The undead have descended upon the world? I possess a sword that can cleave the heavens once more!

Within the illusion, Wu You's thoughts raced.

"Seven Evil Passions..."

"As the primary personality is gradually eroded by emotions and desires, it will eventually be replaced."

"Ecstasy, rage, obsessive worry, delusions, agonizing grief, terror, nightmares..."

He mentally went through those seven words.

Each word corresponds to an emotion, and each emotion corresponds to an erosion path. Seven paths penetrate in parallel, and the erosion speed can be accelerated by the drifting ashes.

Without the Clear Sword Heart, it would indeed be a very troublesome ability.

He paused for a moment, shifting his thoughts away from the turbulent thoughts still churning in his mind and returning to the real battlefield.

"However, it seems the other party didn't realize that I'm still in a relatively normal state?"

"Is this an illusion caused by my failure to actively attack its main body?"

He shook his head.

Regardless of whether the other party has made a mistake in judgment, his current situation has not fundamentally changed.

He glanced again in the direction from which the horde of corpses was coming—after the Seven Evils and Six Evils Domains were deployed, the state of those low-level corpse species had clearly changed.

What was originally a low-level corpse species that was just blindly charging forward has now swelled up by half a circle, its surface covered with an unstable dark light, and its aura fluctuates like a boiler about to explode.

Their strength seems to have improved slightly, but that improvement seems to have come at the cost of instability.

"It seems that besides the ash that corrodes personality, this realm also enhances other abominations."

Wu You made a mental note of it, and at the same time raised his hand and threw out two more silver-white sword energies.

The sword energy sliced ​​across the ground, cutting through a group of low-level corpses in front of it as easily as slicing tofu, and the experience points jumped up and down in the sword manual.

Experience points +4000

Experience points +2000

Experience points +2000

.......

"Unfortunately, although my strength has increased, the experience points I received haven't changed."

Wu You glanced at the Sword Manual panel and thought to himself.

Seeing the silver giant wasting its power on low-level corpses, the sneer on the face in the center of the black cloud deepened.

Her two smoky eyes curved slightly, and her voice slowed deliberately: "Even after all this, do you still want to make a final contribution to your people?"

"This really moves me."

"But that's a pity. Next—"

"Welcome your death—"

He didn't have time to say the last word completely.

The silver-white giant suddenly flipped up the jet-black longsword that had just been lowered in his hand, and flicked the blade upwards in a smooth arc.

next moment.

A jet-black crescent moon, radiating an intense aura of destruction, detached from the sword tip and streaked upwards along the gray-white dust drifting within the domain. Its speed was so great that it could not be followed by sight, leaving only a black afterimage in mid-air.

The crescent moon disappeared straight into the center of the face in the middle of the dark cloud, cutting in from roughly the space between the eyebrows, and continued to cut upwards, cleaving open a large area of ​​dark cloud behind it.

The face grazed by the sword energy split open from the middle, its edges curling, disintegrating, and dissipating like a candle sliced ​​by a hot knife.

Within a few breaths, the outline of the entire face went from clear to blurry, and from blurry to blank. A large patch of black cloud around the face also dissipated, leaving behind a huge, jagged, arc-shaped void.

Old Wei, standing by the teleportation portal outside the stronghold, looked up, his pupils reflecting the expanding void.

His breath hitched, his gaze fixed on the edge of the empty space.

On the city wall, Hu Lie and Zhao Xuan remained silent, staring intently at the sky.

Wang Qi and Gongsun Baizhan opened their mouths at the same time, and the other torchbearers also raised their heads forward.

All eyes were focused on the hole.

"Did it work?" Wang Qi murmured, his voice extremely low.

But the dark clouds only churned briefly. The clouds and mist at the edge of the void began to flow inward, as if being pulled from all directions and gathered towards the center.

First, the jagged edges of the gaps were filled in, and then the empty space in the middle was covered by newly turned-up black smoke, with the color layered up from light to dark.

In less than three breaths, the huge hole torn open by the sword energy of the pivotal tribulation had completely disappeared, and the dark clouds were as smooth as before.

On the other side of the dark cloud, the face reappeared, its features exactly the same as before, even the shape of the curve at the corner of its mouth was exactly the same.

The torchbearers on the city wall, who had been holding their breath just moments before, all had a hint of regret in their eyes.

Someone sighed softly, and their shoulders slumped.

Hu Lie's expression twisted from anticipation to resentment, and he slammed his fist hard against the wall.

Wang Qi and Gongsun Baizhan didn't speak, but their hands, which had been hanging down, clenched together again.

Zhu Yuanzhi stood on a command platform on the south side of the stronghold's city wall, unsurprised by the scene before him.

He knew what expanding his domain meant; that level of recovery ability couldn't be suppressed by a single sword aura, even if that sword aura was quite powerful!

After the face in the dark clouds re-formed, the corners of its mouth curved up even higher than before.

Two eyes formed from black smoke looked down, their gaze piercing through layers of ash to land on the silver-white giant, carrying a forgiving arrogance:

"hehe."

"Aren't you disappointed? Your rules of extinction are powerful, but—they're useless!"

