The Owl phantom turned its single eye toward Bai Zhu.
In that instant, Bai Zhu felt something wrench violently at his consciousness.
The white space before him began to collapse, its shattered dream scenes dissolving like snowflakes.
In its place appeared a space composed of blocklike characters.
The densely packed characters floated in the void, weaving together into an enormous net.
Bai Zhu stood at the center of that net.
He could read the characters.
Not because he had learned them, but because the Soul King's Pen was frantically translating them in his mind.
"Rule manifestation condition: obsession intensity ≥ threshold..."
"Energy leakage rate: 0.37 units per second..."
"Seal stability coefficient: 62%... Warning: below safe level..."
Bai Zhu took a deep breath.
He reached out, and the silver-white pen appeared in his palm out of thin air.
He aimed its tip at the nearest line of text.
"The leakage rate is too high," he muttered. "Then I'll change it."
The tip touched down.
The blocklike characters began to rearrange themselves.
"0.37" was crossed out and replaced with "0.05."
The next second, the entire rule network shuddered.
Every character lit up at once, as though resisting the alteration.
Agony shot through Bai Zhu's wrist, and the pen nearly slipped from his grasp.
"Trying to fight back?"
He gritted his teeth and unleashed his Reiatsu at full force.
Silver-white light erupted from his body, pouring through the pen's tip into the rule network.
The resisting characters went dark one by one, then lit up again.
This time, they no longer resisted. Instead, they willingly accepted the change.
Outside.
Ging saw the core sphere begin to shrink.
The dark golden mist seeping through its cracks flowed back inside at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The manifested humanoid figures on the ground