As Ershu Buzhen's stance held firm, Xin Xin’s face paled slightly, and as she looked toward Zhan Li, her vision blurred into a sudden cascade of illusions. Completely unprepared, Lili was instantly seized by the phantoms. She opened her small mouth and lunged toward the nearby weapons control console, biting down hard on its edge. A chunk of metal the size of a fist was ripped from the alloy console, and the sharp crack of the fracturing metal made the hairs on Peng Hua’s arms stand on end.

Aunt Huo materialized a heavy sniper rifle two meters long in her hand, aiming the barrel at Dukat. She hissed, "Boy, either you lie down in a life support pod, or I blow your head off!"

Linghu’s plump body shrank backward. A dagger shaped like a viper’s fang was already held to Lili’s delicate neck. The twenty-centimeter-long, finger-wide blade radiated a chilling cold, its edge faintly shimmering with green light—clearly poisoned. Linghu stated flatly, "Kid, I have no fondness for your kind of half-breed! Either into the life pod, or I slit this girl’s throat!"

Lili, still dazed by Han Kui’s illusionary magic, continued to gnaw frantically at the console with her mouth agape, completely unaware that Linghu’s blade was already holding her captive.

Dukat spread his hands, offering Gu Xichen a wry smile. "I hope you manage to survive this!"

Gu Xichen gently shook his head, stepped forward with a single stride, knocked Dukat unconscious, and bound him tightly with the Immeasurable Divine Chains, stuffing him into an oversized life support pod. Linghu casually tossed Lili in after him, where she lay shoulder-to-shoulder with Dukat.

Peng Hua, Holm, and Linghu settled into the life pods. Peng Hua looked over at Gu Xichen with a touch of worry:

"Are you alright?"

Gu Xichen gripped the Qilin Seal fastened at his waist and laughed confidently. "Surviving won't be an issue! The defenses of the treasures I carry are no weaker than these life pods! Don't worry, don't worry!"

Peng Hua took a deep breath and collapsed into his pod. The thick, foot-deep, purple-gold hatch quickly sealed shut, and a flood of nutrient fluid rushed in, submerging him.

He struck the main console hard, cursing softly. "What in the blazes is going on… The trap the Roman people have set this time is huge and utterly treacherous! They even roped in their own two princes!"

He stomped his feet down hard, sinking both soles a full foot deep into the alloy floor. Gu Xichen gripped the console with both hands, bracing himself quietly for the first wave of impact.

Two minutes later, a vast curtain of black light swept in from the horizon, slamming violently into the Primordial-level battleship. The three-hundred-meter-thick energy shield shattered with a sharp snap, turning to dust. Every energy shield emitter instantly melted into scrap metal from the massive energy backlash. The colossal energy surged through the emitters’ conduits into the hull, triggering a chain of explosions in the engine block at the stern. Fortunately, Gu Xichen had managed to vent the energy from the engine core through a pressure relief valve in time; otherwise, the engine core’s catastrophic failure would have blown away at least half the ship.

The black tempest roared across the ship’s surface, though the sturdy hull armor bravely resisted the onslaught of the dark curtain. Inch by inch, shred by shred, the outer plating was scraped away by the almost physical black brilliance. Gu Xichen's ears were filled with a grating crunch sound that made his teeth ache. In the blink of an eye, the ship's surface had thinned by over a foot. The tremendous shock momentarily accelerated the vessel again, forcing Gu Xichen to quickly adjust its trajectory to match the forward momentum of the black curtain.

Almost as soon as Gu Xichen stabilized the ship's attitude, the black surge of energy poured into the interior through the auxiliary thrusters. All auxiliary engines exploded simultaneously, and dull thuds of detonation echoed throughout the vessel. Luckily, the ship’s damage control design was excellent, and there were few flammable materials inside; the engine failures caused minimal damage to the main structure.

The black gale dragged the battleship forward at high speed, the vessel shaking violently enough that Gu Xichen was nearly thrown loose several times.

Just as Gu Xichen was biting down, clinging desperately to the console, a flash of electrical sparks suddenly erupted before his eyes. The last vestiges of the ship’s functional electronic systems completely fried. The main control super-brain let out a shriek like a little girl seeing a ghost late at night before formally announcing its demise.

Immediately following this, countless black wisps, suspended between the physical and ethereal, rushed in through several ventilation ducts in the command cabin. The black mist swirled through the cabin, causing ordinary alloy tables, chairs, and railings to instantly disintegrate into powder. The Daoist robe, crane cloak, feather crown, and cloud boots on Gu Xichen’s body simultaneously erupted in a powerful azure light. The black mist, as if smelling blood, lunged toward Gu Xichen. He felt the pressure of dozens of great mountains descending upon his head, and with a dull thud, he collapsed onto the floor.

