He has been reincarnated through countless worlds, adorned with billions of mythological terms!

She plucked the second string.

Another note from the piano.

This time, instead of swallowing the sound, it created it—the clone heard the wailing of ten thousand ghosts.

It wasn't heard through the ears, but resounded directly deep within the mind.

The wails of countless vengeful ghosts exploded simultaneously, sharp, mournful, hoarse, and venomous, like ten thousand needles piercing the divine consciousness at the same time.

This is the "Song of Ten Thousand Ghosts Devouring Souls," which she created herself from a certain ghost realm. It is specifically designed to attack the sea of ​​consciousness, and cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage will have their consciousness shattered upon hearing just one note.

The clone did not move.

The power of faith spread out in his mind like a golden veil, keeping out all the invading ghostly sounds.

Xu Youlan's eyebrows twitched slightly.

Then she plucked the third string.

The music flowed from her fingertips like an invisible river, cascading down from the zither table, across the ground, and past the feet of her doppelganger.

Where the river flows, green grass grows on the ground.

Tender green grass sprouts emerge from the cracks in the wooden floorboards. The grass sprouts grow taller, sprout leaves, bloom, and bear seeds at a speed visible to the naked eye, then wither, and new grass sprouts grow next to the withered grass stems.

One withers, one flourishes; a cycle repeats.

The secret of life and death in a single thought.

The space around the clone changed from stillness to flow—time was accelerating.

His clothes began to fade, his hair began to dry, and the pale golden glow on his skin became dim and flickering with time.

Then he moved.

He raised his right hand from his side, fingers together, fingertips pointing forward, and made a very simple movement—a stab.

Like a sword, like a spear, like an arrow.

A golden light shot out from his fingertips, as thin as a needle.

Xu Youlan's pupils shrank to pinpoints in that instant.

She saw the attack—the instincts honed through countless lifetimes allowed her to sense the danger even before the attack was launched.

Her fingers plucked the strings frantically, and the River of Time of the Withering and Flourishing Technique erected three barriers before her—the first being "acceleration," attempting to exhaust the power of the golden light before it arrived; the second being "stillness," attempting to freeze the golden light halfway; and the third being "reversal," attempting to make the golden light return along its original path.

Three barriers, three laws of time.

This is the ultimate manifestation of her accumulated immortality over hundreds of lifetimes.

The golden light passed through the first barrier.

Accelerated time did not make it faster, because it was not within the flow of time itself—the power of faith is not matter, not energy, but the condensation of the thoughts of all beings.

Thoughts have no speed; thoughts only have "to" or "not to".

We passed through the second barrier.

Still time has no effect on it, because faith itself is a timeless existence—at this moment, someone is practicing the "Divine Body Refinement Technique," and someone is grateful in their heart to the person who wrote this technique. These thoughts travel across mountains and rivers to converge on the clone, and time cannot stop these thoughts.

We passed through the third barrier.

The reversal of time attempts to push it back to its origin, but faith has no "origin"—every strand of faith is born at a different time, by a different person, and with a different thought; they have no unified past to reverse.

The three barriers and the three laws of time all became ineffective in the face of this attack.

Xu Youlan slammed her right hand onto the zither.

The instrument exploded, and seven strings broke, forming the last line of defense before her—seven strings, seven laws.

This was her trump card, which she had never revealed to anyone before; it was the embodiment of the seven strongest laws she had extracted from a hundred worlds.

The seven strings intertwine, the laws overlap, forming an absolute "forbidden zone" within a small space.

The golden light crashed into the Seven Strings Forbidden Zone.

A very soft, faint sound—like a needle piercing a piece of paper.

All seven strings broke at the same time, and the breaks were as smooth as a mirror, without any rough edges.

The forbidden zone of the seven laws was pierced by a hole the size of a pinhead, with a faint golden flame emanating from its edge.

The golden light pierced through the Seven Strings Forbidden Zone and passed right through Xu Youlan's chest.

Xu Youlan's body jolted violently.

She looked down at her chest—on her moon-white dress, a tiny golden dot, no bigger than a pinhead, lit up on her right breast, then quickly spread into a fist-sized golden spot.

Pale golden flames burned at the edges of the light spots. The flames had no temperature and did not burn clothes, but only "existence".

She felt her existence being erased bit by bit from the world by the golden flames.

Xu Youlan bit her tongue, spitting a mouthful of blood onto her chest.

The essence and blood transformed into crimson mist, colliding with the golden flames.

The blood mist was dissipating, and the golden flames were also dissipating.

After exhausting his essence and blood, the golden flame dimmed by half.

She spat out another mouthful, then another.

With three mouthfuls of essence blood and three hundred years of lifespan, she managed to suppress the golden flames.

The golden spot of light on his right chest shrank from the size of a fist to the size of a pinhead, and then went out completely.

A small, charred hole with gleaming gold edges was left through her chest, revealing the landscape painting on the screen behind her that had been pierced.

Xu Youlan's zither is broken.

Seven broken strings lay scattered on the ground, and the instrument was split in two.

She knelt on one knee beside the shattered zither, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. The wound on her right chest was dry—not because it had healed, but because the edges of the wound had been scorched by the golden flames, sealing the blood vessels and muscles, preventing the blood from flowing out.

Her hand pressed against the wound, and faint golden light flickered between her fingers—the remnants of her faith still eroding her flesh.

The clone stood still, looking down at its right hand.

The last wisp of golden light on my fingertip dissipated into the air.

That attack consumed thirty percent of his faith power.

