Cultivation begins in Qingfeng Market.

Everyone nodded, and no one objected.

Master Gu is at the peak of Core Formation, possessing the highest combat power present. He is the most confident of escaping unscathed when facing Jing Yi alone in the capital.

Master Gu was the first to set off. With just one step, he was already hundreds of feet away. With the second step, he disappeared from sight.

A faint trace of spiritual light remained in the air, like a blade slicing through water, slowly settling down.

Lin Zhao, Zhao Kun, Chen Yuan Zhenren, and Su Luo Zhenren each flew towards the heart of the dynasty.

Lin Zhao chose the east side.

The Wuchang Dynasty lies ahead.

He was flying at low altitude, with rolling farmland and villages below him.

But most of those rice paddies have been abandoned.

A village came into view, and he descended in a beam of light, landing in the village.

The village was deathly silent; the old locust tree at the village entrance had lost all its leaves, making it appear lifeless.

Lin Zhao pushed open the nearest wooden door.

The bowls and chopsticks on the table were neatly arranged, but there was no food on them.

The eyes of all five people were wide open, and their pupils could still move slightly, but there was no trace of the spirit of a living person in their eyes.

They still retained faint breaths, but most of their souls had been forcibly extracted, and what remained was barely maintaining the most basic survival instincts.

Lin Zhao squatted down and waved his hand in front of a little girl.

The girl's eyes followed his hand for a moment, but inside there was only an empty shell.

Lin Zhao sighed. His soul had been separated from his body for too long. Even if it returned, the damage to his physical body would be irreversible, and his lifespan would probably be less than one-tenth.

Lin Zhao released a beam of azure spiritual light, replenishing the physical damage suffered by these people.

Moreover, this blue light is enough to sustain them for half a month, allowing them to go without eating or drinking.

But that's all he can do.

He continued exploring the second village, the tenth, the thirtieth...

When it was completely dark, he stood on a desolate mountain, looking towards a city not far away.

A gray-black fog swirled above the city, and a thick, putrid stench filled the air.

Lin Zhao entered the city, where hundreds of thousands of ordinary people had the same characteristics as the people in the previous village.

No, it's even worse.

These people can no longer be considered living people.

The body could still move with difficulty, only held together by a wisp of gray mist within.

They had already died a month ago, and now they are just empty shells, like walking corpses.

Lin Zhao stood in the middle of the street, closed his eyes, and focused intently on sensing the surroundings.

This gray fog seeped outwards from the ground, its source pointing towards the capital.

He found a special soul-gathering array deep inside a dry well in the west of the city.

The formation occupies only a few feet of land, but its layout is exceptionally ingenious. It is specifically designed to extract the remaining soul power of mortals and, through the earth's veins, continuously transport it towards the capital.

Lin Zhao took action and forcibly destroyed the formation.

Over the next two days, he explored inwards through villages and cities, and the closer he got to the capital, the more dire the situation became.

The ordinary people in the outer villages could at least cling to a sliver of life, but those in the heartland, closer to the core area, had already begun to experience physical decay and decay.

He traversed countless villages and dozens of cities, investigating the situation of nearly ten million ordinary people.

Most mortals have already perished, and for the remaining people, death is inevitable, with virtually no chance of recovery.

-----

Meanwhile, Master Gu was already standing outside the capital.

A thick gray fog shrouded the capital, refusing to dissipate even under the sunlight, covering an area of ​​hundreds of miles.

A huge vortex floated in the center of the fog, and something seemed to be lurking in the deepest part of the vortex.

After observing for a while, Master Gu raised his hand and took out a large black iron seal.

A top-grade, third-tier magic weapon.

Black iron seal.

It wasn't some rare and precious material; it was just a complete black iron ore vein, along with a mountain peak pressing down on it, which he forcibly refined.

Without powerful supernatural abilities, one is simply heavy and hard.

This black iron seal had even withstood attacks from fourth-tier magic weapons before, and its main body remained completely unharmed.

The black iron seal flew out of his hand, swelled in the wind, and transformed from the size of a palm into a colossal object hundreds of feet long in an instant.

Master Gu raised his hand and pressed down, the giant seal carrying immense force slamming into the core of the vortex.

The moment the seal broke through the fog, countless gray-black ghost hands emerged from the thick fog, wrapping around it layer by layer, trying to bind and corrode the magic weapon.

The black iron seal was thick and incredibly tough. No matter how much the ghostly hand scratched at it, the seal remained completely still, and the demonic energy's corrosive effects were utterly ineffective.

The black iron seal forcefully pierced through layers of gray mist and slammed deep into the vortex.

boom--!!!

a bang

The violent shockwave spread outwards wildly, smashing a huge crater into the ground. All the surrounding houses collapsed, the city walls crumbled inch by inch, and the gray fog was forcibly swept away, completely revealing the true face beneath.

A nearly thousand-foot-tall, twisted, gray-black ancient tree took root in the earth. Its trunk was covered with dense, intricate patterns, like the markings of a venomous snake spreading everywhere. Its outward-extending branches were sharp and pointed, like inverted bone spurs.

The trees were covered with countless corpses. There were mortals and cultivators, among whom six corpses exuding powerful auras were Core Formation cultivators, two of whom were Core Formation True Persons from sects.

Startled by the shockwave, the corpses all opened their eyes.

The six Core Formation corpse puppets broke free from the branches, raised their heads and let out a deafening roar, then pounced straight at Master Gu.

Master Gu didn't even bother to glance at them. He casually conjured six blood-red blades of light and shot them out precisely, each one piercing the brows of one of the six corpse puppets.

The corpse puppet's movements suddenly froze, and then it was cleaved in two by an invisible blade force, falling from mid-air.

However, even his protective aura couldn't break through the ordinary Core Formation level, so it was not worth mentioning.

"Jingyi, come out and see me."

When Master Gu spoke, his voice was not loud, but every word was like muffled thunder rolling across the sky. The gray fog within a hundred miles was shaken and surged, and the corpses on the treetops were shaken to fall.

Upon hearing the name "Jing Yi," the Demon Tree paused slightly, as if recalling the name.

The next moment, the entire ancient tree suddenly became agitated, with countless vines whipping out wildly, intertwining and weaving in the air, eventually condensing into a gigantic half-body shadow a hundred feet tall.

Its upper body is humanoid, while its lower body is entirely composed of vines.

You can still vaguely make out Jing Yi's features from back then. His once handsome face is now twisted and ferocious, with his mouth torn open into a gaping maw, and his eyes are two eerie green ghost flames.

It didn't speak, only let out a series of ferocious roars.

Countless vines swept in, engulfing everything, and relentlessly strangled Gu Zhenren. All the corpses on the tree came to life, charging forward like a raging tide.

The surrounding gray mist quickly converged, transforming into a demonic domain covering an area of ​​dozens of miles, which firmly trapped Master Gu within it.

Master Gu stood in the center of the Demon Realm. He gently shook his head; he had roughly figured out the ins and outs of the matter.

He recognized the demonic patterns on the tree; they were patterns of Xuanhe demonic energy, belonging to a fourth-tier demonic spiritual object.

According to outsiders, it was formed from the demonic essence of a fallen demonic deity.

But in fact, it is one of the ten original demonic energies created by the Nine Nether Demonic Sect, the overlord of the Western Wilderness, and is only suitable for demonic cultivators to control.