Longevity by Grinding Skills

Xu Yunfan’s eyes flickered.

’Is she really this weak?’

To think he’d been so cautious, secretly channeling his Divine Sky Magical Power in preparation for a ruthless strike.

This attack was no longer a simple shockwave or mental assault. It carried the nascent power of this world’s divine Rules.

But in Xu Yunfan’s eyes, this nascent power of divine Rules was inferior to even that of an Early-Stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator who had just formed their Dao Foundation.

It was just like some kind of boon from the Celestial Dao.

However, Xu Yunfan was waiting for this exact moment.

The instant the Sound Blade Cage took shape, he had already activated the Secret Technique in his mind.

Celestial-Eroding Netherworld Talisman.

The Celestial Talisman was a Cause and Effect Secret Technique. While the various World Heavens manifested energy in different forms, the underlying logic of their formation was largely the same.

This was what it meant for all great Daos to lead to the same end.

This Cause and Effect Secret Technique traced its target’s source and perceived its essence.

The core of this Cause and Effect Secret Technique was to "perceive the true void and erode all celestial ties."

As the Secret Technique operated, the world in Xu Yunfan’s vision was no longer a mere collection of matter, but an extension that followed the flow of Cause and Effect Lines.

Light, dust, swirling stone fragments, the Sound Blades glinting with a deadly chill—even the magnificent, glowing statue itself.

In an instant, all of existence was elongated, rapidly transforming from the concrete into an abstract representation.

Countless lines, so slender they were almost transparent, emerged.

These lines represented the connections between things, the flow of energy, the trajectories of existence, the paths of causality...

They were the underlying logic of existence, the projection of "law" and "reason" onto the phenomenal world.

Looking at the Cause and Effect Lines before him, which were more chaotic than hundreds of tangled balls of yarn, Xu Yunfan’s brow relaxed instead.

’Good thing the Celestial-Eroding Netherworld Talisman is one of the Primordial Sect’s supreme Cause and Effect Secret Techniques,’ he thought. ’With the help of my Attribute Panel, I’ve long since cultivated it to the Perfection realm.’

Cause and Effect Secret Techniques were notoriously difficult to cultivate. Even in the Taihua Spirit Ruins Realm, very few Foundation Establishment Cultivators below the Golden Core True Monarch realm could ever hope to master one to Perfection.

And there, among the tangle of Cause and Effect Lines, one particularly thick, solid, bright-silver main trunk caught his eye.

It was like a great tree trunk, rooted deep in the void, yet faintly connected to the church’s Earth Vein. At the same time, it stretched upward, as if piercing through some dimensional barrier to probe a strange, unknown space.

Xu Yunfan’s Divine Thought probed clearly: this was the source of Delis’s Divine Power.

According to this world’s legends, Divine Power comes from a Divine Spirit igniting their Divine Fire, and the Divine Power resides in their Divine Country. That should be Delis’s Divine Country, or rather, the source of power for this mortal projection of hers.

This main trunk was the anchor point of Delis’s Divine Power in this material plane, her "Cause and Effect Line" of existence here.

’In that case, it’s all very simple.’

Besides this thick main trunk, three slightly thinner, yet equally divine, silver bands of light coiled around it like attendant vines, each emitting a unique rhythm.

The first band of light pulsed with a gentle, melodious rhythm, representing "Song."

This was the outlet through which Delis created and expressed her Divine Power.

The second band of light was deeper and more reserved, acting like an invisible receiver that captured and gathered the faint thoughts permeating the church and the entire town.

This was "Listening," the inlet through which she collected the power of faith and perceived the needs of her followers.

But in Xu Yunfan’s opinion, the greatest power of her Divine Format was this very "Listening."

As the saying goes, a secret is not for a third pair of ears.

’If this authority were used properly,’ he mused, ’it could monitor the Three Realms. Like the Diting of myth, it’s an extraordinary power.’

’Unfortunately, Delis’s development of it is pathetic. She’s reduced it to a convenient tool for listening to the wishes of her believers.’

"Found it."

Xu Yunfan’s eyes lifted slightly.

Like a bolt of lightning, his Divine Thought instantly locked onto the most fundamental and core of the three attendant bands of light.

The gray band of authority representing the "Divine Name."

Just in the instant before the Sound Blade Cage contracted to its limit and was about to tear him to shreds.

Xu Yunfan moved!

He simply raised his right hand, index and middle fingers together, and gently pointed forward.

His fingertip did not touch any physical object, but merely pointed into the air before him, which was slightly turbid due to spatial distortion.

No dazzling light burst from his fingertip, nor was there any violent discharge of energy.

There was only a single point of light condensing, darker than the deepest night, its center seeming to absorb all light.

The ultimate, restrained power of "void-piercing" and "annihilating erosion."

The Celestial-Eroding Netherworld Talisman was not a technique for direct attack or defense. It specialized in obscuring, disrupting, and eroding the threads of deduction, confusing perception, and twisting causal links.

It could, therefore, use an enemy’s connections to deduce their hiding place.

"Break."

It was a low whisper.

The point of dark light flickered once, then vanished without a sound.

"AHH!"

The statue suddenly erupted with a heart-rending, piercing shriek.

CRACK!

The illusory gray band of authority, the one connected to the world’s underlying Rules, cracked in response.

The divine moonlight burning around the statue like an incandescent flame dimmed as if doused by a bucket of ice water, its brightness plummeting by more than half.

The majestic, descending divine will instantly fell into chaos and scattered, collapsing almost completely.

The most direct impact was on the whirling, grinding Sound Blade Cage.

The supply of Divine Power that formed its foundation was cut off as if an artery had been clamped shut. Having lost its core pillar of authority, the form of the Sound Blades instantly fell into disarray.

The once-solid, deadly gleam of the blades rapidly grew faint and blurred.

Like a popped bubble, the lethal vortex of blades came to an abrupt halt.

The death cage, sufficient to shred a Legendary Level Transcendent, completely disintegrated and vanished less than half a foot from Xu Yunfan’s body.

The statue, its brilliance dimmed, began to tremble violently, as if some internal structure was collapsing.

The statue’s Mild and Smooth as Jade texture rapidly faded, revealing its rough, stony nature. Cracks spread like a spiderweb across its surface, crawling from its ankles up the hem of its dress, to its arms and neck, and finally even across the face that had once been a work of Celestial Craftsmanship, a face of heavenly beauty.

Those crystal eyes, once so lifelike and imbued with an arrogant, divine luster, now lost all their light, becoming as dull as a pair of glass beads.

Xu Yunfan slowly lowered his hand. The speck of darkness at his fingertip had long since vanished without a trace.

He took a step forward, landing softly and silently right in the center of the energy vortex left by the Sound Blade Cage.

He raised his head, his calm gaze passing through the turbid mist of light caused by the dissipating Divine Power, and looked at the stone-carved face, covered in cracks, its luster gone, its expression frozen in pain and horror.

Moonlight streamed down from the stained-glass skylight at the church’s apex. Distorted by the remnants of divine light and residual energy, flickering patches of colored light played across the ground and his body, adding to the eerie atmosphere.

The dust was still slowly settling.

The inside of the church was a complete mess.

Fragments of the cracked murals were scattered across the floor like withered leaves.

A thick layer of pulverized stone covered the floor.