The three Wing Clan chiefs—Di Shan, Duo Long, and Yu Rou—arrived at the stone hall where Shi Yan was temporarily residing, accompanied by the three leaders of the Yin Mei Clan under Yi Tianmo.

Inside the stone hall.

Shi Yan sat motionless on the stone floor, as still and calm as deep water. Before him, Pan Zhe and six other warriors from the Endless Sea looked ashen-faced, their eyes filled with despair, their expressions vacant.

The four women, Cao Zhilan among them, remained hidden in the inner chamber, refusing to emerge for a long time.

Shi Yan opened his eyes, his expression indifferent, and offered a slight smile. "You have arrived."

Yu Rou nodded with a smile. "How is it? Time is up. I believe we should be setting off, shouldn't we? Are you ready?"

Di Shan narrowed his eyes, his deep gaze sweeping over Shi Yan for a moment before he nodded inwardly.

A month and a half had passed, and Shi Yan seemed to be just a breath away from the Third Heaven of the Earthly Position realm. His spirit was firm, his inner power thick and refined, exuding a natural aura of stability and capability, brimming with confidence, as if no difficulty could ever enter his mind.

In Di Shan's view, Shi Yan was undeniably peculiar; not only did he possess the immortal bloodline, but his physical body was unfathomably strong. Coupled with his ruthlessness, he was clearly someone destined to achieve great things.

During this period, Di Shan had been observing Shi Yan in silence, watching without batting an eyelid as Shi Yan used the warriors from the Endless Sea as subjects for his soul experiments, watching them all explode their souls and perish, one by one.

Shi Yan’s cold methods were, in Di Shan's eyes, precisely the excellent qualities he sought.

"I am prepared," Shi Yan slowly rose to his feet, glancing up at the sky. "The changes in the heavens and earth around Yin Beast Mountain have become even more pronounced. We indeed need to depart soon."

Pausing, Shi Yan added, "Are you all ready?"

"Us?" Zha Meng was momentarily stunned, looking puzzled. "What do we need to prepare for? Isn't it enough to just go with you?"

Kaba and Duo Long also wore looks of confusion.

Only Di Shan, Yu Rou, and Yi Tianmo frowned slightly, seemingly guessing at Shi Yan's intentions.

"Once the barrier over Yin Beast Mountain is broken, the six of you will immediately enter the mountain range," Shi Yan mused for a moment, then stated seriously. "There must be something strange within Yin Beast Mountain, and the exit to the outside world is very likely inside. When that exit manifests, perhaps this Abandoned Land will undergo a world-shaking change, possibly collapsing quickly. You can leave swiftly, but what about your clansmen? Do you not need to take the wealth you have accumulated over the years?"

Kaba and Zha Meng's complexions drastically changed.

"Go prepare yourselves. Don't say I didn't warn you," Shi Yan said lightly. "It is best to summon all your clansmen to the foot of Yin Beast Mountain. If the situation turns dire, evacuate immediately. If you are too late and that space collapses before you leave, you know the consequences."

Kaba, Zha Meng, and Duo Long turned and left without another word, moving hastily, their faces slightly panicked.

Di Shan, Yu Rou, and Yi Tianmo remained behind.

"You..." Shi Yan looked surprised.

"Don't trouble yourself with us. I already gave the order long ago. As soon as you leave the city, my people will follow immediately," Yi Tianmo said with a frown.

"Di Shan and I have also made arrangements. As soon as I send a single thought, the people of our two clans will set off with us. Our Wing Clan is relatively close to Yin Beast Mountain. By the time we arrive there, our people will be close behind," Yu Rou smiled sweetly. "Shi Yan, you indeed think far ahead, knowing that the day the Yin Beast Mountain barrier breaks is the very moment we must depart."

"It's obvious," Shi Yan smiled, gazing ahead. "It seems we will have to delay another day or two. Once Kaba and the others are fully prepared, we can set off immediately."

"We can go now," Di Shan sounded slightly impatient. "Don't worry about those three. You will need time to break the barrier anyway; perhaps by the time you succeed, their people will have arrived."

"Is that so..." Shi Yan pondered for a moment, then smiled. "Very well."

Smiling as he looked at Pan Zhe and the others, and then at the four women who tentatively stepped out of the inner chamber, Shi Yan said to Yi Tianmo, "Take these people with you. I have use for them."

Yi Tianmo frowned, his grayish-white pupils rolling, and then said coldly, "These four young women are still virgins. Aren't you planning to use their bodies to suppress the backlash power?"

"Yes," Shi Yan nodded. "I was lucky; that abnormality did not manifest during my cultivation. But when breaking the barrier, I cannot be sure what might happen, which is why I need you to keep them. In short, they are my insurance. What? Is there a problem with that?"

Di Shan and Yu Rou also looked at Yi Tianmo curiously.

"No problem," Yi Tianmo snorted, replying neither warmly nor coldly. "I will send people to take them all. Do you have any other requests?"

"None," Shi Yan stretched languidly, glancing at the four women, Cao Zhilan among them, and said to Di Shan and Yu Rou, "Alright, we can leave now."

