Time flew by, and soon seven days had already passed.

　　Fang Xing had been inside the Yin Prison Abyss for twelve days by now, and during this period, Ye Gu’yin had completely submitted to Fang Xing—she didn’t dare to rebel or commit suicide, and it was even to the extent she didn’t dare to slack off during her work. The reason for this was because Fang Xing had made a new rule: if she made any small mistake or slacked off even slightly during her work, a piece of cloth would be cut from her robe.

　　Ye Gu’yin had been given a wholly intact robe to wear at first, and by the time it was cut enough to show parts of her skin, she’d given in to her fate completely.

　　All she needed to do for her job was use a secret technique to move the seals inch by inch onto the flag. It was a task that required high attention to detail with many steps, and Fang Xing had kept her alive precisely because he felt it was too much of a hassle and didn’t want to do it himself. With Ye Gu’yin as the primary worker, the Peng King as the supervisor, and Fang Xing paying attention to them from time to time, the Flag of Ten Thousand Spirits began to take shape.

　　During this time, Fang Xing would also often venture out of the cell to check up on the internal structure of the Yin Prison Abyss. It was exactly as the Peng King had described: as a giant prison for the beast tribes, the Yin Prison Abyss was humongous with thousands of cells and numerous formations and restrictions. It was incredibly difficult to reach its borders, but Fang Xing was fortunately now in Foundation Stage and was able to scout the entire prison within three days. It would have taken him at least half a month if he were still in Spirit Stage.

　　After three days of exploration following the suggestions and advice of the Peng King, Fang Xing found a juncture where it was possible to escape. It was located at the end of this massive prison, where there was a giant and tightly-shut gate made of iron. There was no path in front of the gate, and there were nine colossal binding formations floating above it. As long as someone was able to avoid these nine giant formations, it would be possible to open the iron gates and get to the prison’s exit.

　　The nine giant formations were already mostly destroyed, yet they still maintained quite some power. After using the Book of Revelation, Fang Xing could see there wasn’t a single safe path that would allow him to completely evade all nine of them—as of right now, even the safest path would require him to deal with three.

　　According to the Peng King’s estimations, this was already rather fortunate. During its peak, the Yin Prison Abyss not only had nine complete formations, but also two Golden Core Stage beast kings outside the iron gates to guard and adjust the formations at any given time, or even supply their own Qi to enhance the formations. Let alone Fang Xing, even someone at the peak of Golden Core Stage might not be able to break out from this prison.

　　Today, all Fang Xing had to do was get through three broken formations, which was not even one percent as dangerous as it had been originally. Of course, since Fang Xing was only in the early Foundation Stage, rushing into these three formations was still incredibly dangerous, so he decided to wait on breaking out until the Flag of Ten Thousand Spirits was completed.

　　Time flew on, and another ten days passed. While Fang Xing was lazily lying in the corner studying the Scripture of Revered Sense, he finally heard a scream of joy from the Peng King. Fang Xing immediately knew the flag had been completed, and he threw the Scripture of Revered Sense back into his storage sack before hastily rushing over.

　　On the ground was a pole approximately ten feet long with a black millstone-sized flag sitting quietly on the ground. At first glance, it seemed like a rather ordinary flag that just so happened to have a complicated design printed on it, but a closer look revealed that these designs were in fact numerous seals after seals. Having so many seals combined together had given this flag a rather mysterious feeling, as though looking at it for even a little longer could cause someone to be sucked inside.

　　“Hehe, kid, come and finish the last step!” The Peng King smiled before abruptly flying up and disappearing into the flag, causing the flag itself to suddenly begin to fly. Fang Xing grasped onto the pole and immediately felt hundreds of auras trying to contact him; all he would have to do is send a mental command and any one of these hundreds of auras could be used at his will, as if he was commanding his own power.

　　Without showing any expression, Fang Xing appraised it with his Book of Revelation. When he didn’t find anything wrong with it, his mood instantly turned pleasant.

　　“Spirits, combine!” He waved the large flag and pointed towards a location above. A chilling wind instantly formed from nothingness and began to tear at the hearts of anyone nearby.

　　There were actually a countless number of ghost spirits within the complicated passageways of the prison abyss, and as Fang Xing activated the Flag of Ten Thousand Spirits, they began surging towards him from all directions like a tidal wave before flying directly into the flag. Even though Fang Xing knew the last step to create this flag involved combining all of the spirits, it was still a rather bizarre sight. The flag had such a high power because it allowed the user to control and command all these beast spirits, so drawing in the spirits of those who left their seals behind was only natural.

　　A special formation had been marked inside the flag itself to ensure that even if Fang Xing left this place, the beast spirits inside would still be protected and didn’t need to worry about dissipating. During battles, Fang Xing would instead need to protect the flag to make sure the formation wasn’t destroyed, or else all of these spirits would die as well. Put simply, as long as this flag was intact and in hand, Fang Xing was able to command an army of over three hundred beast spirit soldiers.

　　The flag did have a weakness, however: in order for it to be used to its maximum potential, a large amount of blood sacrifice was required.

