[Ding! After being tempered by High-dimensional Energy and the combat application of the Divine Technique "Spirit-Slaying," your understanding of the "Three-Inch Heart Sword" has increased dramatically!]

[Congratulations! Skill: Three-Inch Heart Sword (Entry Level) → (Mastery)!]

[New Trait Unlocked: Heart Sword Traceless (Attacks no longer generate spatial fluctuations and cannot be detected by conventional means).]

Han Feng froze for a moment, then grinned, revealing a set of bloodstained white teeth.

Now *this* was a truly pleasant surprise.

While "Spirit-Slaying" was powerful, it was a paid-for, one-time-use item.

But leveling the "Three-Inch Heart Sword" to Mastery was a tangible, permanent upgrade.

Combined with his Range of Divine Sense, which had just exploded to fifty meters, future sneak attacks would be...

The mental image was too beautiful to contemplate.

At that moment, the sky above Ping’an County had turned completely gray-white.

A color that signified both illusion and an end.

With neither the support of the Blood Sea’s Will nor the control of its linchpin, Li Wei, the Illusion Realm that had been built upon reality finally reached its end.

CRACK—

A sharp crack echoed.

The bluestone pavement beside Han Feng began to dematerialize, fading into translucent light and shadow.

The distant taverns, shops, and city walls vanished into thin air, bit by bit, like a pencil drawing being erased.

The illusory forms of Wang Meng, Zhang Hao, and the others lying on the ground also began to blur and grow indistinct.

It was a sign that their consciousnesses were about to return to their physical bodies.

’It’s over.’

Han Feng slowly stood up, glancing at the twisted corpse not far away.

Li Wei.

Or rather, the real Li Wei.

After Han Feng had crushed the "Holy Infant" crystal, all that remained in his chest was a gruesome, bloody hole.

His face was frozen with the expression from his final moment.

Savage and crazed, yet tinged with a hint of release.

Although the kid had been a real piece of work when he was alive, and had even nearly gotten everyone killed...

...in his final moment, this phony little nobody had actually acted like a man and given his fucked-up destiny the middle finger.

"In your next life, don’t go trusting any ’masters’."

Han Feng murmured, "It’s better to rely on yourself than on anyone else."

He then reached out and made a grasping motion in the air above Li Wei’s body.

A wisp of gray energy—incredibly faint and on the verge of dissipating—was caught in his grasp.

It was a lingering shred of Li Wei’s soul.

It was weak, so weak that a single gust of wind could have scattered it.

"Since you gave me a hand, I’ll see you off."

A gentle, silver-white glow of Sword Essence lit up on Han Feng’s fingertip, enveloping the wisp of soul.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

As the Illusion Realm completely collapsed, the protected wisp of soul was not annihilated along with it.

Instead, guided by some mysterious pull, it drifted off toward a distant, unknown destination.

The gray fog of "Ping’an County" didn’t slowly dissipate; it shattered instantly, like a broken mirror.

Han Feng felt the light and shadow before him twist. The solid, grounded sensation vanished, replaced by a slick, chilling dampness.

He snapped his eyes open.

What met his eyes was no longer a long street paved with bluestone, but a stretch of scorched rock as black as ink.

Overhead was a dark red sky, like a congealed blood clot weighing down upon him.

Not far away, the bizarrely shaped altar had cracked into eight pieces. Below it lay the Blood Sea, a place known as the Nether Abyss.

Right now, the Blood Sea was boiling.

Enormous bubbles churned up from the viscous blood, releasing a sickeningly sweet and foul stench as they burst.

’This place... is really not fit for human habitation.’

Han Feng wiped away the blood trickling from his nose and shook his head, which was still spinning.

He glanced around, and the corner of his mouth couldn’t help but twitch.

Floating in the air all around him were densely packed human figures.

Su Yue, Fan Jian, Lei Qianjun... even the few hundred poor souls who had been trapped in the Soul-Stripping Mine were there.

A good four or five hundred people, all of them translucent spiritual forms.

This was the aftermath of the Illusion Realm’s collapse.

Han Feng had entered in his physical body, so he emerged in his physical body.

But these people had been pulled in as Spiritual Bodies. Now that the "landlord," Li Wei, was dead and his "house" had collapsed, they had all been unceremoniously tossed out.

Some of these Ghosts were translucent, while others were more solid, their facial features still vaguely discernible.

The big fellow closest to him was floating completely upside down, his two thick "legs" still kicking unconsciously, looking for all the world like a drowning toad.

’This is trouble.’ 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Han Feng’s brow twitched.

’This is the difference between entering the Illusion Realm in body versus in spirit.’

’I have a physical body, while these people are now just clumps of Spiritual Energy.’

Granted, they had all benefited from that earlier rain of light, making their Spiritual Bodies look far more robust than ordinary wandering souls. They even had a sort of healthy, glossy sheen to them.

But this place was right on the edge of the Blood Sea.

To the foul things lurking in the shadows, these spirits were like a flock of plump, freshly-scrubbed lambs dancing naked at the entrance to a wolf’s den.

"Hey! Wake up, all of you!"

Han Feng gathered his energy in his Dantian and let out a mighty roar.

No response.

Han Feng rubbed his temples in resignation.

His Spiritual Strength was now a thousand, and his Range of Divine Sense had just skyrocketed to fifty meters.

To him, these people were like lambs to the slaughter.

’I have to wake them up.’

’This is the edge of the Blood Sea, where the baleful yin energy is at its thickest.’

’If their spiritual forms linger here too long, there’s no telling what kind of mutations they might undergo.’

’Heart Sword, Tremor!’

Han Feng didn’t use his Sword Essence. Instead, he simply marshaled his Divine Sense to simulate the pulse of the Heart Sword, spreading it out in all directions.