The Wind Wolf Tribe's ring-shaped valley had become a slaughterhouse.
The huge black boulder engraved with wind patterns at the center of the altar had shattered completely. What surged from underground was no longer astral wind, but "soul-eroding yin qi," thick as ink. The phantom pair of enormous, pupilless eyes had become mostly solid, and its savage pressure, at the nascent soul middle stage peak, forced blood from the seven orifices of the eight core formation shamans. They could barely maintain the "Wind Barrier."
High Priest Wu Mu swung his bone staff frantically, spitting out essence blood that transformed into runes and sank into the Totem Pillar, only to vanish like a clay ox plunged into the sea. He roared in despair, "The Holy Temple has doomed us! If they hadn't drained thirty percent of our 'wind source,' how could the seal have collapsed ahead of time?"
Just then, from the corner of his eye, he saw the "old traveling merchant" stroll toward the fissure in the altar as though walking through a quiet courtyard, utterly disregarding the soul-eroding yin qi. More horrifying still, the man flicked a fingertip, and a tiny strand of sword qi precisely shattered a crucial rune node.
"Stop! That's..." Before Wu Mu could finish, a sudden change occurred.
Rather than collapsing, the severed rune node activated the ancient restrictions remaining underground, forming a reverse vortex. The remnant soul of the "Earthbound Spirit," about to break free of its seal, let out an unwilling roar as he was forcibly dragged several dozen feet back underground! Though it was only a temporary reprieve, it bought the tribe precious breathing room.
Wu Mu's pupils contracted sharply. "Breaking an array with an array? No... he saw through the seal's 'gate of life'!" He stared fixedly at Han Li's hunched