The ninety-ninth floor of the Bone Tower.
Yin Wujiu sat cross-legged upon a throne of white bones.
Nine Spirit Rings revolved around him—two yellow, two purple, five black.
The fluctuations of his ninety-first-rank Soul Power spread outward from his body, and the entire tower top trembled faintly. It was not an earthquake; the Bone Tower itself was bearing his weight.
He opened his eyes.
His scarlet vertical pupils held neither rage nor impatience.
"Two bone pillars destroyed. My Blood Nether Python killed."
His voice was dry and cracking, like dead branches snapping one by one. He sounded far too calm for someone speaking of his own losses.
"Interesting."
He rose to his feet.
As Soul Power surged around him, the surface layer of every white bone tile on the ninety-ninth floor shattered at once.
"Ten years."
Yin Wujiu flexed his withered knuckles, his bones cracking sharply.
"The last person who dared touch my bone pillars... I spent three days pulling out his bones one by one. He is now the handrail on the sixty-seventh floor."
He walked toward the edge of the tower roof.
Below him lay the entirety of Slaughter City.
Within the blood-red mist, a crimson pillar of light that had shot into the sky was slowly fading—the lingering aftermath of a Hundred-Thousand-Year Soul Ring being unleashed.
Yin Wujiu's vertical pupils contracted for an instant.
Then he jumped from the ninety-ninth floor.
Without using any Soul Skill, without any means of cushioning the fall.
He fell.
Nothing but pure freefall.
Su Chen led everyone out of the underground passage.
More than two hundred children had been woven into soft cradles by Ling Shuang's vines and carried to the surface without a single one being left behind.
Jiang Tieyi walked at the rear.
He carried three unconscious children