## Chapter 143: Secrets of the Formation
The air in the sealed chamber didn't just grow still—it died.
It was the first thing Li Chang'an noticed. The faint, ever-present hum of spiritual energy that filled the world like a background breath was gone, severed. The silence that replaced it was thick and heavy, pressing against his eardrums. Then came the pull.
It wasn't a violent yank, but a deep, insidious suction. It started in his dantian, a cold, draining sensation as if a tap had been opened at the core of his being. His spiritual energy, the vibrant power he'd just used to unleash the Shattering Fist of the Void, began to seep out of him, drawn into the glowing, intricate lines now etched across the floor, walls, and ceiling of the chamber. The light they emitted was a sickly, hungry green.
Across from him, Zhang Wuji wiped the blood from his lips, his earlier fury crystallizing into a grim, satisfied smile. His breathing was ragged, but his eyes gleamed with triumph. "Feel that, little genius? The 'Soul-Devouring Seal.' No fancy fists can break this. It drinks spirit until there's nothing left but a hollow shell. Your comprehension won't save you from an empty well."
Li Chang'an ignored the taunt. He closed his eyes for a second, not in despair, but to focus. The draining sensation was a problem, yes. A critical one. But it was also data.
Heaven-Defying Comprehension activated.
The formation wasn't just a barrier; it was a pattern. A complex, flowing script of energy manipulation. As his own spirit was siphoned away, he traced its path. He didn't fight the pull—he followed it. In his mind's eye, the glowing green lines resolved not into a trap, but into a diagram. A circuit. Every drain had a source. Every seal had a keystone.
He opened his eyes. "You're powering it too," Li Chang'an said, his voice calm in the dead air. "It's draining us both. A desperate move."
Zhang's smile faltered for a fraction of a second. "A calculated one. My reserves are deeper. I will outlast you. I will watch the light of that monstrous talent gutter and die in your eyes."
Zhang lunged, his movements slightly slower, weighed down by the same draining effect. But his technique was still lethal, a spear-hand aimed to pierce Li Chang'an's throat. Li Chang'an deflected, but the parry felt sluggish. His muscles, fueled by spiritual energy, were already weakening. The formation was working fast.
They exchanged a dozen blows in the eerie green gloom, each clash quieter than the last, the sound itself seeming to be consumed. Sparks of their waning energy flickered and died. Li Chang'an focused less on winning the exchange and more on the pattern. The formation pulsed with every drop of energy it absorbed, its rhythm syncing with their combat, with their breathing.
There.
A flaw. A repetitive sequence in the flow near the northwestern corner of the room—a tiny stutter in the otherwise seamless drain. It was where the "circuit" momentarily overloaded, a design imperfection or a necessary release valve.
It was all he needed.
As Zhang pressed a furious assault, Li Chang'an feigned a stumble, falling back towards that northwestern corner. Zhang saw an opening and roared, pouring his remaining energy into a final, crushing palm strike aimed at Li Chang'an's chest.
Li Chang'an didn't try to block it fully. He turned his body, taking the blow on his shoulder. A sickening crunch echoed, and white-hot pain lanced through him. But the impact drove him back exactly where he wanted to be, right over the flaw in the formation.
His hand, blazing with the last concentrated burst of his own draining energy, didn't strike Zhang. He slammed it onto the flawed node on the floor.
[Memory Extraction Art].
He didn't target Zhang's body. He targeted the formation itself—and through it, the mind of the man who had activated it, who was intrinsically linked to its flow.
The world dissolved into a torrent of stolen memories.
He saw flickering images: not of Zhang's life, but of his purpose. A dark, candlelit chamber filled with hooded figures. A massive, pulsating crystal hovering over an altar. Scrolls detailing complex, sacrificial rites. He felt Zhang's fervor, his fanatical belief. He heard the words, passed down like holy writ:
"The Trial Worlds are not tests. They are filters. They are farms."
"The weak, the failed reincarnators… their essence is not wasted. It is harvested. Refined."
"Their stolen potential fuels the ascent of the chosen in the Main World. For every hundred who fall, one of us rises higher, stronger, beyond the limits of natural law."
The truth hit Li Chang'an like a physical blow, colder than the draining formation. The Universal Reincarnation System wasn't just a brutal meritocracy. It was a predatory engine. The vast majority weren't just failing and becoming servants. They were being spiritually cannibalized, their life force and latent talent siphoned to empower the elite Reincarnators from the great Alliances. The servants weren't just a lower class; they were living batteries, slowly drained over a lifetime.
He saw the plan for this world specifically: a mass "failure" event triggered at the final trial, funneling the energy of thousands of doomed reincarnators through a central nexus—the very mountain they were in.
The memory stream intensified, zeroing in on Zhang's immediate superior. A figure shrouded in deeper shadow, seated on a throne of black jade. Zhang's fear and devotion were a toxic mix. This was the one who taught him the Soul-Devouring Seal. The one who gave the orders.
Li Chang'an broke the connection, gasping. The green light of the formation was flickering wildly around his hand, destabilized by his intrusion. The draining sensation lessened, becoming a trickle.
Zhang had staggered back, clutching his head, his face a mask of utter horror. "You… you thief! You saw?!"
"I saw everything," Li Chang'an said, pushing himself up, his injured shoulder screaming. The pain was sharp, clarifying. "The harvest. The sacrifice. This whole world is a slaughterhouse."
Zhang's horror twisted into something manic. "You think knowing changes anything? You think you can stop it? You're a bug who saw the boot coming down!" He gathered his energy, the formation sputtering around him. "I'll kill you myself and offer your dense spirit to the grandmaster personally! He'll reward me for—"
"Grandmaster?" Li Chang'an interrupted, the title clicking into place from the memory fragments. "He's here, isn't he? Watching. This was never your mission. It was his test. For you. And for me."
Zhang froze. All the color drained from his face, his bravado evaporating. The frantic energy around his fists died. He looked not at Li Chang'an, but past him, into a dark, empty corner of the sealed chamber. His voice dropped to a terrified whisper.
"You… you don't understand. He sees everything."
The flickering green light of the dying formation suddenly snuffed out completely, plunging them into absolute darkness. But it was not a quiet dark. A new pressure descended, a thousand times heavier than the formation's drain. It was the weight of a gaze.
From the darkness, a voice spoke. It was calm, aged, and carried the quiet, absolute authority of a mountain that has crushed continents. It came from everywhere and nowhere.
"Indeed, I do."
A single point of light ignited in the center of the room. It revealed not Zhang, not Li Chang'an, but a third figure. He sat cross-legged on the air, an old man in simple gray robes, his hands folded in his lap. His eyes were open, and they held the void of deep space and the cold, patient fire of a dying star.
He looked directly at Li Chang'an.
"A most fascinating bug," the Grandmaster said, a faint, chilling smile touching his lips. "One who does not just struggle against the web, but seeks to understand its weave. Tell me, child of another world… would you like to see the spider?"
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