Destroying the Array

The top floor of the White Tower.

Pang Jian held the spear and narrowed his eyes, immersing himself in the surging spiritual power. His gaze grew as sharp and keen as the spearhead.

"Whoosh! Whoosh-whoosh!"

Spiritual power flashed like lightning, bursting from his palm in the blink of an eye. Its speed made his heart race.

Before he could react, dazzling light suddenly blazed forth, illuminating the dark chamber!

Looking down, he saw the dragon-like patterns along the shaft lighting up one by one!

As the spear shone brilliantly, Pang Jian clearly sensed the azure spiritual power he had poured into its shaft being amplified in strength and sharpness by the array of dragon-like veins.

Strength meant that his power would surge when he swung the spear.

Sharpness meant that the Dragon-Patterned Spear's point would become peerlessly keen.

"Whoosh!"

A streak of azure light shot from the Dragon-Patterned Spear's point, striking a stone in the Soul Array with a sharp "ting!"

Pang Jian looked closely and saw a tiny, shallow hole in the stone.

It was about the size of his little finger, like a small groove. The spearhead hadn't actually pierced the stone.

Pang Jian was greatly encouraged!

Before, even using the strength of his arm bones together with the Dragon-Patterned Spear, he hadn't been able to leave so much as a mark on those stones, let alone move them.

Now,

he had opened only four meridians, yet with the spiritual array inside the Dragon-Patterned Spear empowering him, he had immediately left a mark on the stone.

That meant he could use it to break the array!

The next moment, Pang Jian pushed off with his feet, drove the motion through his waist and hips, and twisted his body as he swung the Dragon-Patterned Spear, channeling spiritual power into a thrust!

The spear suddenly straightened, and blinding light burst from its point. It was as if a tiny sun had appeared in the dark chamber!

Pang Jian's vision blurred. Seizing the moment, he thrust the spear at the Soul Array shaped like a skull.

His spiritual power responded to his movements, surging into the Dragon-Patterned Spear. Empowered by the two dragon-patterned arrays of sharpness and strength, the light blazing from its point grew ever more dazzling!

Zhou Qingchen and the others outside the White Tower were all startled by the sudden radiance on the fifth floor and couldn't help looking over.

"Pfft!"

Pang Jian pierced through a stone containing Profound Yin Power, driving the spearhead deep into the hollow skull.

The Spirit Turtle, surrounded by countless soul creatures like swarms of mosquitoes and flies that constantly gnawed away at its mind, suddenly sensed the spearhead's appearance.

It opened its eyes once more and, with great effort, turned to look at the spearhead embedded in the skull.

Having landed his strike, Pang Jian bared his teeth and yanked the Dragon-Patterned Spear free with all his strength!

As the Dragon-Patterned Spear came loose, the strange skull built from countless peculiar stones suddenly began to collapse and fall apart.

The Soul Array was a seamless whole. Damage to just one part had set the entire thing in motion.

"Crack, crack, crack!"

The wondrous Soul Array was like a pavilion caught in an earthquake. Stone after stone shattered and fell to the ground.

Only now did the Spirit Turtle inside the skull dare believe that the Soul Array imprisoning it had been destroyed.

The Spirit Turtle silently cried out. As soon as it was free, it shot skyward, ignoring the tower's roof and passing straight through it to hover above the Lonely Island.

"Whoosh! Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!"

The soul creatures surrounding it streamed out of the skull and fled through the four windows on the fifth floor.

Pang Jian was stunned.

He watched as the mosquito-like soul creatures grew a hundred times larger as soon as they left the collapsing skull, becoming hazy silhouettes.

Some were unmistakably human, some resembled the most powerful beasts in the Cenji Mountains, and others were neither human nor beast, but strange beings he had never seen before.

"That Spirit Turtle..."

He came to his senses, leapt through an open window, and landed with a heavy thud before looking up at the sky.

Beneath the gloomy, dark heavens, nearly a hundred soul creatures howled as they tried to flee the Lonely Island in the middle of the lake.

At the highest point,

a deep-green giant turtle, large enough to cover more than ten mu, hovered steadily in midair. With a sorrowful, wistful gaze, it looked down at the Lonely Island.

It was reluctant to leave, as though it didn't want to abandon the territory that belonged to it or embark on a new journey.

"Pang Jian did it!"

"He destroyed the Soul Array above the Heavenly Spirit Pagoda! All the imprisoned soul creatures have been freed!"

"The Heavenly Spirit Pagoda's most terrifying function has been disabled!"

Han Duping, Su Meng, and He Rong all shouted excitedly. One by one, they looked up at the soul creatures freed from the Heavenly Spirit Pagoda.

At the same time,

one clearly defined Spirit Sha after another drifted out from the edge of Lake Heart Island and began hunting down the weaker soul creatures.

Two of the Spirit Sha were people Zhou Qingchen and Han Duping knew—Hong Tai and Luo Meng!

"That Demoness is on the island too. She killed Hong Tai!"

Han Duping was horrified.

Even Hong Tai of the Dark Ghost had died and been refined into a Spirit Sha. That meant the Demoness they had encountered among the stones had recovered much of her strength.

"L-Luo Meng..."

Shangguan Qin, confined to the area around the Pit Well, had also been startled by the commotion on the hill. She, too, saw Luo Meng's clearly defined figure.

"It wasn't an illusion! It really was Luo Meng that night! He appeared. He came to see me. Even after he died, he came to see me!"

Shangguan Qin could no longer hold herself back. In that moment, she forgot she was supposed to stay quiet and sobbed in heartbroken despair, like a madwoman.

