Overdraw the future and become a peerless martial god

Chapter 180 The First Year of Ningming (Seeking monthly votes and subscriptions)
Xie Mingli stood in the pool of blood, silently watching the soul fire burn out, without saying a word.

Chu Ning stepped forward and draped the outer robe over her shoulders.

She looked at him and murmured:
"Tell me... has this debt truly been settled?"

Chu Ning did not answer immediately.

He simply held her hand, his gaze fixed on the ceiling of the imperial palace.

"Not only is it not cleared, but it also owes one last payment."

"It's time for one last trip."

"Once this dynasty is over—it will no longer be a cannibalistic regime."

The entire capital city has fallen silent.

The Prince Duan's mansion was reduced to ashes, the Prince of Yan's blood was spilled, and the names of Lei Hun Chu Ning and Xie Mingli became the blades of rebellion in the martial arts world.

Only the imperial palace remains untouched.

The vermilion gate of the Heavenly Palace has never been truly opened since the Soul Map first appeared.

—Because that emperor never wanted to face it personally.

He is the core of the Great Qian imperial system, the highest shackle of martial arts, and the sealer of the lives of millions.

And now, he knows they will come.

Therefore, the nine restrictions of the imperial palace had already been lifted long before they stepped into the Golden Palace.

The Myriad Manifestations Floating Pagoda Formation, the Three Elements Emperor's Heart Seal, and the Blood Soul Reversal Formation.

The blood souls that escaped from the Mirror Prison throughout the entire capital began to coalesce, and all the souls that died unjustly were quietly gathered together, incorporated into the array, and cast into his soul seat.

At the top of the Heavenly Palace, the soul energy surged, pressing down like a mountain.

A golden dragon floated in the sky, the soul talisman shook the world, and layers of imperial seals wrapped around the top of the soul seat, like chains binding the heart.

Chu Ning and Xie Mingli walked side by side up the steps to the throne.

She still held the Cold Star Blade in her hand, its chilling aura palpable.

The Five Souls Thunder Wheel in his palm was calm as frost, its thunderous energy unmoving.

They had no soldiers, no army.

They no longer use the terms "punishment" or "accountability".

Just step by step, I walked into the heart of destiny.

No soldiers, no sound, only shadows reflected on the steps.

The emperor's throne is at the top of the palace.

The emperor finally appeared.

That was no longer the form of an ordinary person.

He stood atop the throne in the Heavenly Palace, his body long since detached from the mortal flesh and blood, his soul tempered like dark gold and flowing fire.

The nine imperial seals circulated around his body, layer upon layer, like solidified stars, as if the laws of heaven and earth had been forged into every inch of his bones.

Behind him, a gigantic, pitch-black map slowly emerged.

—The Emperor's Soul Diagram.

The image resembles a night sea, filled with countless strands of soul energy. Each of its patterns is forged from true soul energy, within which mortal warriors struggle and cry out. At the center of the image, three imperial runes are clearly imprinted:

“Suppressing Heaven”, “Controlling Fate”, “Adjudicating the Way”.

It resembles a book of fate, and also a book of punishment.

This is not a soul chart for martial artists, but a "national destiny chart" that imprisons the entire world. It is a shackled form created by the convergence of the life souls of hundreds of millions of people. Any soul that enters this chart is forbidden from establishing its own path of cultivation and must follow the rules to advance in rank and position. This is the true core secret technique of the Great Qian Empire—the Imperial Soul Control Array.

As soon as the Emperor Soul Diagram appeared, the entire Heavenly Palace was instantly plunged into silence, the void collapsed, and the chaotic flow of soul power roared like a vast ocean, stirring up a violent spiritual pressure storm. Even the golden palace at the top of the sky trembled slightly.

The emperor spoke slowly, his voice carrying an imposing authority, as if seeping from the ancient inscriptions of the hall, resounding like thunder through metal and stone:

"You've come to kill me?"

"Can killing me alone change the course of fate?"

