A wisp of Netherworld's Qi spiraled up from the depths of the forbidden zone's mountains, like a plume of black smoke rising from a ghostly city.

Song Yan clearly felt the sky halt for a moment, and the earth suddenly grew tranquil for a fleeting instant. Then, as if on cue, dust and stones flew in a frenzy, and half an incense stick's time later, the distant sound of beasts charging grew increasingly intense.

The ground trembled, and the mountains quaked.

Song Yan ascended into the air, floating above the array shield.

Although the array was layered hundreds of times, it wasn't composed of any special array formations. It could easily fend off ordinary cultivators, but not a Purple Mansion cultivator. Each array could withstand only a few strikes from them. There was no other choice, for array patterns cannot be deduced; the array you can set up entirely depends on the array plate you possess or the arrays you've studied.

In the epic expanse of the world, countless specks of dust roared like a furious, earth-colored tidal wave, with towering walls of mud crashing down from afar.

Song Yan surveyed his surroundings, then promptly unleashed his lifebound secret technique, "Free Celestial Demon Map."

A white-clad immortal sat within the mist, eyes hollow, face obscured. Of his four arms, three were hidden, with the remaining one casually holding a sword.

From a distance, no one could see the three arms shrouded by mist, nor the sinister mystery among them. He was simply an ethereal, otherworldly immortal in the clouds.

Song Yan sat cross-legged, hovering above the array shield. With a mere thought, the white-clad immortal formed by his mind flew out, slashing down the earth beasts charging in from all directions with a sweeping blow of the sword.

"Purple Mansion Primordial Explosion Technique" expended too much of the divine soul; "One Step to Heaven" required the use of all one's essence, energy, and spirit, typically to end a battle decisively, not for prolonged combat; as for "Free Celestial Demon Map," its techniques for fabricating and hiding one's aura were best suited for one-on-one duels, unsuited for situations like this.

Therefore, at this moment... only the sword.

Whoosh!

The flying sword in the white-clad immortal's hand swung in a grand crescent arc.

The earth beast at the forefront tried to evade, only to feel a stabbing pain in its soul, its vision going dark as countless sword qi enveloped it. These were all Song Yan's previous Sword Dao insights. The sword qi, formed from the fusion of the "Profound Sword Scripture" and the Crimson Palace bloodline, now merged into his lifebound secret technique, attacking from both the body and soul, aiding him in vanquishing foes.

Swish!!

The earth beast was cleaved in two, blood splattering, soul severed.

Unstained by blood, the white-clad immortal's hand remained clean, continuing to drift casually, slaying all around.

A day later, the first wave of approaching earth beasts was completely slaughtered, leaving only a few scattered ones in the area.

Song Yan retracted his lifebound secret technique and hurriedly took some profound jade, quickly absorbing profound qi to replenish himself, then gathered the earth beast bodies, arriving beside the Nether Tree and closing the Yin Mansion Sacrificial Array, pausing the attraction of earth beasts, before tossing the bodies into the sacrificial array as before.

Instantly, "hiss hiss" sounds emanated from the array.

The earth beasts began to melt away, like snow under the sun.

Song Yan sat cross-legged, beginning to absorb the life energy alongside the sapling.

Days later, the man and the tree had completely absorbed this batch of earth beasts.

Song Yan felt the Nether Tree's previously shriveled trunk was now somewhat full, and the Netherworld's Qi it emitted slightly increased, while the itch in his eyes doubled.

This quantity was many times more than he could have actively hunted!

Song Yan rubbed his eyes, using his divine sense to survey the surroundings.

The dispersing Netherworld's Qi quickly sought the surrounding skeletons to attach itself to, thus attracting more sporadic earth beasts to be exterminated. But once the Netherworld's Qi was dispersed to a sufficiently thin state, the earth beasts would leave, beginning to patrol the area, wandering aimlessly. If they wandered for a while and didn't sense any Netherworld's Qi, the earth beasts would lie down and quickly turned into a boulder, a mound, or even a small hill, unnoticed unless scanned by divine sense, appearing seamlessly as a part of the world.

During this process, the distant East Corner City, having been grazed by the earth beasts, saw an entire section of city wall collapsed, a district reduced to dust, making it evident that if there were city guards and civilians present, they would have perished on the spot.

This land had completely turned into the battleground for celestial calamity beasts and Netherworld's Qi...

Ironically, the suffering people did not die by the Netherworld's Qi but by... celestial calamity beasts.

Song Yan only found the world truly fascinating; this world initiated celestial calamity beasts to save itself, yet celestial calamity beasts became the greatest scourge for mankind; although he hunted celestial calamity beasts here, clearly harming the world to serve himself, he inadvertently saved many migrating people to the west.

The debate of right and wrong was truly meaningless!

He continued to observe.

Days later, he did not discover "any signs of active scheming by celestial calamity earth beasts," finally allowing him to secretly breathe a sigh of relief.

Previously, his deliberate release of the Netherworld's Qi was, in fact, probing.

To test the celestial calamity beasts.

If the celestial calamity earth beasts possessed intelligence, even after he shut the Yin Mansion Sacrificial Array, they would likely still organize stronger forces to search here.

But there were no signs of that.

As for nonsense like the celestial calamity earth beasts pretending to be oblivious to deceive him, it was pure folly. The current circumstances clearly demonstrated that "at least Purple Mansion level celestial calamity earth beasts acted purely upon sensing Qi, ignoring everything else."

He also probed the person who coveted the Nether Tree that day.

The more he cultivated the Nether Tree, the more he perceived its extraordinary nature.

The Netherworld's Qi seeped slowly from underground, yet this mysterious little tree could inherently produce Netherworld's Qi, and it grew larger by devouring more life, producing even more Netherworld's Qi.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.