Zhi Xuan’s footsteps led him out of the floating pavilion, treading upon the crystal bridge that connected his place of isolation to the frantic bustle of the main docks. There, Li Chen awaited him atop a gargantuan merchant vessel. This ship was not merely a vehicle; it was a flying fortress with a hull of black timber reinforced by sea-dragon scales and rows of essence cannons lining its sides.

  "The time has come, Brother Gu," Li Chen said while handing over a bronze-colored wooden token. "This is your identity as a Shadow Guard. On this ship, you only need to watch over the crates on the lower deck until we reach the eye of the Black Stone Formation vortex."

  Zhi Xuan accepted the token, fastening it to his waist. "Ready your men, Brother Li. Once the soul-storm begins, do not let a single opening remain."

  The fleet began to move. The roar of essence engines in the ship’s belly blended with the flapping of silk sails that absorbed the energy of the sky-winds. As the ships left the docks of Cloud Port City, they accelerated toward the furthest horizon, where the sky-sea was no longer blue but turned a daunting deep purple—a region where space began to grow unstable.

  Several hours of sailing passed in a tense silence. Finally, before them appeared a terrifying spatial anomaly. A giant black stone pillar, as tall as a mountain, stood erect in the void, surrounded by a swirl of gray energy rotating like a black hole. This was the center of the Black Stone Formation.

  At the peak of the pillar stood a majestic small pavilion made of white bone. From a distance, Zhi Xuan could feel an incredibly wild and cold aura radiating from it. It was a familiar aura—the aura of forced death, a manifestation of thousands of souls screaming in agony.

  "Ancestor Hun Sheng has arrived," Li Chen whispered through a very subtle voice transmission.

  Suddenly, a gray shadow darted down from the peak of the pillar, landing on a floating stone platform directly in the fleet's path. The man appeared ancient, with skin clinging tight to his facial bones, giving the impression of a living skull. He wore robes woven from human hair, and in his hand, he held a massive banner emitting thick black vapor.

  "Merchant Alliance, pay the life-tribute for the opening of the path!" Hun Sheng’s voice thundered, striking not through the ears but directly hitting the soul of every practitioner on the ships.

  Zhi Xuan, standing on the lower deck behind a stack of crates, narrowed his eyes. He felt the banner in Hun Sheng's hand vibrate, drawing the remnants of vital energy from the slaves on the escort ships. It was a sickening sight—a high-level cultivator plundering the lives of the weak to stabilize his sham path.

  "The tribute has been prepared, Ancestor!" shouted a ship captain while releasing the seals on a large cage filled with spiritual beasts and several mortal prisoners.

  Hun Sheng laughed hoarsely. He raised his banner high. "Good! Let these souls be the oil for my Domain!"

  As the black banner was waved, the sky around the black stone pillar suddenly turned into a trench of darkness. Thousands of strands of black vapor shot out from the banner’s fabric, tearing through the air and snatching the tribute cages. Heart-wrenching screams broke out, merging with the howling of the sky-winds.

  Mortal souls and the essence of spiritual beasts were forcibly pulled out, turning into streams of gray light greedily absorbed by Hun Sheng’s withered body. Zhi Xuan, who had been standing in the silence of his illusion, felt a violent tremor in the Ruthless Heavenly Banner within his mind. The artifact seemed to struggle, hungry for the soul energy feasting before it.

  "The tribute you call oil is nothing but a pile of sins that will drag you to the bottom of hell," Zhi Xuan thought.

  He stepped out from the shadows of the wooden crates. His steps made no sound, yet every footprint on the deck created a faint golden ripple. Li Chen, standing on the upper bridge, immediately gave a secret signal to the people of the Blue Ocean Sect to activate the Space-Locking Formation.

  ZRINGG!

  Sapphire-blue light suddenly encircled the area, isolating the black stone pillar from the outside world. Hun Sheng, who was enjoying the absorption of souls, suddenly jerked. His sunken, reddened eyes stared sharply toward the lower deck of the main ship.

  "Who goes there?! How dare a small rat disturb my purification ritual!" Hun Sheng roared, his voice containing soul vibrations capable of shattering the minds of practitioners below the Soul Transformation realm.