His voice contained no fear, only the indifference of someone looking down on the world from a high place.

"The martial arts world has existed for hundreds of years. If there were no laws or regulations to restrain it, wouldn't it just become a chaotic mess?"

"The Emperor's soul is here; all people shall return to order. You attack with the Soul Map and the Oath Thunder, but you merely wish to disrupt order with your delusions and shatter the heavens with a single soul—"

"Chu Ning, you're just... unwilling to be inferior."

The Emperor's Soul Diagram trembled violently.

At that very moment, the nine imperial seals transformed into a chain, instantly piercing into the Emperor Soul Diagram and activating its core. An ancient soul technique appeared in the void, its name:
"The Mark of the Dao".

That is a soul-suppressing technique that suppresses anyone who does not cultivate their soul according to imperial law; it is the supreme punishment seal of the Soul Dao Law.

A dark gold soul mark emerged from the emperor's palm, piercing through the sky and heading straight for Chu Ning's five soul foundations.

Within that soul mark, countless soul shadows faintly emerged, wailing and howling. These were the souls of countless martial artists who had been sealed, had their souls, paths, and lives eroded by the imperial system over the past three hundred years.

This technique not only suppresses the soul, but also steals thoughts, strips away consciousness, and restricts the path. Once it hits, Chu Ning will lose the foundation for self-cultivation, and even the Oath Thunder will have its soul root severed, fundamentally depriving him of the possibility of "attaining the Dao".

Suddenly, a deafening roar, like the fury of a god, echoed from the sky.

The Emperor Soul Diagram unfolded, like the darkness crushing the dawn, attempting to bring Chu Ning under its "rules."

Xie Mingli's expression changed instantly, and she almost drew her Cold Star Slash sword on the spot. Her first thought was that the Soul Diagram would go straight for Chu Ning's Soul Platform.

She was shocked: He had already foreseen this situation?

Chu Ning, however, did not move.

He slowly raised his head, his eyes extremely calm, as if he had seen through everything and it was all destined when he arrived.

“You think the law can bring order to all people,” he said in a low voice, which carried throughout the golden hall, “but what you have created has never been the law.”

He opened his palm, and the lightning wheel spun gently.

"You've built a prison."

"You seal people with the Dao, and sever their souls with order, turning everyone into a stroke of ink on your imperial map."

"But I am that lightning that tore apart your imperial map."

As soon as he finished speaking, the ceiling suddenly collapsed with a loud crash.

The Emperor's Soul Diagram trembled violently, and the Ninefold Emperor Seal resounded in unison.

The entire Golden Palace seemed to become a living soul furnace, with hundreds of thousands of sacrificed souls emerging from the void and surging into the Devouring Heaven Scroll, causing it to expand a hundredfold in an instant, like an abyss that swallows the sun, covering the sky and the earth, trying to completely seal Chu Ning into the abyss of law.

"Soul Suppressor".

"Capture life".

“The Way of Judgment”.

With the three seals descending simultaneously, all phenomena fell silent. Above the Heavenly Palace, time and space seemed to be trapped in some kind of "predestined" dead end, and all the soul power that resisted, struggled, and broke the law froze inch by inch at the edge of the scroll.

Chu Ning, it seemed, was about to be imprisoned in this "Soul Map Prison" that the empire had kept intact for a thousand years.

But just as the Emperor's Soul Diagram was about to merge...

He moved.

—Extremely slow, yet extremely decisive.

He held his left palm out, the Five Souls Wheel spun gently, the Oath Thunder had not yet been activated, and beneath his right sleeve, there was nothing but emptiness.

But he slowly waved his broken right arm sleeve toward the sky.

"The world is extinguished."

Silent and still, the void darkened.

In the next instant, the Five Souls Wheel suddenly reversed, and a pale lightning bolt burst out from its center, crashing into the Heavenly Emperor Diagram.

That's not "severing" or "confronting".

It is engulfment, it is the end.

