Cultivation begins in Qingfeng Market.

A cultivator's divine sense is the most difficult to cultivate, and treasures like Ghost Soul Crystals, which can directly enhance divine sense, are inherently more valuable than ordinary third-tier spiritual items.

One hundred of them are at least comparable to several fourth-tier spiritual items, and even a Nascent Soul cultivator would take notice.

Lin Zhao took the storage bag and listened to Han Wujiu recount what had happened at Qingyou Palace.

He was silent for a long time.

He could understand that True Monarch Qingyuan controlled the rules of space.

Given that person's unfathomable abilities, spatial rules, though rare, are not unexpected.

The power of space, whether it imprisons a region or suppresses all things, is all within the bounds of the rules.

But there was one thing that he felt was increasingly wrong the more he thought about it.

The destination of this mission is Qinglan Immortal City, not Minggu Domain.

Did True Monarch Qingyuan foresee that he would be blocked in Qinglan Immortal City, that he would come to the Nether Bone Domain, and that the Ghost Cultivator lineage was waiting for an opportunity?

Was this mission meant to train him, or to bring the Qingyou lineage under control?

Or are the two things the same thing from the beginning?

He recalled the story of True Monarch Beichen attempting to break through to the Nascent Soul stage at Luotian Lake. Back then, the Luotian Secret Realm collapsed, and the world's origin dissipated at Luotian Lake.

Was True Lord Qingyuan simply going with the flow, or had he planned everything all along?

After Han Wujiu took his leave, Lin Zhao sat alone in the cave, gently stroking a Ghost Crystal, feeling the cool and delicate touch of its surface.

A thought suddenly popped into my head.

Perhaps, Qingyuan Zhenjun controls more than just the rules of space.

There are also time rules.

Space is king, time is supreme.

This statement, passed down through the ages, is by no means an exaggeration.

If that's true, then many things make sense.

For him, the future was never unknown, but rather a foreseeable, predetermined trajectory.

He wasn't deducing, but rather—

Lin Zhao suppressed the thought.

Too far.

This is not something a mid-stage Core Formation cultivator like him should be thinking about.

All he could say was that this was very much like Qingyuan Zhenjun.

---

For the next six months, the Nether Bone Domain was in turmoil.

The conquest of Qingyou Zhenjun began from the depths of the Nether Bone Domain, like a boulder thrown into stagnant water, the ripples of which quickly spread throughout the entire 100,000-mile Ghost Domain.

The path of ghost cultivation is inherently adept at splitting the soul into its physical form. At the level of Ghost King, a wisp of the soul can be hidden within an inconspicuous bone fragment.

As long as it is not completely erased, it can be re-formed given enough time.

Therefore, to completely suppress a ghost king, it is far from enough to simply defeat its main body; all its divided souls must be found and eliminated one by one.

This is a brutal purge destined to happen.

Deep within the Nether Bone Domain, a towering cliff of white bones was completely leveled.

Qingyou Zhenjun stood on the cliff top, and the nine ghost king avatars transformed into nine beams of light that flew out from behind her, drilled into the crevices at the bottom of the cliff, and found the last few fragments of a ghost king's soul one by one.

A hoarse, agonizing scream rose from the ground, causing the surrounding yin energy to churn like boiling water for miles around.

Elsewhere, there was a black swamp.

Luo Ying, the Ghost King, fought fiercely with a fourth-tier Ghost King for three days, and finally burned the Ghost King's body to ashes with a purple flame.

The Yin Skeleton King also came knocking—it was entrenched on a plain of bones in the southern part of the Nether Bone Domain, commanding an army of hundreds of thousands of skeletons.

The battle lasted for several days. A massive crater, hundreds of miles wide, was blasted into the Bone Plains.

The Yin Skeleton King's several avatars were found and destroyed one by one, with the last avatar hidden deep within an abandoned tomb a thousand miles away.

Suppressed by a beam of azure light from Qingyou Zhenjun, Yinku Ghost King finally chose to submit.

-----

The actions of Qingyou Zhenjun caused a complete uproar in the Ghost Realm.

Countless souls, forcibly summoned by the Ghost King, continuously resurrected, forming various legions of ghosts and monsters, and the tide of yin energy swept across tens of thousands of miles.

The dark gray malevolent energy was like a tangible tide, freezing the ground and cracking the rocks wherever it passed, even swallowing up the light.

If a cultivator with a slightly lower cultivation level is caught up in it, their mind will be eroded by the Yin energy in just a moment, turning them into a walking corpse.

The Nether Bone Domain seemed to be facing an apocalyptic catastrophe.

But Qingyou Zhenjun is no pushover either.

She started here at the Foundation Establishment stage, fighting her way up through countless battles. Now, she's back in her old ways, and no one can stop her.

She suppressed all the turmoil in the Nether Bone Domain in just one year.

Countless souls fell into slumber once more, and the ghost army was decimated by the nine elite ghost cultivator armies she had summoned, leaving no stone unturned.

The remaining ghost cultivators were also taken under the command of True Monarch Qingyou and joined the nine elite ghost armies, making the ghost armies even stronger.

Those former ghost king territories,

Now only ruins remain, standing silently in the dim light of the day.

----

A year has passed, and five fourth-tier ghost kings in the Nether Bone Domain have been completely annihilated.

Their territories, legions, and resources accumulated over thousands of years were all taken over by the Qingyou lineage.

Ten of the ghost kings chose to submit, some having proactively pledged allegiance after witnessing the ruthless methods of True Lord Qingyou.

Some, after a battle, realized reality and surrendered their life-bound soul flame; others, who were originally opportunists, switched sides without hesitation when they saw that the tide had turned.

The remaining four were Nascent Soul Ghost Kings belonging to the sect, and they also joined the Qingyou lineage.

The strength of the Qingyou lineage has expanded rapidly within half a year.

Now, including Qingyou Zhenjun himself, there are a total of six Nascent Soul cultivators in the sect and ten subordinate Ghost Kings.

There were a total of sixteen beings at the Nascent Soul level.

This number, in the Endless Demon Sea, is equivalent to a regional overlord.

Qingyou Zhenjun managed to integrate these unruly ghost cultivators in just one year.

-----

Lin Zhao did not participate in this civil war.

The battle outside could be heard from time to time—the earth trembled, the yin energy was disordered, and a blue beam of light or a gray-black mushroom cloud would occasionally flash across the distant horizon.

He was used to it, but this wasn't his battle.

One year later, Han Wujiu sent him another blank letter.

Above are sixteen spiritual energy imprints.

Each one was at the Nascent Soul level; some were as cold and icy as the deepest abyss, some as solid as ten-thousand-year-old ice, some as violent as volcanic lava, and some as ethereal as a candle flickering in the wind.

The sixteen marks were arranged in four rows, with only one mark in the top row—the mark of True Lord Qingyou, deep and abyss-like, making one feel as if their soul would be sucked in with just one glance.

This is the attitude of the Qingyou lineage; this letter represents the Minggu Domain.

The fourth-tier spiritual artifact, Azure Mist Wood, of Azure Mist Immortal City.

We have to give it, whether we want to or not.

Otherwise, the sixteen Nascent Soul cultivators of the Nether Bone Domain will mobilize their entire ghost cultivator army and besiege Qinglan Immortal City.

Destroying the immortal city is unlikely, at least not before the sect gives permission.

But if it were a different True Monarch Qinglan, it would be much easier.

Whether it's going astray in cultivation, encountering a calamity, using expired pills, or even drowning, there's always one that suits him.