VESSEL - Extinction Countdown 921: Celestial Art: Array Breach

Hong Lin’s shout unleashed a strange wind, surging from her in an instant, sweeping across the heavens and earth.

Yi Qing and Ye Shisan instinctively stumbled back, clutching the car doors. They looked ahead, where the wind collided with something invisible fifty meters away—as if striking an unseen wall. With a thunderous burst, the gust scattered in all directions!

Visibly, an unseen barrier rose from the ground, piercing the sky, shimmering with cyan ripples from bottom to top.

Amid a low hum in the air, dazzling light erupted from the collision’s epicenter. The cyan ripples spread, hit their limit, then rebounded, converging into the heart of the glow.

In a flash, the light vanished. Suspended in midair, a figure emerged—a youth clad in a gray Taoist robe.

Pale-faced, with disheveled gray-white hair, he was gaunt, yet cloaked in a terrifying aura around him.

“Who dares trespass the Sanqing Barrier Formation?!”

His bellow rattled Ye Shisan’s scalp, his ears stinging. He clutched them in pain.

But Yi Qing seemed entirely unaffected. “Ye Shisan, what’s wrong?!”

“There… didn't you see it?”

“See what? There’s nothing over there!”

“Seriously, can’t you see it?!”

Before they could argue, Hong Lin’s voice boomed: “Celestials wield art, myriad arrays yield, heaven’s mighty awe, earth’s grand deeds—all spirits submit, none dare defy!”

Upon hearing this, the gray-robed youth began to rein in his ferocious aura. He slowly descended from midair, drifting to hover before Hong Lin.

“This world’s affairs, this world’s men govern; Celestial departed, why have you returned?”

“To settle one karmic debt, to seek one destined bond.”

“Karma shifts ever, bonds are heaven-fated; why do you cling, Celestial?”

“For the oaths sworn atop Moltenpyre Mountain, for the unyielding bond through threefold cycles, for the relentless love in the land of Zhuxi—what are fleeting karma and heaven’s decree to these?!”

The gray-robed youth’s expression turned cold. He snapped, “Such a Celestial, how can you attain the Great Way?”

Hong Lin let out a mocking laugh. “The Great Way? Countless souls span the cosmos, yet attaining the Way, living as long as heaven and earth, wielding boundless divine art—what of it? To me, to dwell forever with my beloved is my true Way!”

“Fie! Such brazen words!”

The youth’s brows shot up. He stepped back thrice, radiating a piercing aura. “Paths apart cannot align; though you are a Celestial, your aura is frail and faltering—hah! Today, you will not breach this array!”

Hong Lin extended her slender arm, spreading her index finger. From its tip, a strange ripple began to pulse—growing stronger by the second. The air around her trembled, a low hum filled the atmosphere, and shockwaves rippled like frenzied waves.

“I honor your loyal guard of this realm, rare spirit of the array; yet if you dare block me, I will rend you to ashes!”

Braving the raging wind, the gray-robed youth stood firm, unflinching. “I am the array’s spirit, sworn by the Three Pure Ones and Nine Immortals to guard against evil spirits—no escape, no retreat, bound to live and die with this array! Yet if you destroy it, evil spirits will spill forth, and you, Celestial, will bear a monstrous karmic debt of slaughter!”

With that, he pressed his palms together, then slowly drew them apart. A radiant jade-green heavenly light materialized above his head, a tangible beam of immense power, poised to strike.

Hong Lin burst into laughter. “My karmic burdens are already vast—at worst, let me enter the Cycle of Rebirth once more! Even if I die, I must fulfill my father’s wish!”

Words ceased. The breathtaking auras began to solidify, the intense vibrations and resonance shook the heavens and earth in a way visible to the naked eye. Mountains groaned, night clouds spiraled, and battle winds exploded in fury!

Even Yi Qing, blind to the youth, sensed something wrong. Bracing against the wind, she yelled to Ye Shisan, “Hong Lin’s talking like she’s ready to die?!”

Die? The words struck Ye Shisan like a blade. His chest tightened with sudden pain, and in that moment of haze, he recalled Hong Lin’s soft smile from earlier—and the words she had whispered: “Father, for you, I’d do anything…”

A howling gust tore through, flinging Yi Qing off the ground. She had to cling desperately to the car door. Even the heavy Mercedes trembled under the force, rocking side to side.

“Ye Shisan!”

She turned to look—but beside the car, there was no trace of him.

At this very moment, The jade-green heavenly light suspended nine feet above the gray-robed youth’s head grew ever brighter—until it blazed like a solidified bolt of lightning, casting radiant beams across the mountains!

“Celestial! This is the Evil-Slaying Heavenly Sword of the Sanqing Barrier Formation—if you can conquer it, the array is yours to break!”

“Cut the crap!”

Hong Lin spat three words. In that instant, the ripple at her fingertip ceased. For a few nanoseconds, the entire world fell into absolute silent. Then—a force erupted, like a mountain crashing down, a gravitational wave that crushed everything in its path.

Looking at Hong Lin again, her finger vanished, then the knuckles, the middle finger, the thumb… until her entire palm had disappeared. In its place was a singular black dot, a point of unfathomable terror. All things—sky and earth, matter and spirit— seemed drawn to it, rushing toward that speck with frenzied abandon!

Even the Evil-Slaying Heavenly Sword above the gray-robed youth’s head could not withstand such horror. His face turned ashen, brows furrowed tight. He raised both arms—and bit down hard on his own wrist.

“Sanqing Barrier Formation, Five Hues Craft Glyphs, Shake Heaven, Subdue Earth, Purge Filth, Slay Evil!”

Instantly, the Evil-Slaying Heavenly Sword unleashed thousands of plasma arcs, etching a sky-spanning Lichtenberg Figure within milliseconds!

The plasma rained down like light itself, scouring the earth. Mud and stone roads were scorched black, and fires broke out across the surrounding hills, flames leaping skyward in a blaze of fury.

“Evil-Slaying Heavenly Sword, rise and form the array!”

A sound pierced the air. But the air twisted with a grotesque sound—and the sword vanished.

The next instant, it was the gray-robed youth’s turn to widen his eyes—as if unable to believe what had just occurred.

Before Hong Lin, a man had appeared. He was tall, with messy hair, but his eyes shone with an unusual light. More bizarre still— from his back extended dozens of translucent arms, boneless and supple, like the limbs of a humanoid octopus.

Though the man himself seemed frail, those strange arms were anything but. They gripped the Demon-Slaying Sword with terrifying strength, holding it motionless—just inches from the tip of his nose.

“Fa... Father?!”

Hong Lin was also stunned. The man before her turned his head, a faint, almost bashful smile on his lips.

“No matter what it is… I won’t let you—or anyone—die for me so easily!”

As the final word left Ye Thirteen’s lips, the dozens of monstrous arms clenched in unison. A bone-chilling crack split the air, followed by a blinding eruption of light that pierced the heavens!

The Evil-Slaying Heavenly Sword had been crushed!

The massive shockwave, after transiently collapsing, erupted once more, unleashing a force that was no less devastating than a small nuclear weapon!

Yi Qing let out a piercing scream as she tumbled through the air, her body entwined with over two tons of spinning Mercedes steel.

Yet in that moment, her mind wasn’t on her safety. It raced back to the first time she saw Pseudo-Spirit Zhuqiu in Ye Shisan.

Fierce winds drowned her mutter: “Ye Shisan, you’ve grown so fast…”