The Eye of Heavenly Punishment closed, and the sky returned to calm.
The Soul Snatching Chain turned into a streak of dark light and, like a weary bird returning to its nest, quietly sank into the depths of the Earth Vein and disappeared.
The crowd watched in bewilderment. Zhou Wentao and Xia Hongjue exchanged a glance, then their figures flickered as they hurried after it underground.
But when the two reached the core of the Earth Vein and saw the scene before them, they both froze in place.
The Soul Snatching Chain, which had been brimming with malice outside, boundlessly ferocious, and even dared to clash head-on with the Eye of Heavenly Punishment, was now as docile as a little dog.
It was circling around a young man, swaying gently. A dim glow flowed along its length, faintly conveying feelings of attachment and joy.
That person was none other than Zhang Yu.
Zhang Yu reached out, and the Soul Snatching Chain automatically shrank, turning into a tiny Dark-Gold Chain.
Then it gently wound around Zhang Yu's wrist, fitting like an ornament. Not a trace of its former ferocity remained.
"How is this possible...?"
Zhou Wentao and Xia Hongjue's pupils contracted, and huge waves surged through their hearts.
That was the sect-guarding sacred artifact left behind by the Soul Refining Sect's Founding Patriarch, a weapon infamous for its ferocity.
The two of them had spent hundreds of years painstakingly refining it, day and night, with cultivation at the True Immortal peak, yet they had failed to earn its recognition and had instead suffered repeated backlash.
But this peerless killing weapon that had just dared to clash head-on with a Heavenly Immortal and even drawn down the Eye of Heavenly Punishment was now so docile and obedient, as if it had belonged