Chapter 578: The Third Shadow

The moment the word "break" left my lips, the entire space became turbulent.

The Wailing Bird immediately flapped its wings, trying to reinforce the formation array, but unfortunately three-quarters of its feathers had already turned white, and this change was still continuing.

As the white feathers continued to cover it, the Wailing Bird grew weaker and weaker.

Likewise, the lives of my companions who actively sacrificed themselves within the formation array were also ebbing away.

So I could only seize a suitable moment and actively break the dream.

After breaking the dream, the formation array would disappear, my companions would more or less suffer some internal injuries, lose some cultivation, but at least they could preserve their lives.

Most importantly, my action had to be especially swift.

Because after breaking the dream, the Wailing Bird would return to the mundane world and receive supplies again.

Boom!

At the moment of breaking the dream, the pagoda body I had been carrying on my back also shattered with a roar.

The surrounding light instantly grew dim.

The Qiankun Bagua Formation vanished, Heaven's Fortune disappeared, and that dark river reappeared before my eyes.

Just as I had imagined, after my companions broke out of the formation array, they each sat cross-legged, formed hand seals, and stabilized their own conditions.

The Wailing Bird let out a cry, its pure white wings barely fluttering, its whole body gliding down from above, moving forward along the river, swallowing everything in its path—whether souls or birds—without mercy.

This is the Wailing Bird.

In its eyes, all beings are equal……equally eligible to become its meal.

The souls on both banks of the river had been partially collected by Yu Nian's Thousand Soul Banner, and some had been slain by the Seven Halls Yama's Netherworld Armored Soldiers; what remained were souls whose cultivation was not low.

But faced with the blood‑red‑eyed Wailing Bird, they were still frightened and swarmed toward the boat spanning the river.

At this moment, Seven Halls Yama and Yu Nian were meditating to rest, with no one stopping them; their bodies' resentful, evil aura continuously eroded the boat's hull, and the hull finally could not bear the load—before I could reach them, the boat had completely vanished upon the river.

The man on the boat, whose state of life or death was unknown, also disappeared along with it.

I did not know whether he had been devoured, or fallen into the river, nor where he might have been washed to.

The river channel, blocked for who knows how many years by the boat's hull, suddenly became clear, flowing forward in a steady stream.

The Netherworld Armored Soldiers could block those souls, but they could not hold back the rushing river; those souls all sank into the water, trying to flee with the current.

But soon, the river water that had just been surging, as if blocked by something, suddenly ceased to flow.

A biting cold wind blew from the darkness ahead; I first saw the riverbanks seem to have frosted over, and then ice began to form on the water's surface.

Snowflakes fell thick and fast, covering the entire river at a speed visible to the naked eye.

I heard bird calls.

My heart pounded wildly.

They hid in the darkness, not daring to rush before the Wailing Bird to seek death, yet they condensed ice and snow, covering the river.

This river is clearly not a normal river of the living world; making it freeze is no easy feat.

Once frozen, the souls that had just hidden in the river water would also be sealed away together.

I knew, it was my aunt arriving!

I was also certain that, coming with my aunt, was the Snow Phoenix Clan!

The Snow Phoenix had said that the entire Snow Phoenix Clan existed to guard the Nirvana Phoenix, and they had done so.

The Wailing Bird hovered in midair, watching the whole space gradually being covered by ice and snow, seeming somewhat dazed.

At its weakest moment, when it most needed supplies, it could only watch as those souls were sealed away beneath the ice and snow.

Needless to say, although we had not planned beforehand, everyone cooperated extremely well.

Such tacit understanding is something that a creature like the Wailing Bird, accustomed to acting alone and considering itself supreme, could not comprehend.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

I drew my longbow to the full, aiming the arrow at the Wailing Bird.

After a brief moment of dazedness, the Wailing Bird shot up into the sky, swirling in midair.

I gripped the arrow feather, continually aiming and locking on.

I knew that even if I hit it now, I could not kill it outright; I could only keep shooting, weakening its strength, and finally seal it with the Soul-guiding Lamp.

This was the best way I could think of to deal with the Wailing Bird at present.

But… at this critical juncture, my peripheral vision caught something moving.

It was Yu Nian.

Yu Nian, who had just been meditating, for some reason suddenly trembled all over and let out a choked sound.

She supported herself with one hand on the mast of the Thousand Soul Banner and staggered to her feet.

Her already slender frame now looked as if it might topple over at any moment.

"Senior sister, don't move!"

I shouted it out instinctively.

But Yu Nian seemed not to have heard my voice at all.

She held onto the Thousand Soul Banner, lifted her head, and stared fixedly at the Wailing Bird.

And the Wailing Bird, the moment its eyes met Yu Nian's, turned its head to flee.

The arrow feather in my hand shot out swiftly; it would have hit, but at the instant the arrow neared the Wailing Bird, its body convulsed uncontrollably in midair a few times.

I thought this was its tactic, and it had successfully dodged the arrow.

But immediately I realized something was wrong.

This was not the Wailing Bird's tactic; it was being pulled by a strange force, unable to fly properly, causing it to jerk repeatedly in midair.

And that force……came from the Thousand Soul Banner!

The mast of the Thousand Soul Banner was firmly planted in the ground, Yu Nian stood beside it, making hand seals with her mouth murmuring incantations, souls surged within the banner, and its surface rustled loudly in the yin wind.

I have personally witnessed Yu Nian using the Thousand Soul Banner several times, and each time this power shakes me.

But none of those times compares to this one right now.

As Yu Nian chanted continuously, not only did the souls sealed in the Thousand Soul Banner surge, but even the souls sealed by the Snow Phoenix in the Black River broke out of the ice and rushed straight toward the Thousand Soul Banner.

Logically, at this time the bird should have flown straight to the Thousand Soul Banner.

The souls absorbed and sealed in the Thousand Soul Banner are all its nourishment.

Strangely, the bird not only dared not attack the Thousand Soul Banner, but flapped its wings and struggled to fly in the opposite direction.

The bird is afraid.

What is it afraid of?

The current situation is completely beyond my imagination.

If the bird were afraid of Yu Nian or the Thousand Soul Banner, Yu Nian has been here all along and has been using the Thousand Soul Banner all along, so why wasn't it afraid before?

Could it be because its power was greatly weakened in the formation array just now?

The moment my gaze swept toward Yu Nian again, I was suddenly startled!

Under Yu Nian's feet there were actually three shadows!

One is Yu Nian's own, one is Fan Chen's residing in Yu Nian's body, and what about the third?

Whose is the third?

That shadow is tall and large, even making the hand signs and chanting.

Every movement of that shadow's hand signs also drives Yu Nian's hand signs.

So, the one now controlling Yu Nian's body, casting the spell to drive the Thousand Soul Banner, is not Yu Nian but……that shadow……