On the Dragon-Slaying Platform, I was executed and became Yang Jian's brother-in-law.

Beneath Mount Buzhou, the heavens have shattered.

That place, which should have been the sacred and solemn spine of Pangu, has now been completely turned into a slaughterhouse of Asuras.

"kill!!"

The demon army swept across the land like locusts, covering the sky and the earth. Although the Zhou Tian Star Array was cleaved in half by Pangu's axe shadow, Di Jun and Tai Yi managed to stabilize the formation by relying on the suppression of the He Tu Luo Shu and the Chaos Bell.

Conversely, the Wu tribe found themselves in an unprecedented predicament.

"Hold on! Hold on for me!"

The great shaman Kuafu was covered in blood, and his peach wood staff was already broken. He used his huge body to block a gap, but he was bombarded by countless demon god magic weapons, leaving him with torn flesh and blood.

"roar--!"

In the distance, countless Wu tribe warriors self-destructed in despair, using their flesh and blood to halt the advance of the demon race. Corpses piled up into mountains, and blood flowed into rivers, staining the black soil at the foot of Mount Buzhou a glaring dark red.

"No... Big Brother! Pangu's true form is about to dissipate!"

At the core of the formation, Qiang Liang let out a scream. His lightning law was exhausted, and the originally solid Pangu phantom was now becoming transparent. He could barely hold onto the Heaven-Opening Axe in his hand.

Once Pangu's true form dissipates, facing the complete Zhou Tian Star Array, the only fate for the Wu Clan will be extermination!

"Damn it! Damn it!!"

Dijiang watched this scene with bloodshot eyes and his heart bleeding.

As the head of the Twelve Ancestral Witches, and the leader of this clan, he had to make a decision. Even if that decision was so cruel that even he himself could not accept it.

"Brothers..."

Dijiang's voice was hoarse, filled with a desperate madness and desolation, and it resonated in the minds of every ancestral witch:

"For the sake of the Witch Clan, for the glory of our Father God... we have no way out!"

"The grand formation needs fuel! It needs the purest ancestral witch essence to reforge Pangu's true form and unleash that world-shaking strike!"

Dijiang took a deep breath, his gaze sweeping over each of his brothers and sisters present. His final words, carrying the weight of moral blackmail, crashed down heavily:

"Who... is willing to step forward?"

"For the continuation of the Witch Clan, for the sake of the hundreds of millions of people behind them, who would be willing to... sacrifice their blood for the array's core?!"

Dead silence.

In that instant, even the clamor of the battlefield seemed to fade away.

Sacrificing the array's core with blood means burning everything. The physical body, the true spirit, and the laws are all reduced to ashes, leaving no chance for reincarnation; it is true "non-existence."

Who are they sending to their deaths?!

Zhu Rong opened his mouth, about to shout "I'm going!", but was held back tightly by Gong Gong beside him. The other ancestral witches were also pale, their faces showing an instinctive fear of death.

Su Bai (Zhu Jiuyin)'s heart pounded wildly, and an extremely ominous premonition instantly enveloped his entire body.

He suddenly turned his head and looked at the "ice" array eye beside him.

There, Xuanming stood quietly.

Her ice armor had long since shattered, revealing deep, bone-revealing wounds. Her face was paler than the snow of the Northern Sea, but her eyes were as calm as a stagnant pool.

"No...don't..."

Su Bai seemed to understand the meaning in her eyes, shaking his head frantically, trying to break free of his own time array. "Xuanming! Don't do anything foolish!!"

however.

Xuanming did not give Dijiang a chance to call out his name, nor did he give Su Bai time to stop him.

She took one last, deep, and lingering look at Su Bai.

That one glance contained so much. There was reluctance, love, regret, but even more so, a resolute determination to face death.

"Brother, there's no need to ask."

Xuanming's voice was clear and cold, echoing in the consciousness of the ancestral witches, "I will come."

"Xuanming girl?!" Di Jiang exclaimed in surprise.

"I am the Ancestral Witch of Rain. Among my twelve brothers, I am not good with words and do not like socializing. In terms of combat power, I am not as ferocious as Zhurong and Gonggong; in terms of coordination, I am not as composed as my eldest brother; in terms of supernatural powers, I am not as unpredictable as Jiuyin."

