Unable to hold it in any longer, several men lost their resolve and took deep, gasping breaths.
*Hoo, hoo...* The ragged panting was completely swallowed by the howling wind.
Yet the hundreds of resentful souls roaming the air abruptly halted, turning in unison to look straight toward them.
Before the unlucky bastards could even catch two satisfying breaths, a flurry of resentful souls lunged head-on, slamming directly into their skulls.
With soft *poofs*, the three life flames upon each of them were snuffed out at once.
In such a situation, who dared intervene?
To the onlookers, after the resentful souls bored into their ears and noses, the men stood dazed for two or three breaths before clutching their heads and screaming in agony. Their eyes turned bloodshot, and drool leaked from the corners of their mouths, looking just like rabid dogs. Yet rather than attacking the humans around them like puppets parasitized by Three Corpse Worms, they scurried about in total disorientation, rolling on the ground or ramming headfirst into walls.
Dozens of resentful souls bickering, tearing, and mauling one another within a single sea of consciousness—it felt as though dozens of double-bang firecrackers were detonating inside their skulls at once. Who could endure that?
In little more than ten breaths, they collapsed, blood trickling from their seven orifices, and died.
The sight made everyone's hearts pound with dread.
The trouble was that the faster their hearts raced, the shorter their breath lasted. By now, most people were also nearing their limit, their faces bloated purple. Yet the resentful souls continued gushing out in an endless torrent. When would this ever end?
It was either suffocate or have souls bore through their brains to death. Merely a few breaths later, another five or six men had no choice but to succumb to the former.
He Lingchuan and Nian Songyu were holding up well enough; martial artists naturally possessed formidable lung capacity. But He Chunhua's face had turned a deep eggplant purple, clearly on the verge of collapse.
He Lingchuan threw caution to the wind, grabbed Sun Fuping by the sleeve, and mouthed to him, "Do something!"
He practiced the martial path; the tricks at his disposal were completely useless against resentful souls.
Presumably Sun Fuping also judged the moment ripe. With a sweep of his wide sleeve, he shook off He Lingchuan's grip, stepped into the midst of the troops, and raised his staff.
He popped something into the beast head's mouth, then brandished the staff and slammed it hard against the ground!
Centering on the beast head, a yellow-glowing shield expanded, just in time to cover everyone inside.
A barrier!
Sun Fuping called out loudly, "You may breathe now!"
As if granted a royal pardon, the men bent double, some coughing violently from inhaling too hard.
This time, even He Chunhua was a bit infuriated. "Why did the National Preceptor only act now?"
Had he stepped in a dozen breaths earlier, those five or six men wouldn't have had to die.
Sun Fuping's expression was grave. "My Illusionary Barrier lasts for only a brief time, and its efficacy pales in comparison to life flames. It is only to be used as a last resort. Can you foresee how much longer the souls will continue to erupt?"
No one could.
He Chunhua was left speechless. The expressions of the many soldiers looking at Sun Fuping, however, were deeply complicated.
Yet Sun Fuping paid them no mind.
"Preserving the lives of the majority is what matters most." Nian Songyu asked, "What do we do now?"
"Keep waiting." Sun Fuping's gaze remained glued to the pool's surface. "Only when no more souls emerge from within will we take the next step."
Their panic barely subsided, the crowd finally had the leisure to observe the resentful souls wheeling across the sky.
Situ Han uttered a surprised "Huh?", then said, "Most of the souls emerging now are human-shaped, and there's a huge host of armored riders."
These dead souls galloped furiously, brandishing sabers and roaring as though they were still locked in an endless, bloody battlefield.
"Fallen soldiers on a battlefield are the most numerous, and their resentment is the strongest." He Lingchuan suddenly gasped, "Look at that one!"
The souls gushing from the pool had evolved from the bizarrely shaped monstrosities at the start to predominantly human souls, and now to entities of astounding bulk. Though souls had no physical weight, the one He Lingchuan was looking at appeared to be a fusion of seven or eight resentful souls. Not only did it bristle with haphazard limbs, but pairs of eyes were dotted across its chest and shoulders.
An ordinary resentful soul standing before it was like an ordinary man standing before an ancient banyan tree—their sizes were beyond comparison.
The oppressive pressure it exerted on the living was on an entirely different scale.
Upon seeing this monster, Sun Fuping seemed to breathe a sigh of relief instead. "Just as I thought."
He Lingchuan asked, "Just as what?" *Always leaving half your words unsaid—you're going to suffer from dribbling urine at night, old man.*
"After being trapped inside the pot for so long, some souls began devouring and fusing with one another, forming powerful new entities, just like cultivating gu." Sun Fuping pointed at the creature. "The souls truly are emerging in order from weakest to strongest. That means our endurance is almost at its end."
This many-limbed monstrosity crawled out of the pool and was initially about to follow the main horde upward. But just as Sun Fuping finished speaking, it abruptly turned its head. All sixteen eyes blinked in unison, then stared straight toward the barrier!
The stare sent chills down He Lingchuan's spine; this thing's gaze was far more terrifying than Nian Songyu's. "Can it see us?"
"Hush!" Sun Fuping quickly cut him off.
Too late. The sixteen-eyed monster visibly sniffed the air, then hauled itself out of the pool and began crawling toward the barrier.
Its movements were grotesque and uncoordinated, even stumbling slightly. Yet Sun Fuping knew this was only because it had just entered the mortal realm and had not fully adapted.
The Illusionary Barrier possessed no genuine defensive strength—nor could it, as that would only provoke hostility from the resentful souls. It merely concealed the traits of living beings so the dead could not smell the scent of flesh and blood.
However, among the myriad bizarre souls, there would always be a few with peculiar abilities that made them difficult to dupe. Judging from the actions of this sixteen-eyed beast, it had not seen through the Illusionary Barrier completely, but suspicion had been piqued, and it was determined to come over and investigate.
In its eyes, the area covered by the Illusionary Barrier held no scent of the living, yet it could faintly sense a trace of vitality, like sparse fireflies flickering in the dark. But whenever it tried to look closer, the impression blurred.
This undoubtedly sparked its curiosity, compelling it to draw closer for a better look.
Seeing that it was about to bump against the barrier, Sun Fuping barked in a low voice, "Baishan, Qingshui! Bring out the Soul-Stabilizing Banner!"
Two attendants behind him darted to the very front of the ranks, standing right at the edge of the barrier. From who knew where, they produced a colossal white cloth banner and began waving it vigorously at the sixteen-eyed monster.
Dense clusters of black and red talismans were drawn across the banner. As it fluttered against the wind, the talismans surfaced and slowly revolved, accompanied by the faint drone of Sanskrit chanting in the air.
The banner appeared to be nothing more than an ironwood pole affixed with white cloth, fluttering loosely, yet the attendants wielded it with immense exertion, requiring two men and four hands just to hold it aloft.
The way they waved the white banner resembled drawing an "∞" symbol through the air, repeatedly and at a steady pace.
At the same time, Sun Fuping stepped before the crowd and signaled for them to close their eyes.
The command came a little too late, however. The moment the white cloth banner appeared, everyone's gaze naturally followed its motion. After it swayed twice, several men's eyes glazed over; as though drawn by a lodestone, they lifted their feet and walked straight toward it.
One of them walked past He Lingchuan, who clamped a hand firmly onto his shoulder and pulled his eyelids shut for him.
The man struggled twice, then went still.
Others followed suit, restraining their enthralled companions.
Chapter 41