  Zhi Xuan released all the illusory disguises on his body. Instantly, his early-stage Weaver Transformation aura exploded, clashing against Hun Sheng’s pressure like a storm hitting an old wall. His black-and-white robes billowed majestically, and behind his back, the Six Paths of Reincarnation Wheel manifested—spinning with a deadly silence.

  "A Weaver?" Hun Sheng narrowed his eyes, then hoarse laughter erupted again from his dry throat. "Only the early stage? You came to offer your head as an addition to my soul collection, you arrogant boy?!"

  Zhi Xuan smiled thinly, raising his hand and moving his finger. Instantly, within a radius of several li aided by the space-locking formation, the area surrounding the ship began to pull back the mortal souls Hun Sheng had forcibly absorbed, as the Six Paths of Reincarnation Wheel clashed with Hun Sheng’s Domain.

  "You weave souls for a False Domain," Zhi Xuan hissed, watching the souls return to their mortal bodies. "But before the Six Paths of Reincarnation, you are nothing more than a lost little weaver."

  "Truly magnificent," Li Chen hissed, his eyes wide with amazement. "Is that Brother Gu's Domain? Rare and incredibly grand!"

  Hun Sheng’s eyes bulged, his skull-like face looking even more hideous as he saw the strands of souls he was about to swallow twist back, as if pulled by an attraction far more regal than his own banner. He felt an absolute authority radiating from the wheel behind Zhi Xuan—a law that did not rule with violence, but with the undeniable rules of nature.

  "Six Paths of Reincarnation? Nonsense!" Hun Sheng roared, the veins in his withered neck bulging. "Under this sky, only the strong have the right to determine where souls flow! Endless Soul Region, Rise!"

  Hun Sheng struck his hair-banner into the air. Instantly, thick black vapor exploded from the cloth, forming his False Domain. Thousands of ghost faces with eyes dripping dark fluid appeared in the air, filling the space around the black stone pillar. The sky that was once purple turned a dead gray, filled with screams of suffering that could shake anyone's mental foundation.

  "Look, boy! This is thousands of years of hatred that I have woven!" Hun Sheng laughed crazily, his hands trembling as he controlled those thousands of souls to charge at Zhi Xuan. "Let them tear apart your arrogant enlightenment!"

  The wave of hatred came like a black flood, thousands of wild souls that had lost their identities charging with sharp mental claws. The air around the merchant ship cooled drastically, until gray frost began to coat the hull.

  The practitioners around the ship felt their minds waver; some fell to their knees, clutching their heads as if they were being split by thousands of needles. However, Zhi Xuan stood tall like an unshakable pillar of heaven. His sapphire eyes did not blink as the sea of ghosts was only a foot away from his face.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  "The hatred you weave is merely a chain that binds you to suffering," Zhi Xuan said, his voice calm yet echoing with pure law vibrations.

  Suddenly, the Six Paths of Reincarnation Wheel behind him spun faster. The parts of the wheel glowing with a somber gray light—the Ghost Path—and a pitch-black light—the Hell Path—shone with extraordinary intensity.

  "For those who are lost, I am the gate. For those who have sinned, I am the judgment," Zhi Xuan whispered.

  Instantly, a tremendous spiritual gravitational pull emerged from the center of the wheel. Instead of tearing Zhi Xuan apart, the thousands of ghosts sent by Hun Sheng were sucked into the vortex of the Six Paths. They were not destroyed, but forced to submit to the rules of reincarnation.

  "What?! How can your Domain swallow my souls?!" Hun Sheng shrieked, his face as pale as paper and now filled with genuine horror. "Those are thousands of souls!"

  "Thousands of souls?" Zhi Xuan’s voice sounded mocking as he stepped into the empty air and suddenly appeared a few paces in front of Hun Sheng. "Then, see what thousands of souls truly look like."

  Zhi Xuan moved his hand as fast as lightning, and the Soul Lantern immediately darted out from the Heavenly Devouring Cauldron within his body. The lantern was pitch black, with frosted glass and a clay frame, inside of which could be heard the whispers of thousands—no, tens of thousands—of Wandering Souls that immediately roared, creating a soul-field in the surroundings.

