After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

Zhou Ran gripped the imperial emblem tightly, his knuckles cracking.

Opposite her, the Moon Emperor stood on the receding silver sea, the crack in her chest, slashed open by Ye Futian, slowly healing. She was injured, but her foundation remained intact.

The Moon Emperor looked at Zhou Ran, his eyes now devoid of any pretense.

"The night has betrayed the heavens and is destroyed."

"You have lost the last protection of the Demon Lord."

"Now, return the Imperial Mark to me."

Zhou Ran made no move.

The silver sea is once again stirring up waves.

This time, all the threads of fate no longer point to Jiangcheng, but instead all converge on Zhou Ran.

The Moon Emperor wanted to take advantage of his wavering mind to completely refine him and open the door to his return!

Around Zhou Ran's nascent soul, six gray lines rapidly moved. They were no longer foreign filth, but rather like a newborn skeleton. Behind each line was a face that he had to protect.

Lin Qingxue, Xu Youwei clutching a broken hairpin, Yue Zhao in the ice stone, Meng Po by the River of Oblivion, Ye Futian walking away with a knife...

Beyond the final line, the entire city of Jiangcheng stretched out before them. Countless ordinary people walked the streets, unable to see the gray line in the sky, unaware that they had almost become sacrifices.

They also don't need to know.

Zhou Ran suddenly laughed.

The Moon Emperor raised his eyes.

Zhou Ran looked up at her, and the confusion in his eyes vanished.

He figured it out.

The so-called idealism is recognizing that the world is a mess and then carving out a path for oneself.

He looked down at his nascent soul.

The small, purple-gold figure was covered in cracks, and six gray lines were about to tear it apart.

In the past, Zhou Ran always regarded these things as pollution, and would suppress them if they could, or burn them if they could.

Now, he's stopped pressing.

He raised his hand and pressed the half of the imperial mark hard against his nascent soul.

The Moon Emperor's gaze turned cold.

"You dare to swallow my imperial decree?"

Zhou Ran said, "To correct you, this is evidence."

The moment the imperial mark crashed into the nascent soul, Zhou Ran's entire body groaned as if it were about to be crushed.

Six gray lines plunged into the depths of the nascent soul at the same time!

The silver sea was blasted open, creating a deep crater.

Zhou Ran's body was shaken back half a step, his skin cracked inch by inch, and blood gushed from his chest.

The nascent soul let out a silent roar.

The six gray lines, symbolizing the heart, hands, eyes, underworld, primordial chaos, and the corruption of the Moon Emperor, were forcibly pulled into his nascent soul.

The shackles of the past have now transformed into a new framework supporting the nascent soul.

The outer shell of the purple-gold figure crumbled, revealing not flesh and blood beneath, but a door that was beginning to take shape.

The Moon Emperor raised his hand, and the Silver Sea Fate Line transformed into a giant hand, grabbing towards Zhou Ran's dantian.

"You'll only make yourself more suited to be a lock!"

Zhou Ran did not dodge.

The nascent soul stepped out from the dantian.

The purple-gold figure grew taller in the wind and eventually hovered between Zhou Ran's eyebrows.

It opened its eyes, and all it could see was a pure black and gold hue.

A brush shadow materialized out of thin air in the Nascent Soul's hand. This thing originated from Zhou Ran's own idealistic laws and had nothing to do with the remnant power of the White Bone Brush.

The nascent soul holds the pen.

On the roaring silver sea, I put pen to paper.

With the first stroke, a section of the Silver Sea's lifeline snapped.

With the second stroke, Zhou Ran's wounds widened once more.

With the third stroke, the crack on the Moon Emperor's chest, which had just healed, began to gleam with silver light once more.

Four blood-red characters suddenly took shape.

I closed the door.

The silver sea trembled violently.

The Moon Emperor raised his hand, intending to erase the word "rebellious".

Zhou Ran's nascent soul took another stroke.

It's not up to you to decide.

The eight characters, connected in a line, become an ironclad rule, nailed into the silver sea.

I can close the door, but you can't open it!

Those eight bloody characters were nailed into the silver sea, and the entire Realm of Truth and Illusion was distorted!

The energy within Zhou Ran's body no longer rose, but rather burst forth, breaking through barriers and reaching the pinnacle of the Nascent Soul stage.

Late stage of Nascent Soul.

Peak Nascent Soul stage!

Finally, it came to a steady stop at the Nascent Soul stage.

He can touch the invisible blue star's shackles above his head, but he can't yet take the step of becoming a god.

But a fully developed Nascent Soul is enough.

Zhou Ran opened his eyes, his aura heavy and imposing.

