Projection of the Heavens: I prove my immortality through slaughter.

The Lich King's gaze, like two solid ice spikes, pierced through the chaos and deathly aura of the battlefield, fixing precisely on Lin Xuan. That gaze contained not only the cold rules of death, but also an indifference akin to looking down on an ant, and a hint of curiosity and scrutiny at discovering an anomaly that had deviated from its course.

In the mind of this sovereign who wields the power of death and regards all things as mere straw dogs, all the undead are creations under his rules, their souls imprinted with absolute awe and obedience. Even the high-ranking undead lords with territories and subordinates depend on the death essence he spreads. Never before has anyone dared, and been able to, resist his rules of deathly enslavement!

Lin Xuan stood amidst the tide of the dead, the air around him seemingly frozen solid under the pressure of their gazes, and the surging power of death became stagnant.

But the cluster of ghostly blue soul fire in his head was not suppressed; instead, it burned even more subdued and calmly under the immense pressure, like a lighthouse in the deep sea. He slowly raised his head, the skull making a slight grinding sound as it turned, the soul fire blazing fiercely, meeting the gaze of the supreme being without fear.

Rebellion? No, the origin of his soul is not in the sequence of the dead in this world, so how can there be any talk of rebellion? What he seeks is to transcend the constraints, to unify all laws, not to grovel under any established rules!

"Anomaly..." The Lich King Arthas's voice, like the friction of millennia-old glaciers, rang out once more, carrying a barely perceptible fluctuation that resonated deep within Lin Xuan's soul. "Your soul gleams with a light that does not belong to the dust of this world. Surrender, offer your loyalty, and I will grant you eternal life beyond the mortal realm and the authority to rule over death."

In response, Lin Xuan slowly raised his skeletal right arm, covered in dark armor. His index and middle fingers were joined together like a sword, and at the fingertips, it was not pure death power that was gathering, but rather a mixture of his own tenacious divine consciousness, his understanding of the path of life and death, and a strange Dao rhythm that was held back, all condensing into a point of deep gray-black light, as profound as a cosmic vortex!

"We have different paths."

These three simple words, resounding with the power of death, were like a resounding bell, clearly expressing his stance and resolute determination.

"A foolish struggle." Arthas seemed to have completely lost patience, casually swinging forward the demonic sword in his hand—Frostmourne, which had devoured countless souls. The movement was effortless, yet it stirred the laws of heaven and earth!

A terrifying frost sword aura suddenly appeared, stretching across the sky and seemingly capable of splitting the world in two. At the edge of the sword aura, the space was frozen by the extreme cold, creating spiderweb-like black cracks. Inside, it contained the purest rules of death. Wherever it passed, whether it was a snarling undead or a struggling living being, they didn't even have time to utter a wail before they instantly turned into crystalline ice shards, which were then annihilated into the most basic energy particles!

This strike transcends the realm of ordinary energy collisions; it is a crushing defeat at the level of rules! Its power is comparable to a full-force strike from a late-stage Golden Core cultivator in the cultivation world!

Faced with this inescapable and unstoppable torrent of destruction, the soul fire in Lin Xuan's eyes suddenly contracted, and then burst forth with an unprecedentedly brilliant light!

He knew all too well that with just this Death Knight's body and the necromancy he currently possessed, he was no match for such a rule-based attack—it was like a mantis trying to stop a chariot!

But he is not only a necromancy! He also possesses a profound understanding and insight into the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth and the essence of energy—his "Dao"—derived from his true cultivation nature!

At the critical moment, Lin Xuan made a move that astonished everyone on the battlefield, including Arthas!

He didn't unleash the power gathered at his fingertips towards the devastating sword energy, nor did he attempt to attack Arthas's seemingly invincible body. Instead, he abruptly changed direction, hurling the finger beam—which contained all the power he could muster at that moment—fiercely towards the battlefield beneath his feet, a battlefield soaked in blood, death, holy light, and countless resentments! He shot it deep into the earth's crust, into the core of the ley lines—a core that bore witness to countless years of faith, sacrifice, unyielding will, and the yearning for life!

"Star Finger - Guiding Path to the Righteous Dharma!"

He let out a roar that was not in the language of the dead. His voice vibrated with the power of death, yet strangely it resonated with the surrounding energy. Every syllable seemed to contain a rhythm that pointed directly to the source!

That finger beam, condensed to its extreme and with a chaotic color, was like a spark thrown into a pot of boiling oil, instantly disappearing into the earth!

At first, there was a deathly silence.

Immediately—

"Buzz...!!!"

A deep, soul-stirring hum came from the depths of the earth, as if a colossal beast that had slumbered for millennia was awakening! The entire "Holy Light's Wish" canyon began to tremble violently, originating from the very source of the world! This was not a physical shaking like mountains collapsing and the earth splitting apart, but rather a deeper, more profound anger and retaliation belonging to the rules of this world!

Beneath the canyon lies the sacred ley lineage, imbued with the faith of saints throughout history, nourished by the blood of countless warriors, and blessed by the prayers of billions of living beings.

