Chapter 695: The Great Terror in the Dark

After preparing all the materials, Ye Lin began the forging of the Ten Thousand Soul Banner.

He first took out the Soul-Forging Manual he had obtained from Sushan and studied it carefully once more; only after confirming everything was correct did he begin.

"Forbidden Spell: Nether Ghost Fire!"

As a flame that is extremely yin and soft, specifically targeting souls, Nether Ghost Fire was the best possible material for forging the Ten Thousand Soul Banner.

Ye Lin first used the Nether Ghost Fire to melt the Heaven-Crying Stone and the Thousand-Soul Medulla, then carved the blood wood into the shape of a banner pole, engraving it with talismans specifically meant to suppress and bind soul bodies.

Immediately after, he wove the Nether Cold Silkworm Silk into the banner face, and with this, the basic preparatory work was considered complete.

"The banner face and the banner pole are connected by Seven-Kill Soul-Suppressing Nails, which can directly suppress any soul that tries to resist."

Ye Lin took out several strange nails, which were covered in profound, difficult-to-understand runes.

He used these nails to pin the banner face to the banner pole, and a simple banner took shape at this moment.

Afterward, he fused the melted Heaven-Crying Stone and Thousand-Soul Medulla with this prototype Ten Thousand Soul Banner, and a profound aura immediately surged from the banner, possessing a strange attraction toward souls.

Finally, Ye Lin took out a flower.

This flower was bright red, and in the center of the flower, instead of stamens, was a ferocious ghost face!

Ten-Thousand-Kill Ghost-Face Flower!

With this flower, the fierce, baleful aura of the Ten Thousand Soul Banner could be greatly enhanced, and combined with the Seven-Kill Soul-Suppressing Nails, it was enough to make the vengeful souls within the banner afraid to offer the slightest resistance.

When the Ten-Thousand-Kill Ghost-Face Flower also melted under the burning of the Nether Ghost Fire and slowly fused with the banner face, this Ten Thousand Soul Banner was forged!

Rumble!

The moment the banner was completed, a sudden thunderclap erupted from the flat ground.

Ye Lin clearly felt that at least several hundred years of his lifespan had slipped away at this moment.

"Such an intense backlash; no wonder so few people forge the Ten Thousand Soul Banner."

Ye Lin was somewhat surprised; forging it cost hundreds of years of lifespan, so unless one truly had a deep blood feud and didn't want to live anymore, who would forge this thing?

At the same time, Ye Lin was also somewhat pleasantly surprised; was he finally about to face heavenly punishment?

He saw the tribulation clouds above the sky gathering continuously, but at this moment, the tribulation clouds seemed to suddenly notice something.

The gathered tribulation clouds slowly dissipated.

"What the hell!"

A frustrated Ye Lin cursed out loud.

"I've already forged an evil artifact like the Ten Thousand Soul Banner, and you still won't strike me? You aren't fit to be a heavenly tribulation! I want to report you!"

Ye Lin gnashed his teeth in anger.

If not for this heavenly thunder acting up and refusing to strike him, let alone the Thousand-Tribulation Saint Body, he might have already cultivated the Ten-Thousand-Tribulation God Body.

And having survived the heavenly tribulation, this Ten Thousand Soul Banner could be considered officially brought into the world.

For other evil cultivators, the most difficult part of forging a Ten Thousand Soul Banner was dealing with the heavenly tribulation after it was forged.

At this time, there were no soul bodies inside the Ten Thousand Soul Banner, making it at its most fragile, and it could easily be destroyed directly under the majestic might of the heavenly tribulation.

But for Ye Lin, this final and most difficult step had instead become the simplest.

Only then did Ye Lin have the time to carefully observe the first Ten Thousand Soul Banner he had forged.

The Ten Thousand Soul Banner he had forged using Nether Ghost Fire and materials from the Hall of Sinful Mirrors was clearly of much higher quality than Sushan's.

