After I stopped trying, a rich woman trained me into a demon emperor.

Zhou Ran did not take the frontal route to the underworld.

There were still remnants of the rebels' soul-binding stakes and scattered soldiers on that road.

Walking the righteous path is like telling Yama, the King of Hell, "I'm here."

He walked under the ice.

After he pierced the ice layer of the River of Oblivion with his Divine Transformation Sword Intent, the entire river's ice-sealing resonated with the power of the Primordial Wilderness.

The Primordial Bone within Zhou Ran's body is Li Chengfeng's inheritance, and the sword intent within the ice is also Li Chengfeng's legacy.

They are of the same lineage.

Zhou Ran used the Golden Elixir of the Mind to suppress his aura, and reduced the frequency of the Primordial Blood Qi to the lowest possible level.

The ice did not repel him; instead, it made way for him.

A crevasse passage about half a person's width.

The ice cracked open on its own, then closed up behind him.

Zhou Ran sidestepped into the ice crevice, meandering eastward along the bottom of the River of Oblivion.

The ice wall is translucent, allowing you to see what's happening above.

The fusion soldier's bony feet slammed onto the ice, producing a dull, clicking sound.

Every ten zhang Zhou Ran walked forward, dozens of fusion soldiers would pass overhead.

He counted them.

Three thousand and above.

On the ice, the rebels are still gathering.

The Divine Transformation Sword Intent prevented them from crossing the ice to the south, but they could still converge along the north bank towards the Bridge of Helplessness.

That was the only breakthrough.

Zhou Ran continued walking.

After sneaking around for about an hour, he noticed that another type of soldier was mixed in with the fusion soldiers' ranks.

He could see clearly through the ice wall.

Western-style knight's armor.

A cross-shaped longsword.

There are no signs of splicing in the Eastern Yin Armor.

There is no soul lamp in the chest cavity.

An entire unit of Western undead knights.

Zhou Ran narrowed his eyes.

The troops directly deployed by the Sheng Hui Consortium.

He stopped in the crevice and pressed himself against the ice wall to listen to the sounds above.

Two voices were arguing not far apart.

One of them spoke the official language of the underworld, with the accent of the Fifth Court.

The other one spoke with a translator's accent, enunciating clearly but with awkward word order.

"His Majesty Yama promised to breach the three palaces within three days."

Now that the river has been reinforced, the timetable is no longer valid.

Our representative is very dissatisfied with this.

Zhou Ran thought to himself, "These are people from the Sheng Hui Consortium."

"The problem lies in your fusion technology."

The soul sutures of the second batch of fusion soldiers have become loose in large areas.

"It fell apart halfway through the fight, what kind of nonsense is that?"

The officer of the Fifth Hall spoke.

"That's because the quality of the Eastern Souls you provided was too poor."

Three hundred years of souls were consumed in Hell, and now they're being stitched together with our Knight's Soul Core?

Whose problem is it?

"you--"

The quarrel continued.

Zhou Ran stopped listening.

I have memorized what I needed to remember.

There is a rift between the Sheng Hui Foundation and Yama.

Technical disagreements, conflicting schedules, and each side having its own agenda.

keep going.

Two hours later, the ice crevice broke at one point.

The ice ahead is thinning and turning grayish, indicating that it is no longer within the area where the River of Oblivion is frozen.

Further ahead lies the edge of the Fifth Hall's jurisdiction.

Zhou Ran broke through the ice.

The place where he emerged from the ground was a gray, desolate wasteland.

The air was filled with the smell of rust and rotting flesh.

In the distance, black city walls stood in the mist, with three large characters hanging on the city gate: City of the Wrongfully Dead.

The City of the Wrongfully Dead.

This is a special area where Yama, the King of Hell, imprisons those who died unjustly.

Zhou Ran moved close to the ground, activating his Purple-Gold Demon Eye.

In the Demon Eye's vision, the City of the Dead had changed.

The city wall was transformed into an assembly line.

Countless wronged souls from the East were chained to the forging table.

There were piles of Western undead skeletons next to it.

The executioners of the Eighth Palace City King operate on an assembly line.

The souls of the wronged souls from the East are torn apart and embedded into the skeletons of the dead from the West.

