The key to opening the Land of Cruelmurk were the three fish bones!2

Xu Qing recognized those bones. They were the same spikes taken by the hand of white jade from within Forbidden by the Immortal. Only now did he realize their function.2

Rumbling sounds echoed out as the ripples from the three bones created a second canopy of heaven. Black mist swirled, and the soul-shaking wail of ghosts emerged. Within that black, misty painting were innumerable evil souls. When they looked up and saw everything on the outside, the lieutenant governor’s summons became like countless karma threads.0

On one end, they connected to the broken face of the lieutenant governor. The other end stretched into Cruelmurk, wherein lurked the souls of the countless dead of Violet and Cyan’s Sea-Sealing County. And those threads began to pull. The evil souls began to follow the karma threads, burrowing out of the second canopy of heaven and looking down on the lands below, and the living beings within them, with open greed.2

This was the lieutenant governor’s master plan. This was his offering to his lord and master. It wasn’t just the life force and destiny aura of all the living beings in Sea-Sealing...1