The opening scene reveals the story of Yao Lao, alarming the Soul Emperor.

The northwest branch hall has a side room.

The doors and windows were tightly shut, and even the cracks in the windows were stuffed with black cloth.

Hunyu leaned back in his chair, toying with a white feather fan in his left hand and holding a half-cold cup of tea in his right.

There were no lights on in the room.

The only light source came from a fist-sized cyan orb suspended in the very center, which was wrapped in a thin golden barrier.

This is a relic from the battle in the canyon.

The Heavenly Dao Eight Trigrams Formation shredded the Fourth Pavilion Master's physical body. In the final moment before the ten thousand swords pierced his heart, the old man bit off a soul-protecting jade pendant hidden under his tongue and squeezed out a wisp of his primordial spirit from the gaps in the sword formation.

Hun Yu did not stop him.

It's just a wisp of a soul; it's good that it escaped.

The soul essence of a Dou Zun is far more valuable than his shattered physical body.

He brought the remnant soul back to the branch hall, locked it in this secret room, and sealed it with a barrier derived from the Eight Trigrams Formation.

Beside the ball of light, dozens of dim, grayish-white souls lingered, all remnants of ordinary disciples of the Starfall Pavilion, huddled together, not daring to approach the golden light.

The frequency with which the cyan light clusters collided with the barrier increased.

Each impact creates a ripple on the barrier's surface.

Hunyu took a sip of the herbal tea but didn't react much.

The light stopped.

The bluish-green mist contracted and condensed, revealing a human face.

Silver hair, deep-set eyes, a face full of fat, and features distorted beyond recognition.

"You little beast, you think you can trap this old man with a mere broken formation?"

The remnant soul's voice was hoarse and rough, each word carrying a tremor at the soul level. The teacup on the table was lifted by this fluctuation, flying out and crashing into the wall, shattering into several pieces.

Tea was spilled all over the floor.

Hunyu glanced down at the water stains on the hem of his robe and brushed them away with his fan.

"What a waste of all that good tea I brewed all afternoon."

The remnant soul of the Fourth Pavilion Master couldn't hear such words at all.

He struggled frantically within the golden barrier, the cyan wind attribute energy on the surface of his soul rapidly expanding.

But he wasn't blindly charging forward.

On the contrary, from the moment he was trapped inside the barrier, he had been constantly scanning the body of the white-clad youth outside.

The scan results nearly made his remnant soul laugh itself to death.

This person has no fighting spirit.

It's not that they've concealed or hidden anything; it's that they genuinely don't exist.

His meridians were empty and his Qi Sea was depleted; he could barely even reach the level of a fighter.

The Fourth Pavilion Master has lived for over three hundred years and has seen all kinds of formations.

Even the most powerful formations require the operator to continuously infuse energy to maintain them.

The energy supply for the golden barrier in front of them comes from the power of the laws of heaven and earth stored in the formation itself, not from this young man.

In other words, the barrier has an upper limit.

"I am a dignified Dou Zun, even if I am only a remnant soul, I am not someone a piece of trash like you can subdue!"

The Fourth Pavilion Master stopped wasting words and compressed his remaining soul power to the extreme, transforming it into a cyan wind cone, which he then pierced the weakest seam of the barrier.

A small crack appeared on the barrier.

Hunyu put down the teacup, held the white feather fan upright on his knee, and pinched the middle section of the fan ribs between his index and middle fingers.

The Fourth Pavilion Master saw the crack.

The second impact caused the crack to extend to both sides by about an inch.

On the third strike, the barrier emitted an unstable hum.

A wisp of azure soul thread emerged from the crack of the Fourth Pavilion Master's remnant soul and rushed straight toward Hun Yu's brow.

That was the prelude to possession.

The tip of the silk thread carries a mental corrosive power at the Dou Zun level. When it comes into contact with the soul sea of ​​any low-level cultivator, it can instantly tear apart the opponent's consciousness.

A smug grin appeared on the remaining face.

"A piece of trash without any fighting spirit dares to imprison this old man? I want this body!"

The silk thread was only three inches away from Hunyu's brow.

Hunyu raised his eyelids.

Golden Bagua patterns spun deep within his pupils, his Divine Calculation Golden Eyes operating at full power.

The energy pathways within the remnant soul were broken down into clear lines and reflected in his field of vision.

Thirty-seven main threads, twelve key nodes, with the core located at the intersection between the fifth and ninth nodes.

See clearly.

Hunyu tossed the white feather fan upwards.

The fan-shaped array spread out in mid-air, and eight golden feathers spun out. Instead of forming a massive array like the ones in the canyon, they shrank into a miniature array plate the size of a palm, with the eight feathers forming the base, upside down directly above the blue light ball.

The Eight Trigrams Formation of Heaven, miniature indoor version.

The moment the array plate fell, the wisp of soul thread that had already broken through the barrier was severed at the root. The severed end twitched twice in mid-air before turning into green smoke and dissipating.