"This is the territory I control!!!"

Wu You did not respond.

He raised his sword, and two more sword energies of tribulation soared into the sky, one slicing towards the left side of his face and the other slicing towards the lower right side of his face.

The sword energy plunged into the black cloud with the same ferocity as the first time, and the cut was equally clean-edged. However, the black cloud returned to its original state within a few breaths, and the face reappeared as if nothing had happened.

Wu You raised his hand again.

The third and fourth time.

Each time, the result was the same—the sword energy tore open a huge gash, the dark clouds closed in, and the face reappeared.

However, each time the doors closed, the speed was slightly faster than the previous one.

That face finally spoke again, and the laughter in its voice was even stronger than before:

"it's useless."

"Your attack is nothing more than the dying struggle of an ant to me now."

"I am now waiting for you to completely become a puppet of the Seven Evil Emotions."

"And what are you waiting for?"

Wu You ignored the voice.

His sword tip drooped slightly, and his gaze shifted from the dark clouds to the black longsword in his hand.

He had seen enough of what he needed to see after four attempts.

"The power of the Pivot Sword Qi is immense."

He mentally listed out his observations one by one.

Even against an opponent who is likely beyond the tenth rank, it can still inflict damage.

"But within the opponent's domain, their recovery ability and resistance to the power of the rules have been greatly enhanced."

"But those sword strikes just now—"

"While it appeared to take the hit head-on, it actually only severed the part of its body that was struck by the Pivot Sword Qi! Then, it used the rapid regenerative abilities within its domain to repair that piece!"

He looked up and glanced at the face that had reformed.

Each time the opponent recovers, it has to cut and then heal. Although the process is fast, it is essentially "cutting and regeneration" rather than directly blocking the power of the Pivot Sword Qi!

"Therefore," Wu You added in his mind, "even now, within its home territory, it still wouldn't dare to directly confront the Pivot Tribulation Sword Qi!"

This judgment gave him confidence and also gave him a deeper understanding of the power of the Pivot Tribulation Sword Qi—even opponents who were more than ten levels above the eleventh level dared not take it head-on!

"However, relying solely on the Pivot Sword Qi is probably not enough now." He shook his head.

The opponent, relying on the high regenerative power of the domain and the body-splitting tactic, can limit the destructive effect of the Pivot Sword Qi to a tolerable range.

If you break one piece, you patch it up; if you break ten pieces, you patch them up again. As long as you can't inflict enough damage to seriously injure or even kill the opponent in one go, this war of attrition will never end.

He needs to change his offensive strategy.

The distracting thoughts on the lake of the mind were still churning, but just as brightly, the sword light of the clear sword heart was also extinguishing them, flashing on and off.

Wu You's thoughts remained as clear as ever under the protection of the Clear Sword Heart.

"The Xuan Suo Sword Intent can seal off the space, abilities, and even rules surrounding a target. What about a domain?"

He narrowed his eyes slightly: "So, will the Xuan Suo Sword Intent be effective?"

Do it when you think of it.

The black sword in the silver giant's hand began to rapidly dissipate.

The thick black layer on the sword spine began to fade from the edges, receding inward like ink being diluted with water, revealing the semi-transparent outline of the sword body underneath. Then even that semi-transparent layer began to disintegrate, shattering into tiny specks of silvery-white light that drifted between the fingers of the silver-white giant.

Upon seeing this, the torchbearers on the city wall became tense.

"It's over!" someone exclaimed first. "Why did that big shot's sword fall apart?! Is he really going to be exhausted this time?!"

"Everything was fine just now, how come suddenly..." The person next to him interrupted too quickly, swallowing the rest of their sentence before finishing.

"Could it be that the attack just now consumed too much energy?!" Someone stared intently at the center of the battlefield.

Wang Qi clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white, his lips pressed into a thin line, his eyes fixed on the silver-white figure scattering his sword. He understood, of course, the consequences of exhaustion in this situation.

Only death awaits!

Old Wei, standing outside the outpost, also felt a tightness in his chest. His toes had already moved forward half an inch, and his shoulders had also tilted forward.

But the moment he started to move, he remembered his agreement with Wu You—that he would give a hand signal if he couldn't hold on any longer, and then they would provide support; otherwise, he would just have to watch!

Thinking this, he pulled his weight back from his forward lean, his feet firmly planted on the ground again, and his gaze was even more fixed on the silver giant than before, even his blinking slowed down.

Just then, the silver giant's empty right hand suddenly rose up.

With fingers spread and palm facing up, it looks like it's waiting for something to fall.

In the deep, dark sky, beside the black sun, a second star slowly emerged.

The color was slightly dimmer than the first one, with a faintly distorted halo around the edges, like a light seen through water.

A beam of starlight descended vertically from that star, thin and straight, like a pale silver thread hanging from the sky, landing precisely in the palm of the silver giant.

The starlight began to solidify the moment it touched the palm.

In Wu You's hand, a long sword transformed from ethereal to tangible, its semi-transparent body carrying a subtle sense of distortion—when the gaze fell upon the sword, the scenery behind it would be gently twisted and then returned to its original position, as if looking through an extremely thin and transparent curved glass.

