Emblem!

But what made Jiang Linfeng's gaze narrow even more was—

Roar! Roar! Roar!

Not one, but three! Three blurry yet incredibly clear, massive purple-gold phantoms rose from that demonic emblem! Their forms were hideous, with Dragon heads and muscular bodies, sharp claws and teeth, and whiskers flared in rage! Though they were only phantom outlines, they radiated a sky-toppling ferocity, greed, and a chaotic devouring will to the extreme! Two of them bared their fangs and claws, biting toward the demonic emblem on the forehead of the struggling woman who was being bombarded by starlight! It was as if they were fighting over a Supreme blood meal that was about to ripen!

And the last one, the largest and clearest Purple-Gold Dragon Shadow that was almost solidified, had giant eyes condensed from pure purple-gold Laws that looked down indifferently upon all living beings. It did not stare at the woman in the coffin, but instead instantly saw through everything and dead-locked onto—Jiang Linfeng!!

No! To be more precise, it locked onto Jiang Xuanchen, who was held in Luo Yan's arms behind Jiang Linfeng, seemingly awakened by this terrifying turn of events, opening a pair of pure yet dazed ice-blue star pupils!!!

Within the Purple-Gold Dragon Shadow's pupils, cold greed instantly turned into a desire to incinerate everything! A raspy, chaotic thought, overlapping countless Divine Soul fragments like the wailing Souls of billions of decaying stars exploding together, rang out directly in the deepest parts of Jiang Linfeng and Jiang Xuanchen's Souls!

[Devour... devour him!!! The most perfect blood meal! Chaos... Ice Soul Saint Body! Origin! All... shall be offered to my Lord!!!]

Boom!

A destructive mental shock, like billions of steel needles, stabbed toward Jiang Xuanchen's fragile infant Divine Soul! How could the little fellow withstand such an impact? His small face instantly turned as pale as gold leaf, and he couldn't even make a sound. His pure ice-blue eyes were instantly covered in a layer of deathly gray, and his tiny body began to twitch violently. The light of the Chaos Ice Lotus mark that had just stabilized and begun to rotate on his chest suddenly dimmed!

"Xuanchen!" Inside the Warm Pavilion, Luo Yan screamed in shock, feeling the child in her arms, who had been warm, suddenly become ice-cold and stiff!

Almost at the same moment!

"Evil creature! You seek death!!!"

Jiang Linfeng's roar was like the explosion of divine thunder at the dawn of Chaos! His cold voice was completely replaced by a rage that could incinerate all things! Veins popped on his forehead, and in those deep eyes, for the first time, an apocalyptic divine flame burned as if to incinerate the entire endless Universe! His killing intent materialized!

His palm, covered in Chaos divine patterns and pressed against the edge of the coffin, did not retreat but instead slammed down! His fingers spread wide like he was grasping a miniature Chaos star! The vast and boundless Chaos Origin within his body was poured without reservation along his fingers into the gap of the coffin!

Kacha!

A crisp, massive sound, like the shattering of crystal!

The incredibly tough Chaos Starlight Chains binding the coffin—three of them snapped instantly!

This was not destruction! Instead, with an even more overbearing and boundless power, he forcibly altered the core Laws of the chains! He instantly twisted them from chains of protection into shackles to seal the prey! Simultaneously, the Chaos divine fire he erupted and injected underwent a qualitative change; no longer a gentle probe, it turned into billions of sky-burning, world-melting Chaos divine spears. Carrying the Supreme will to purify all evil, they ferociously tore into the three arrogant Purple-Gold Dragon Shadows, especially the demonic Dragon attempting to lock onto Jiang Xuanchen!

"Get—out!"

The Chaos divine spears pierced through the Void Realm! Ignoring the barriers of spatial dimensions! Their target was aimed directly at the core of the three Purple-Gold Dragon Shadows inside the coffin—that ancient demonic emblem!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A world-shaking collision of Laws erupted within the narrow crystal coffin! The Purple-Gold Dragon Shadows let out roars of fury and terror, their Dragon bodies crumbling and dissipating inch by inch upon impact with the Chaos divine spears! However, they were themselves projections of a certain cursed will. In the final moment before being completely torn apart and annihilated!

Roar!

Before it collapsed, the Purple-Gold Dragon Shadow that had lunged at Xuanchen suddenly opened its toothy Dragon mouth! A pure, extremely condensed, deep purple curse Origin, like a poison arrow burning with a demonic Soul, was not shot toward Jiang Xuanchen. Instead, with a desperate resolve to perish together, it shot fiercely toward the palm of Jiang Linfeng, which was still inside the coffin gap and erupting with Divine Might!

Too fast! Too close! Too insidious! This was the backlash of the curse's Origin will! It was like a maggot on a bone!

Pu!

That wisp of deep purple curse Origin instantly invaded the skin of Jiang Linfeng's palm, which was covered in Chaos divine patterns!

Chila—!!!