After all, Sushan couldn't get his hands on any good materials, which was the fundamental reason why his Ten Thousand Soul Banner could only hold fifty thousand soul bodies; Sushan's Ten Thousand Soul Banner was essentially a defective product.

According to Ye Lin's own estimation, the Ten Thousand Soul Banner he had forged himself could hold at least several hundred thousand soul bodies!

As for exactly how many it could hold, that depended on the quality of the soul bodies.

For example, the storage occupancy rate in the Ten Thousand Soul Banner would definitely be different for collecting ten thousand soul bodies of cultivators in the Mortal Three Realms versus ten thousand soul bodies of cultivators in the Dao Five Tribulations.

The stronger the soul body, the higher the occupancy rate in the Ten Thousand Soul Banner.

Assuming it could hold one million from the Mortal Three Realms, if converted to cultivators of the Dao Five Tribulations, it might only be three hundred thousand or even two hundred thousand.

However, Ye Lin was not discouraged; he was already very satisfied to be able to forge a Ten Thousand Soul Banner of this quality. If the quality wasn't enough, he would win by quantity.

He first transferred all the soul bodies from Sushan's Ten Thousand Soul Banner into the new one, and then Ye Lin began the next round of forging without stopping.

Practice makes perfect; with the experience of forging the first Ten Thousand Soul Banner, the second one was quickly forged by Ye Lin.

This time, there was no thunder, and there were no tribulation clouds, but the lifespan deducted directly doubled, reaching over a thousand years.

Ye Lin dropped dead in an instant.

With his current cultivation level of the late Heavenly Gang Realm, his total lifespan was only about five hundred years.

Fortunately, Ye Lin had many lives; otherwise, just forging the second Ten Thousand Soul Banner would have cost him his little life.

After realizing that forging the Ten Thousand Soul Banner only deducted lifespan, Ye Lin let go and began to work.

"Forbidden Spell: One Qi Transforms into Three Purities!"

Ye Lin directly released three clones to speed up the forging of the Ten Thousand Soul Banners.

Every time he forged a Ten Thousand Soul Banner, Ye Lin would drop dead once.

By the time he forged the ninth Ten Thousand Soul Banner, the lifespan deducted from Ye Lin had already reached a full one hundred thousand years or more!

To have over one hundred thousand years of lifespan deducted in one breath—even the top-tier powerhouses of the Longevity Continent would drop dead instantly.

But Ye Lin was not afraid at all; he imbued his body with the power of the Non-Birth Non-Death Divine Domain. At this moment, he could not essentially be considered a living person; he was merely a speck of dust in the vast world.

And for dust, how could there be any talk of lifespan?

However, even so, after finishing the ninth Ten Thousand Soul Banner, it took Ye Lin a very, very long time to recover.

"Strange, is there some taboo to forging the Ten Thousand Soul Banner that I don't know about?"

Ye Lin scratched his head.

But he didn't think too much about it; there were still materials left, so he started forging the tenth Ten Thousand Soul Banner!

Just as he was about to start forging the tenth Ten Thousand Soul Banner, Ye Lin suddenly shuddered, and cold sweat broke out instantly.

For some reason, he suddenly had a strange feeling in the dark.

It was as if if he were to forge this tenth Ten Thousand Soul Banner, he would awaken something.

That thing gave Ye Lin a feeling of extreme danger; it was an unspeakable, great terror.

If he were to awaken it, he would likely be erased directly.

Erased of all traces of his existence in the world, his entire causality destroyed, equivalent to him never having existed at all.

It was like cutting a corner off a painting and burning it to ashes.

Ye Lin couldn't help but swallow hard.

This feeling was extremely intense; it wasn't the feeling of being killed, but of being completely wiped out!

When he abandoned the idea of forging the tenth Ten Thousand Soul Banner, this feeling immediately vanished without a trace.

And as long as he generated the thought of forging it, that terrifying feeling would appear again.

It was as if there were a pair of eyes in the dark, constantly watching him...