　　A ghost spirit was only a single strand of spirit without a physical body, after all. When the Flag of Ten Thousand Spirits was activated, it would only form the illusion of hundreds of beast soldiers. Unless the opponent was so weak that their soul was easily drawn away by these ghosts, it would be hard for them to threaten people since they didn’t have physical bodies. That is, unless there was a large blood sacrifice.

　　With a large sacrifice, these beast spirits would be able to form a temporary physical body in order to fight with even greater strength. The flag’s wicked nature was most obvious when it came to this, as this sacrifice didn’t necessarily have to come explicitly from the user.

　　On a battleground with tens of thousands of soldiers, for example, Fang Xing could simply wave the Flag of Ten Thousand Spirits and a large number of the soldiers would be killed. Some of these people would be used as a blood sacrifice, and the flag would obtain greater power to kill even more people, and then obtain yet more sacrifice. With this, the cycle would repeat itself, giving Fang Xing the power to kill a large army without using any energy himself.

　　Fang Xing loudly laughed, extremely satisfied. “Haha, feels good. This shall be my new weapon of choice now that I’ve formed the foundation!” After speaking, he looked around and his gaze stopped at Ye Gu’yin to the side.

　　Ye Gu’yin was silent at this moment, her face extremely pale. “You’re still going to kill me after all?” Her chest moved up and down, and there was a trace of panic in her voice.

　　No one was able to be indifferent to death forever. Although she did indeed have the desire to die when she’d been facing Fang Xing earlier, his shameless tactics had scared her to the point she hadn’t dared to die. After so many more days had passed, her desire for death had completely disappeared—she now wished to live.

　　Fang Xing looked at Ye Gu’yin with a half-smile. “If it was you, would you let me go?”

　　Ye Gu’yin’s gaze was uncertain and she didn’t respond. Both of them were clever people; there was no need for certain lies. If she’d caught Fang Xing before, she would have forced out Fang Xing’s secrets and assuredly taken him to the Xiao family of the Qing-Yun Sect, even though doing so could have potentially consigned him to a fate worse than death. She didn’t even see Fang Xing’s life as an actual life back then, so she didn’t even dare to hope he would spare her now.

　　After giving it some thought, Fang Xing declared with seriousness, “Seeing as you’ve been my servant for so long, I will take your corpse outside and bury it to give you the chance at another life!” This was indeed him being lenient on her; if he were to kill her and leave the body inside, her ghost spirit would never be able to leave this place and would simply float inside forever.

　　In fact, Fang Xing actually felt it was a pity to kill such a beauty. She had to be killed, however, especially now that the grudge was set in stone; there was no reason for him to leave any roots behind. Fang Xing took a step forward and moved his palm to strike Ye Gu’yin’s head, intent on sending her—the top genius of the Chufung Kingdom—to the netherworld.

　　Ye Gu’yin had no means of defending herself from such a strike. She had never been Fang Xing’s opponent without her zither, so how could she retaliate now that he’d formed the foundation? In front of Fang Xing now, she was as weak as an insect.

　　She shut her eyes in despair as the strike drew close, and there even seemed to be a teardrop on the edge of her eyes. Whether this tear was caused out of regret for chasing Fang Xing or out of fear for the soon-to-arrive death, it was impossible to tell.

　　However, Fang Xing’s strike didn’t actually land on her. Just as his palm was halfway there, an astonishing amount of power was abruptly released from Ye Gu’yin’s body.

　　This power had been hidden inside Ye Gu’yin’s body so that even she didn’t know of it. Within a single breath, the force of this power sent her unconscious, while the power itself shot right up into the sky. The silhouette of an old man wearing a dirty black robe formed, his hands folded behind him with his eyes glimmering like lightning as he looked towards Fang Xing.

　　“Nn?” Startled by this power, Fang Xing immediately flew back a hundred feet and wrapped himself in the Flag of Ten Thousand Spirits for protection.

　　“Fellow Daoist, where it is possible to show leniency, forgive and forget. Please do assist me with a small favor and spare the life of my pupil…” the silhouette calmly said. There was no anger, yet the tone contained the force of not allowing anyone to disagree.

　　“The spiritual illusion of a Golden Core cultivator….” Fang Xing was astonished and didn’t dare to rush into anything after noticing this power Ye Gu’yin had been left inside by a Golden Core Stage cultivator. It had been hidden so well that even she herself didn’t know about it under normal circumstances, but now that she was faced with grave danger and pushed between life and death, the power activated on its own to project the silhouette of an old man into the air to speak with Ye Gu’yin’s foe.

　　When Fang Xing first captured Ye Gu’yin, he hadn’t had any thoughts of actually killing her, so this power hadn’t activated. It wasn’t until now—when his murderous intent was at full force and he wasn’t holding anything back from his strike—that it activated.

　　“Heh, old man, did you know this good pupil of yours madly chased me for a full day and night over a small matter? If I didn’t have luck on my side, I would have been killed by her ages ago. Now you want me to spare her just because you said a few words?” Fang Xing carefully estimated the battle prowess of this illusion and sneered. “Don’t think I can’t tell. You’re nothing but a single mark left behind; how are you going to stop me?”