A surge of pitch-black corpse qi poured from Song Wen's body, catching the four ferocious beasts as they fell through the air.
Under Song Wen's deliberate control, the four beasts had not died. Their souls had merely suffered severe damage, and they had fainted away.
The battle ended. Aside from the disturbed miasma, the entire fight had left behind not the slightest trace.
Song Wen swept his divine sense across the entire valley and eventually fixed on a deep pool on its western side.
The rocks around the pool were smooth, clearly worn by the four Swamp-Armored Crocodiles frequently entering and leaving it.
With a stir of corpse qi, he wrapped up the four Swamp-Armored Crocodiles and threw them into the pool, sending up a spray of water.
The four Swamp-Armored Crocodiles slowly sank until they reached the pool bottom, more than ten li deep, where they finally came to a stop.
Song Wen surveyed the entire valley once more.
The valley was no more than twenty or thirty li wide.
Song Wen seemed less than satisfied and slowly shook his head.
He immediately rose into the air and arrived above the valley. His divine sense pierced through the obstructing gray miasma as he searched in every direction.
A moment later, he flipped his hand and took out eighteen small azure flags.
The small flags rose into the air and scattered in all directions. They eventually landed in hidden locations throughout the area, enclosing all the mountains within a hundred-li radius.
Song Wen then took out an array disk and began forming hand seals.
As one hand seal after another entered the array disk, the eighteen small azure flags hummed and trembled in unison, faint streams of light flickering across their surfaces.
In an instant, strands of transparent spiritual light