The Taihuang Black Blade returned to his hand. The lingering warmth left by Ye Futian on the blade had dissipated, but a dark red blade mark formed by the fighting spirit of the Lieshan Camp had been added.

Zhou Ran raised his sword.

The Moon Emperor said coldly, "You think that just because you've reached the pinnacle of your cultivation, you can defeat me?"

Zhou Ran said, "I didn't say I'd beat you."

He looked into the depths of the silver sea, towards the thickest lifeline leading to the northwest corner of Jiangcheng.

The main storyline of the Rebirth Array.

Although the nail left by Marcus was broken, the thread was still there; it was the final path that the Moon Emperor had prepared for Lin Qingxue's return.

Zhou Ran took a step forward.

The full power of the Nascent Soul stage was poured into the Primordial Black Blade.

The blade pressed down.

The Moon Emperor raised his hand, and countless silver threads layered upon each other rushed forward to intercept him.

Zhou Ran's blade was not pointed at her.

He cut the thread.

"Sever."

Where the blade strikes, cause and effect are severed.

The old building of the Women and Children's Hospital, which connected the cause and effect of twenty-seven years ago, turned to ashes without a sound!

Jiangcheng.

Outside the old maternity and children's hospital, the three demon dukes looked up at the same time and noticed that the black chains of demonic energy binding the old building suddenly loosened.

Inside the building, the last red light went out completely, and the baby's crying inside the wall stopped.

In the basement of the manor, Lin Qingxue's brow furrowed in shock.

She "saw" an invisible umbilical cord that was trying to reach the night of her birth, which was then severed with a single stroke.

She raised her hand and pressed it to her brow, and the bluish-white and black light in her eyes slowly subsided.

Messages flooded in from within the bone fragment.

Li Zhiyao: "The gray lines have dropped back to 13,000!"

Fatty Wang: "Damn! Good thing they lowered the price!"

Chen Ya: "Ground subsidence in the northwest urban area has stopped, and the evacuation is proceeding smoothly... Zhou Ran, don't die."

Within the Realm of Truth and Illusion, Zhou Ran could not hear any of this.

He simply stood on the receding tide, the tip of his blade hanging low, the aura of a fully formed Nascent Soul blocking all lifelines three feet away.

The Moon Emperor looked at him; his imperial robe was torn at the chest, and his silver hair was somewhat disheveled.

The trial turned into a standoff.

The Moon Emperor's offensive ceased.

She looked down at the knife wound left by Ye Futian on her chest and pressed it with her hand.

Zhou Ran frowned; the other person's actions didn't seem like healing.

The Moon Emperor raised his eyes and looked at him in an extremely cold tone.

"You want to investigate the Emperor's son, to know why I didn't mention his name, and also to know why Blue Star could trap me for 30,000 years."

"Then I'll show you."

"Let's see who's hiding the things the Imperial Prince left on Earth!"

She stretched out her finger and touched the knife scar on her chest, crushing a silver ornament hidden deep in the wound with her fingertip!

Deep within the silver sea, all the reflections turned around simultaneously, until finally only one reflection lit up.

That reflection was not on the battlefield, not in the virtual world, and not in any place of cultivation.

She sat in an ordinary office in Jiangcheng, with a stack of evacuation documents beside her. She had faint dark circles under her eyes, and her hair was casually tied up with a pen.

The man seemed to sense something and looked up.

It's Chen Ya.

Upon seeing that face, Zhou Ran was greatly shocked, and the Nascent Soul Gate that he had just forged with his will began to hum uncontrollably.

Chen Ya's reflection lit up.

The silver sea fell silent for a moment.

In that office, the desk was piled high with evacuation forms.

List of hospitals relocated.

School closure notice.

Subway station closure contingency plan.

Approval for traffic restriction on bridges.

There was also a handwritten note on top.

Only one sentence.

"Ordinary people go first."

In the reflection, Chen Ya raised her head.

She could neither see Zhou Ran nor the Moon Emperor.

But she seemed to sense being spied on, put down her pen, and frowned slightly.

"Who's watching me?"

Zhou Ran's nascent soul trembled violently.

The door, forged by his will, emitted a blinding black-gold light from its cracks.

The Moon Emperor looked at him and finally smiled.

"Did you see that?"

"The things left behind by the imperial prince are neither on Lin Qingxue nor on Yue Zhao."

"It's hidden inside a mortal body."

Zhou Ran remained silent, his grip on the knife unwavering.

Especially at times like these, you must not follow the Moon Emperor's orders.

The Moon Emperor's greatest skill is to write other people's care into a lock.

Lin Qingxue is.

Xu Youwei is.

Yue Zhao is.

Now, she wants to put one on Chen Ya too.

Zhou Ran looked up.

"so what?"