Xuanming spoke casually, as if stating a trivial matter unrelated to himself:

"If we have to sacrifice one of the Ancestral Witches to achieve victory, then I am... the most cost-effective option."

"No! I won't allow it!!"

Su Bai's eyes were bloodshot with rage. He frantically burned the laws of time, trying to reverse this second and rush over to grab her hand.

"Nine Yin...elder brother."

Just then, a telepathic message, belonging only to the two of them, quietly resounded in Su Bai's heart.

That was Xuanming's last voice, no longer cold and aloof, but carrying a hint of girlish shyness and pleading.

"Don't come any closer, listen to me."

"I know you have too many people in your heart, like Nuwa and Houtu... I have a cold personality, I won't fight, and I dare not fight."

"But this time, let me be willful."

Xuanming looked at Su Bai's anxious and frantic appearance, and a slightly upturned smile appeared on his lips:

"If...if we can win this time, if you can survive."

"Please go to Beiming, to the ice cave where we used to live."

"At the summit of the Northern Sea, I sculpted an ice sculpture. It was the one I considered most perfect after countless attempts and failures."

That's... what you look like.

"Please go and take a look at it, okay?"

"Even if I'm gone, that ice sculpture will stay with you in my place. This is... the only trace I, Xuanming, will leave behind in this world."

"Please, brother."

That one word, "Brother," shattered Su Bai's heart.

"Xuanming—!!! Ah!!!"

Su Bai completely broke down. What grand strategy? What witch clan? To hell with it!

He just wants her to live!

"Time...stop it!!"

Su Bai rushed out of the array's core without regard for anything else, and the laws of time transformed into a gray storm, trying to forcibly interrupt Xuan Ming's sacrifice.

however.

"Bang!"

An invisible spatial barrier, like an impenetrable wall, slammed into Su Bai, sending him flying.

It's Dijiang!

As the Ancestral Witch of Space and the leader of the Witch Clan, Dijiang displayed a chilling rationality and ruthlessness at this moment.

"Ninth Brother! What do you think you're doing?!"

Using the laws of space, Dijiang firmly imprisoned the berserk Su Bai, roaring at him:

"Xuanming has already burned his very essence! It's irreversible!"

"If you rush over now, not only will you fail to save her, but you'll also destroy the entire formation! Destroy the last hope of the Witch Clan!"

"Go back! Guard your core!"

"This is war! In the face of the greater good, there's no room for sentimentality!!"

Dijiang's eyes were also filled with tears, but his hands were as steady as a rock, pressing Su Bai firmly to the spot.

"Let me go... Dijiang! You son of a bitch! Let me go!!"

Su Bai struggled desperately, his fingernails digging into his flesh, drawing blood, but he was unable to break free from the full force of the Space Ancestral Witch's restraint.

He could only watch helplessly.

Watching the woman clumsily learning to carve in the Northern Underworld Ice Cave.

He looked at the woman who was huddled in his arms for warmth in the Ruins of Return.

Looking at the woman who said "we're even" but gave him her life.

Amidst the overwhelming malevolent aura, he slowly opened his arms.

"With my blood, I offer sacrifice to Pangu!"

"With my soul, I freeze eternity!"

Xuanming took one last look at the imprisoned Su Bai, his lips moved slightly, and he silently uttered three words.

Su Bai understood.

What she said was—"I love you."

boom!!!

The next moment, Xuanming's body burst into flames without reservation.

That was not fire, but the ultimate, pale white source of ice!

Her physical body, her true spirit, everything about her, all transformed into the purest energy in that instant, flowing into the great formation beneath her feet.

"Click...click..."

An indescribable, terrifying chill erupted instantly from the spot where Xuanming had just stood.

The world changed color.

The once blood-red battlefield turned deathly pale in that instant.

Within a radius of millions of miles, whether it was the flowing lava, the sky full of demonic clouds, or the demon army that was fighting, everything was in motion.

Everything was frozen in that instant!

Burn the source, freeze ten thousand miles!

This is the final, poignant message left to the world by the ancestral witch Xuanming.