The sand, dead branches, and broken bones swirling in midair seemed to have been paused as well, frozen there without the slightest movement.
Three breaths later, only when Cui Jiuyang relaxed his hand did these things fall like kites with severed strings, pattering down in a rain of yellow earth over the burial ground.
Xuansheng, the Yin Soldier who had silently guarded him while continually devouring wild dogs and wandering ghosts, seemed to sense his master's breakthrough. He immediately stopped what he was doing, hurried over to Cui Jiuyang, and knelt on one knee in a respectful salute.
By now, all of Xuansheng's wounds had healed. In appearance, he was no different from a pale, lifeless middle-aged man.
However, his original Daoist robe had vanished somewhere, replaced by a layer of simple armor condensed from his own dense Yin Qi.
The armor was plain and archaic, pitch-black, and looked as though it were made of bamboo. Clearly, it represented no high rank, being merely the most ordinary infantryman's bamboo armor, with protection that was barely better than nothing.
Cui Jiuyang nodded in satisfaction.
The Yin Qi in this burial ground was rich indeed. It had allowed Xuansheng to form the most basic Yin Soldier armor on his own in just two days, saving Cui Jiuyang the effort of refining it for him.
However, Xuansheng's current state was still far from that of a true "Yin Soldier."
With this armor he had formed himself, he could only be considered a "Ghost Soldier" who had just begun to take shape.
Many wandering ghosts who had carried the aura of weapons and slaughter in life could easily reach this level after cultivating for long enough in places rich in Yin Qi.
Yin Soldiers, however, were utterly beyond comparison with such Ghost Soldiers.
There