  The echo from the Soul Lantern was not just a sound; it was the pure frequency of death, a resonance that instantly collapsed Hun Sheng’s ghostly screams. The tens of thousands of souls stored within Zhi Xuan’s lantern, tempered by a long silence beneath the southern lands, now rose like a tidal wave swallowing a small ripple.

  Hun Sheng stepped back, his trembling legs almost slipping from the stone platform. "That lantern... what kind of aura is this? You... you are a Demonic practitioner! You store more sins than I do!"

  Zhi Xuan did not answer. He raised his hand, and the Ruthless Heavenly Banner appeared in his left hand, while his right hand grasped the Soul Lantern. The two artifacts of death synergized under the authority of the Six Paths of Reincarnation Wheel. The black and gray light from the wheel flowed into the lantern, providing a legal structure to the wild souls within.

  "I do not store sins, Hun Sheng. I store punishment," Zhi Xuan said coldly.

  Zhi Xuan flicked the Ruthless Heavenly Banner. Instantly, rows of Nirvana Puppets and the Northern Yama emerged from behind clouds of black smoke, standing in the air like generals of hell. Their cold, emotionless aura caused Hun Sheng’s False Domain to begin cracking.

  "This... is this Gu Fengyan?" shrieked the trembling ship captain, gripping the bow wall tightly. "That banner is only owned by Gu Fengyan. I heard of that banner when Gu Fengyan used it to threaten Qinghe City!"

  Hun Sheng hissed, his wrinkled face twitching violently. "Gu Fengyan? So you are the boy who killed the three Elders of my sect? Good! Heaven does indeed have eyes! Today, I will not only take your life, but I will take that Banner and Lantern as compensation for the Soul Devouring Demon Sect!"

  Ancestor Hun Sheng bit his tongue, spitting a mouthful of essence blood toward his hair-banner. Instantly, the banner blazed with emerald-green soul fire. "Heaven Devouring Mind Swallowing!"

  A ghostly giant a hundred feet tall formed from the black smoke of Hun Sheng's banner, possessing thousands of hands holding bone scythes. The giant roared, creating vibrations that made the Merchant Alliance ships rock violently as if they were about to capsize.

  The ghostly giant swung its bone scythes, slashing with a speed that made the surrounding field tremble. Every swing of the scythe left a trail of emerald fire that burned the spiritual essence around it. Hun Sheng stood in the middle of the giant's head, his skull-face grinning with peaking madness.

  Zhi Xuan remained calm, his sapphire eyes reflecting the approaching ghostly giant. He did not dodge. Instead, he raised the Soul Lantern higher. "You think you can fight will using souls? The best weapons are those that possess a will but do not depend on a soul."

  The Soul Lantern vibrated violently. Zhi Xuan flicked his Divine Essence Blood, and instantly the Soul Lantern released an explosion of thousands of wandering souls that swarmed toward the ghostly giant. Not stopping there, Zhi Xuan raised the Ruthless Heavenly Banner high. Immediately, dozens of Nirvana puppets moved, merging with the Northern Yama to enlarge the Northern Yama’s own body.

  The thunder produced by the merging of the Northern Yama with dozens of Nirvana puppets created a boom capable of tearing the consciousness of the practitioners below. The Northern Yama's body swelled massively, coated in black bone armor pulsing with bluish fire. In the giant hand of the Northern Yama, a massive sword manifested.

  "Destroy," Zhi Xuan hissed, his voice like the whisper of a grim reaper.

  The Northern Yama darted forward, cleaving the deep purple sky of Cloud Port City. Its greatsword clashed with the ghostly giant's bone scythe. The impact produced a shockwave that leveled the surrounding pillars. Emerald fire and thick black smoke devoured each other, creating an apocalyptic scene above the Black Stone Formation.

  Meanwhile, thousands of wandering souls from Zhi Xuan’s Soul Lantern swarmed the ghostly giant like a flock of hungry locusts. They did not attack physically; instead, they possessed every pore of the giant’s black smoke, sabotaging the essence threads supporting Hun Sheng’s False Domain.

  "Why?! Why are these souls not afraid of my soul fire?!" Hun Sheng screamed in panic, his hands constantly forming mudras, trying to stabilize his fading giant form.

  "Because they no longer possess mortal fear. In my enlightenment, they have seen the end of all cycles," Zhi Xuan replied.

