After a thousand years of cultivation, he returns at the pinnacle!

The moment the golden sword light flashed, Morgana's black void suddenly contracted.

She sensed it. This sword strike was unlike any she had ever seen before. When Jiang Chen had shattered those gatekeepers, his sword intent was sharp, piercing, and chilling, as if condensed from the purest killing intent. But this sword strike carried something she had never sensed from anyone before.

He thanked her. He thanked her for allowing him to see Su Wanniang again, for allowing him to see his master again, and for allowing him to finally say goodbye after a thousand years.

But gratitude does not mean refraining from killing.

A golden sword shadow flew from Jiang Chen's fingertips, drawing a straight golden line in the void. The trajectory was utterly simple—no changes, no twists, no hidden moves. It was just a simple sword strike, aimed directly at Morjana's brow.

Morgiana raised her right hand. Her five fingers spread, and a swirling purplish-black vortex appeared in her palm. That was the core of her Soul Scream Law—the Soul Vortex. Any soul sucked into it would be instantly torn apart, devoured, and transformed into her power. For three hundred years, she had used this technique to devour the souls of countless challengers, never failing.

The golden sword shadow pierced the very center of the soul vortex.

Morgana's lips curled into a slight smile. Her Soul Vortex was specifically designed to counter all forms of energy attacks. Whether it was sword intent or spiritual power, as long as it was energy and possessed a frequency that could be torn apart, it could not escape the Soul Vortex's annihilation.

Then her smile froze.

The golden sword shadow pierced through the vortex of souls as easily as piercing a thin sheet of paper. The vortex of souls began to crumble at its edges the instant the sword shadow pierced through, and the purplish-black light peeled off, splashed, and evaporated like shattered ice. The sword shadow's speed did not decrease at all, its trajectory did not deviate at all, and it did not even make a sound—no loud collision, no clash of energy, only a pure, silent penetration.

Morgana's figure vanished from the spot. At the critical moment, she used another ability of the Soul Scream Law—Soul Transfer. She instantly transferred her soul core to a pre-prepared soul container deep within the Apostle's Hall, leaving behind only a phantom formed by the law.

The illusory image was pierced by the golden sword shadow. The golden light exploded, engulfing the entire purplish-black throne, the surrounding greyish-white mist, and the countless distorted, screaming faces within it. When the light dissipated, only a straight sword mark remained in the void. That sword mark stretched from Jiang Chen's fingertip to the very edge of the void, beyond the void's own healing mechanisms to repair—it was etched into space itself, becoming a scar that would never disappear.

Morjana reformed herself in the distance. Her long black hair was disheveled and draped over her shoulders, and a thin, long gash appeared on her left cheek, her face pale and almost translucent. There was no blood in the gash, only a purplish-black light that kept dissipating. It was the mark left by the aftershocks of the sword intent that had swept across her soul core—she had dodged the sword's edge, but not completely avoided the sword intent.

Her black, hollow gaze was fixed on Jiang Chen. Deep within that hollow, emotions unseen for three hundred years were surging.

"I see." Her voice was no longer like the wind blowing through withered petals, but like a needle slicing through frozen glass. "Astra didn't die from arrogance. He died from despair. Faced with an enemy that couldn't be analyzed using the laws of reversal, his immortality was nothing more than a delaying tactic to prolong his death."

She raised her right hand and gently ran her index finger across the gash on her left cheek. A faint, purplish-black light clung to her fingertip, and as she watched it flicker and fade, she suddenly smiled. That smile was completely different from before; there was no languor, no sickness, no condescending mockery. It was a fervent, almost twisted smile—the kind that only appears when someone has lived too long, waited too long, and finally encountered an opponent worthy of her full power.

"But I'm not like him." Her voice softened, as soft as a snowflake falling on a red-hot iron plate. "He relies on the law of reversal because he is immortal. I don't need immortality. I just need—to let you hear my voice."

She opened her arms. A purplish-black, soul-piercing power erupted from her body, not rushing towards Jiang Chen, but spreading in all directions, enveloping the entire void. In an instant, the grayish-white mist in the void was stained purplish-black, and the distorted faces suspended in the mist stopped screaming and began to sing. It was a bizarre chorus formed by countless overlapping voices—some were crying, some were laughing, some were shouting, some were whispering; all the sounds blended together, becoming a resonance beyond the range of human hearing, directly affecting the soul.

Jiang Chen stood rooted to the spot, the hem of his school uniform fluttering slightly in the purplish-black light waves. His expression remained calm, but his divine sense perceived a crucial fact—Morgana's Soul Scream was no longer an attack targeting him alone, but had transformed the entire void into her domain. Within this domain, the Soul Scream was omnipresent and all-pervasive, like air, like gravity, like the fundamental laws of space itself.

"The 1001st Song—The Cry of All Souls." Morgana's voice echoed in the purplish-black light. "For three hundred years, you have been the first human to make me use the full version of Soul Scream. Astra was not qualified, nor were the other Apostles. Only you, Jiang Chen. Simply because you showed me the Dao Heart."

Her black emptiness stared at Jiang Chen, and for the first time, something resembling pupils appeared in her eye sockets—purple-black light spots that were frantically spinning and contracting, formed by the power of countless soul screams.

"But even the Dao Heart has its limits." Her voice came simultaneously from all directions—from above, from below, from all sides, from every twisted face's mouth. "Your Dao Heart has been honed for a thousand years, forging the strongest shield. But my Soul Scream can attack every inch of that shield from ten thousand angles at once. A shield can block a spear, but it can't stop a tsunami. Tell me, how long can your Dao Heart withstand my Myriad Soul Cries?"

The shrieks of the soul surged in from all directions!

However, it must be said that even in this situation, Jiang Chen did not show any extra expression.

He was indeed grateful to Morgana for allowing him to see someone from his past, and it felt good, but... she had to die!

"You know what? Even though you let me see those old friends, I'm actually quite happy."

"But...some of my secrets have also been exposed by you, and being spied on makes me very uncomfortable."

Jiang Chen's voice turned colder, and the next second, his figure vanished!