The gray fog of the Boundary Prison hung oppressively low. Even the wind carried a dull ache that gnawed at the soul.
Qin He sat cross-legged before the dead tree, his entire body bound tightly by Order Divine Chains. Fine flashes occasionally darted through their golden glow, scorching his flesh until it tingled. The aura of decay still drifted slowly through his meridians; the slightest movement tugged at his soul and made it tremble.
His eyes were lowered, and his fingertips moved in a seemingly idle motion. Three pale cyan formation flags silently landed within three feet of him. Not a trace of spiritual light shone from them, yet they lodged precisely in cracks in the ground where deathly aura had congealed.
This was hardly an advanced Spirit-Gathering Formation, merely odds and ends in his storage pouch, yet now it had become his means of breaking out of this impasse.
Inside his dantian, the red-and-blue Lotus Flame was wrapped in layer upon layer of the gold-and-black source-birth law. Only an exceedingly faint crimson thread of fire escaped, flowing slowly through his meridians. It contained not a trace of the life-and-death law, only the purest essence of fire.
The Spirit-Gathering Formation flags outside lit up with a faint glow in unison. Pale cyan formation patterns quietly spread across the ground, creating an invisible barrier that excluded all the impure ambient energy mingled with deathly aura and evil qi. Only the free-floating fire-aspected ambient energy between heaven and earth was drawn slowly together.
He did not channel this fire energy into his dantian. That was the domain of demonic essence and the Lotus Flame; forcing it inside would only trigger a clash of laws.
With a thought, Qin He focused his entire mind on a point three inches below his left collarbone.