Chapter 44: Soul Snatching

Unable to hold it in any longer, several people could not resist and let out a heavy gasp, drawing in large gulps of air.

*Huff, puff.* The sound was completely swallowed by the howling wind.

However, the hundreds of wandering wraiths in the air suddenly froze, turning their gazes toward them in unison.

Before these unlucky souls could even catch a full breath, they saw the wraiths charging headlong at them, crashing directly into their minds.

With a *pfft* sound, the three life-fires upon their bodies were instantly extinguished.

In such a situation, who would dare to step in and stop it?

To an onlooker, after the wraiths burrowed into their ears and noses, these people would lapse into a brief stupor for two or three breaths, before clutching their heads and screaming incessantly. Their eyes turned bloodshot and saliva leaked from the corners of their mouths, making them look as if they were suffering from rabies. However, unlike puppets possessed by Three-Corpse Insects, they did not attack the humans around them; instead, they scrambled about aimlessly, lost in direction, or rolled on the ground, or slammed themselves against walls.

Dozens of wraiths were arguing, pulling, and attacking one another within a single sea of consciousness. It felt as if dozens of firecrackers were exploding in one's head simultaneously—how could anyone endure that?

In just over ten breaths, these people collapsed, dead from bleeding from their seven orifices.

The onlookers watched with racing hearts.

The trouble was that the faster the heart beat, the shorter the breath-holding capacity became. Now, most people were also beginning to reach their limit, their faces swelling to a bluish-purple hue, yet the eruption of wraiths showed no sign of stopping. When would this end!

They would either die of suffocation or be killed by a wraith piercing through their brains. Only a few breaths later, another five or six people were forced to choose the former.

He Lingchuan and Nian Songyu were doing relatively well, as a martial artist's lung capacity was naturally powerful, but He Chunhua's face had already turned a dark purple, looking as if he could not hold on much longer.

Ignoring everything else, He Lingchuan grabbed Sun Fuping's sleeve and mouthed to him: "Find a way!"

He practiced the martial path; the tricks in his hands were useless against wraiths.

Perhaps sensing the moment had come, Sun Fuping gave a grand sweep of his wide sleeve to shake off He Lingchuan's hand, walked into the midst of the army, and raised his staff.

He stuffed something into the mouth of the beast, then held up his staff and slammed it into the ground!

With the beast's head as the center, a yellow-glowing barrier appeared, perfectly enveloping everyone inside.

A boundary!

Sun Fuping shouted, "You can breathe now!"

The crowd felt as if they had received a grand reprieve. Some even doubled over, coughing uncontrollably from inhaling too sharply.

This time, even He Chunhua grew somewhat angry: "Why did the State Preceptor only act now?"

Had he acted ten breaths earlier, those five or six people wouldn't have had to die.

Sun Fuping's expression was solemn. "This Illusionary Boundary has a very short duration, and its effectiveness is not as strong as the life-fires. I only use it as a last resort. Can you predict how much longer the wraiths will continue to erupt?"

No one could.

He Chunhua had nothing to say. However, the way the many soldiers looked at Sun Fuping was difficult to describe.

But he did not take it to heart.

"Saving the lives of the majority is what matters most," Nian Songyu asked. "What do we do now?"

"Continue to wait." Sun Fuping kept his eyes fixed on the surface of the pool. "We can only take the next step once the wraiths stop emerging from within."

Only after the initial terror had subsided did the crowd have the chance to observe the wraiths wandering through the sky.

Situ Han let out an exclamation. "There are more humanoid wraiths coming out now, and a large number of them are armored and mounted on horses."

These deceased souls galloped on horseback, brandishing blades and roaring, as if they were still on a battlefield of endless slaughter.

"The fallen soldiers from the battlefield are the most numerous, and their resentment is also the greatest," He Lingchuan said, startled. "Look at this!"

The wraiths emerging from the pool had gone from being bizarrely shaped at first, to being primarily human souls, and now to being of truly staggering size. Although wraiths had no weight, the one He Lingchuan saw looked like a combination of seven or eight wraiths; not only did it have seven arms and eight legs, but it also had pairs of eyes on its chest and shoulders.

A common wraith standing before it would be like an ordinary person standing before an ancient banyan tree; there was simply no comparison in scale.

The sense of oppression it exerted on the living was also incomparable.

Seeing this monster, Sun Fuping actually seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. "As expected."

He Lingchuan: "As expected of what?" *He always stops halfway through his sentences; that's bad for your bladder at night.*

"After staying in the pot for a long time, some wraiths begin to devour and merge with one another, forming new, powerful individuals, much like raising venomous insects in a jar." Sun Fuping pointed at the monster. "As expected, the order in which the wraiths appear is from weak to strong. That means our endurance is reaching its limit."

This multi-limbed monster had crawled out and was originally intended to follow the main force upward, but just as Sun Fuping finished speaking, it suddenly turned its head. Its sixteen eyes blinked in unison, and it stared directly at the boundary!

He Lingchuan felt his skin crawl under its gaze; this thing's stare was far more terrifying than Nian Songyu's. "It can see us?"

"Shh!" Sun Fuping quickly interrupted him.

But it was too late. The sixteen-eyed monster clearly made a sniffing motion, then crawled out of the pool and toward the boundary.

The sixteen-eyed monster's movements were grotesque, its limbs highly uncoordinated and somewhat stumbling. But Sun Fuping knew this was only because it had just entered the realm of the living and had not yet fully adapted.

The Illusionary Boundary did not possess true defensive power—nor could it, otherwise it would instead trigger the aggression of the wraiths—it merely possessed the property of concealing the living, preventing these dead souls from smelling the scent of flesh and blood.

However, among the myriad of strange wraiths, there would always be a few with special abilities that were not easily deceived. Judging by the actions of this sixteen-eyed monster, it had not completely seen through the Illusionary Boundary, but it had grown suspicious and was determined to come and investigate.

In its eyes, there was no scent of living beings within the area covered by the Illusionary Boundary, but it could vaguely sense a tiny bit of vitality, like the sparse glow of fireflies in the night that blurred whenever it tried to look closely.

This undoubtedly piqued its curiosity, making it want to draw near to see better.

Seeing that it was about to crash into the boundary, Sun Fuping gave a low command: "Baishan, Qingshui! Raise the Soul-Settling Banner!"

Two attendants behind him dashed to the very front of the group, standing at the edge of the boundary. From out of nowhere, they hoisted a massive white cloth banner and began waving it vigorously at the sixteen-eyed monster.

The banner was covered in dense, black and red runes. As the white banner fluttered against the wind, the runes surfaced and rotated slowly, and a faint sound of Sanskrit chanting echoed in the air.

The banner appeared to be nothing more than an ironwood pole with a piece of white cloth, swaying precariously, yet the attendants struggled greatly to wield it; it required two people and four hands just to hold it up.

The way they waved the white banner was also like drawing an "∞" symbol in the air with constant speed and repetition.

At the same time, Sun Fuping also walked to the front of the crowd and signaled for them to close their eyes.

However, the command was a bit late. As soon as the white banner appeared, everyone's eyes naturally followed its movement. After it had swayed twice, several people's gazes went blank, as if drawn by a magnet, and they began walking toward it.

One person walked past He Lingchuan; the latter pressed down hard on his shoulder and forced his eyelids shut.

The man struggled twice and then went still.

Others followed suit, controlling their soul-captured companions.