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

The moment the voice fell, Soul-Slaying Valley changed.

It's not just one place that has changed; the entire canyon, from the bottom to the top of the cliff, from the east end to the west end, every inch of space has changed at the same time.

The ground moved first.

Dense golden lines appeared on the gravelly ground, spreading from where the eight feathers had fallen, crawling across the entire valley floor like living creatures.

The lines converge and intersect, forming a massive, absurd array.

Every node in the array was glowing, and every line was pulsating, like a giant heart that had just resumed beating.

Then there's the cliff face.

On the black, cold iron cliffs on both sides, golden patterns climbed upwards along the cracks, so fast that the Crack Mask didn't even have time to react.

The patterns swallowed up the blood-red trapping array on the cliff face.

It's not about breaking through, it's not about hedging, it's about engulfing.

Every time the golden pattern passed over a bloodstain, that bloodstain quickly faded as if burned by a raging fire, turning into grayish-white powder that fell down in a flurry.

The thirty-seven bloodstains disappeared within two breaths.

The cracked mask's expression changed drastically.

He could feel the crimson array he had painstakingly built over three years being gradually eroded by these golden patterns.

The array base was shattering, the array eye was going out, and the soul power of the thirty-seven lives stored in the array was being forcibly drawn away by an irresistible force and poured into the golden array diagram at the bottom of the valley.

"This is impossible!" he shouted, increasing the force of his palms as he activated the blood blade.

The hundred-foot-long blood-red blade had already slashed to within ten feet of the carriage, and the gale-force wind generated by the blade had shaved off the rainproof tarpaulin on the roof.

Hunyu raised his eyelids slightly.

"broken."

One word.

The eight nodes of the golden array simultaneously erupted with dazzling light, and eight beams of light shot into the sky, striking the edge of the blood blade from eight directions at the same time.

The blood patterns on the blood-stained blade broke off one after another.

From the spine to the edge, from the hilt to the tip, the entire hundred-foot-long giant sword seemed to be torn apart by countless hands at the same time, disintegrating in mid-air and shattering into countless bloody fragments.

Before the debris even hit the ground, it was completely swallowed up by the golden patterns.

The Third Elder's voice came from within the blood mist, carrying a hint of panic for the first time.

"Fifth Brother! He's devoured the Blood Array! He's destroyed our array!"

The cracked mask did not answer.

His attention was no longer on the blood-stained blade.

Because he discovered something even more terrifying.

His fighting spirit is fading.

It's not that it's being suppressed, it's not that it's being interfered with, it's that it's being lost.

It was as if a hole had been opened inside his body, and his fighting spirit was surging outwards at an unstoppable speed, rushing towards the golden patterns on the ground, where it was forcibly extracted by the formation.

"What's going on?" The Seventh Elder also noticed something was wrong. He pounded on his dantian, trying to seal his meridians, but it was no use.

The fighting spirit is still dissipating.

"What you are standing on," Hunyu's voice drifted from the carriage shaft, "is the Earth Vein Diversion Array of the Heavenly Dao Eight Trigrams Formation."

He tapped the carriage frame with the handle of his white feather fan.

"You chose the Valley of Despair as your killing ground because the cold iron ore veins in the valley walls can suppress the strength of your prey."

"But you don't know what the true nature of the Cold Iron ore vein is."

The cracked mask stared at him through gritted teeth.

"It's a natural conductor of battle qi," Hun Yu said. "The property of cold iron isn't to devour battle qi, but to guide it. It can conduct all the battle qi that comes into contact with the ore vein along the vein's direction to other places."

He stretched out his finger and pointed downwards.

"For example, it can be transmitted into my formation."

"Both sides of this canyon are filled with cold iron ore veins. The three of you standing in the valley are essentially standing between two huge diversion channels. My formation takes over the entire ore vein. Every bit of battle qi that surges out of your bodies will be drawn away by the ore vein and fed back into my formation."

"in other words."

He tilted his head.

"The harder you fight, the stronger my formation becomes. If you don't fight, your fighting spirit will still be drained."

"After three years of preparation, you've chosen such a great location. Thanks."

The valley was silent for three seconds.

Then the cracked mask moved.

He stopped hitting downwards and charged upwards instead.

He slammed his legs against the ground, transforming into a streak of blood as he hurtled toward the cliff top, attempting to break through the canyon's blockade.

But as soon as he rose to a height of thirty zhang, the golden patterns on the cliff face lit up.

An invisible barrier stretched across the canyon. The Crack Mask crashed into it, bounced back, and slammed into the gravel, creating a crater.

He got up, blood in his mouth, and rinsed it again.

It bounced back again.

The Third Elder also tried, chiseling at the side of the cliff, hoping to force a hole through the cold iron ore vein.

The palm strike landed on the cliff face, causing ripples to spread across the golden patterns. The power was diverted away by the mineral vein, leaving nothing behind.

The cliff face was completely undamaged.

The Seventh Elder tried another direction, but the result was the same.

Three Dou Zong.

Five stars, four stars, three stars.

In this canyon, one cannot ascend to the sky or descend to the earth; even the rubble underfoot is covered with golden array patterns, and the fighting spirit beneath one's feet is constantly being lost.

They were locked in a perfect cage.

The man with the cracked mask stopped moving, panting heavily, his eyes fixed on the white-clad man on the carriage shaft.

"Who exactly are you?"

Hunyu did not answer him.

He looked down at his palm.

Golden runes spread from the back of his hand to his fingertips, and his palm trembled slightly.

The second-layer array absorbed too much energy, and the burden of its laws was now backfiring on his meridians.

He could feel his heart beating faster and a surge of heat rising in his chest.

But his face showed nothing.

He pulled his trembling hand back into his sleeve, and with his other hand he held the white feather fan, raising the fan towards the cracked mask.

I'm giving you two choices.

The man with the cracked mask gritted his teeth and said, "Speak."

"First, hand over a complete list of all the loot your Blood Fiend Sect has plundered over the past three years, along with its hiding places. Then, cripple your own cultivation, and I'll let you go."

"Dream on!" the Third Elder roared.

Soul Feather flipped the fan, its tip pointing towards the ground in front of it.

"Article Two."

He didn't say what the second point was.

On the gravel ground pointed to by the fan tip, the golden patterns suddenly changed their arrangement, forming a new formation.

Every line of the formation points towards the center of the canyon.

Pointing to the feet of the three men in black.

The cracked mask looked down at the patterns on the ground, and its pupils contracted sharply.

He had practiced formations for most of his life and could tell what the formation was.

Strangulation Formation.

"Ten breaths," Hun Yu held up his fan to block a cough, "I'll wait for you for ten breaths."

"Ten breaths later, the Gate of Shock closes, and the Gate of Death opens."