The dusky yellow lamplight hovered silently over a stretch of land, like the newly risen sun.
Under the mysterious power of Everlasting Light of Worldly Salvation, the densely packed souls gradually grew translucent, finally dissolving into motes of faint light that returned to nothingness. It was not only the wandering souls of the dead; all the obsessions, resentment, and delusions lingering here... also rose in wisps of black smoke and vanished without a trace. Chu Mo stood to one side with the lantern in hand, watching the area without blinking.
With the souls delivered, the place became much emptier and much cleaner. The gloomy atmosphere that had shrouded it was gone.
At the same time, an inexplicable change took place in the original stretch of land.
The dense darkness began to fade, like a painted scroll losing its ink and becoming a sheet of pristine white rice paper again.
The land disappeared, its boundaries blurring.
Within just a few breaths, all the Netherworld Soil within a fifty-li radius of the Netherbloom Lantern vanished completely.
The surrounding scenery joined directly together across the missing region, fitting seamlessly in a way both natural and uncanny. Anyone who had not witnessed it firsthand would scarcely have noticed that anything had ever been missing.
Yet the extent of the Netherworld Soil had undeniably shrunk.
Chu Mo narrowed his eyes. "Born in response to thoughts, waxing and waning with souls."
Several days later.
Chu Mo appeared in the Netherworld Soil again. He held a palm-sized formation disc, with seventy-two small triangular flags floating beside him. "This should suffice." He patted the disc, setting his thoughts in motion.
The formation had no name. He had hastily fashioned it from materials gathered over the past few days. It had only one function.
Once activated, it could transmit