An emperor in his later years is summoned by his sister to save the nation's fate.

[2. Soul-Binding Chains: Once the eerie messenger descends, the soul-binding chains in his hands, once swung, will ignore all physical and supernatural defenses, and will forcibly seize the soul of any target within range!]

[Note: Due to the extreme protection of the Tower of Babel's rules, the chosen one who is forcibly soul-captured here will not actually die in reality, but will be directly judged as having failed the challenge and instantly teleported out of the tower!]

The moment this unsolvable S-level rule hint was announced, it caused a huge uproar in the live broadcast rooms around Earth:

"Holy crap! Indiscriminately suppressing all monsters below Rank A? Isn't this a hard counter to all of our Chosen Ones?"

"Every time someone leaves, their soul is inevitably taken away... What kind of test is this? This is clearly the system forcibly eliminating people!"

"Although Goddess Xueyao and Captain Xu are powerful, they are facing an S-rank monster. How are they supposed to fight this?"

Amidst the horrified murmurs of the crowd...

As one of the first chosen ones to enter the seventh-level independent instance, he stood before Xu Jingming, the captain of the Dragon Kingdom.

"Splash—"

In the void, a harsh, heavy sound of chains dragging on the ground slowly echoed from the deepest part of the dark hall.

Beneath the plaque that read "A Bright Mirror Hangs High," a terrifying figure—the "Ghost Messenger"—slowly emerged from the darkness. The figure was dressed in tattered black ancient official robes, wore a tall official hat, and had its face completely obscured by a thick layer of black deathly aura.

In its right hand, it held a scarlet judge's token inscribed with the word "slay"; while in its left hand, it dragged a huge [Soul-Binding Rope] covered in dark red rust, upon which countless wronged souls struggled and roared!

"Gluttonous beast, devour it!"

Facing this S-rank forbidden creature, Xu Jingming did not back down. His expression was cold and stern. The golden-quality monster pet [Taotie] inside his body roared and rose up from the ground behind him. Its abyssal maw, capable of devouring everything, suddenly opened and unleashed a violent tearing force.

only.

Before the gravitational pull within the gluttonous beast's enormous maw could fully materialize...

The black-clad ghost standing on the high platform suddenly had two pale white flames blazing in its eyes, which were hidden beneath an aura of death.

It slowly raised its left hand, and gently waved the scarlet "Slay" token in its hand at the Taotie below.

[Rule #1: Absolute Suppression, Activated!]

"Buzz—!"

An indescribable, invisible, absolute, and suppressive force, like the entire underworld and the heavenly realm crashing down, descended upon the Taotie's enormous body!

Faced with this high-dimensional set of law enforcement rules.

Xu Jingming's once invincible golden gluttonous beast, possessing the absolute law of devouring, suddenly trembled violently and froze in place.

No matter how frantically Taotie roared in unwilling anger, the golden power within its body was still forcibly stripped away, suppressed, and sealed by the rules of the underworld!

In less than half a second.

The golden Taotie, towering several meters tall, had its dark golden light completely dimmed and extinguished, turning into a wisp of remaining gray mist. It was humiliatingly forced back into Xu Jingming's body, falling into the deepest state of paralysis and becoming completely unsummonable!

"Damn it! Is this absolute dominance?"

Xu Jingming's eyes widened, and fine red blood vessels instantly appeared on his eyeballs. His face changed drastically at that moment, and his originally rosy face instantly lost all color, turning as pale as paper.

He could clearly feel that the gluttonous power within him, which had always been as easy to control and incomparably violent, was now completely suppressed by an invisible, towering mountain, and he had lost all connection with it.

Without the Taotie's blessing, the eerie aura that once chilled him vanished like a punctured balloon, his combat power shrinking by as much as 90% in the blink of an eye! This emptiness, caused by the forced stripping of his power, made his limbs tremble uncontrollably.

But Xu Jingming was no ordinary demon tamer; he was the captain of Bureau 749, a top expert who had fought his way out of countless life-or-death situations.

Even though his heart was now shrouded in an indescribable fear, his ingrained fighting instincts prevented him from closing his eyes and waiting to die.

"Get moving! We must get moving!"

Xu Jingming roared madly in his heart. In the next instant after his combat power plummeted, he bit his tongue hard, using the piercing pain to forcefully stabilize his mind.

Immediately afterwards, it was as if his entire body had lost its skeletal support; his skin, flesh, and clothes melted away in an instant, turning into a pool of thick, indissoluble black ink.

The pool of ink, clinging to the cold, icy blue brick floor, moved and seeped into the shadows at the edge of the wall in a bizarre and twisted manner, trying to completely disappear into that formless dark space to escape this inevitable death trap.

At the same time, in order to buy himself even a fraction of a second to escape, Xu Jingming's right hand, which had not yet completely melted into the shadows, emitted a crisp cracking sound.

"roar--!"

With a faint, ferocious roar, his right hand swelled in the wind, tearing through flesh and transforming into a [Taotie Ghost Hand] covered in hard, dark gold scales! This giant claw burned with eerie green flames, carrying a desperate, all-consuming aura, wildly tearing through the oppressive air in front of it, creating a gust of foul wind, and slammed it straight at the face of the black-clad ghostly official in front of him, intending to interfere with the other's movements.

However, despair is called despair precisely because no matter how hard you struggle, you cannot shake it in the slightest.

The black-clad eerie figure exuded a suffocating, chilling aura of death.

Faced with Xu Jingming's desperate, all-out, and almost frantic last-ditch resistance, its pale, expressionless face didn't even twitch its heavy eyelids.

It simply raised its withered, lifeless right hand coldly and mechanically.

In its hand, it was dragging a long, dark red rope covered in rust and dried blood.

With a swift and unexpected flick of his wrist towards the void ahead, he made a sudden, effortless motion.

[Second Rule of the Mystery: Chains that Seduce Souls, Activate!]

"Splash—!"

Accompanied by a crisp yet ear-piercing clang of chains, the rusty chain suddenly taut in mid-air.

Then, a horrifying scene unfolded.

The moment the chain was swung, its form seemed to transcend the dimensions of reality, becoming semi-transparent.

It was like an unstoppable phantom of death, completely ignoring the eerie green flames burning fiercely on Xu Jingming's dark golden gluttonous claw.

The eerie fire, powerful enough to burn an ordinary evil spirit to ashes, didn't even leave a trace of burning on the iron chain.

It ignored the terrifying bite force of the gluttonous claws, which was enough to tear steel apart, and passed directly through the huge claw shadow.

It even disregarded the Shadow Ghost's proud rule of spatial barrier, which could isolate physical and supernatural attacks!