The entire Emperor Soul Diagram emitted a very low and long "crackling" sound in that silent lightning, like ice cracking for thousands of miles, or like an ancient inscription being gently brushed away with a finger.

"boom!"

The ceiling shattered, and the nine patterns of the Emperor's Soul Diagram disintegrated inch by inch. From the cracking of "Soul Suppression" to the shattering of "Life Capture," and finally to the breaking of the "Cut the Dao" line like a spider silk, the entire scroll seemed to be torn apart from the center by lightning and flames.

Xie Mingli stood beside Chu Ning, gazing up at the "Emperor's Soul Diagram," when a chill suddenly ran through the depths of her soul.

That's not just the pressure of rank.

That was a surge of memories.

She seemed to see that day again:
During that "Soul Offering Ceremony," her mother was escorted to the Soul Altar, wearing a white crown and a white tassel, her soul consciousness sealed, blood trickling from her lips. She stood below the altar but was forcibly forced to kneel, forced to watch helplessly as that figure was beheaded with a single sword stroke, blood splattering onto the altar, staining the scene that had repeatedly appeared in her childhood dreams.

The emperor sat on that throne.

With a gentle wave of her hand, she decided the fate of her entire clan.

"Xie Mingli—a member of the Xie family who has gone against the tide, is imprisoned in the Mirror Prison and subjected to thirty-nine layers of soul torture as a warning to others."

The voice seemed to fall from above the Heavenly Palace again, like an iron hammer striking her young ear bones and shattering her soul.

At that moment, she suddenly clenched her fingers, her knuckles turning white, and gripped the hilt of "Cold Star Broken" tightly with all five fingers.

She looked up at the throne.

That was not the outline of a "person", but a symbol of a shackle that devours souls and turns them into energy, sacrificing the masses.

She suddenly murmured to herself, as if asking Chu Ning, but also as if asking herself:

"Does he... still remember Xie Chengjun?"

"Do you still remember that courtier who severed his own soul in front of the Heavenly Palace and refused to bow?"

"Do you remember... how old was I when he beheaded my mother?"

—At that moment, the emperor on the throne narrowed his gaze slightly.

As the nine seals turned, an ancient echo seemed to rise from the depths of the soul:
Xie Chengjun once held a sword and remonstrated with the emperor in court, vowing to break the shackles of imperial law.

Xie Mingli's mother was also the only woman with a rebellious bloodline who dared to stand above the Emperor's rank during the Soul Diagram Council meeting in the past.

He hadn't intended to strike with that sword. But with the Emperor's Soul complete and the fate of the nation sealed, he ultimately couldn't tolerate that defying light.

"If I hadn't killed her back then, what would things be like today?"

But the thought was crushed by countless strands of soul energy in the blink of an eye.

"Unfounded thoughts, once shackles have been forged, how can rebellious blood be allowed to remain?"

His gaze grew even colder, and the Emperor Soul Diagram suddenly trembled.

Chu Ning didn't turn her head, but whispered:
"This strike is for you."

Xie Mingli closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her gaze was like a star of frost, no longer trembling.

She slowly took a step forward, the Cold Star Broken Sword in her hand was drawn from its sheath, its cold light illuminating a corner of the Emperor's Soul Diagram.

The emperor sensed her murderous intent, and a crimson light surged from the center of the Emperor's Soul Diagram, attempting to seal her consciousness with "Mind Capture".

But Xie Mingli did not dodge.

She even took the initiative to go to meet them, her steps as if she were going to her mission.

In that instant, she seemed to return to the foot of the Soul Altar, to the girl who was forced to kneel—but she no longer bowed her head.

Deep within her soul, a woman's voice seemed to echo:
"Li'er, don't be afraid."

That was the last time her mother spoke to her before she died.

And now, she has taken this step for her mother.

She leaped up, her cold star piercing through the crack in the Emperor's Soul Diagram. In the sea of ​​thunder and fire, a sword, swift as a meteor, stabbed straight at the Emperor's back.

