Inside the stone house, the light was dim as a bean.

Su Ming leaned against the cold stone wall corner, his eyes tightly shut, his breathing so faint it was almost imperceptible. As the last trace of his spiritual sense was exhausted, his consciousness completely sank into the darkness deep within his Consciousness Sea.

Only the dim "Formation Heart Seal" on his chest was still pulsating with an extremely slow rhythm.

"This foolish kid, really thinks he's made of iron."

Deep within the Consciousness Sea, inside the space of the Xuantian ring, a translucent elderly figure sat cross-legged. It was Lin Yu.

He looked at Su Ming's face, pale as paper in the outside world. Though his words were disdainful, his eyes, which usually held a hint of mockery, now uncommonly revealed a trace of gravity. Lin Yu formed hand seals, and ripples like water waves shimmered across the surface of his Soul Body. Following the seal on Su Ming's chest, he cautiously took over the connection between this body and the external formation.

"Hidden Dragon Formation, rise."

With the infusion of Lin Yu's spiritual sense, the Formation Flags and carvings around the stone house, originally just lifeless objects, seemed to be injected with new life.

If a high-level cultivator were to activate their spiritual eye, they would see countless threads of earth vein spiritual energy, fine as gossamer, slowly climbing along those nodes. It was like a layer of gray film, completely enveloping the stone house and the more than twenty lives inside.

After completing this, Lin Yu did not rest.

His soul followed the earth veins spreading like a spiderweb beneath his feet, instantly traversing the barrier of space.

This sensation was wondrous.

He was no longer Lin Yu, no longer that remnant soul hiding within the ring. He seemed to have become a part of this very land. He could "hear" the sound of grass seeds sprouting within the soil, could "see" the pulse of an underground river striking against rocks.

His consciousness extended northward along the earth veins, passing over thirty miles of Black Pine Forest, all the way to the ruins that had just experienced catastrophe.

Three hundred miles away, Iron Wall Pass.

The scene here, viewed with the naked eye, was scorched earth. But from Lin Yu's earth vein perspective, this was a pot of boiling oil.

The originally stable earth vein nodes were blasted to pieces, spiritual energy rampaging everywhere like an uncontrolled flood. And within these chaotic currents, countless dark golden points of light were frantically squirming.

Those were the insect swarms.

They crowded densely at the wounds of the earth veins, greedily devouring the overflowing spiritual energy, even the lingering blood qi of the fallen cultivators that had yet to dissipate.

At the core position of the earth veins, the former location of the Spiritual Hub Hall, there was a massive "void." That was originally where Elder Mo had detonated his Golden Core. Now, it resembled an ulcer that could not heal, still gurgling and emitting black smoke.

"Truly... a hellish tableau."

Lin Yu sighed inwardly.

He didn't feel excessive pity. As a soul from another world, this grand-scale cultivation world war felt more like a brutal VR movie to him. His primary task now was to confirm if there were any threats here that could endanger his foolish disciple.

Time flowed in the dead silence.

About a day passed.

Just as Lin Yu was idly counting how many legs those dark golden points of light had along the earth veins, a fluctuation that made his Soul Body tremble came without warning from the northernmost horizon.

It wasn't a fluctuation of spiritual energy. It was... a trembling of the rules.

Lin Yu sharply directed his "gaze" northward.

Three blazing white points of light, bright as great suns, were approaching at extreme speed. They made no sound of tearing through the air because they themselves represented a certain will of this heaven and earth. Wherever they passed, the swirling wind and snow instantly melted away, and the thick clouds silently parted to either side.

Space rippled before them, as if even this heaven and earth could not withstand their descent.

"They've come... the big ones have arrived."

The first to arrive was a cyan sword light.

It had no fancy form, nor did it drag a long trail like those low-level flying swords. It simply and plainly hovered in the air above the ruins of Iron Wall Pass. Only three feet long, its entire body was cyan and jade-green, like a pool of autumn water.

The next instant.

The sword light moved.

There was no earth-shattering explosion, no world-destroying momentum.

That cyan sword light merely trembled lightly, then seemed to sprinkle a spring rain.

Billions of cyan sword energies, fine as ox hair, differentiated from that three-foot-long sword body. Like a rainstorm flowing upstream, they accurately fell upon every corner of the ruins.

*Pfft, pfft, pfft.*

From the earth vein perspective, Lin Yu saw a scene that made his scalp tingle.

Those dark golden points of light, originally still frantically devouring spiritual energy, upon contact with the cyan sword energies, didn't even have time to struggle before being utterly annihilated.

Erased from the material level.

What shocked Lin Yu even more was that although this sword energy rainstorm was dense, it avoided all the broken walls and ruins, avoided every cultivator's skeletal remains, and didn't even harm a single blade of grass on the ground.

It only killed insects.

In just three breaths.

The ruins, originally like a boiling pool of blood, instantly fell silent.

Hundreds of millions of dark golden points of light had all vanished.

"This is... the method of a high-level cultivator?"

Lin Yu watched, his mind shaken, his Soul Body trembling slightly.

This wasn't just a crushing of power; this was practically a Dimensional Reduction Strike!

What level of precision did this require in manipulating spiritual energy?

Lin Yu couldn't help but marvel inwardly. That obsession with strength made him momentarily forget his fear. He attached his spiritual sense to the earth veins, trying to see more clearly, wanting to analyze the spiritual energy structure contained within that sword energy.

"This pattern... doesn't look like a basic rune. More like some more fundamental logic... similar to fractal geometry..."

Just as Lin Yu was immersed in the thrill of this "reverse engineering."

That cyan sword light hovering high in the sky suddenly paused slightly.

Immediately after.

A detached, lofty, and aloof will, like the Heavenly Dao scrutinizing all living beings, followed the fluctuations of the earth veins and swept back in reverse without any warning!

That will didn't carry malice. It was like when a person is reading a book and suddenly feels a speck of dust fall on the page, so they subconsciously cast a glance.

But for Lin Yu, this glance was a heavenly tribulation!

"Holy shit!"

Lin Yu was so frightened his Soul Body almost exploded on the spot. That terrifying feeling of being stared at by a primordial beast instantly switched him from "technical fanaticism" mode back to "ultimate Way of Survival" mode.

"Disconnect! Disconnect now!"

He had no time to think, instinctively severing all connections with the earth veins, frantically pulling back his spiritual sense scattered outside like reeling in a fishing net.

Then, he plunged headfirst into the deepest part of the Xuantian ring, compressing all his soul power into a tiny point, doing his utmost to simulate the purest state of "inanimate object deathly stillness."

"You can't see me... You can't see me... I'm just a dead object... I'm a rock... I'm a lump of air..."

Lin Yu chanted frantically in his heart.

That grand will swept over the Black Pine Forest along the earth veins.

It paused for a moment in the area where the stone house was located.

Perhaps because the flow of spiritual energy here was slightly sluggish, perhaps because the source of that earlier peeping was nearby.

At that moment, the air inside the stone house seemed to solidify.

Su Ming, lying on the stone bed, though unconscious, instinctively tensed his body, and fine beads of cold sweat seeped from between his brows. Lu Jun and the others, in their sleep, seemed to sense something too, each frowning tightly, their breathing becoming rapid and oppressive.