Wang Tiezhu's mouth was still moving.
The sound squeezed from deep in his throat was painfully dry and grating, every word scraping with a friction that made the listener deeply uncomfortable.
The instant the last word fell, Wang Tiezhu's eyes rolled sharply upward, exposing whites thick with blood vessels, and his entire body toppled backward, rigid as a board.
Zhou Xuan's hand moved faster than his body.
Taiyi divine power wrapped his fingertips as he pressed a hand firmly against Wang Tiezhu's chest.
An extremely faint, abnormal fluctuation was darting outward from his heart meridian. Zhou Xuan forcibly cut it off and drove it back.
Wang Tiezhu's body twitched twice, then fell utterly silent.
He was still breathing, his heart still beating, but someone had completely pulled the thread connecting his consciousness from within. It had been severed entirely.
Zhou Xuan remained crouched where he was, staring at the dark red patterns fading from Wang Tiezhu's forehead.
His Supreme One Divine Eye was still active.
Within his vision, the law structures of those patterns were laid bare with perfect clarity.
Every line, every node, matched the fragmentary formation diagram Li Qingyun had extracted from underground without the slightest gap.
The chaos outside the Drill Ground continued.
More than ten thousand awakened people had been frightened out of their wits by the scene, shoving one another as they surged toward the edges of the camp.
Several Golden Core cultivators responsible for maintaining order desperately tried to stop them, shouting until their voices cracked.
Zhou Xuan raised his head.
He brought his Communication Jade Slip to his mouth, keeping his voice low and level.
"Lin Qingzhu."
"I'm here!"
"Seal off the West City Drill Ground. Not even a fly is allowed to leave."
"I'm already mobilizing people, but the awakened people outside..."