Rong Huanxuan’s heart seized with inexplicable panic. Every instinct told her she was in danger and that she needed to leave this place immediately.

Yet under Lang Jiuchuan’s gaze, her feet seemed nailed to the ground. She could not move at all.

She lowered her eyes and shut them, silently reciting the Rong clan’s unique cultivation incantation over and over, forcing herself to calm down. And yet — the air around her was perfectly still — but she felt a chill spreading across her entire body, that icy, yin-drenched aura closing in from every direction, surrounding her, consuming her, trying to draw out her darkest secrets.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Rong Huanxuan heard the violent pounding of her own heart against her chest.

And what every pair of eyes in the room witnessed was this: the Soul-Reaping chain in Black Impermanence’s hand, like a cold and poisonous serpent, suddenly came alive. Riding a wind that cut straight to the bone, it wound with unerring precision around the neck of Prince Jing, who lay upon the bed, his breath barely a flicker.

Tantai Cong stumbled back two steps in terror and dropped straight to the ground with a thud, wanting to scream — yet the only sounds his throat could produce were hoarse, rattling croaks.

When a person is gripped by extreme terror, no sound will come. He was living proof of that.

Everyone present dared not move. They stood rigid, watching Black Impermanence carry out the act of soul-reaping, their fingertips ice-cold. They could not stop it — and they dared not try.

Lang Jiuchuan’s eyes flickered. Her expression was detached as she watched the scene unfold. Meanwhile, behind her back, hidden within the folds of her sleeves, the tips of her fingers gave the faintest tremor. The judge’s talisman brush was pinched between her fingers, shrunken to the size of a palm, spinning idly.

Black Impermanence’s eyelid twitched. He silently cursed old Bai in his heart, then produced the Book of Life and Death and spoke with the complete composure of someone going through official procedure: “Tantai Jing of the Great Yan dynasty — lifespan exhausted, karmic debts fulfilled. The soul is hereby detained and brought to account.”

His voice was ice-cold, carrying not a single fluctuation, hoarse and eerie. The moment those words fell, the Soul-Reaping chain coiled around Prince Jing’s neck snapped taut. The dark ghost energy, black as obsidian, bored in like serpents toward the seat of his spirit, forcibly raking and dragging his three ethereal souls and seven corporeal souls out from his physical body.

Above that chain, the phantom silhouette of the Mirror of Karmic Iniquity appeared, reflecting scene after scene of every transgression Prince Jing had committed. The images of how he had cruelly slaughtered his wives were particularly harrowing, and the faces of everyone watching turned dark.

This was the root of the karmic backlash — no wonder the King of Hell’s death warrant had descended upon him. He was an affront to gods and men alike. And yet, moments ago, they had actually been weighing whether or not to save him — even asking Lang Jiuchuan to do it.

Everyone felt a wave of shame.

Tantai Cong came drifting back to consciousness just in time to see the horrifying sight of Rong Huanxuan’s face, and he couldn’t help crying out: “What manner of demon are you!”

Those words pierced straight through Rong Huanxuan. In a flash, she lunged forward, seized him, and with a vicious heave, hurled him into one of the pillars at the center of the hall.

“Stop her!”

The imperial clan elders cried out in alarm and surged forward to intervene — but they were too late. With a tremendous crash, Tantai Cong was flung with enormous force and struck the pillar broadside. A sickening crack of breaking bone rang out. He didn’t even manage to scream before he crumpled to the ground, his body contorted in an unnatural angle, as though he had been snapped in two at the waist — whether he was alive or dead was unknown.

His spinal column had shattered.

Lang Jiuchuan cast a brief glance and understood immediately what had happened, but she had no mind to tend to it — because Rong Huanxuan had already lunged directly at her, shrieking: “Die!”

Her screams, saturated with boundless venom and madness, reverberated through the bedchamber, deafening and excruciating, stabbing at everyone’s eardrums like needles. Her five fingers were curled into talons, her nails tinged black and grown into sharp points, raking toward Lang Jiuchuan.

Gong Tinglan’s eyes went cold. His toe pushed off the ground, and he launched the purple bone flute forward: “Subdue evil, cut away corruption — go!”

He was fast — but Lang Jiuchuan was faster. The jade-bone talisman brush flew from her hand, and a surging, righteously powerful force struck ferociously at Rong Huanxuan’s spirit soul.

“Ahhh!” Rong Huanxuan screamed. Every shred of rationality gone, she rapidly chanted several incantations in succession, then without hesitation bit through the tip of her own tongue. A mouthful of vital heart blood sprayed outward in a scarlet burst.