Chapter 5939

The air around the main altar was thick with tension, heavy with the scent of incense and decay. The gray-white pillar of light pierced the sky like a judgment of heaven itself, reflecting on the upturned faces of those who had come seeking salvation—or perhaps delusion. Every eye in the crowd glimmered with a mixture of fear, hope, and greed.

Zhan E’s voice, low and hoarse, echoed through the hall like a death knell. “Step forward,” he commanded. “Enter the Gate of Reincarnation and witness eternity—or fail and remain as you are.”

The first of the believers—old men withering in age, women clutching broken spirit tablets, cultivators who had spent centuries in pursuit of immortality—shuffled forward. Their steps were hesitant, trembling with a mixture of awe and desperation.

Li Daoyou, the elder whose life had stretched across forty-eight thousand years, hesitated at the threshold. His breath came in shallow gasps, and his hands trembled over the thin folds of his robes. He glanced at the gate, then at the black-robed soul hunters forming the passage. Around him, dozens of others whispered, arguing silently with their conscience, weighing the gamble of eternal life against the certainty of death.

Finally, after a long pause, Li Daoyou clenched his fists, eyes burning with determination. “It’s better to gamble than die in despair,” he muttered, and stepped forward. Others followed, one by one, each swallowed by the path flanked by soul hunters, the air humming with suppressed power as they approached the gate.

Above the crowd, the long bell tolled again, deep and resonant, sending vibrations through bone and spirit alike. “The time has come,” Zhan E intoned, his gray eyes cold as ice, “to witness the miracle of the Eternal Gate.”

The soul-devouring puppet, standing silently beside him, did not move, did not blink. Its gray, data-stream-like eyes flickered faintly, scanning the crowd with clinical precision. Every hesitation, every fear, every hidden thought of the believers was cataloged, analyzed, and stored.