Chapter 77: The Dark Ferryman

The bustling palace gradually fell silent, and then became noisy again.

"Master Luo?!"

The alchemy furnace instantly transformed into a streak of light, recklessly escaping the palace and escaping into the distance. The furnace's owner remained silent throughout. The others hesitated for a moment, but the Styx had already covered the sky. Anxiety spread.

"Ha...haha, Old Monster Luo is getting more and more cowardly as he grows older. He's just a subordinate of the Ten Thousand Souls Sect, but he was so scared that he ran away."

A monk who looked like a mountain of flesh laughed heartily and patted his belly, but his expression did not match his relaxed tone.

"But those people were all wiped out immediately before. No one knows what methods they used, right? Could it be that they chose this time to deliberately wipe us out? Do they actually have such a method?"

Someone quickly stood up to refute him. He looked remarkably young, with an unpolished spirit. "There are so many of us here, are we really afraid of him? Those who were wiped out before were simply small sects, not even qualified to participate in the birthday party. Now we will show him what true generosity is!"

"But they actually dared to attack on Yu Zu's birthday. If it was the eighteenth year, he might have had some strategy, but they chose to come at this time. Long Tian is really a mad dog. His group of unyielding lunatics are in trouble this time."

"Could it be..."

The hall was mostly filled with noise and clamor, while those with true strength remained silent, judging the timing. After all, not everyone possessed the judgment of Old Monster Luo, who had fled without even a fight. If the Myriad Souls Sect truly lived up to its name, the Luo family's status would likely plummet.

Without caring about saving his face, the old patriarch grabbed Yu Xiangcheng aside with a terrifying look on his face.

"Didn't you say you've already made an agreement with that brat Long Tian? We'll hand over all the Yu Clan's savings of thousands of years next year and retreat to Penglai Mountain overseas to live in seclusion. What's going on?!"

Yu Xiangcheng clearly hadn't anticipated this scene. If it were just a notification, the Myriad Souls Sect would only send Soul Guides, and only when they wanted to destroy their enemies would they deploy Dark Crossings. He sweated profusely, yet felt a burning sensation in his chest. "Maybe, maybe there's something wrong! Long Tian and I have already explained everything, and he agrees!"

"Anyway, let's settle the guests first, to prevent some of them from getting impatient and taking action. We still need to see the situation first..."

But I couldn't say the next sentence.

The Styx is cold and gloomy, but living people cannot experience the touch of the Styx, right? If only the soul is deprived and enters, then there will be no senses to feel it.

He felt no pain, and his surprise gradually faded. The old patriarch watched his body being torn away by the Styx, sinking to the bottom of the river like discarded garbage. His only thought was fear.

Looking around, the black waters of the Styx were not turbid, but rather crystal clear. He saw that all the guests, whether they were millennia-old monsters or newly emerged geniuses, had been stripped of their bodies. Few of their expressions showed fear, but mostly confusion.

They didn't even launch a single attack, as if they had practiced for countless years but had simply taken a nap on the spot, still as fragile as the original mortals.

His thoughts gradually faded, even his fear vanished. The old patriarch slowly closed his eyes, the regret for not heeding Yu Linghe's advice the last thing on his mind.

The Styx, silently engulfing the mountain range, was now filled with countless small paper boats. On each boat stood an old man, wearing a bamboo hat, sitting cross-legged at the stern, scissors in hand, trimming a stack of white paper. Each time they finished cutting a piece, they tossed it into the water.

The human-shaped paper pieces floated on the water, absorbing enough water from the Styx, slowly expanding and beginning to gather on the river surface. They also tore off parts of their own bodies, made a bag, and fished it into the river.

The old patriarch's soul was scooped up, rolled into a ball, and then hammered hard by the paper figurine, transforming it into a flat, round piece of paper. The paper figurine operated like an assembly line, then placed all the collected round pieces of paper into the paper boat.

The paper man dipped the paper bag into the water again, but this time, the surface of the River Styx began to fluctuate.

Light cuts open the River Styx, instantly tearing apart the paper people and paper boats!

The Jade Spirit Crane walked up from the bottom of the Styx on the waves without even a single wet corner of her robe. Her phoenix-red feathers swayed in the raging waves she stirred up. In her hand, she held a Taoist branch with unripe fruits. The light cut through all the paper boats and paper people on the river and returned to her hand, transforming into a stack of intact round paper pieces - that was the future of her people that she saw through the eyes of the afterlife when she realized it was too late.

As long as there was light, she could continue to foresee the future. However, her breath was visibly weakening. She was just holding on.

The waters of the Styx flowed back together, and countless paper boats emerged from the darkness once again. However, the scissors held by the old man on the paper boat were different from the ordinary scissors from before. Just one look at them revealed that they were the twisted soul itself.

Luo Xuanyi stared in shock. In a single instant, the Styx waters enveloped everything, and every living being perished. No one, save the Jade Spirit Crane, noticed or reacted. Even Luo Xuanyi herself sensed a force transcending time and space, as if it were the pure law of heaven and earth, attempting to pull her away.

If she hadn't reacted quickly and "caught" the Jade Spirit Crane, she had a premonition that she would have been pulled out and killed.

Then, as Yu Linghe used the Daozhi to wield that sword light, Luo Xuanyi saw something in the light that seemed to pass by quickly. She couldn't see the future, but Yu Linghe could see it, and it was the destruction of the Yu family.

"Hmm!" Yu Linghe's body swayed, but anger forced her to hold on. The Daozhi continued to flicker with light.

The Mingduren's paper boat silently transformed into a reflection on the river surface, sailing towards the Jade Crane. He held the slender scissors in his hand and pointed them at the Jade Crane's shadow, slicing fiercely!

The Jade Crane flew away through the waves, but its shadow could not escape and was cut in half by the scissors!

The light of Daozhi became brighter and brighter.

Just as the Mingdu people's paper boat was about to sway and dive into the water, Yu Linghe got there first. With a soft shout, his sword intent instantly dried up the Styx! The sky and the earth twisted, and the Styx dried up, revealing countless corpses at the bottom. The sky began to brighten again, and the light of the Dao branch dispelled the darkness.

But before Yu Linghe could catch her breath, she saw the Styx flowing again in the light, and countless paper boats came as if they had not suffered any harm.

"This isn't a solution!" Although she possessed the power of Daozu, she had never truly fought. Although she could rewrite the story time and again through foresight, her time limit didn't allow her to slowly experiment.

"Is there no way?!"

Luo Xuanyi, who had been silently beside her, looked at her and suddenly said, "I think we don't need to dwell on this. Whether it's Mingduren or something else, it's not your goal, right? Calm down."

Yu Linghe held the thick stack of papers in her hand. It was so light, yet she felt as if she were being weighed down by mountains. She couldn't calm down at all. She had never experienced the death of a member of her tribe since she was born. If it weren't for the Dao Ancestor's assimilation, she would probably have given up in that moment out of sheer fear.

At this time, Luo Xuanyi's calmness allowed her to grab a life-saving straw.

"You possess strength, but the Styx before us doesn't seem to be the power of a single individual, but rather the laws of heaven and earth. If the laws of heaven and earth cannot be eliminated, then we will find someone who can be eliminated." Luo Xuanyi's expression turned slightly cold. "You can sense heaven and earth, so can you sense where Long Tian is?"

After all, Yu was born with great power and was raised in a greenhouse. At such a critical moment, facing the annihilation of all the tribesmen he was supposed to protect, he lost his ability to think.

But thinking about it this way, I feel even more sorry for my sister Yi.