The overwhelming grief and indignation, the will to fight to the death, and the most primal and intense desire to survive, all the power of "life," all the positive, active, and rebellious thoughts and energy, were ignited at this moment by Lin Xuan's finger, which contained his own Daoist charm and skillfully drew upon the righteous energy of heaven and earth, like igniting the final fuse, and completely exploding!

Rumble—!!!

An immense energy, beyond description, mixed with milky white holy radiance, dazzling golden power of faith, crimson indomitable fighting spirit, and countless phantoms of prayer, erupted from every crack and hole in the earth like a world-destroying torrent suppressed for billions of years!

This light is not merely the holy light of the Church of Light; it is more ancient, purer, and more magnificent! It represents the ultimate rejection and purification of death, destruction, and all negative forces that attempt to disrupt the balance by the will of this world! It is the awakening of the world's "righteous energy"!

This overwhelming force of righteous energy, like a tsunami purifying everything, surged and spread in all directions from the canyon as its center!

The terrifying frost sword energy, capable of freezing souls and annihilating matter, was like a nemesis to this torrent representing the will to "live" of the entire world. It quickly melted away, and the rules of death contained within it were forcibly dispersed and disintegrated!

On the battlefield, the scene was even more spectacular. Like sunlight shining on snow, countless low-level undead, under the cleansing influence of this pure righteous energy, had their soul flames extinguished instantly before they could even struggle, their skeletal bodies turning into ashes and scattering away!

Even mid-to-high-level undead such as liches and terror knights let out painful soul howls, their death power was greatly suppressed and purified, and their movements became extremely slow!

"How is this possible?! This is... the backlash of the world's will?!" Arthas roared for the first time, his voice filled with shock, anger, and disbelief! He clearly felt that his close connection with the source of death in this world had been forcibly interfered with, and even briefly severed, by this sudden, overwhelming force of righteous energy! His almost inexhaustible source of power was momentarily depleted!

Its very foundation, upon which it exists and reigns supreme in the world, has been shaken!

"Now is the time!"

The light of the soul fire in Lin Xuan's eyes was extremely sharp! He had painstakingly created this opportunity, even risking his life to directly confront the attacks of the rules, waiting for this fleeting moment when Arthas's connection with the source of death was temporarily severed by the world's righteous energy!

He knew all too well that the Lich King was not truly immortal. The secret to his immortality lay in the "Life Box," hidden in the most secret corner and intimately connected to the very essence of his soul!

As long as the Life Box remains intact, even if its true form is annihilated a million times, it can draw power from the source of death and be reborn once more! This is the greatest secret about the Lich King that he pieced together from the fragments of memories of those ancient undead lords he devoured!

Just now, at the moment when he used his own Daoist aura to draw upon the world's righteous energy and collided most fiercely with Arthas's death rules, relying on his powerful divine sense, which far exceeded the limits of the undead in this world, and his extreme sensitivity to the flow of energy rules, he finally succeeded in capturing that extremely subtle, almost imperceptible trace of the Life Box fluctuation, which connected Arthas's body with a certain coordinate in the depths of the endless void!

Without a moment's hesitation, Lin Xuan, almost at the same instant he caught the fluctuation, poured all the death power he had accumulated from devouring death crystals and refining countless soul flames, along with more than half of his own divine consciousness origin, and the wisp of the Dao of Heaven and Earth that still lingered between his fingers after drawing upon the world's righteous energy, into his joined fingertips without reservation and with madness!

This time, the color of the fingertip was no longer gray-black, nor was it chaotic. Instead, it transformed into a strange luster that seemed to transcend the realm of color and contained the microscopic cycle of birth and death and the concept of the beginning of chaos!

His goal was crystal clear—not Arthas's still powerful physical body, but rather to follow the faint yet deadly fluctuations, ignoring spatial distance, piercing through the barriers of the void, and heading straight for the core of the Life Box, hidden deep within the endless spatial turbulence and considered an absolute forbidden zone!

"Star Finger - Penetrating the Void, Slaying Evil!"

With a single finger, it was silent and effortless, as if it had merged into the fabric of space and transcended the flow of time.

Hundreds of millions of miles away from the battlefield, deep within an endless void of chaotic currents where even light cannot escape, a magnificent box, crafted entirely from eternal ice cores and underworld black gold, its surface engraved with countless intricate and malevolent runes, exuding an aura of absolute cold and death, floats silently, as if it has existed there since time immemorial.

Suddenly, a strange finger beam, transcending conventional definitions and imbued with the Dao of birth and death, ignored the layers upon layers of spatial barriers and the violent turbulence capable of tearing apart stars. Like a preordained judgment of cause and effect, it abruptly appeared before the Life Box!

"No—!! You bastard!!!"

Arthas let out the most desperate and frantic soul scream since his birth! He tried to stop it, to withdraw his power to defend, to distort space... but it was all too late! His connection with the source of death was temporarily severed by the world's righteous energy, and his power was at an unprecedented low. The speed of that finger beam was faster than the instant his will turned!