Before the sword tip even arrived, her soul surged like a tidal wave. She could clearly hear countless soul shadows weeping and wailing deep within the Emperor Soul Diagram, as if the thirty-nine layers of soul refinement had never dissipated.

"Is this something my Xie family owes you?"

The emperor's soul trembled violently. He turned around hastily, but before he could utter a roar, the blade bearing the blood debt of thirty-nine layers had already pierced through the layers of soul imprints in the emperor's heart and penetrated straight into the core.

"You sacrificed my soul to the formation, so you should pay for this life under my blade."

Her whispers were like vows, each word like a soul-shattering hammer, piercing through the void.

"This knife is for my mother."

She turned around, her sword still swung, a cold glint flashing as she slashed horizontally.

"This strike is for my father!"

In an instant, the Emperor Soul Diagram tore violently apart, the soul power collapsed like a mountain and sea overturning, the nine Emperor Seals shattered inch by inch, and the Emperor's soul scattered like ashes in the thunder and fire.

The collapse of true energy swept across the Golden Palace like a tsunami, causing the nine imperial seals to crumble inch by inch. The roof of the Heavenly Palace shattered like porcelain, and the emperor's soul turned into a wisp of remnant spirit in the flames, which was eventually devoured by the lightning.

Chu Ning stood behind her, making no further move, only whispering:
"Let's go, Mingli."

She slowly turned around.

The sword was not yet sheathed, the fingertips were still trembling slightly, and the heart pounded like a drum for a moment.

Her tears had dried, and her eyes were like the moonlit frost.

She never looked back at that pile of blood, bones, and ashes again.

She simply placed her hand gently on Chu Ning's left shoulder.

"Okay. Let's go."

At that moment, the Emperor's Soul Diagram fell from the sky.

The Heavenly Palace was shattered.

The empire's thousand-year-old military discipline collapsed from that moment on.

In that instant, the entire Great Qian Dynasty was without an emperor.

In the streets and alleys of the capital, the wind and snow have not yet stopped, and millions of people look up at the still lingering traces of the Lei Tu.

A sixteen-year-old martial artist, newly entered the ranks, whose spiritual consciousness was still nascent, never dared to look up at the peak of the Soul Diagram in the past, only knowing that it was formed by the Emperor's decree and could not be seen by others.

But today, as he gazed up at the Five Souls Wheel descending from the sky, a burning excitement surged within him for the first time. He whispered to his senior brother beside him, "Can we... also cultivate to that level?"

That senior brother was originally a ninth-rank official, and once said, "People are valued for their destiny, and martial arts have different ranks," but now he has been silent for a long time.

He looked at the lightning streaks in the sky and said, "I didn't believe it before."

"But now, I... don't know."

In the distance, in a bustling alley, an old blacksmith puts down the bucket on his shoulder and looks up at the sky.

He had taken the Zhenwu Division exam three times but failed each time; in this life, he only cultivated to the eighth rank, yet today he witnessed a person with a severed arm and a mortal name shatter the imperial throne and break the martial law.

The old man's hands trembled slightly, and tears slid down the wrinkles from his burns: "God has opened his eyes... God, finally opened his eyes..."

In the streets and alleys of the capital, millions of people look up at the lingering traces of thunder.

This is not just about the outcome of a war.

This was the first time in the entire thousand-year history of the Great Qian Dynasty that millions of people simultaneously looked up at the sky.

Outside the Heavenly Palace, the blood was still wet, and the flames of the soul still burned brightly.

Chu Ningjing stood on the broken steps, looking down at the scorched imperial throne. The soul map behind her slowly dissipated, and the world seemed to freeze for a moment.

Xie Mingli stood beside him, dressed in plain clothes, her eyes reflecting a cold frost, yet she remained silent.

The officials filed in from outside the golden steps. Some knelt in fear, while others bowed silently. An old official staggered forward, lifted his robe, and bowed: "Your Majesty... I am willing to accept the Mandate of Heaven!"

