A wandering soul struggled forward toward the teleportation array. Yun Che steadied his breath and watched with flickering eyes. The dozens of cultivators inside the formation immediately retreated when they saw it rushing over, each taking out their magical treasures and staring nervously at its every movement.

  The soul drew closer. The tension inside the formation thickened.

  Then it touched the light barrier outside the teleportation array.

  Yun Che’s expression remained calm, though he inwardly sighed. The moment the wandering soul contacted the barrier, it turned into drifting smoke and vanished completely.

  Cheers erupted from within the formation. Their fear eased, and their confidence in the array’s protection deepened.

  A voice echoed through Yun Che’s divine sense:

  “Newborn Devouring Souls are useless. That teleportation array is the entrance to the Living Realm. Any soul that touches it will immediately be erased by the Laws of the Realm.”

  Yun Che neither agreed nor disagreed. He stared at the formation in thought. After a long moment, his eyes flashed. With several gestures, more than ten wandering souls were dragged over.

  With a cold smile, he pointed toward the array.

  The souls rushed forward and vanished one after another upon striking the barrier.

  Yun Che’s gaze turned grave.

  He noticed something—at the instant of contact, a faint dark thread would suddenly appear and drill into the soul. That was the true cause of their destruction.

  But the threads appeared too quickly to clearly discern.

  Without hesitation, Yun Che swept out his divine sense and drove over a thousand wandering souls toward the formation.

  Inside, panic escalated to horror.

  Some cultivators shut their eyes in despair. Most placed their final hope in the barrier—while preparing to kill themselves if it failed.

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  Better death than being devoured.

  The thousand souls struck the barrier and were instantly dispersed by countless dark threads emerging from all directions.

  Yun Che stood abruptly.

  He saw it clearly now—the dark threads appeared irregularly around any soul approaching the barrier, regardless of direction.

  They were manifestations of Realm Law.

  His gaze grew colder.

  He summoned over two thousand souls this time.

  As they charged, Yun Che ordered the mutated soul that had been following him to advance.

  It hesitated. It pleaded.

  Yun Che stared coldly.

  Under the pressure of his divine sense, it rushed forward. Unlike the others, the surrounding souls parted for it in fear.

  The two thousand souls perished against the barrier.

  At that instant, the mutated soul lunged.

  Half its body entered the light barrier.

  A dark thread pierced into it.

  It endured the pain and rushed inside, attaching itself to a cultivator. The man screamed as his body withered into a dried corpse.

  Then more than ten dark threads erupted and pierced into it simultaneously.

  The mutated soul fled in agony but disintegrated into ash before escaping far.

  Silence fell.

  Some female cultivators wept.

  Yang Xiong sighed and kicked the corpse out of the formation.

  Yun Che frowned deeply.

  He extracted a strand of his own divine sense and cautiously extended it toward the barrier. Immediately, a dark thread shot toward it.

  He retreated.

  The thread changed direction and pursued.

  Gritting his teeth, Yun Che advanced instead.

  He wanted to test its power.

  The dark thread pierced into his divine sense. A destructive energy exploded within and surged toward his true body.

  Yun Che’s eyes flashed.

  His vast consciousness surrounded the energy and began studying it.

  After a long time, he crushed it.

  Conclusion:

  The dark thread was a force specifically created to annihilate souls.

  If enough accumulated, even he would not withstand it.

  He opened his eyes.

  Taking out three storage bags, he found mid-grade spirit stones and Ma Liang’s teleportation jade talisman.

  Xu Hao and Ge Yang had been devoured by wandering souls after killing Ma Liang. For unknown reasons, all souls specifically targeted them. Thus their storage bags remained intact.

  Inside were abundant resources—nearly two thousand mid-grade spirit stones.

  Yun Che recalled a formation from Nine Nether Formation Explanations:

  The Mystic Armor Body-Protecting Array.

  Pure defense. Mobile. Extremely costly.

  One mid-grade spirit stone per rune.

  He began drawing.

  Rune after rune formed midair.

  Nearly seventy stones were consumed for forty-nine successful runes.

  He condensed them into an array core and pressed it to his forehead. An invisible ripple spread across his body.

  He constructed a second set, using nearly sixty stones.

  Time passed.

  Outside, the Nether Battlefield collapsed more violently. Spatial fissures expanded.

  As the teleportation array prepared to activate, Yun Che placed the final array core upon his brow and rose to his feet—eyes blazing with certainty.

  He was ready.