The young man in white frowned deeply.
"It's indeed not what I'm looking for. It seems I'll have to forcibly tear open space!"
Then, he once again strode towards the passage at one end of the plaza, in the direction of the seabed outside.
Just as he was about to step into the passage, his walking figure suddenly paused slightly, and then his figure once again vanished like a ghost.
When the young man in white reappeared, he had already arrived at the Forbidden Land.
Looking at the group of trembling Dark Spirit Demon Bats with boundless terror on their faces, a strange light appeared in his eyes.
"Eh, there's actually a low-rank Demonic Beast here that has lived for more than ten thousand years... This... no, this is someone who has used the power of the Law of Life to connect them to the formation here.
"Although the method is still very crude, he already knew how to use the power of the grand formation driven by supreme-grade spirit stones. It can be considered a clever, alternative path."
His arrival filled the group of Dark Spirit Demon Bats below with nothing but boundless fear. Their entire consciousness was a field of grey despair.
How could there be any thoughts of revenge? They had even lost the courage to beg for mercy.
Their few ancestors had already angered the other party. This expert had definitely come to exterminate their clan.
Sure enough, after the young man in white muttered a sentence, without any visible action from him, ten of the trembling Dark Spirit Demon Bats huddled below flew up.
Then, they saw the man extend his ten fingers forward, and ten tiny yellow rays of light entered the center of their foreheads.
Soul-searching, and soul-searching ten Demonic Beasts at once!
Although the cultivation of these Dark Spirit Demon Bats below was not high, many of them had lived for a long time and had been through that two-realm war. So, they immediately saw the other party's intention.
Zhu Shi Da Luo (TN: A reference to another novel)
They had also seen many experts who could soul-search many living beings at the same time.
But this person's methods were different. The faces of the ten Dark Spirit Demon Bats whose foreheads were pinned by the yellow rays of light, apart from the fear they had before, showed no signs of screaming or pain.
This made some of the older Dark Spirit Demon Bats below suspect that the other party might not be soul-searching, but for a moment, they couldn't think of any other possibility.
Because they were too weak in front of the other party. There was simply no need for the other party to refine them.
All of this happened very quickly. In just a few breaths, amidst the confusion and fear of the Dark Spirit Demon Bats below, the ten of them had already fallen back to the ground.
And in an instant, their eyes regained their clarity. Their expressions had changed from the fear they had before to confusion.
At this time, they heard the young man in white above them muttering to himself.
"A pitiful clan indeed, to be imprisoned here for so long. It's just that you shouldn't have set an ambush for me!"
Afterwards, he looked down at the group of Dark Spirit Demon Bats below.
"Before, I thought you were a trap set by the Black Demon Clan here. This matter is now over. The ambush on me will be dropped, and I will spare your lives.
"Your clan is truly pitiful, to be imprisoned here for so long. Meeting me is your tribulation. In the unseen world, it is destined.
"As for extending your lifespan, I am not skilled in the Law of Life.
"Then I will let the experts of your clan protect you for some more time. As for whether you can ultimately escape, it will depend on your own great fortune!"
As he said this, the young man in white did not look at the somewhat dazed group of Dark Spirit Demon Bats below, but turned his gaze to a direction in the Forbidden Land.
That was where the core of the formation was located.
The Dark Spirit Demon Bats below heard his words, but they seemed to only half-understand. To say they didn't understand, they could roughly grasp some of the other party's meaning.
That was, he was letting them go and would not kill them all. But the words that followed, they simply could not understand.
The young man in white paid no mind to their thoughts. Perhaps he was in a hurry and didn't even want to explain too much. He immediately waved his hand, and a mass of something appeared in it.
It was precisely the dark red light ball he had kneaded after causing the four six-winged Dark Spirit Demon Bats to explode into a blood mist.
The moment the dark red light ball appeared, his other hand had already quickly made several hand seals. The dark red light ball immediately split into three.
On the three smaller dark red light balls that appeared, the somewhat dazed faces of Meng Zhiyuan's master and the other three actually appeared. It was just that one of the dark red light balls had two faces.
Then, in the bewildered and terrified eyes of the group of Dark Spirit Demon Bats, the three dark red light balls had already flown into the tunnel of the Forbidden Land.
A moment later, a slight tremor came from the tunnel, and then everything returned to calm.
And that young man in white also disappeared at the same time. Only a voice echoed in the Forbidden Land.
"Heaven pities your clan, and the great Dao of the immortal path is even more so. Life and death are without a fixed number. I have urgent matters to attend to, so I cannot take you with me.
"Once you leave here, you will lose the protection of the Law of Life. More than ninety percent of you have already exceeded your lifespan limit and will die in an instant.
"Therefore, I have refined the remnant souls of the few fourth-rank experts of your clan into a Soul-Seizing Illusion Formation.
"If you want to lure outside cultivators in as you did just now, as long as you can force them to walk into those three tunnels leading to the core formation, anyone below the Spirit Transformation stage can have their soul seized and will fall. Their Essence Blood, Demonic Core, or Golden Core and Nascent Soul will then be absorbed. This formation is condensed from the souls of your clan's experts, so it will not harm your clan itself."
The voice stopped here.
All of this left all the Dark Spirit Demon Bats as if they had fallen into a fog. This person's arrival and departure had taken less than twenty breaths.
He had easily caused the deaths of several of their clan's top experts, and they themselves had walked the edge of life and death.
Many of them were still immersed in the extreme fear of the deaths of their few ancestors and had not yet woken up.
