Alert! The Dragon Lord has emerged from seclusion!

The other six lamps, though still burning, had a faint trace of gray fumes at their wicks upon closer inspection—a sign of the resonance of the Chaos Seed.

"It'll be soon," the white-robed man murmured. "Once they reach the eighth level, the resonance of the seven lamps will reach its peak."

"At that time, with Lin Chen's Chaos Blood as the catalyst, the Seven Star Origins will return to their rightful places..."

"After a thousand years of waiting, the birth of the 'Seven-Star Chaos Body' is finally about to take place."

A flicker of fanaticism flashed in his eyes.

……

The sight on the fifth floor stunned all three of them.

There were no enemies, no formations, and not even the concept of space.

They stood in a void, with a flowing galaxy beneath their feet and upside-down mountains above them.

All around, countless fragments of light and shadow fluttered like snowflakes, each fragment containing a blurry scene and a broken memory.

"This is..." Su Qingxue reached out and caught a piece of debris.

The moment the shard touched her fingertips, images flooded her mind—

That was an ancient battlefield, a place of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

A woman clad in ice armor, wielding a long spear, stood alone in a desolate city, with a collapsing barrier and fleeing civilians behind her.

She glanced back, her icy blue eyes resolute as iron, then turned and charged into the overwhelming tide of demons.

The dazzling light from the self-destruction illuminated the entire sky.

Su Qingxue groaned softly, her face turning pale.

"These are... fragments of reincarnation memories," Lin Chen said in a deep voice, "scattered imprints from each person's past lives and even the lives before that."

Ye Qingcheng also caught a piece of the shard.

What she saw was a woman in red standing guard with a single sword on the snowy plain, with piles of monster corpses at her feet.

Behind the pass, the tribes, young and old, migrate along winding paths.

When the woman finally exhausted herself, a giant demon pierced her chest. With her last strength, she detonated her dantian, perishing together with the demon horde.

"This..." Ye Qingcheng's breathing quickened slightly.

Lin Chen looked at a piece of debris drifting towards him.

He hesitated for a moment, but still caught it.

The scene unfolds—

That was deep in the starry sky, where a burning star was collapsing.

At the core of the star, a blurry figure sat cross-legged, emanating chaotic energy, attempting to stabilize the star's core.

But the decay of the stars was irreversible. In the end, the figure collapsed and vanished along with the stars, leaving only a faint trace of chaos in the void.

Lin Chen's pupils contracted slightly.

That wasn't his memory, but the resonance of the chaotic energy felt incredibly real.

"Welcome to the cycle of reincarnation."

An old but gentle voice rang out.

From the void, an old woman leaning on a cane emerged.

She wore coarse linen clothes, had a full head of silver hair, and a kind face, but her eyes were cloudy—without pupils, only two swirling gray vortexes.

"I am the guardian of this level; you may call me 'Meng Po'."

The old woman smiled, and although she had no pupils, she seemed to be able to clearly "see" the three people. "Of course, it's not the one who makes the soup in the legend."

"This ordeal tests your 'attachment to reincarnation'."

She tapped her cane lightly, and the scattered fragments of light and shadow around her suddenly accelerated their rotation, converging into three enormous mirrors that hung in front of the three people.

The mirror did not reflect their current appearance.

In Su Qingxue's mirror, there was the Xuanbing female general who had self-destructed to defend the city.

In Ye Qingcheng's mirror, there is a red-clad swordsman who died on the snowy plains.

In Lin Chen's mirror, there is a chaotic figure of stars being annihilated.

"This is the 'karmic imprint' of one of your past lives," Meng Po said slowly. "The higher a cultivator's cultivation level, the easier it is to awaken memories of past lives, and the easier it is to become immersed in the karma of past lives, losing one's true self."

"This trial is simple: step into the mirror and experience the 'final outcome' of that lifetime. If you can maintain your 'true self in this life' and walk out of it with clarity, then you have passed the trial."

"What if we get lost?" Ye Qingcheng asked.

"Then your consciousness will be forever trapped in that cycle of reincarnation, becoming lonely souls in the mirror." Meng Po's voice remained gentle:

"The physical body will remain here, transforming into new fragments of memory, awaiting the next challenger."

Su Qingxue stared at the Xuanbing female general in the mirror, her icy blue eyes surging with emotion.

She could feel that the "self" in the mirror was calling out to her—not out of malice, but out of an attraction born of shared instinct.

It's as if stepping inside will fill in a missing piece of your soul.

"Can't you refuse?" Lin Chen asked.

"Alright." Meng Po nodded. "Those who refuse will be considered to have given up. You must leave the Heavenly Evolution Tower immediately, but the tower gates are closed, and you can only... remain in this cycle of nothingness forever."

It's another dilemma.

Lin Chen exchanged glances with Su Qingxue and Ye Qingcheng.

There was a resolute look in the eyes of all three.

"I'll go first." Ye Qingcheng suddenly stepped forward. "So what if I die again? It's not like I haven't died before."

She had the most fiery temper; she left without hesitation, even reaching out to touch the mirror!

"Qingcheng!" Su Qingxue tried to stop her, but it was too late.

The moment Ye Qingcheng's hand touched the mirror, she was as if sucked into water, ripples spread out, and her figure disappeared into the mirror.

The mirror image began to flow—

Snowfields, passes, and hordes of beasts.

The woman in red stood guard at the pass with her sword, while the old and young of the tribe behind her had already fled far away.

She was covered in injuries, with a broken left arm, and was only able to keep going through sheer willpower.

The monster pounced again.

This time, Ye Qingcheng's consciousness was attached to the woman in red.

She could clearly feel the excruciating pain of every wound, the utter exhaustion, and... the calm before death.

"Come on," she heard "herself" say softly, then she raised her sword.

But just as the sword was about to be swung, Ye Qingcheng's inner self suddenly struggled—

"wrong!"

"I am not her! I am Ye Qingcheng! The Ye family has not been destroyed, and the revenge has not been taken! Lin Chen and Qingxue are still waiting for me outside! I cannot die here!"

This intense "obsession with this life" acted as an anchor, fiercely pulling her consciousness back from its downward spiral!

Outside the mirror, Su Qingxue and Lin Chen saw Ye Qingcheng's expression change from calm in the face of death to struggle, and then to arrogant ruthlessness.

"Break!"

Ye Qingcheng's stern shout came from the mirror.

The trajectory of the sword swung by the woman in red suddenly changed!

It was no longer a move that would result in mutual destruction, but rather a full-scale eruption of Frosty Yin Sword Qi, freezing everything within a hundred miles!

The image is shattered.

Ye Qingcheng staggered out of the mirror, knelt on one knee, panting heavily, her face as pale as paper, but her eyes were clear.

"I...I'm back." She grinned, but it looked worse than crying.

Meng Po nodded: "Good. Next person."

Su Qingxue took a deep breath and walked towards her mirror.

Xuanbing Female General, Lonely City, Demon Tide.

Unlike Ye Qingcheng, Su Qingxue felt a deeper sense of "responsibility".

To protect the people behind them and hold the last line of defense, they were willing to sacrifice their lives for it.

The weight of that "righteousness" almost crushed her conscience.

"Is this one of my past lives...?" Su Qingxue murmured to herself.

The Ice Maiden is ready to self-destruct; the demonic tide is imminent.

Just as her primordial energy was about to ignite, a scene flashed through the depths of Su Qingxue's heart—