Straining to rise onto her toes, she waved frantically at Luo Meng, who no longer recognized her and had become a Spirit Sha, hoping he would come to her as he had before.

High above,

the enormous beast soul of the Spirit Turtle had still been gazing wistfully at the island, recalling the days gone by.

But when Spirit Sha like Hong Tai and Luo Meng suddenly darted out from around the island, the Spirit Turtle no longer dared linger in the past. It hurriedly flew north, toward the mountains.

"Bang!"

The Spirit Turtle's soul form seemed to slam into an invisible Sky Canopy, making the air above the island shudder.

The Spirit Turtle hesitated, then quickly contracted into a streak of green ghostly light and shot once more toward the far north of the Cenji Mountains.

"Whoosh!"

As if piercing a barrier of light, the Spirit Turtle in its ghostly form broke through the seal and escaped.

The soul creatures that had surrounded it, however, lacked the power to break the seal. Pursued by the Spirit Sha, they were devoured one by one.

"So the heavens really are sealed off—and the one imprisoned there is a Mystic Turtle."

Standing atop the hill, Luo Hongyan could see Shangguan Qin and the Pit Well. She watched the Spirit Turtle's soul disappear into the distance but didn't dare send the Spirit Sha after it.

Mystic Turtles were rare spirit beasts found in the Upper Realm, more powerful even than the Dark Giant Python in Blackwater Pool.

Though the Mystic Turtle was only a soul, it was still far stronger than the Spirit Sha she had refined. If it hadn't had its own misgivings, Spirit Sha like Hong Tai and Luo Meng would have become its prey.

"The Cenji Mountains' three forbidden zones—Blackwater Pool, Insect Valley, and Lake Heart Island—all contain wondrous creatures. The Dark Giant Python in Blackwater Pool, the enormous Giant Beehive in Insect Valley, and now this Mystic Turtle."

"Whoever's behind this could reach the fifth layer of Eternal Darkness and capture a Dark Giant Python. They could also reach the second layer, or even the first, and capture a Mystic Turtle here!"

"What kind of person..."

As she watched the Mystic Turtle disappear, Luo Hongyan furrowed her brow and couldn't help looking toward the enormous Pit Well.

"If the person in that well really created the three forbidden zones, then everyone on the island..."

Her lips twisted bitterly.

Suddenly,

with the Soul Array in the White Tower destroyed and the soul creatures escaping one after another, something at the bottom of the Pit Well seemed to have finally been stirred.

"Ah!"

Shangguan Qin was the first to scream in terror.

Her scream snapped the others, who had been gazing up at the sky, back to their senses. They had wanted Pang Jian to break the Soul Array precisely because they feared the person in the Pit Well.

They were afraid that once he came out, he would be able to control the Heavenly Spirit Pagoda again and use the Soul Array to absorb every one of their souls.

Shangguan Qin's terrified scream could only mean she had sensed movement beneath the Pit Well. That person... was finally coming out!

The group immediately moved toward the hilltop. They all wanted to face the Pit Well and see who was climbing out.

Pang Jian had also broken the array and seen the Spirit Sha hunting soul creatures. He knew that the Demoness from the piles of stones was on the island.

When the Spirit Turtle fled toward the Ghost Mist in the far north of the Cenji Mountains, he heard Shangguan Qin scream and hurried over as well.

"Pang Jian, congratulations! You've really got some tricks!"

As soon as he arrived, Zhou Qingchen shoved Han Duping aside to make room for him.

Ignoring Han Duping's displeasure, Zhou Qingchen beamed. "You've only just entered the Pulse-Opening Realm, and you've already opened a meridian and used the Dragon-Patterned Spear to break the Soul Array. I knew I was right about you!"

Pang Jian didn't mention that he had opened four meridians in his arm at once. Instead, he said, "The Dragon-Patterned Spear you gave me works great."

"The Dragon-Patterned Spear is only a low-grade spirit artifact. But spirit artifacts are fundamentally different from the long saber you used before. They can hold spiritual power and let it circulate inside them. Ordinary weapons can never do that."

Zhou Qingchen smiled as he spoke. "I gave you the Dragon-Patterned Spear because I knew you'd enter the Pulse-Opening Realm! I just didn't think it would happen so quickly!"

As he chatted with Pang Jian, he kept glancing at Shangguan Qin and the Pit Well beside her.

Everyone else was doing the same.

"Come over here."

At the highest point of the hilltop, Luo Hongyan stood apart from the others, out of place among them all. She gestured for Pang Jian to come over.

Zhou Qingchen was at a loss, then grinned and raised his eyebrows suggestively. "I heard this girl changed her opinion of you after we parted."

"Yeah. She really has changed a lot."

Pang Jian walked over to Luo Hongyan.

"He's coming out!" He Rong suddenly murmured.

Every probing gaze fixed on the huge Pit Well formed when the Phoenix Bone had plunged into the ground.

A moment later, they saw a naked man covered in sticky blood slowly climb out of the well.

His face, hair, and entire body were smeared with clotted blood, making it impossible for anyone to see what he really looked like.

Shangguan Qin stared at him as if he were the most terrifying monster in the world, trembling uncontrollably.

He gave Shangguan Qin a tight-lipped smile. As she shuddered with terror, he lifted his head, glanced at the hill, and looked at Pang Jian and the others standing in a row.

In the end, he said nothing. He immediately jumped into nearby Wulan Lake and washed the sticky blood from his body at his own pace.