The air went silent for a second.
Immediately after.
"Pfft... Hahahaha!"
Lin Qingyue landed on the ground, and seeing that broken horn on the floor, she ultimately couldn't hold back and laughed so hard she trembled like a flower in the wind.
"Oh my god, I thought it was at least a high-quality fake!"
She extended the toe of her boot, disdainfully kicking that hollow dragon horn.
"After all this time, it's just a low-quality product with a plastic shell wrapped around asphalt?"
"Your counterfeiting skills, if put in our small commodity wholesale market, would get your home raided by the Industrial and Commercial Bureau until you go bankrupt!"
These few lighthearted taunts had a lethality that far exceeded the previous violent storm of a beating.
Physical-level heavy damage, superimposed with ultimate humiliation on the spiritual level.
This was the final straw that crushed a monster whose foundation of existence was "perfection."
[Spirit of Pride: Azure Dragon] fell miserably to the ground, disheveled and covered in ink marks.
She tremblingly reached out her hand, stroking the uneven broken edge on top of her head.
What her fingertips felt was a cheap, coarse texture.
In that instant.
The string named "Sanity" snapped with a resounding crack.
"Aaaaaahhhhh!!!!"
This was no longer the roar of a proud and haughty being.
It was more like the heart-wrenching shriek of a vain noblewoman who had spent all her savings on a luxury fake bag, only to be exposed in public!
"I am the most perfect creation! I must not be profaned!"
"How dare you... How dare you do that to my horn..."
"I will kill you! I will kill you all!!"
"I will use your bones! Your filthy flesh and blood! To fill my flaws!!"
"As long as you all are dead! No one will ever know about this!!"
Rumble—
The entire Temple shook violently under this surge of uncontrollable resentment.
Chunks of the walls peeled away, and the dome cracked open with a spiderweb of hideous fissures.
As her sanity completely collapsed, the obsidian-like skin of the [Spirit of Pride] began to fester, transforming into a mass of frantically writhing Black Sludge tentacles.
The humanoid form it had forced itself to maintain in imitation of the Azure Dragon completely collapsed, reverting to an indescribable, bloated, and hideous mass of Black Sludge.
Only that face, kicked by Lin Qingyue until its features were twisted, was still futilely repairing itself, trying to restore its former "perfect" and cold elegance.
"Oh? Flaws?"
Lin Qingyue slowly floated into the air. The black-colored Xuan Bird that had reformed on her left shoulder let out a clear, crisp cry, spreading its wings to gaze down upon the dust.
She looked down at the hysterical, ugly thing below, the disgust in her brilliant golden pupils almost condensing into a physical substance.
"Perfect? Art? Must not be profaned?"
"Tell me, do you have some path-dependent cognitive impairment regarding these words?"
Lin Qingyue elegantly joined and then parted her hands in the empty air.
In an instant, heaven and earth lost their color.
Vast, boundless ink washed over everything, and countless ancient talismans hung like an inverted starry river, covering the entire sky!
"Calling you a fake is already giving you too much credit."
"At best, you are an amateur enthusiast, performing a clumsy copy of a low-resolution printout."
"Have some professional ethics, okay?"
Buddhist chants and Daoist mantras intertwined and echoed, forming a grand Heavenly Majesty that cleansed all creation, pressing the entire Temple into a mourning wail.
"Look at you in this ghostly state."
Amidst the flowing ink, several lightning-fast air blades sliced from her fingertips, chopping a dozen tentacles emerging from the shadows into even mud blocks.
"If the real Azure Dragon knew there was such a lump of low-grade industrial waste, wearing her face and striking such a ridiculous expression that caused a collective strike of her facial nerves from trying too hard..."
"She would probably be so furious she'd kick open her coffin lid right on the spot, rush back overnight to clean house, and sue you for appearance patent infringement!"
This utterly venomous, heart-piercing commentary completely burned away the last possibility of the Spirit of Pride regaining its sanity.
It completely abandoned rules, abandoned defense, and abandoned everything.
It madly squeezed out every last drop of power within its body, transforming it into the purest, most primitive destructive force!
In the mid-air of the Temple, the drifting Black Sludge, under extreme energy compression, solidified into tens of thousands of pitch-black spikes!
No aim.
No strategy.
This was a mad dog-style saturation fire cover, a desperate fight to the death by someone who couldn't afford to lose, the final resort of flipping the table!
The pitch-black cones, like an apocalyptic rainstorm sweeping across heaven and earth, indiscriminately covered every corner within sight!
"Damn it! This crazy woman has flipped the table!"
At the edge of the battlefield, Lin Xiyue let out a strange cry.
Her reaction was incredibly fast, grabbing Su Wan by the collar with one hand and pulling Xia Lian, who was still daydreaming, with the other, as she shrank behind a thick, broken stone pillar in a flash.
The light of [Blackstone's Protection] flared, and a heavy golden light shield sealed the three of them tightly inside.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
The dense impact sounds merged into a single roar, and the impact force, enough to tear through steel, made the bones in Lin Xiyue's arms holding the shield creak under the unbearable load.
And at the core of that storm.
Facing this full-screen barrage that could level a city, Lin Qingyue showed no fear; instead, she slowly closed her eyes.
"Still refusing to see the truth..."
When she opened them again, in those brilliant golden peach-blossom eyes, Divinity and the Path's Rhyme flowed and intertwined, as indifferent as the Heavenly Order.
"Then I shall show you."
"What constitutes—Daoist Natural Perfection!"
Ultimate Skill—[Qingming Skyshade].
"Stillness and Motion in Harmony!"
Lin Qingyue's figure, which should have been physical, became translucent, ethereal, and untouchable by all laws within this energy torrent capable of annihilating all creation.
Behind her, a Daoist Sovereign Avatar, woven from golden talismans and ink-wash cloud mist, descended with fierce majesty!
The Avatar lowered its gaze, holding an ancient, cloud-patterned longsword by its hilt, its Divine Might as oppressive as hell.
As Lin Qingyue slightly raised her right hand, the Avatar also lifted its heaven-shrouded giant hand.
"Since you love 'perfection' so much."
"Then this Seat will help you trim these superfluous scraps."
Facing the hysterical, hideous creation below, she flicked her wrist and swept her brush downward.
A blade of ink, pure to the extreme, as if it could sever even light itself, descended from the heavens.
"Delusion Breaker."
Before the Great Path's maxim that sets all things right, false rule barriers and hideous, berserk forms were all mere scrap paper.
Puchi.
An extremely faint cutting sound rang out.
The sky full of black spikes vanished without a trace under this single stroke, like foam under a scorching sun.
The ink blade sliced with absolute precision through the hideous head of the [Spirit of Pride].
Crack.
The second dragon horn snapped off.
At the same time, a bone-deep ink gash tore across its already decaying face, crossing the previous wound to form a conspicuous "X".
"Now it's symmetrical."
Lin Qingyue slowly descended, her long sleeves fluttering as she clasped her hands behind her back.
"Though the foundation was a bit poor, after this Seat's refinements, it is somewhat presentable."
The massive ink-wash Avatar gradually dissipated, transforming into specks of starlight that merged into her body.
She looked down from above, gazing at the dying monster beneath her feet with the eyes of a critic reviewing a failed masterpiece.
Her voice was indifferent, yet it carried the weight of a heavenly decree.
"This Seat has finished reviewing your forgery."
"Rejected. Recreate it."