Venerable Yun Chan stared fixedly at the dragon soul in midair.
His eyes were like two ice-tempered awls. There was not a shred of Buddhist compassion left in them; instead, they radiated a sinister chill that made one's spine turn cold.
Song Wen stood behind Venerable Yun Chan. Looking at his back, he saw unwillingness and humiliation.
That made sense.
Venerable Yun Chan had come to investigate the deaths of Jikong and Cizhou—or rather, to avenge them—only to somehow fall into this deathtrap.
A dignified Tribulation Transcendence cultivator, already brushing against the threshold of ascension, able to summon clouds with one turn of his hand and rain with the next, to make heaven and earth change color with a single thought—he was one of the foremost figures in the Profound Realm.
Yet such an existence, through one careless misstep and a moment of negligence, had been trapped here. His spiritual power was sealed, his divine sense suppressed, leaving him like a mere mortal, even subjected to the wanton mockery of a damaged dragon soul.
To Yun Chan, who should have regarded all living things as straw dogs, this was an utterly intolerable humiliation!
Song Wen's eyes shifted, and a plan suddenly sprang to mind.
He stepped forward two paces, bowed and scraped, and put on a smile.
"Venerable, this junior has thought of a way to break the deadlock, though I do not know whether it will work."
"Let me hear it." Venerable Yun Chan did not turn around.
Song Wen edged closer and deliberately lowered his voice, speaking softly enough that only the two of them could hear.
"The dragon soul once said that the restrictions here are ineffective against souls, ghosts, and the like. We may be able to exploit this and send our souls out of our