The Fourth Pavilion Master let out a mournful howl.

"Impossible! You clearly don't have any battle aura! Where did this formation's energy come from?!"

Hunyu ignored him.

The array plate began to operate, and the eight golden feathers simultaneously released suction, drawing the souls of the ordinary disciples surrounding the four pavilion masters into it.

One, two, five, ten.

The moment the soul touched the array plate, it was crushed into transparent fragments, which were then transformed into pure soul energy and injected into the array's core.

More than thirty ordinary souls were completely drained within a dozen breaths.

The golden light on the array plate doubled.

The remnant souls of the Fourth Pavilion Masters began to shrink violently.

He was a Dou Zun, whose soul strength far surpassed that of ordinary disciples, but the Heavenly Dao Eight Trigrams Formation had an absolute advantage at the level of laws.

The Gate of Death opens.

Within the array, a feather turned dark red, releasing countless fine golden threads that pierced through the souls of the four pavilion masters, locking each of the thirty-seven main meridians.

The golden threads tightened.

One by one, the soul's veins snapped, and the Fourth Pavilion Master's face changed from ferocious to terrified, and from terrified to blank.

His mind is being eroded inch by inch by the Gate of Death.

The last vein broke.

The face that once belonged to a Dou Zun powerhouse completely dissipated, and the remnant soul collapsed into a drop of blue liquid the size of a fingernail.

The origin of the soul.

Hun Yu stretched out two fingers and pinched the drop of essence between his fingertips. A warm sensation came from his fingertips, which contained the soul essence of a Dou Zun's lifelong cultivation.

He sent the essence into the core of the array.

The whole room shook.

The array plate emitted a sharp buzzing sound, and golden light surged. The patterns on the eight feathers began to change, and more complex loops emerged from the originally simple lines.

A flood of new information entered my mind.

The rules for constructing illusion arrays and the overlapping application of killing arrays, along with the coordinated arrangement of the two arrays, perfectly complement the previously obtained basic Eight Trigrams Formation.

[The Heavenly Dao Eight Trigrams Formation, second level of access unlocked.]

[Deepening of Formation Principles: Illusion Formations and Killing Formations can be cast in combination.]

The formation's coverage area has been expanded to three times its original size.

[Warning: The host's physical strength is insufficient to support the prolonged operation of the second-level privilege.]

A massive flow of information washed over his senses.

This physical body was already on the verge of its limit. The blood and qi that had been depleted during the fusion with the system's compensation gold had not yet been recovered. Now, an entire layer of array laws had been poured in, and the load had directly exceeded the critical point.

Hunyu's face turned pale.

He bent down, supporting himself on the armrest of the chair with one hand, and pulled a silk handkerchief from his sleeve with the other to cover his mouth.

Several muffled coughs followed, each one causing his shoulders to tremble violently.

The handkerchief was removed, revealing several bright red bloodstains blooming on the white silk, more numerous and denser than before.

He wiped the blood from his lips, folded the handkerchief again, and tucked it back into his sleeve.

It takes at least three to five days to recover from this level of backlash.

It doesn't matter.

Two more cards appeared in my hand.

The combined use of illusion formations and killing formations is enough to multiply the tactical options of the Heavenly Dao Eight Trigrams Formation.

Given enough time and space to set up an array, even if a Dou Sheng (Battle Saint) is standing opposite, they would have to think twice before stepping in.

The eight feathers flew back into his hand and were pieced back together to form the white feather fan.

The room returned to quiet.

Hunyu leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and adjusted her breathing. The burning sensation in her chest was slowly subsiding, but the weakness in her body was more pronounced than before.

He had barely closed his eyes for the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea when he heard hurried footsteps outside the door.

The person who came did not knock, and their steps were quick and disorderly, with the soles of their shoes making a crackling sound on the stone floor.

Hunyu opened his eyes.

The heavy wooden door was pushed open from the outside.

The hawk rushed in, sweating profusely, holding a dark gold scroll high in both hands.

The surface of the scroll was wrapped with fine black lightning arcs, each one radiating a chilling pressure.

The eagle knelt on the inside of the threshold, its knees striking the bluestone ground with a dull thud. It raised its arms above its head and presented the dark gold scroll to the soul feather.

"Sir! This is the highest decree from the Heavenly Dipper Palace of Central Plains!"

The hawk's throat was trembling.

"Clan leader, this is an order personally issued by the Soul Emperor!"

The black lightning on the dark gold scroll crackled and pulsed, casting flickering light throughout the room.

Hunyu's gaze fell on the scroll, but he did not reach out to take it.

The Divine Calculation Golden Eyes operated on their own, and the golden Bagua pattern spun half a circle in the center of his eyes.

The black grenades on the scroll are not just for decoration.

That was a restriction personally set up by the Soul Emperor.