Chapter 405: Unraveling the White Tiger’s Cycle of Death and Rebirth

Lin Yuan raised his right hand. The rain immediately gathered into a rotating barrier before him, its silver-blue surface turning in layers while golden-purple thunder circulated through its depths. The slaughter intent struck the barrier and tore away its outermost layer, but the remaining rain dispersed the force across thousands of droplets rather than allowing it to penetrate toward Lin Yuan’s body.

The impact still forced Lin Yuan backward several steps. His crimson robes fluttered violently, and the ground beneath his feet cracked under the pressure, yet his eyes remained fixed upon Bai Sha. He had confirmed that the White Tiger’s slaughter intent could disrupt the manifestation of his Origin spell when concentrated into sufficient force, but the attack had also revealed something else.

Bai Sha’s power was not truly limitless. Every time he exerted his strength, the energy circulating through his body followed a particular route, passing through the crimson scars across his chest before spreading into his limbs. Those scars were not merely marks of his bloodline. They were the channels through which the phantom Primordial Spirits were consumed and transformed into additional power.

Lin Yuan’s Dao Fruit rotated faster. The principle of Three Rebirths connected the rain, thunder, and the cycles of life and death within his comprehension, allowing him to perceive the movement of energy beneath Bai Sha’s silver-white fur. The White Tiger’s body had become stronger with each resurrection, but the process was not without structure, and anything governed by a structure could be examined.

Bai Sha saw the change in Lin Yuan’s expression and felt a sudden irritation. “What are you looking at?”

Lin Yuan lowered his hand. “The place where your lives become your strength.”

The Demon Lord’s pupils contracted, and the crimson scars across his chest brightened. For the first time, he understood that Lin Yuan had not been searching for a way to overpower his bloodline through greater force alone. He was trying to uncover the relationship between the White Tiger’s repeated deaths and the power accumulated after each resurrection.

Bai Sha immediately gathered his slaughter intent around his chest. The energy formed several overlapping layers, concealing the crimson scars beneath a dense silver glow, while the power of his remaining phantom Primordial Spirits surged through his body. He had survived countless battles because his enemies focused upon the visible strength of his physical form, and he would not allow this human to examine the source of his advantage.

“You will learn nothing from me!” Bai Sha roared.

He lunged again, but Lin Yuan was already moving. The rain spread across the battlefield in a vast spiral, and every droplet began reflecting a faint image of the White Tiger. As Bai Sha crossed the distance, those reflections shifted in unison, revealing not merely his physical movements but the circulation of energy beneath his skin.

The Demon Lord struck with both claws. Lin Yuan slipped between them, his body moving through the narrow opening with the help of his perception, and drove a fist into Bai Sha’s ribs. The impact cracked several bones, but the White Tiger’s enhanced body endured the damage, and his left claw swept backward toward Lin Yuan’s head.

Lin Yuan ducked beneath the strike and pressed his palm against Bai Sha’s chest. Golden-purple thunder erupted from his hand, spreading across the crimson scars before the Demon Lord could pull away. The White Tiger roared as the lightning penetrated the outer layers of his slaughter intent, exposing the complex circulation hidden beneath his bloodline’s power.

For an instant, Lin Yuan felt it.

Nineteen faint presences existed within Bai Sha’s body, each one resembling a miniature Primordial Spirit wrapped in silver-white light. Three of them had already been consumed, their remaining power absorbed into the White Tiger’s physical form, while sixteen continued to circle the deepest part of his bloodline. They were not ordinary souls living independently within his body, but manifestations of the White Tiger’s innate phenomenon, each carrying a portion of the vitality that sustained his extraordinary regeneration.

The three consumed presences had not vanished completely. Their residual power had merged with Bai Sha’s physical foundation, strengthening his muscles, bones, and slaughter intent, while the remaining sixteen continued supplying the mechanism that allowed him to return from death. The arrangement was both ingenious and dangerous, because every resurrection consumed one source of vitality while increasing the strength of the body that survived.

Lin Yuan withdrew his hand as Bai Sha struck him in the chest. The impact sent him sliding backward across the broken platform, and blood briefly appeared at the corner of his mouth, but his expression had become clearer rather than more troubled. He now understood why simply destroying the White Tiger’s body had failed to produce a permanent result.

The phantom Primordial Spirits were not merely reserves of life. They were linked through a common circulation, and the power released by each death flowed into the surviving body before the next phantom was consumed. Bai Sha’s bloodline had turned the cycle of death and rebirth into a process of accumulation, but it still depended upon the continued connection between the remaining spirits and the body they sustained.

Lin Yuan’s eyes brightened. The Dao of Three Rebirths was not limited to observing the beginning and end of a cycle; it also allowed him to understand the relationship between its stages. Rain could gather, fall, and return to the heavens, while thunder could destroy and awaken, and the principle of Three Rebirths connected these transformations through a deeper law of circulation.

If Bai Sha’s phantom Primordial Spirits could be isolated from the body, the Demon Lord would lose access to the power that allowed him to resurrect and grow stronger. Destroying them one at a time would be dangerous, because each death would still provide the White Tiger with an opportunity to absorb their remaining energy, but separating the entire network from its source would change the nature of the battle.

Lin Yuan looked toward the rain suspended throughout the sky. “I see it now.”