"It's Qian Ming's signal!" a soldier shouted. "The second squad has completed its mission!"
Lin Taichu felt somewhat relieved and slammed another punch into the Stone Pillar, this time using a fragment of the Bronze Cauldron. Xuanhuang Qi spread out, and the Runes on the Stone Pillar instantly dimmed as spiderweb-like lines cracked across its surface.
Half an hour later, a second Signal Flare exploded to the northeast—a green signal sent by Zhao Hu's first squad.
Lin Taichu let out a breath of relief. It seemed the subsidiary Formation cores at Eagle Beak Cliff and Misty Valley had been successfully destroyed.
Just as he was about to order an all-out assault on the main Formation core, he realized something was wrong—according to the plan, the three squads' Signal Flares should have been fired one after another within an hour. Qian Ming and Zhao Hu had both sent word, yet attacking the main Formation core on his side had been unusually difficult.
"Commander, something's wrong!" a soldier suddenly shouted. "These Black-robed Men never stop coming! One batch falls, and another rushes in!"
Only then did Lin Taichu notice that new Black-robed Men were constantly emerging from the black mist at the bottom of the valley. Their movements were stiff, their eyes vacant, and the demonic qi around them was extremely unstable.
"They're puppets!" Lin Taichu immediately realized. "They're using the Corpse Gathering Formation to refine puppets! Everyone, focus your attacks on the source of the black mist!"
The Soldiers immediately adjusted their formation and aimed their Dharma Artifacts at the black mist in the center of the valley floor.
Flames, ice spikes, and bolts of lightning intertwined into a net and bombarded the black mist without pause. The mist churned as it recoiled, revealing a bottomless cave beneath it.
At that