"Pfft!"

A soft, yet seemingly resounding sound echoed deep within the souls of all who perceived this scene.

That strange finger beam pierced through the core of the life box, which was said to be so powerful that even gods could not easily destroy it, with perfect accuracy and without any obstruction!

On the surface of the Casket, the evil runes that sustained Arthas's immortal life and were connected to the source of death instantly dimmed, twisted, and shattered like paper thrown into a raging fire!

The ornate box emitted a teeth-grinding "crack" sound, covered with spiderweb-like cracks. The most primal soul imprint of the Lich King and the vast power of the rules of death, sealed inside, poured out and dissipated like a river bursting its banks!

"Ughh ...

On the battlefield, the Lich King Arthas's massive body, shrouded in heavy black armor, shuddered violently, letting out a final howl filled with endless resentment and unwillingness. The death energy that constituted his body, condensed to its extreme, began to spiral out of control and collapse, disintegrating and dissipating from the bottom up like a sandcastle.

The spiked crown, a symbol of supreme authority and power, slid from its shattered skull and plummeted into the surging tide of the dead below. The Frostmourne sword, which had devoured countless souls and instilled fear in all beings, also lost its luster and fell from the sky like ordinary iron…

The once invincible supreme ruler who unleashed a calamity of undead across the continent has met his true and complete end and annihilation with the complete shattering of his life casket!

quiet!

A deathly silence, like an invisible domain, instantly enveloped the entire battlefield that had just been filled with shouts of battle!

Whether it was the lingering spirits of the dead or the allied forces of survivors, all beings were stunned by this sudden, mind-blowing reversal! Their minds went blank, and they lost the ability to think!

The undead army, having lost its absolute core and source of will, instantly descended into immense chaos, confusion, and instinctive infighting. Meanwhile, the living, after a brief period of extreme shock and stunned silence, erupted like a volcano long suppressed, unleashing a deafening, thunderous roar of joy! Many even wept with elation, kneeling in gratitude to their gods.

As the ultimate architect of this reversal, after Lin Xuan unleashed the "Void Piercing - Demon Slayer" finger strike that had exhausted almost all of his projection's mental and physical strength, the Death Knight's body had reached its limit. The sturdy armor was riddled with cracks, the bones groaned under the strain, and the soul fire had dimmed to a faint level, as if it might be extinguished at any moment.

But, at the very moment Arthas was completely annihilated and the Life Box was completely shattered, an unimaginably vast and pure source of death, like a galaxy that had been dormant for eternity, suddenly erupted and surged out from the shattered Life Box!

Most of this power, following the rules of the world, quickly returned to and nourished the death-origin cycle of this realm. However, a small portion, drawn by the unique Daoist rhythm of Lin Xuan's finger techniques and attracted by the characteristics of his own soul, crossed the endless void barrier, flowing wildly into his body, which was on the verge of complete collapse, like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea!

This is the core, most fundamental death power accumulated by Arthas, the Lich King, through countless years of slaughtering countless lives and ruling the realm of the dead! Its quality and quantity far exceed the sum of all the soul fires and death crystals that Lin Xuan had previously devoured, perhaps even a hundred or a thousand times!

"Buzz—!"

His body, under the impact of this terrifying primal power, let out a final, seemingly disintegrating wail, yet it was forcibly held together at the edge of destruction and rebirth, and began a deeper transformation that transcended the undead order!

The color of the faint soul fire in the skull rapidly changed from a deep blue to a darker, more noble purple that seemed capable of devouring all light and hope, and its size was slowly but steadily expanding!

At the same time, Lin Xuan clearly sensed that the time projected into this world had reached its limit. Personally ending the undead calamity and annihilating the Lich King—such a massive causal shift had triggered a strong repulsion and corrective force from the rules of this world. The pull of return had become stronger than ever before, like a bowstring stretched to its limit.

He took one last, deep look at the battlefield, a tapestry of chaos and joy, at the undead Scourge, now utterly scattered and clashing with each other after losing their master, and at the creatures who, in their despair, welcomed the dawn and embraced in celebration. Their cheers seemed to come from another, distant world.

His consciousness began to irreversibly detach, and the pull of returning to his body enveloped his core consciousness.

In the instant before completely leaving this body, Lin Xuan gathered the last remaining mental strength and forcibly activated the technique to compress and purify the newly acquired, boundless source of death as much as possible, ultimately transforming it into a deep, dark purple crystal that seemed to contain the birth and death of galaxies, which he sealed at the very core of the soul fire of this body.

Immediately, endless darkness and a sense of being pulled apart by time and space swept over him, and his consciousness was completely separated from the world of the dead, falling into a long tunnel of return.

The undead calamity that swept across the continent was brought to an early end due to his intervention as an anomaly star.

What he took away was a world-shaking legacy—the very essence of death—and an immeasurable understanding of the rules of life and death.