Upon hearing this, the crowd knelt down and shouted, "Thunder Soul Chu Ning, Lord of the Nine Provinces!"

Only he remained still.

Chu Ning's expression remained calm as he gazed silently at the empty throne for a long time before suddenly speaking softly:

"I will not take this seat."

The ministers were shocked.

Chu Ning raised his hand and pointed to the still-burning remnants of the "Emperor's Soul Diagram": "Because of it, no one should climb it again."

His gaze swept over the kneeling officials in the hall, and he added casually:
"Beneath the emperor's throne, the law can provide protection for the world; above the emperor's throne, the law can transform the shackles into a cage."

"Power itself is not evil; evil lies in those who wield it. Seats themselves are not sinful; sin lies in those who occupy them."

He lowered his eyes, his sleeve brushing past the side of his severed arm. His voice paused slightly, as if questioning himself or making a vow:
"I have lost an arm, but I have no regrets. I only limit myself to not seeking power and not becoming a king."

Thunder and fire erupted in his palm, and with a turn of his soul wheel, all traces of the imperial map were burned away.

He turned and looked at the assembled officials, his gaze calm and resolute.
"The laws of martial arts have been used for thousands of years to govern life; but the original purpose of the laws was to protect people, not to imprison them."

"Martial arts should not be a cage, nor a tool for the privileged to monopolize resources and cut off others' path to survival."

He turned and looked at the assembled officials, his gaze calm and resolute.
"From this day forward, martial arts will no longer be a mark of nobility, but a skill that everyone can learn."

"Martial ranks will no longer determine social status, and official positions will no longer be determined by bloodline."

"Commoners may discuss state affairs, while warriors must abide by the law."

"This world does not belong to one family, nor to one house—it belongs to everyone."

At this moment, an old minister who had once served Prince Duan stepped forward, his expression slightly shifting: "But if the world is without a ruler and no new laws are established, what will the people rely on?"

A hint of inquiry flickered in his eyes: "Since you possess the power to rule the world, why not establish your name throughout the land?"

Chu Ning did not respond, but Xie Mingli had already stepped forward, her eyes flashing with undisguised coldness:

"Are you asking how to re-establish the throne, or are you planning to kneel before a different master?"

The old minister's expression changed, and he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped.

Xie Mingli unfolded a scroll: "These are new chapters drafted over the past three days. They are not for power or for hereditary succession, but only so that the world may have laws to follow."

The scroll contains:

Thirty-Six Articles on Soul-Based Equality

Draft Law on Elected Legislation

The Edict Abolishing Warrior Privileges

Soul Prison Sealing Order

She wrote in her own hand: "Those who swear an oath shall not be used as sacrificial vessels; the deceased shall not be allowed to build soul arrays."

"The soul protects people, it no longer imprisons them."

"The Mirror Prison is sealed, the Imperial Seal is burned, the Soul Law is established, and Heaven and Earth are at peace."

Her gaze remained unwavering as she read each word aloud.

The morning light shone down from the sky, illuminating her white dress.

She suddenly recalled the night her mother's blood fell into the altar, and the last look she gave her mother.

That gaze, without uttering a single word, entrusted her with the entirety of his life.

Now, she finally stands before the imperial palace, using her own hands to completely overturn the "destiny" that should have died long ago.

She unrolled the scroll and read each line aloud.

The courtiers remained silent as she slowly scanned the entire room—once, she only dared to look up to them, but now, she scrutinized them.

"Mother," she whispered in her heart, "Did you see that?"

The Soul Diagram slowly closed, and the Vow Thunder returned to its source.

For the first time in the capital, the sky cleared up completely.

From that day on, the Great Qian Dynasty was removed from the list of dynasties.

The Tianji Hall was destroyed by fire; a stele was erected on its original site with the following inscription:

"Martial arts exist among men."

This year was the first year of the Ningming era.

In the name of Chu Ning, to demonstrate Ning's will;

With Xie Mingli's vow, we illuminate the future.

(End of this chapter)