## Echoes from the Depths

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========A Veil of Shimmering Reality========

Has the wanderer returned, perchance?

**[Hearken! The sacred scroll of recent twenty chapters permits no comment. Silence is golden, lest ye find yourself in the oubliette!]**

As the Celestial Tidebinder gathered her strength, Wang Lin, amidst the abyssal vortex, in the unwritten realm beneath, severed the grotesque visage’s head with a single stroke.

In the very instant of the blade’s descent, the visage shrieked, a sound that shattered the ocean’s heart. It turned, a futile gesture, before crumbling into motes of ash that vanished within the cold embrace of the sea.

Crimson lifeblood dripped from the point where Wang Lin’s flesh met the Bone Wraith Blade. A surge of agonizing pain coursed through him, and the spectral blade shrank, retreating until it melded entirely into his right arm.

That single strike had drained him, calling upon every ounce of his being. Fatigue washed over him in waves, and his right arm throbbed, the Bone Wraith Blade’s power threatening to shatter his bones.

“To seal me, you dare?” Wang Lin rasped, his breath ragged. Even within the crushing depths, his cultivation was unyielding. He exhaled, sending a stream of bubbles towards the light, but no water dared intrude his being. Instead, he drew in the ethereal essence of life that permeated the brine.

He glanced back at the Sea Mountain Tree, its layers of seals undisturbed by his recent act. The rippling wards calmed, slowly regaining their ancient strength.

With a flicker of his gaze, Wang Lin remained, assessing his wounds and measuring the dwindling duration of the Spirit Armor. Each desperate act had chipped away at its resilience, leaving him with barely half a joss stick of time remaining.

“Enough!” After finding his center, Wang Lin surged upward, a fleeting shadow in the abyss. He broke through the churning vortex, bursting into the open waters above.

No sooner had he emerged than the Tide Dragon, sensing his presence, descended with thunderous speed. Seeing Wang Lin, it roared with delight, rushing towards him. Wang Lin nodded in acknowledgement, claiming the dragon as his mount and ascending towards the surface.

He felt the binding spell upon the Celestial Tidebinder weaken, its hold faltering.

Almost as he broke the surface, a venomous voice echoed through the waters.

“Wang Lin! ! !” The deep blue sea twisted, consuming the light in its path, as tendrils of darkness lashed out from the depths. The churning water formed whirlpools, eager to drag Wang Lin into the abyss.

“Celestial Tidebinder,” Wang Lin stated, his voice ringing true, “you are no match for me now. We share no animosity, and the Sea Mountain Village Spirit is not your to possess. Persist, and I shall not hesitate to strike with the force of a tempest!” Controlling the Tide Dragon, he skirted the encroaching darkness, seeking the light above.

“This entire Sea Mountain is my, Hai Zi Yiting’s, domain! You shall not come and go as you please! The Sea Mountain Array!” The Celestial Tidebinder, whose true name was Hai Zi Yiting, had earned her title by achieving enlightenment within the Sea Mountain’s embrace. Like Wang Lin, dubbed the White-Haired Celestial, she was known by her dominion.

Her words transformed the world around them. Black consumed the depths, reaching even to the surface, creating a solid mass, like hardened ink.

This inky barrier sealed off vast stretches of the Sea Mountain. From high above, the ocean would appear as a desolate, black expanse, as unyielding as the earth itself!

From within the darkness, the Celestial Tidebinder materialized, her presence exuding power. Behind her, a monstrous, octopus-like leviathan roared, charging towards Wang Lin’s Tide Dragon.

It held a deep hatred for the dragon, and its deafening roars rippled through the water. The Tide Dragon responded in kind, meeting the beast head-on, a tumultuous battle ensuing.

The clash between the two behemoths thundered through the water, unleashing violent waves and booming vibrations.

Simultaneously, the breathtakingly beautiful Celestial Tidebinder fixed her gaze upon Wang Lin, moving with purpose. It was not hatred that fueled her, but a strange, grudging respect born from their battle three years past. But it was, at its core, indifference, as one might observe a stranger passing in the street.

After Wang Lin’s defeat, the Celestial Tidebinder had dismissed the encounter. But this was different. Wang Lin had returned after three years, and with a single gesture, had held her captive for over ten breaths!

This was intolerable, utterly humiliating! Though she was a Celestial, she was still a woman, and to be held motionless, helpless, filled her with fury!

She had believed that the Sea Mountain Spirit, though capable of manifesting the Wood Source, held little value for her. Had Wang Lin approached with humility, she might have gifted him a few.

But Wang Lin, then and now, bore a stoic mask, a challenge to her perceived superiority.

Her cultivation was profound, her status undeniable. Only a handful of Transcendental Celestials were her equals; others were beneath her notice. Her position allowed her to claim the Sea Mountain as her own, undisturbed and unchallenged.