Like a red-hot iron pressed against ice! On Jiang Linfeng's palm, the gray-gold divine patterns flashed wildly, but they were instantly entangled by the deep purple curse like a maggot on a bone! A hideous, twisted, purple-black demonic mark, looking as if it had been gnawed by an evil Dragon and carrying a malicious curse power that could incinerate flesh, erode the Divine Soul, and defile the Origin, spread across his palm at an alarming speed! Everywhere it passed, Chaos Divine Power was polluted, frozen, and decayed! Even the Chaos divine blood surging through the Meridians of that arm stagnated slightly, as if contaminated by a lethal poison!

"Hmph!" Jiang Linfeng let out a muffled groan, a heart-piercing, bone-eroding pain that felt like it would tear and defile his Soul radiated from his palm! The curse was more violent and malicious than imagined!

However—

Just as the purple-black curse spread frantically, about to erode up to his elbow!

Weng!

On Jiang Linfeng's curse-infected palm, in the center of the gray-gold divine patterns that his own Chaos Divine Power was struggling to maintain while retreating, a speck of dark gold blood-glow—seemingly innate, originating from the deepest part of his Bloodline, and dormant for eons—was suddenly passively ignited! It was as if Supreme majesty had been defiled and would not tolerate desecration!

The moment the blood-glow appeared, the previously arrogant purple-black curse was like early snow under a blazing sun, letting out an extremely shrill scream as it receded and dissolved ten times faster than it had spread! And the last Dragon shadow phantom inside the coffin, which was about to pounce on his arm and perform a secondary invasion along the curse mark, at the moment it locked eyes with that speck of dark gold blood-glow—it was like a lowly ant catching a glimpse of the true form of a Nine Heavens Dragon! Soul Flying Away and Spirit Scattering! In a silent scream of terror, it evaporated without a trace!

Inside the coffin, the churning purple blood mist suddenly calmed for a moment. The ancient demonic emblem on the woman's forehead dimmed to the extreme, and the Purple-Gold Dragon Shadows were all gone.

But Jiang Linfeng had no time to worry about anything else! He pulled back his palm, his figure flickering as he instantly appeared in the Warm Pavilion! His face carried an imperceptible trace of fatigue, but his eyes were fixed on Jiang Xuanchen in Luo Yan's arms, who had stopped twitching but had weak breathing, a gray face, and a Divine Soul so dim it was nearly dissipating.

Although that invisible, space-piercing mental attack had been interrupted by Jiang Linfeng in time, its aftershocks still heavily injured the infant's incredibly fragile Divine Soul!

[Ding! Host has been attacked by an Ancient God-Fiend Curse (Abyss Soul-Devouring Dragon Curse)! Chaos Saint Blood has passively protected the body and purified 99.9% of the curse power! Residual curse aftershock erosion is below 1%! Completely suppressed! (Note: The curse mark can only be completely removed once the Origin Realm breaks through.)]

[Warning: Jiang Xuanchen's Divine Soul has been heavily injured by an Abyss mental impact! The Soul Origin is being polluted and eroded by Abyss aura! It is dissipating!]

Luo Yan looked at the purple-black lines on Jiang Linfeng's arm that were slowly fading but still emitted an ominous aura, then at Xuanchen in her arms, whose life force was rapidly draining, and her face was already covered in tears: "Husband! Xuanchen, he..."

"He won't die!" Jiang Linfeng said decisively, his voice carrying an unquestionable resolve. Without the slightest hesitation, his right index finger suddenly pierced his forehead! A drop of Origin Soul-blood, shining with pure dark gold divine light and flowing with endless life and Soul radiance, was forced out from his forehead's Ancestral Aperture! The moment this drop of blood appeared, the entire Warm Pavilion was enveloped in a warm and majestic Holy Light, even the profound ice walls began to melt!

He flicked his finger!

"Congeal!"

That incomparably precious Chaos Essence Blood Soul Source, like a shooting star falling into a dark ocean, instantly sank into Jiang Xuanchen's forehead!

Boom!

A gentle yet irresistibly powerful Chaos will, mixed with pure Soul nourishing power, forcibly stabilized Jiang Xuanchen's dissipating Soul! The cold Abyss aura tainting his Soul was like mist under a blazing sun, instantly dispersed without a trace! The little fellow's gray face recovered its rosiness at a speed visible to the naked eye. The daze in his ice-blue eyes vanished, becoming pure and innocent once more, and he even blinked his eyes in some confusion.

The crisis was temporarily resolved.

However—

Pa-ta! A very slight crisp sound, yet one that felt like a knock on the heart, came from the core of the Cold Crystal Palace.

Jiang Linfeng suddenly turned his head, his cold gaze piercing through the Void Realm to look at the core space.

The slightly open lid of the crystal coffin, under the impact of his previous Divine Power eruption and the backlash from the Dragon shadows' collapse—silently and completely slid off.

The coffin lid fell onto the thick profound ice on the ground, making a crisp sound.

Inside the coffin, the ten-thousand-year ice mist slowly dispersed.

That body, perfect as an ice goddess, was completely exposed without any cover. But from the edge of that dim Purple-Gold Dragon-shaped Demonic Emblem on her forehead, wisps of pitch-black aura began to drift out, wriggling like living things and emitting a thick sense of greed and ill omen. Her eyelashes seemed to tremble extremely slightly due to the violent external stimulation... An extremely weak, cold, and strange Soul fluctuation, devoid of emotion and like a newborn venomous snake, slowly awakened from its eternal slumber...