With several kaka sounds, Gu Xichen’s bones creaked under the unbearable weight. Before he could react, more pale, light-blue, almost translucent mist—the consistency of egg white—poured in from the vents. These pale-blue mists were clearly separated from the black ones; they circled in the command cabin for a moment before hovering near the ceiling, slowly forming a massive azure vortex. Meanwhile, the black mist continuously settled downward, gradually forming a vast black vortex on the cabin floor.

Zhao Yi and the others could no longer withstand the immense pressure of the black mist and retreated as wisps of purple smoke back into Gu Xichen’s sea of consciousness.

Xin Jia stared at the black and blue mists, gasping, "Heavens, this is the Primordial Pure Qi and Primordial Turbid Qi generated during the separation of Heaven and Earth at the beginning of the cosmos! The turbid sank to form the earth, and the pure rose to form the sky—this is true Innate Qi! All so-called innate spiritual energy is merely separated from this pure and turbid energy!"

A few more wisps of black mist clung to the halo radiating from the Daoist robe. Gu Xichen’s knees cracked twice. His knees were being crushed under the pressure. He cried out, "Who cares if it's pure or turbid! Think of a way quickly—why are these things ignoring everyone else and rushing only toward me?"

Gu Xichen angrily observed that near the life pods, there was no black or blue energy whatsoever. All the black and pure energy that flooded the ship was aggressively targeting him. Even the boundless black light outside the ship abandoned its effort to erode the hull, instead urgently pouring in through auxiliary thrusters, shield emitters, observational instruments, and internal conduits connecting to the ship's core.

The pure energy remained above, the black energy below. Every strand of black energy carried the weight of several Taishan mountains. Even with Gu Xichen’s immensely powerful physique, he lacked the strength to bear such a load. Under the onslaught of the black energy, he was on the verge of being crushed into a paste. If not for the extraordinary defensive power of the robe left by Daoist Wuchen, Gu Xichen would already be a smear of flesh!

The Xin Jia brothers and the others were also trembling. The Primordial Pure and Turbid Qi placed an enormous strain on their bodies. Xin Jia shouted hoarsely, "Venerable One, we—" Before Xin Jia could finish, the bodies of the five brothers exploded with a series of sharp cracks. Their skeletons shattered into dozens of pieces, and they slumped limply to the floor. Helpless, Gu Xichen recalled the five brothers with a thought, then closed his eyes to await death!

Completely enveloped by the black mist, Gu Xichen couldn't even move a muscle. He had no option left but to wait for death.

He had only one thought in his mind: The black hole devouring the massive star truly caused an earth-shattering event, manifesting an effect similar to the separation of Heaven and Earth! Ah, dying is not in vain.

As fast as it happened, just as the protective light emanating from the Daoist robe and cloak was about to be crushed into fragments, the Qilin Seal in Gu Xichen’s hand suddenly burst forth with a blinding crimson light. This crimson light transformed into a brilliant red cloud that wrapped around Gu Xichen’s body. When the incoming black energy struck this red light, it instantly exploded into countless heavy, thumb-sized black grains that shot upward.

With a loud hiss, the black grains collided with the pure energy above, and both rushed toward Gu Xichen's body.

A fist-sized phantom of a Qilin atop the Qilin Seal cried out to the heavens, voraciously inhaling the converging black and pure mists, transforming them into a scorching torrent that was injected into Gu Xichen’s body.

How could the pure and turbid energies born from the primal division of the cosmos be compared to anything ordinary? After the Qilin Seal transmuted them, the intense heat nearly burst Gu Xichen’s body open instantly.

Helpless, Gu Xichen could only instinctively circulate the Primordial Essence True Canon, frantically cycling the internal Gang Qi to digest and absorb the incoming energy. This energy was pure and vast, tens of thousands of times more abundant and a hundred times purer than the spiritual energy in the Nine Splendor Mountain cave. It was a fundamentally different type of spiritual energy, far exceeding the scope of what the Earth’s Daoist cultivation world called Heaven and Earth spiritual energy.

Turning a disaster into an advantage, Gu Xichen leveraged the power of the Qilin Seal, transforming this crisis—which was powerful enough to annihilate the entire Primordial-level battleship—into an immense opportunity.

Had the Qilin Seal not attracted this pure and turbid energy, causing it to focus solely on Gu Xichen, even if the battleship had been constructed from Daoist Wuchen’s alloy formula, facing the Primordial Qi generated at the dawn of creation, it would have been crushed as easily as an egg beneath a boulder.

Gu Xichen’s internal true energy soared, expanded, and increased its purity and profoundness at a terrifying speed.