  He suddenly vanished, leaving behind a silver afterimage. The next second, he appeared atop the ghostly giant’s head, right in front of Hun Sheng. They were only a few paces apart. Zhi Xuan could see the pores of Hun Sheng’s dry skin trembling with horror.

  "A False Domain is a cage, Hun Sheng. And you are a prisoner within it," Zhi Xuan said. His right hand reached out, touching Hun Sheng’s forehead gently, but behind that gentleness lay the pressure of the Hell Path.

  "NO! STOP!" Hun Sheng tried to swing his hair-banner, but his arm felt as heavy as a mountain. All the essence in his meridians froze as his mind was forced to stare directly into the vortex of the Six Paths in Zhi Xuan’s sapphire pupils.

  Instantly, the Heavenly Samsara Wheel behind Zhi Xuan emitted a pure white glow from the Human Path. This light pierced through Hun Sheng’s False Domain, stripping away one layer of stolen souls after another. The souls that were the foundation of Hun Sheng’s power suddenly woke from their madness and turned to attack the master who had enslaved them.

  "AAARRGHHH!"

  Hun Sheng’s scream split the sky. His body began to crack like old porcelain. The thousands of souls he was once proud of were now tearing his own mind apart from the inside. The hair-banner in his hand burned away into pure white fire, leaving only gray dust blown by the sky-winds.

  The hundred-foot-tall ghostly giant collapsed, turning into black vapor that was immediately sucked dry by Zhi Xuan’s Ruthless Heavenly Banner. Without support, Hun Sheng fell to his knees on the stone platform, his cultivation base plummeting as his Domain shattered.

  Zhi Xuan landed gracefully before the dying Hun Sheng. He forcibly pulled an ancient scroll hidden within Hun Sheng’s robes—the Soul Purification Sutra. "You are not worthy of holding knowledge of the soul," Zhi Xuan said while storing the scroll.

  Hun Sheng looked up with eyes that were now empty. "Who... who are you really? You are not human... you are a Calamity..."

  Hun Sheng coughed, spitting out clumps of black blood mixed with fragments of his shattered soul. In the remnants of his fading consciousness, absolute fear turned into blind rage. His trembling hand crawled toward his chest, trying to reach a life-transmission jade charm connected directly to the Ancestral Hall in the Northern Territory.

  "Sect Master... Save me..." Hun Sheng's mind roared with the remnants of his Divine Sense.

  He intended to burn the rest of his longevity to send a single warning message—that a demon carrying the Wheel of Reincarnation was heading their way. However, just as his finger touched the cold surface of the jade, a flash of sapphire-blue light shot from the ship's bridge.

  SRIIIK!

  An incredibly thin essence dagger pierced through Hun Sheng’s wrist, pinning the dry hand to the stone platform before he could crush the jade. Hun Sheng’s eyes widened, his head turning stiffly toward the source of the attack. Li Chen floated down, his robes billowing calmly, his hand still forming a seal mudra.

  "Brother Gu has provided a beautiful stage, so let me close the curtain," Li Chen said in a smooth yet venom-laden voice. "Ancestor Hun Sheng, in the world of trade, leaked information is a loss. And today, I do not plan to lose."

  "You... Blue Ocean Sect... dare to betray..." Hun Sheng stammered, his voice now only a hiss of air escaping from a leaking throat.

  Li Chen smiled thinly, a smile colder than a sky-storm. "It is not betrayal; it is a takeover. This Black Stone Formation is too valuable to be controlled by a rotten sect like yours."

  With a casual wave of his hand, Li Chen recalled his essence dagger. He stepped closer, standing right beside the helpless Hun Sheng. Without a moment's hesitation, Li Chen swung his palm, striking the crown of Hun Sheng's head with the full force of his Weaver Transformation.

  BLARR!

  Hun Sheng’s head exploded into spiritual dust. His Divine Spirit tried to flee in the form of gray vapor, but before it could get far, Li Chen’s silver spider-web wrapped around it tightly, crushing Hun Sheng’s essence of consciousness into nothingness.

  Zhi Xuan merely watched the scene calmly. He didn't care who dealt the final blow, as long as the path to Xing Luo was wide open. He turned his gaze toward the black stone pillar, which was now beginning to vibrate violently due to the loss of its master's control.