Then, use the yin fire of the Avici Hell to burn the stitches, temporarily sealing them together.

Fusion Armory.

Zhou Ran felt a churning in her stomach.

The souls of their own compatriots were disassembled and reassembled as spare parts.

He suppressed his anger and continued watching.

At the very back of the factory hangs a gray, swirling crack.

It has a diameter of over ten zhang and hangs above the crack in the center of the factory.

Gray light continuously spewed out fragments from the crack—fragments of the soul.

Incomplete, torn, souls from an unknown dimension.

The material feeding port in the virtual realm.

The Sheng Hui Foundation provides more than just fusion technology.

They are directly transferring devoured extradimensional souls from the void to serve as raw materials for the fusion soldiers.

"It turns out that Western superhumans are also very close to the virtual world."

He moved in the shadows, using his magic eye to lock onto the factory's three core nodes.

The soul storage pool, the core of the stitching array, and the spatial anchor point of the virtual material feeding port.

Destroy one, and the factory will shut down.

With all three destroyed, the rebels will not be able to build a single fusion soldier in the short term.

But he was all alone.

If you expose yourself, you will be surrounded.

Zhou Ran held back and first dived into the soul storage pool.

The pool is very large.

The pit, which is hundreds of feet in diameter, has iron chain patterns embedded in its four walls.

At the bottom of the pit, tens of thousands of wronged souls were imprisoned, layer upon layer, so tightly packed that there was no room for air.

Each soul opened its mouth and roared.

Zhou Ran squatted on the edge of the pool and took out the Grand Commander's token.

The token was affixed to the pool wall, and golden light shone through the array patterns.

Those wronged souls sensed the aura of legitimate underworld authority.

The roaring stopped.

The bottom of the pool fell silent, a silence imbued with reverence.

Several wisps of souls actively approached the spot illuminated by the golden light, reaching out their mangled hands to touch the light.

Zhou Ran did something incredibly audacious.

He used the Golden Elixir of the Mind as a medium to extend the authority of the token to the entire storage pool.

As the Grand Commander's authority spread out, the old patterns belonging to the Three Palaces and the First Palace in the iron chain array responded first.

These chains were originally products of the orthodox underworld; their purpose was simply altered by the rebels.

Power has returned, and the old patterns are now obeying.

Zhou Ran addressed the tens of thousands of wronged souls.

"The Grand Commander's Order."

"It will unlock itself after three breaths."

Take a breath.

The chains began to vibrate.

Two breaths.

Cracks appeared in the array pattern.

With tens of thousands of wronged souls exerting their power simultaneously, and under the intervention of the Grand Commander's authority, the binding force of the chains suddenly decreased by 70%.

Three breaths.

The pool wall exploded.

Tens of thousands of wronged souls rushed out of the storage pool.

Cries, roars, and shrieks mingled in the air above the City of the Wrongfully Dead.

The wronged souls surged in all directions, rushing into every aisle of the factory, overturning refining tables, and severing the production lines.

The executioners were caught off guard.

Their weapons were designed to deal with locked-up souls, and they had no time to react to the tide of tens of thousands of out-of-control vengeful spirits.

The factory was thrown into chaos.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Zhou Ran moved close to the shadows towards the second target.

Stitching together the core of the formation.

He walked through three corridors, avoiding two patrolling squads of executioners.

The tide of wronged souls provided him with the best cover.

Everyone's attention was focused on dealing with the crazed spirits.

The core of the stitching array is located at the very bottom of the factory.

An altar made of black bones, with a fist-sized gray-green crystal hanging on it.

Inside the crystal, there are intaglio patterns, each pattern corresponding to a stitching formula.

Zhou Ran approached the altar, still ten zhang away.

But a voice sounded from behind.

He knew that voice all too well.

"Brother Zhou Ran, it's been a long time."

Zhou Ran felt a chill run down his spine.

In the darkness, a face smiled at him.

Zhao Tao.

Eyebrows, facial contours, the mole at the corner of the mouth, and the habit of tilting the head slightly when speaking.

They're all the same.

Seeing that Zhou Ran did not react.

The smile on his face deepened a little more.

"What's wrong, fitness instructor?"

"Don't you recognize me?"