Xu Zhan hovered in mid-air, his demonic armor half-destroyed, revealing a face interwoven with demonic patterns and resolve. The aura surrounding him became extremely strange—no longer pure demonic might, nor pure purifying power, but a chaotic, highly unstable state where two fundamentally opposite, mutually destructive origin forces were forcibly fused and compressed together in a nearly self-destructive manner!
The Demonic Lord's shadow emitted a piercing shriek carrying genuine fear: "Xu Zhan! What are you trying to do?! Stop! You're destroying yourself! You'll lose even the chance for reincarnation!" It frantically channeled its demonic source, attempting to regain control of that body on the verge of losing control, to prevent that terrible thing from happening.
However, it was too late.
After a hundred years of torment, his divine soul burned day and night by demonic flames, Xu Zhan had already tempered his will into something like hundredfold refined steel. At this moment, in the final afterglow of his burning Soul Fire, supported by the resolve to sacrifice everything just to give his son a chance at survival, his control over this "cage" of a body reached an unprecedented peak!
He even... reverse-utilized the core demonic seed within him that originated from the Demonic Lord! Using it as a guide, using it as fuel!
"A hundred years of imprisonment, today... must end!"
Xu Zhan let out a low roar as if from the deepest netherworld, that sound containing liberation, and even more, the madness of perishing with the enemy!
He no longer suppressed the main power of the World-Purifying Green Lotus lotus seed that had been sealed within him for a hundred years and tightly intertwined with the Demonic Lord's origin. Instead, he actively activated it! The Green Lotus power, being supremely pure, the moment it appeared, violently conflicted with the pure demonic source within him, as if it would completely purify and disintegrate this body that had been polluted for a century!
But Xu Zhan's goal was not to purify himself, but to... sacrifice both these powers, along with his burning remnant soul, together!
"With my remnant soul as sacrifice! With the Green Lotus as foundation! Taking your demonic source as guide! Transform—Sacrifice Purification Light!"
His hands formed an ancient and tragic seal before his chest—that was the ultimate guardian forbidden technique passed down in the Xu family bloodline, born together with the World-Purifying Green Lotus! Only those bearing pure Xu family blood, and possessing the will to sacrifice themselves for righteousness, could activate it!
Om—!!!
His entire body instantly became an indescribable energy furnace! At his chest, the pure demonic energy he had nurtured for a hundred years containing nearly half the Demonic Lord's origin, combined with all his remaining soul power and life force, and the activated main lotus seed power, under the guidance of this forbidden technique, did not annihilate each other, but were forcibly reversed and fused, transforming into a strange beam of light that transcended simple light-dark opposition, presenting a chaotic gray-white color, containing the dual supreme laws of "sacrifice" and "purification"!
The moment this beam appeared, time and space throughout the Demon Palace's grand hall seemed to freeze! All the forces in battle—Mu Xue's frost, Ao Qin's water blades, the Demonic Lord's tentacles, even the resentful souls churning in the blood pool—all paused for an instant!
This light was not for destruction, but for... purification! At the cost of the most complete self-sacrifice, to purify all evil, to cleanse all filth!
"No—!!!"
The Demonic Lord's shadow let out a despairing and mad roar. It sensed the fatal threat to its origin core contained in that beam! It wanted to flee, to dodge, but the beam seemed to lock onto the essence of its existence, ignoring space and distance!
Xu Zhan took one last look at his son below who was struggling to rush up, tears streaming down his face. The final emotion in his eyes was incomparable tenderness and hope.
Then, resolutely, he thrust his hands forward!
"Xiao Qi... live on!"
That gray-white beam, condensing a hundred years of his suffering, a lifetime of cultivation, all his soul power, and his final blessing to his son, like the first ray of dawn breaking through eternal darkness, soundlessly yet with unstoppable will to purify all things, instantly crossed space and precisely... blasted into the very core of the Demonic Lord's twisting, dodging shadow!
Sizzle—!!!
No explosion, no roar.
Only a strange, continuous melting sound, like a searing iron pressed into ice, or clear water washing away filth!
The Demonic Lord's shadow, like a snowman thrown into the blazing sun, let out a scream of utmost misery! Its form violently twisted, rolled, and evaporated under the gray-white beam's irradiation! That pure demonic source condensed over countless millennia, before this purification light containing the law of sacrifice, encountered its nemesis and was rapidly decomposed, purified, dissipated!
Its massive, suffocating pressure rapidly declined like a deflating balloon!
Even the Perfect Demon Body frozen below, due to the Demonic Lord's main body suffering such heavy damage, violently trembled, countless cracks appearing on its surface. The condensation process was forcibly interrupted and even began to reverse!
And Xu Zhan, who released this ultimate strike, the moment that gray-white beam left his body, the light around him completely dimmed. The demonic armor utterly shattered, revealing the body covered with demonic patterns that was rapidly turning to ash. A smile of liberation on his face, he took one last look at this world, at his son, then... his entire body, along with his remaining divine soul imprint, completely transformed into dots of crystalline flowing light, like fireflies dancing on a summer night, flickered once in the Demon Palace's grand hall, then... completely dissipated into nothingness.
Soul scattered to the winds, never to reincarnate.
In the most thorough way possible, he fulfilled a father's final responsibility, completed a guardian's ultimate mission.
"Father—!!!!!!"
Below, Tang Xiaoqi let out a heart-wrenching wail, as if crying out his very soul! He watched helplessly as his father chose such a resolute, such a complete way to leave, to save him, to heavily wound the Demonic Lord! He couldn't even touch his father once, couldn't say another word!
Endless grief like a billion steel knives instantly cut his heart to pieces!
However, beneath that overwhelming grief, an even colder, purer, more blazing... killing intent and will to destroy, like a dormant volcano, erupted from the depths of his heart!
The opportunity his father exchanged his life for, the instant the Demonic Lord was heavily wounded... he absolutely could not waste it!
He suddenly raised his head, his bloodshot eyes fixed only on that shadow of the Demonic Lord struggling painfully in the purification light, constantly shrinking!
Vengeance!
Purification!
Destruction!