Its hilt and blade are seamlessly integrated, with no clear boundary, and the entire blade is light-colored, appearing faintly visible.

It is the Xuan Suo Sword!

The mockery and ridicule that had been on the face in the center of the black cloud vanished the instant the sword materialized.

The two eyes formed from black smoke widened slightly, and the black mud churning deep within the pupils stopped flowing, then suddenly contracted and tightened towards the center.

The expression on his face changed from mockery to something else—greed, a greed like swallowing. His gaze lingered on the pale-colored longsword, then returned to the silver-white giant, scanning back and forth twice, the wisps of smoke rising from his throat.

"The second star," the voice from the dark clouds deepened, "the second rule!"

"And divinity—!!!"

"This human must hold a great secret!!!"

"I must get it!!!"

Wu You didn't give the corpse creature any more time to reflect.

The Xuan Suo Sword had been flipped at an angle in the silver-white giant's hand, its tip aimed at the enormous face in mid-air, and then it was swung out.

The sword's trajectory was clean and crisp, slashing diagonally from the upper right to the lower left. A very faint, transparent sword aura emerged from the tip of the sword, so thin that it was almost invisible. Its location could only be determined by the slight distortion of the surrounding air as the sword aura passed by.

The pale sword energy followed one after the other, like an almost invisible shuttle, silently flying towards the dark-faced man.

The sword energy pierced his face, and then the outline of his entire face swayed slightly, as if something had gently touched the surface of water.

At the same time, a few wisps of black smoke were drawn away from the edges of his face by the sword energy and drifted away, but were quickly swallowed back by the surrounding black clouds.

Other than that, nothing else happened.

Wu You frowned.

The moment the sword energy struck that face, he sensed it—the sword intent had not found its target.

The essence of the Xuan Lock Sword is sealing, but it needs to seal a specific thing or an area.

But the information fed back from that dark cloud and that face was like a pile of loose sand. No matter where the sword energy cut in, it encountered the same uniform, boundless clouds and smoke!

No part is more core, and no part is more crucial than the rest!

He quickly realized: "That face isn't its core feature at all."

"Those dark clouds in the sky are merely its derivative bodies, not its true form."

"Therefore, the Xuan Suo Sword Qi has no effect—because it has no target at all!"

Wu You shifted his gaze from the face that had regained its composure and swept it across the vast black cloud that covered thousands of meters.

"The enemy's true form must be hiding somewhere in the dark clouds."

"But now I can't sense its location at all, and when facing a domain-level enemy, the Tianquan Wenqu Sword isn't powerful enough to perceive its weaknesses, let alone lock onto them with the Yaoguang Dongming Sword."

He quickly deduced the process in his mind.

"unless--"

"Use the Whirlwind Sword Qi to completely cover all the dark clouds."

"In that case, the opponent's true form will definitely be sealed by the Xuan Suo Sword Qi, and all their abilities, including their rules, will be locked away."

"However, if we really do that, it's better to use the Pivot Blade Qi, which consumes less energy."

But as soon as these thoughts crossed his mind, he shook his head.

He looked up at the black cloud that almost covered the entire battlefield, its edges still extending slightly outwards.

Right now, he simply cannot cover such a large area with his Xuan Suo sword energy!

After all, the Xuan Suo Sword Qi is no ordinary sword qi; it consumes a great deal of energy—to achieve that level is almost no different from destroying a city with a single sword strike!

At that moment, the expression on the face that had reformed in the dark clouds above the sky changed.

The greed and mockery they had shown before were gone.

The contours of its face straightened a bit, and its two black, smoky eyes stopped darting around and instead stared steadily down at the silver-white giant with a cold seriousness.

"Playtime is over."

A melodious voice came from deep within the clouds.

"Seven evils and six wickednesses, seven evils and six wickednesses—"

"What you just experienced was nothing more than the Seven Evil Passions."

"What you are about to witness is the true power of the Seven Evils and Six Fiends Domain!"

The voice paused for a moment, then suddenly rose in pitch:

"Come out!"

"Six Evil Bodies!!!"

The moment those last three words landed, a strange feeling surged up in Wu Youxin's heart.

The feeling came too fast and too intensely, like a pair of hands reaching into his chest and grabbing something inside.

Those turbulent emotions that were still churning before—ecstasy, rage, anxiety, delusion, grief, fear, nightmares, and so on—

These emotions are like an invisible hook that simultaneously snags the end of a thread and then pulls it outwards suddenly.

What followed was—

A feeling of detachment!!!

A profound sense of detachment spread from the center of my heart, like the emptiness and dryness that comes after the water in my heart has been drained!

But strangely, what came with that withdrawal was an unusually refreshing cleanliness.

After the distracting thoughts and emotions that had plagued Wu You for a while were removed, the surface of his heart was as calm as a brand-new mirror, and even the light of the Ming Sword Heart seemed much more composed than before.

Wu You, inside the illusory realm, couldn't help but blink: ?

The feeling of being drained was still there, but it didn't have any obvious negative effects—on the contrary, he was now more clear-headed and calmer than before!