Especially since the other party seemed to have refined some kind of Soul-Seizing Illusion Formation for them in the end.
Just as the remaining Dark Spirit Demon Bats were all looking at the few four-winged ones, that voice actually sounded again in the Forbidden Land.
"Finally, I will point out a way for you to live. This is related to the fact that you cannot leave a fifty-li radius of this place without the laws of heaven and earth descending.
"I am not too proficient in the Law of Life either, but that cultivator only borrowed the power of the Law of Life of the Forsaken Continent.
"If you have a magical treasure that can temporarily isolate the laws of heaven and earth, then you can ignore this fifty-li life limit range and isolate the power of the laws here.
"There is another way. When someone can successfully enter the mysterious cave residence you are guarding, you can ask that person to take you with them. Perhaps there is a chance of survival, but this is only a possibility."
After saying this, the voice disappeared again. But this time, the content of his words had struck the group of Dark Spirit Demon Bats like a thunderbolt from a clear sky.
That supreme expert was guiding them on how to escape this place, but how could they possibly do it?
Let alone the fact that the strongest left here were only a few four-winged Dark Spirit Demon Bats, even the six-winged ancestors couldn't do it.
And just as the group of Dark Spirit Demon Bats were waiting, dazed, terrified, or at a loss, that voice finally did not sound again and disappeared completely.
But the final words left by that mysterious cultivator they both hated and feared, the general meaning was of course clear.
It was just the reasons within that they simply could not understand. It was as if the first half of the sentence left them in a state of half-understanding.
It was not until many years later, after Meng Zhiyuan had cultivated to a certain realm, that he understood the meaning behind the other party's words. It was an understanding of the power of laws.
The power of the laws of each continent is different, and their control over the lives under their jurisdiction is also different.
To put it simply, it was like how ordinary living beings in the Immortal Spirit Realm were born as immortals. Their lifespan was far greater than that of the Mortal Realm. As long as people from the Mortal Realm could ascend, their lifespan would greatly increase.
This was the difference in the power of the rules.
What did the half-sentence that mysterious expert added later mean?
The person who "could successfully enter the cave residence" might be able to save their lives. Wasn't that mysterious cultivator just that person?
It was just that the other party was either unwilling, or truly had matters to attend to, and had already gone far away.
The power of the mysterious cultivator made it impossible for the remaining Dark Spirit Demon Bats to feel even a trace of hatred, even though their four ancestors had died at his hands.
The other party was right; it was their side that had wanted to kill him first.
For that person to let them go in the end and even point out a way out was already very merciful.
Thus, in the following years, although they had lost four Nascent Soul level experts, they could still barely maintain the existence of the Forbidden Land by occasionally luring some Demonic Beasts and cultivators into the three tunnels.
It was just that the interval between the deaths of their clansmen became more and more frequent, and the number increased every year.
The supreme-grade spirit stones that maintained the formation of the Forbidden Land were also on the verge of being depleted.
By then, no matter how many cultivator Essence Blood and Demonic Cores they absorbed, it would be useless. After all, those were just supplementary. Without the power of the supreme-grade spirit stones, they would have no power to drive the grand formation of the Forbidden Land.
At the same time, due to the absence of the six-winged Dark Spirit Demon Bats, the sensing range of the strongest four-winged ones was limited. Even if a cultivator or Demonic Beast flew over the sea surface, they would not be able to know.
So the number of their prey was very limited. Most of the time, they would only create some strange phenomena to attract them after others had already approached. Jiang Baibi was one such case.
The vast majority of the information Li Yan obtained came from the memory of one of the two-winged Dark Spirit Demon Bats. It was an ancient two-winged one that had survived.
He knew quite a lot about the situation here.
As for the other two-winged Dark Spirit Demon Bat, it was only a few hundred years old and had not personally experienced the events of long ago. Most of what it knew was just hearsay.
The most core secrets here were only known to the five four-winged Dark Spirit Demon Bats and some of the ancient ones that had survived. The rest had basically been made public to the clansmen.
These were all decided by Meng Zhiyuan. After all, they had to give their clansmen hope for survival and inform them of their clan's origin.
This was to prevent a situation where, in case of an accident and all the experts perished, the legacy would be broken and their faith lost.
After Li Yan cross-referenced the information he obtained from the soul-search with what Meng Zhiyuan had said, he already had a rough idea of the situation here.
Of course, these were all things Meng Zhiyuan had not expected. Among the cultivators who had come here, besides that mysterious and terrifyingly powerful cultivator from back then, who else had ever had the possibility of leaving alive?
Jiang Baibi's escape that one time was just due to carelessness, letting the fifth brother go alone to attract him. Who knew the other party's methods were extraordinary, instantly breaking free from the entanglement and fleeing beyond the fifty-li radius. But the other party had not entered the cave residence at all.
Therefore, Meng Zhiyuan and the other few experts had overlooked the matter of soul-searching.
After seeing the cultivation chamber, beast-rearing chamber, and pill-refining chamber, Li Yan also remembered the "Shrinking the Land to an Inch" formation from the other's memory. The formation led to the inside of the two guardian experts' cave residences, which was the same as what he had seen!
Moreover, there wasn't a trace of Demonic Qi here. The teleportation just now was very short; it was absolutely impossible to have teleported him very far.
Li Yan was now basically certain of his position. He should be in one of the two cave residences where "Venerable Duanmu" and the others had lived.
Meng Zhiyuan had wanted to trap and kill him here. Thinking that a Spirit Transformation cultivator had once lived here, Li Yan also did not dare to move anything here randomly.