The Dead Souls on the Stone Pillar
A massive stone pillar that can emit sound.
This is the most prominent area that Zhang Xuezhou found when he entered the distorted area.
This geographical feature is so obvious that Zhang Xuezhou hardly needs to go anywhere else. He knows very well that there is a 90% chance that Ren Anran and Xu Lu are near the stone pillar.
What is the principle behind sound production?
Zhang Xuezhou knocked on the black stone pillar, and the sound of prayer began to echo from within it again.
The sound repeated itself over and over, but Zhang Xuezhou couldn't see the source of the sound.
The entire stone pillar seemed to be a sound-producing body, and the sound seemed to come out of nowhere.
Zhang Xuezhou had considerable experience and had visited many areas lacking the control of powerful cultivators, but he had never seen anything like this before.
Having encountered such strange places as illusion arrays before and the lair of Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon afterward, he felt that he had been experiencing many oddities recently.
"That doesn't make sense. Could it be that the stones in his world record sounds and keep echoing them?"
Zhang Xuezhou knew that in a special magnetic field environment, the magnetic field could record images, and under repeated conditions, past scenes could reappear.
Such cases of magnetic field recording images are extremely rare, and each case is a precious historical record that allows people to understand the true humanistic features of past eras, and may even reveal secrets.
However, there is indeed no magnetic field that records historical sounds, which can then be brought to light through vocalization or striking.
Slowly flying around the stone pillar, Zhang Xuezhou rhythmically knocked 267 times, which was also the circumference of the stone pillar, which was 267 meters.
The mechanical, repetitive chanting within the stone pillars never stopped; Zhang Xuezhou felt as if 267 people were praying within those 267 meters.
As he continues to rise, this voice will persist.
As long as one is connected to this stone pillar, striking any part of it or shouting anywhere will produce a recitation response.
"This is definitely made of stone!"
The massive stone pillar was so hard that Zhang Xuezhou had no idea what to do with it.
Although the Stone Transformation Technique released by his Yang Corporeal Soul Incarnation was weak, even his physical body would find it difficult to easily dissolve the stone layer here.
This type of rock layer has most likely undergone continuous burning and tempering, much like the meteorite left behind after a meteor penetrates the atmosphere; its texture is now almost indistinguishable from metal.
Overall, this is the conclusion: Zhang Xuezhou doesn't believe that the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon could accumulate various sound-emitting components inside the stone pillars.
This region once penetrated the atmosphere and caused violent combustion, filled with toxic gases, high temperatures, and flames, making it difficult for any man-made artifacts to be preserved intact.
Having ruled out all possibilities, Zhang Xuezhou also shifted his focus to other areas.
"Looks like there's something evil around me!"
If we eliminate the possibilities of nature and human intervention, what remains is the lingering resentment of living beings, which is also the spiritual trace mentioned by Montes Arthur.
A purple light appeared in his hand, and he unleashed the least useful, yet most rarely used, Yin Entity Tracking Technique.
In the purple Technique Method light, Zhang Xuezhou saw a gray-white shadow flash by on the stone pillar.
"As long as the void remains, I shall endure forever!"
"Those who believe in me will have eternal life!"
He began to recite aloud.
These were words Zhang Xuezhou had heard countless times, and he could repeat them with ease.
Zhang Xuezhou saw a fleeting shadow that seemed to have found its group, waving its arms and legs on the stone pillar wall beside him, creating a chanting sound with the help of the stone wall, which even attracted other shadows to gather here.
How many people will die?
Zhang Xuezhou felt as if he had scattered fish bait in a pond, attracting hordes of loudly singing dead souls.
Under the light of the Yin Entity Tracking Technique, these dead souls swam continuously, swarming together and shouting with their mouths wide open, making Zhang Xuezhou's heart tremble.
"This guy was probably a religious fanatic in the past, which is why he gathered so many interest groups and had countless people following him madly!"
If someone continues to recite it over and over again after death, Zhang Xuezhou believes only fanatics could do that, like the brain-dead believers in the Tuer Religion who are convinced they can go to God's location after death.
The identity of the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demon is becoming clearer step by step. Although confirming his identity is not a big deal and has no impact on the competition, it still excites Zhang Xuezhou.
He raised the Technique Method light of the Yin Entity Tracking Technique, and his body slowly rose into the air.
"If my cousin saw a place like this, he'd be ecstatic!"
Countless dead souls surrounded the stone pillar and entwined around Zhang Xuezhou, constantly moving back and forth within his body.
This is an area that Zhang Xuezhou dislikes, but it might be Rong Tianding's dream place to refine magical Law Artifact and Technique Method.
Even taking a single stone pillar's foundation stone could become an excellent material for a Law Treasure for the Shijiao School.
Of course, this was just a wild idea of Zhang Xuezhou's. After all, Rong Tianding, who was skilled in the Southern Brightness Fire, could not come to this world, and the powerful weapon for suppressing dead souls, the Marquis of Sui's Pearl, could not possibly be here.
You guys are lucky!
He was powerless against these dead souls, and he lost the will to eliminate them and silence the chanting.
Sing it out, louder!
If he couldn't silence this Heaven and Earth stone pillar, Zhang Xuezhou thought it wouldn't hurt to use it in reverse to create a chorus of voices. If the noise was loud enough, it might attract Ren Anran and Xu Lu to come looking for him.
From one or two dead souls, then to dozens, then to hundreds.
Later, Zhang Xuezhou felt that the surrounding area was densely packed with dead souls raising their necks and loudly reciting, and the light of the Yin Entity Tracking Technique could no longer illuminate how many dead souls had gathered there.
Zhang Xuezhou didn't shy away from such matters, since the physical form of the Yang Corporeal Soul was similar in nature to that of the dead souls, and these dead souls flying back and forth couldn't harm him.
"As long as the void remains, I shall endure forever!"
"Those who believe in me will have eternal life!"
As Zhang Xuezhou flew upwards along the stone pillar, the sound waves around him were deafening, but at the same time, he also heard another wave of prayers surging from above.
Before he could fully grasp the situation, Zhang Xuezhou saw the dead spirits around him emitting roars and chants as they surged upwards.
Like the impact of colliding tides, Zhang Xuezhou saw countless dead souls fall like raindrops during the impact, then turn into specks of light and be absorbed back into the stone pillar.
He raised his right hand Gaogao, and under the light of the Yin Entity Tracking Technique, Zhang Xuezhou saw that the dead soul in front of him seemed to have grown stronger.
As he continued upwards, he saw the targets the undead were charging at—a group of undead that appeared to be much stronger.
However, unlike the dead souls gathered around Zhang Xuezhou, these strong dead souls were more scattered, causing them to be surrounded, entangled, and become increasingly thin.
Although the strong undead soul also engaged in acts of destruction during its constant travels, it ultimately could not escape turning into specks of light.
Meanwhile, the dead souls who participated in the gathering and traversing without falling grew stronger and stronger.
"War has broken out?"
After carefully observing what was happening, Zhang Xuezhou found it difficult to even complain.
He seemed to be using the Yin Entity Tracking Technique to point out the location, and then gathering a large number of dead souls through chanting. Then, inexplicably, a killing arose in the search's sound waves, thus guiding the growth and changes of the surrounding dead souls.