Yet, she had been rendered helpless for ten agonizing breaths!

Facing the Celestial Tidebinder’s advance, Wang Lin frowned. His Spirit Armor was rapidly fading, and he wished to avoid a prolonged conflict. However, if she persisted, he would not hesitate to cripple her swiftly.

With a cold snort, Wang Lin took a step forward as the Celestial Tidebinder approached. Ninety-seven afterimages sprang into existence, each a phantom assault against her.
As the crucial moment drew nigh, Wang Lin’s right hand shot forth, a palm aimed with sudden ferocity towards the Sky Sovereign of the Sea!

The instant his palm ascended, ninety-seven illusory echoes mirrored his action, their hands rising in unison. These spectral appendages melded together, conjuring ninety-eight Spirit-Enslaving imprints that roared into being before Wang Lin, coalescing into a titanic palm that hurtled towards the Sea Sovereign.

Her silver teeth gritted, the Sea Sovereign responded with a swift upward flourish of her jade hand. An azure luminescence enveloped her palm, transforming it into a colossal, ringing cone. From within the rapidly expanding cone erupted a piercing shriek, and a winged avian creature of pure sapphire materialized. Its wings beat seventy times in rapid succession, each flap imbuing it with a potent spell, unleashing a torrent of seventy arcane arts directly at Wang Lin’s Spirit-Enslaving palm.

Even as the azure bird streaked forth, the Sea Sovereign again moved her jade hand, pointing a slender finger with unwavering determination.

“The First Decree of My Body’s Fate!” she intoned, a glyph materializing before her, an oval sigil etched with seventy distinct strokes, each a vessel for one of her seventy arcane arts!

“The Second Decree: Let Heaven Not Resist!” The Sea Sovereign’s voice strained with effort, her exquisite face paling as a trickle of crimson stained the corner of her lips. This incantation clearly taxed her strength.

As her words echoed, the oval glyph expanded, its seventy strokes undergoing a dramatic transformation. Twenty-six of the original lines splintered and doubled in size, merging with the existing seventy to form a complex sigil of ninety-six strokes!

This new glyph, woven from the essence of ninety arcane arts, pulsed with an earth-shattering power, aimed directly at Wang Lin.

Wang Lin’s Spirit-Enslaving palm collided with the azure bird in a cacophony of thunder. The bird shattered, its essence reforming into a ringing chain that recoiled, while the remnants of the Spirit-Enslaving palm continued their advance. But upon touching the oval glyph, the palm dissolved into nothingness, its power utterly negated!

“What sorcery is this?!” Wang Lin’s pupils constricted, a primal sense of danger seizing him. As the oval glyph drew closer, he reacted without hesitation, raising both hands and arching his back like a drawn bow. Ninety-seven spectral echoes manifested around him, each snapping forward as one, their heads aimed in a unified assault!

“The Celestial Bull Ram!”

Once again, the Celestial Bull technique, which had terrified the Ancestor of the Dao Devil Sect, was unleashed. The ninety-seven echoes, along with Wang Lin’s physical form, instantaneously transformed into a colossal Celestial Bull, its two massive horns crackling with the combined power of ninety-eight arcane arts, charging headlong towards the oval glyph.

While Wang Lin and the Sea Sovereign clashed in the frozen seas of the Mountain-Sea, a sinister metamorphosis was rapidly coalescing in the black chasm Wang Lin had previously blasted into the seabed, where the Mountain-Sea Village resided.

Beside the ancient Mountain-Sea Tree, beyond its layers of seals, where the severed face had dissolved after being cleaved by Wang Lin, ethereal glimmers began to coalesce. These lights pulsed with a maddening frenzy, an undercurrent of bloodlust, and an unsettling, terrifying energy.

Yet this energy remained strangely contained, failing to radiate outwards or alert either Wang Lin or the Sea Sovereign locked in combat above.

As muffled thunder rumbled overhead, the ethereal lights multiplied, soon numbering nearly a hundred thousand. They coalesced, merging and binding to each other with unnatural speed.

They did not reform the severed face, but instead shaped themselves into a severed hand!

A hand, without an arm—a severed hand!

The severed hand, originally enormous, spanning a hundred zhang, swiftly shrank after its creation, until it was no larger than a mortal’s. It was not shadowy, but translucent, barely visible save for the keenest eye.

In the center of its palm, a faint, indecipherable sigil could be discerned.

“…detected…non-Xian Clan…seal…!” a muffled voice echoed from the severed hand. Then, with a ripple in the surrounding waters, the hand shot upwards!

At that moment, neither Wang Lin nor the Sea Sovereign noticed the severed hand emerging from the black chasm, a silent and unseen threat descending from the depths!