They did not hesitate. On their swords, they flew as far away from the red beams of light as they could. When they turned around, they saw the red light spreading quickly across the entire horizon like a web moving to wrap around the entire world. Each beam reached the clouds, until the whole Underworld became covered in the red light.

The ground was shaking more violently now and the array was amplifying the cries of unseen ghosts. The voices were high-pitched and ear-piercing. The traveling souls seemed to be experiencing some kind of excruciating pain as they tried to seek cover.

"I sense a lot of different auras coming from over there," Yi Qing suddenly shouted as he pointed to his right. "Right there, where the two realms intersect."

The group exchanged glances. "Go!"

They turned around and flew toward the exit of the Underworld. The journey that ordinarily would have taken them an hour took less than ten minutes now. They found themselves at the intersection between the two worlds. It was not that they were fast, but… the Underworld was shrinking.

Σ(°△°

)

There was a flash of white. A faint wall of light stood in the air between the two worlds, sealing the Underworld off from outsiders. On top of the wall were several unidentifiable arrays. As those arrays interacted with the red light that was filling the Underworld, an invisible force pulled the wall of light toward the Underworld.

As the light wall got closer, the Underworld got darker and the Divine Realm got bigger. It was almost as if the Underworld was being swallowed. For some reason, the wall of light caused each traveling soul that touched it to dissipate with a cry of pain.

What was more surprising was behind the wall of light, there were countless different types of divine beings. Each of them were conjuring the same seal. It seemed like they were joining forces to push the wall of light toward the Underworld, swallowing it whole. Faintly, they saw a familiar figure.

"Are those.. the roleplayers?"

"Feng San, Long Zhen!" Lonemoon stepped forward and shouted. "What are you doing here? What kind of array is that?"

The two of them did not answer, as if they had not heard a word that Lonemoon shouted to them. Their expressions remained blank as they continued working at the array.

"Their divine souls are being controlled by someone else. They're already one with the array and they can't hear a thing we're saying," Bai Ze said as his expression darkened. "'The rest are the same."

Their hearts fell as they looked on in disbelief at the uncountable army outside of the array. There were at least ten thousand of them out there. What kind of person could control so many souls at once - and divine souls at that?

"They're all divine beings. How can that…" Lonemoon paused mid-sentence as his eyes widened. He turned to Shen Ying and at the same time, they cried out.

"Remnant souls!"

The colour drained out of the faces of everyone in the group. They had thought that they were the only few who had lost their remnant souls. From the looks of it, the uncountable army of people outside of the array had all lost their remnant souls as well. That meant that more than half of the population of the Divine World had fallen for the trap.

Holy s.h.i.+t, they had to admit that this was pretty impressive. Someone was obviously h.e.l.l-bent on destroying the Underworld. But who would want to do something like that?

Lonemoon turned and pulled Yi Qing next to him. He lowered his voice and instructed, "Chef, Bai Ze, get as far away from this array as you can." The wall of light was being pushed closer and closer to them by the second, and it was bringing with it a destructive aura. Without question, as soon as either of them touched the wall of light, they would become just like the rest of the traveling souls - their souls would dissipate.

They had no choice but to retreat. Lonemoon anxiously scanned the crowd. "We have to quickly find the person who is controlling them, otherwise the entire Underworld will be finished."

"Elder Lonemoon, look!" Xuan Tong suddenly screamed as she pointed to something on her right.

All of them turned to look. Not far away from them to their right, the wall of light was emanating a beam of white light which shot straight through the darkness of the Underworld, toward the deepest crevices of the Underworld. It was almost as if someone was creating a path. Faintly, they saw a white figure flying through the white beam of light.

"That must be the mastermind. Give chase!" Lonemoon shouted. He turned and mounted his sword, flying to catch up with the white figure. The rest of the group followed closely behind him.

In front of him, the figure was getting faster. Even though all of them were now giving chase at top speed, they could only faintly see the back of the figure.

Lonemoon gritted his teeth and started to increase his speed.

"Father Niu!" Shen Ying suddenly reached out and pulled him back.

Lonemoon almost fell off his sword. "Shen Ying, you-"

"There's a river!" She exclaimed, as she pulled Xuan Tong and Bai Ze back as well.

The Yin River!

Lonemoon stiffened. It slipped his mind that such a thing existed in the Underworld. He looked at the figure that was now just a white dot in the distance and became more anxious. "We need to make our way around-"

"Too slow!" He was just about to suggest for Shen Ying to bring them around the river, when she interrupted him.

Lonemoon's heart sank. He suddenly had a bad feeling in his gut. "Wait, Shen Ying, you're not…"

Before he could finish speaking, he felt his collar tighten. Suddenly, he was speeding past everything. The surroundings became a blur of lines as the wind blew strongly past his ear. Beside him were three others, who were also being dragged along in a similar manner as he was.

The four of them: "…"

(⊙_⊙)

In a blink of an eye, the man who was just a white dot moments ago became a discernible figure once more. With another whir, they found themselves standing in front of the man in white.

He was an elderly man dressed in white robes, with white hair and a white beard. He wore a hint of a smile and looked like a friendly old grandfather. There was not a hint of evil on his face. He did not look like someone who would be interested in destroying the Underworld.

"It's you!" The elderly man frowned as he looked at Lonemoon. He did not look panicked at all, as if he had been expecting this all along. "My predictions were right. You're the greatest variable."

"You know… blurgh!" Before Lonemoon could finish his sentence, his expression changed. His delayed motion sickness suddenly took hold of him as he turned around and vomited. His entire face turned green.

His reaction seemed to trigger everyone else as well. Yi Qing, Bai Ze and Shortie turned around one by one and began to vomit as well. All of them puked even their gastric juices up.

Just like that, the scene was set with two people facing each other and four others puking uncontrollably.

Shen Ying: "…"

The elderly man: "…"

The atmosphere was extremely awkward…

-_-

He knew this would happen. Shen Ying was too freaking fast! Lonemoon quickly conjured several spells and finally suppressed the urge to continue vomiting. He turned to look at the man in front of him. "Who exactly are-"

Before he could finish speaking, Bai Ze - who had also regained his composure - exclaimed, "Supreme Divinity Hongyu!"