"Let's go," Yu Rou gracefully drifted to Shi Yan's side, her slender hand reaching out to grip his shoulder. Her snow-white wings fluttered once, and her mature, graceful form vanished from the sight of the others.

"You handle these people," Di Shan stated to Yi Tianmo before also departing.

Yi Tianmo, his face grim, surveyed Cao Zhilan and Pan Zhe in the stone hall, points of strange light flickering in his grayish-white pupils.

Threads of divine sense power streamed silently out of his eyes, melting into the minds of Cao Zhilan, Pan Zhe, and the others.

Cao Zhilan and the others changed expression, feeling a jolt of alarm, knowing what Yi Tianmo intended but powerless to resist.

Yi Tianmo's application of soul power far surpassed Shi Yan's. His divine sense pierced into these people's souls, and even Cao Zhilan could sense nothing, detect nothing.

His probing gaze was unlike Shi Yan's, which left traces; Yi Tianmo's felt like hundreds of insects drilling into their minds, invoking inherent dread.

Cao Zhilan and He Qingman grew increasingly anxious, not even daring to look at Yi Tianmo, unsure of his true objective.

After a long, long while.

Yi Tianmo slowly retracted the divine sense power he had released, then suddenly snorted, saying calmly, "Follow me."

Through this exploration, he confirmed that all the soul restrictions on Pan Zhe and the other male warriors had indeed been broken by Shi Yan. Even in the minds of the women like Cao Zhilan, the restraints that previously controlled their power were gone.

However, in the minds of all the male warriors, many hidden, new soul limitations had appeared. Shi Yan had planted restrictions deep within every male warrior's soul that would be difficult for an ordinary person to detect.

Cao Zhilan, Gu Linglong, and Qu Yanqing had not escaped this fate either.

Soul Seeds had been planted within their souls as well, and those three seeds were on the verge of sprouting. This meant that even if these three women left Shi Yan in the future, their every move would not escape his divine sense control.

Only He Qingman’s soul was completely clean, untouched by any tricks.

If Yi Tianmo had wished, he could have easily erased those seeds before they took root.

However, he worried that if he offended Shi Yan, he might be casually picked apart by Shi Yan on some pretext during their next encounter, so he had to let it go.

Yi Tianmo muttered inwardly about Shi Yan's malice, but his figure gradually flew out.

Soon after, Yi Feng and others received transmissions from Yi Tianmo and flocked over. Under Yi Tianmo's signal, Yi Feng and the others guided Pan Zhe and the rest, flying them one by one into the sky, heading toward Yin Beast Mountain.

In the ancient city.

All the members of the Yin Mei Clan began to mobilize. Upon receiving the signals from the three Great Commanders, the contingent belonging to Yi Tianmo, long prepared, departed in a massive stream, moving out of the city in an orderly procession.

The Yin Mei Clan members belonging to Kaba and Zha Meng were slightly more flustered. Under the shouts of Kaba and Zha Meng, they frantically gathered precious belongings, shouting and calling out, dragging their families along in a chaotic scene.

Many Yin Mei Clan members in the city were busy, their faces alight with joy, seemingly unaware of the future perils, only feeling that this time they might finally return to their ancestral lands.

Yi Tianmo's three Great Commanders continuously indoctrinated their subjects with descriptions of the beauty of the ancestral lands. Every single Yin Mei Clan member imagined that place as a paradise, believing that everything beautiful belonging to them resided there, that they could obtain everything they desired there.

...

Yin Beast Mountain.

On the towering peaks that pierced the clouds, giant Yin Beasts roared skyward.

More Yin Beasts were scattered across every corner of Yin Beast Mountain; hundreds upon hundreds of them appeared visibly uneasy, emerging from the mountain's belly as if sensing danger.

In the depths of the firmament, lightning flashed and thunder roared, buffeted by howling gales.

Streaks of dazzling fire light flashed and vanished from the depths of the sky. Within those fiery trails, one could vaguely discern concentrated masses of multi-colored light spots—these were spatial rifts tearing through reality, holding terrifying divine power capable of crushing all living things.

Every member of the Wing Clan and the Yin Mei Clan knew that in the sky above the peak of Yin Beast Mountain lay a divine power capable of destroying True God level powerhouses. The very existence of this divine power was meant to restrain the strong members of their two clans, ensuring their people would never escape this place for eternity.

That bizarre spectacle in the heavens caused the Yin Beasts to tremble and filled the foreign races who witnessed it with panic, realizing that the most terrifying calamity might be imminent.

"Boom!"

A thin, sharp, dazzling divine light suddenly shot out from the depths of the firmament. Like a colossal sickle, the divine light directly cleaved the summit of Yin Beast Mountain. As the light flashed, a massive boulder several hundred meters long was sheared off the peak and tumbled down.

The roaring, gigantic Yin Beasts were instantly reduced to mist of blood under that single ray of divine light, leaving not even bone fragments behind—a tragically gruesome end.

More Yin Beasts, overcome with terror, wailed mournfully, instinctively recoiling back into Yin Beast Mountain, daring not to show their heads again.

Just as this heavenly might descended, Shi Yan, guided by Yu Rou, finally reached the foot of the mountain, his expression extremely grave.