The Triple Time Law and the Seven-String Law Forbidden Zone are each capable of neutralizing any attack from a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Although his attack penetrated through, the power was reduced layer by layer during the penetration process, and in the end, less than a third of the initial force actually hit Xu Youlan.

Moreover, Xu Youlan endured it by using three mouthfuls of her own blood essence.

A cultivator who has practiced the path of immortality for hundreds of lifetimes has a foundation far deeper than he anticipated.

He aimed to kill with that strike, but the opponent survived.

His faith power has already been depleted by 30%. If he continues to fight, he might be able to kill the enemy, but it wouldn't be worth it.

More importantly, he wasn't sure if this was the other person's real identity.

Having killed three Reincarnators, he naturally knew how difficult it was to kill them.

The clone lowered its hand and let it hang down at its side again.

Xu Youlan looked up at him.

Her expression changed.

She finally understood that the opponent sitting in front of her was not on the same level as any of the reincarnators she had encountered before.

The terror of that attack lay not in its power, but in its "unstoppable" nature—the laws of time could not stop it, nor could the forbidden zones of the seven laws.

It passes directly through all the gaps in the defenses, like water through a sieve, like light through glass.

If we can't stop it, we can only tough it out.

She had reincarnated through ninety-nine worlds, and this was the first time she had encountered such an attack.

This was also the first time she had encountered an opponent who could make her deplete three mouthfuls of vital essence in a very short exchange.

"I'm not playing anymore."

The theory of clones.

Xu Youlan did not refute.

She slowly stood up from the ground, picked up a piece of the instrument, examined it for a while, and then threw it away.

"Your strength is very high, far surpassing mine."

"But your power seems to be limited; it diminishes with every use."

"If you keep fighting, you have a high chance of killing me, but after that, you won't have much strength left."

She coughed up another mouthful of blood and wiped it away with the back of her hand. "We have an understanding on this matter."

The clone nodded.

Xu Youlan leaned against the zither table, her right hand pressing against the wound on her chest.

Neither of them showed any intention of making another move.

"sit."

she says.

The clone sat down again.

There was still a three-foot distance between the two, separated by a zither and the wisps of incense smoke.

The incense had burned down to almost nothing, and a long, grayish-white ash had accumulated, hanging precariously from the edge of the incense burner.

Xu Youlan picked up the teapot and poured two cups of tea.

He pushed one cup to his clone and kept the other in his own hand.

The tea was no longer hot, but she didn't mind. She took a sip and put it down.

"You are a Level 1 user."

It's not an inquiry, it's a confirmation.

The clone neither confirmed nor denied it.

Xu Youlan didn't need his answer.

Because their strength has already been proven.

The clone picked up the teacup and took a sip.

The tea was cold and had little flavor.

Or, as a being formed from the power of faith, he himself does not possess the sense of taste.

"Will you give me the cultivation technique?"

"No."

The clone put down the teacup, stood up, and turned to walk towards the door.

Without hesitation, without looking back, and without even leaving a word like "I will come again".

Xu Youlan did not call out to him.

The footsteps went down the stairs, through the lobby, and disappeared into the street outside Chunfeng Tower.

The madam's voice drifted up from downstairs, tinged with a hint of caution:

"Young master, are you leaving already? Won't you stay a little longer?"

Xu Youlan sat behind the zither table, looking at the cup of tea opposite her that had only been sipped.

The tea had completely cooled down, and the surface of the water remained still, reflecting a corner of the landscape on the screen.

She picked up her glass, took another sip, then put it down, her fingertips returning to the strings.

This time she did not play "The Song of Ten Thousand Ghosts Devouring Souls" or "The Mantra of One Thought of Withering and Flourishing".

She played a very soft tune—like a stream thawing in spring flowing through cracks in the rocks, like the rustling of bamboo leaves rubbing against each other in the night breeze, like someone singing a wordless song from afar.

When the music ended, she withdrew her hands from the strings and looked down at her fingertips.

There are very faint red marks on the fingertips, caused by the strings of the instrument.

"Level 1 Authority User".

She repeated the name again, her voice very soft, as if she were tasting the name of an unfamiliar fruit.

Then she laughed—not the light, ripple-like laugh she had before, but a laugh that welled up from the depths of her chest, a laugh that had been suppressed for too long and was finally being released.

The opponent is very strong, far stronger than we imagined.

But it's not strong enough to be unstoppable.

At the very least, if the other party wanted to kill her, they would have to pay some price.

More importantly, Xu Youlan was able to make a Level 1 authority user back down.

This is enough.

This at least shows that she has truly come close to that level.

Xu Youlan stood up from behind the zither table, walked to the window, and opened it.

As dusk slipped from the eaves of Lanzhou, the last rays of sunset on the horizon were a dark red, like rust or dried blood.

As the number of pedestrians on the street dwindled, the old man selling candied hawthorns carried his straw target, which was covered with candied hawthorns, home. Most of the target was still on it, and the sugar coating gleamed murkyly in the twilight.

The clone's figure had already disappeared around the street corner.

Xu Youlan looked in that direction for a while, then looked away.

She made a decision—the action could be a little bigger.

Previously, she killed reincarnators quietly: she would choose those who were alone and weaker than herself, and clean up the traces after killing them, like a cat hunting in the dark, burying the bones after eating them.

Now she feels it's unnecessary.

She's already met people with Level 1 privileges, so what's there to be afraid of?

This reincarnated being from the Song Dynasty can kill whomever she wants.

Even the alliance of reincarnators from before could be considered for some interest collection—the fact that they've survived so many worlds and are still banding together for warmth only shows their lack of confidence in their own strength.

Such reincarnated beings are the easiest to harvest.