Returning to Stone Hut Number Seven, Su Ming began taking stock of his belongings.

The Military Merit token, identity jade plaque, Foundation Establishment pill, miscellaneous items acquired from the Ghost Market, and those few jade slips recording his formation insights... All items were sorted by category and neatly stored away into his storage pouch.

After completing this, the hut became empty and desolate.

Su Ming pushed open the stone window.

The wind and snow had ceased at some unknown time, and a few sparse, cold stars even shone through the night sky.

Tonight, Iron Wall Pass was unusually quiet. The distant, continuous beacon towers burned silently, as if even those restless demon beasts knew a meritorious individual was about to depart and were reluctant to disturb.

This was a peace almost auspicious, filled with a sense of consolation.

Su Ming gazed at the distant lights, his heart free from the usual tension and scheming, leaving only a calm sense of accomplishment.

"This year was worth it."

He closed the window, shutting out the chill from outside.

His gaze swept over the corner of the table, where a small bottle still rested.

Su Ming picked up the bottle and gently shook it.

"There's still some Void Stone Powder left."

He asked within his Consciousness Sea, "Master, since there's nothing to do tonight anyway, why not use it now? Although the Source Substance here is thin, we shouldn't waste it."

......

No lamp was lit inside the room. The only faint light came from the formation plate slowly revolving at the center of the stone table.

Su Ming's wrist hovered, the tip of the brush holding a specially made spiritual ink mixed with "Void Stone Powder" still undried. Following the rhythm of his breathing, it descended with extreme slowness onto the most central node of the formation plate.

This was the final stroke.

As the brush tip lifted, an extremely obscure, dark blue glow flashed across the surface of the formation plate and then vanished, leaving only ripples of space undetectable to the naked eye. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Su Ming let out a long sigh, put down the rune brush, and rubbed his slightly throbbing brow.

"Master, this is the last time at Iron Wall Pass."

Su Ming spoke while deftly forming hand seals, converting his own Ruo Shui spiritual energy into the gentlest guiding thread, probing into the formation's core. "Although this place's earth veins have been drained dry by the grand formation, and the Source Substance is as thin as dishwater, it can still stabilize your Soul Body a little. Consider it... a midnight snack before departure."

"Should be grateful for having something to eat, not picky about quality."

In the Consciousness Sea, Lin Yu's voice sounded lazily, carrying a sense of ease as if about to be "released from sentence." "The Void Source Substance in this damned place might be bland and carry a metallic rust taste, but the advantage is quantity over quality. Hurry up, activate it. After this meal, we can hit the road."

"Master, the phrase 'hit the road' is inauspicious."

Su Ming chuckled lightly, his fingertip lightly tapping the edge of the formation plate.

*Hum.*

The compact formation named the "Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation" emitted a faint, almost inaudible tremor.

There were no earth-shattering phenomena, not even much disturbance in the surrounding air.

Only the small space above the formation plate seemed to have a corner gently crumpled by an invisible hand.

Countless, faint, thread-like strands of Void Source Substance were drawn out, following Su Ming's fingertip, continuously disappearing into that ancient-looking Xuantian ring.

Lin Yu let out a satisfied sigh. The patterns on the ring's surface lit up with a layer of warm, lustrous light.

Simultaneously, an extremely faint, yet exceptionally pure and unique "spatial ripple," following the foundation of the formation, ignored the barrier of the stone hut's foundation, ignored the layers upon layers of defensive formation lines, and even ignored the frozen soil and rock strata. Like a drop of water seeping into a sponge, it silently rippled downward toward the depths of the earth.

……

Bing Battalion area, three thousand zhang underground.

There was no light, no wind, only suffocating earth pressure and a continuous, tide-like rustling sound produced by the friction of some arthropod.

This was a dark golden ocean.

Countless Rock Marrow Demon Earthworms with hard dorsal shells and ferocious mouthparts, along with those mutated dark golden beetles, were in an eerie state of silence. They were not frantically gnawing at the rock layers as usual, but like an army ready for deployment, quietly lurking in the darkness.

At the very core of this insect sea, there was a spherical nest piled up by countless worker insects using saliva and slag.

At the center of the nest, an individual different from the rest hovered silently.

It was too small.

Compared to the giant demon earthworms several zhang long on the periphery, its body size was only that of a human fist.

Its entire body displayed a dark yet warm dark golden hue, devoid of any biological stench or sliminess. Instead, it gleamed with a cold, hard metallic luster, as if forged from the purest essence of Geng Metal, melted and solidified a thousand times in fierce flames.

On its smooth, mirror-like carapace, intricate, slowly shifting silver-gray patterns grew naturally.

It had no compound eyes.

The front of its head consisted of two smooth, curved carapace plates, with a black crystal embedded between them resembling solidified amber.

This crystal was pure, profound, devoid of any emotional fluctuations, containing only absolute rationality and coldness.

It was the absolute center of this dark golden ocean, a silent brain.

*Hum—*

A spatial ripple so faint it was almost negligible passed through the thick rock strata, gently brushing over this nest.

It was the ripple generated by Su Ming's Minor Void Spirit Attraction Formation.

This ripple held no meaning for the other insects; it couldn't even cause their antennae to tremble.

But the dark golden individual suspended at the nest's center moved at this very moment.

The three pairs of slender antennae on its head, originally just hanging down, suddenly lifted.

The tips of the antennae trembled lightly with an extremely regular rhythm.

Its black crystal rotated slightly. Its gaze penetrated the three-thousand-zhang rock layers, pierced through the darkness, and precisely locked onto the coordinate point directly above—the source of the ripple.

No anger, no hunger, no killing intent.

The insect swarm surging like a tide around it seemed to receive some silent command at this moment.

The previously chaotic friction sounds vanished.

A bone-chilling dead silence spread in the deep underground.

The silver-gray patterns on the head of that dark golden individual suddenly brightened. It gently retracted its antennae.

The next instant.

The dark golden ocean, originally in a state of silence, boiled over.