Cave Refuge

After all, no one knew if the camp they were about to raid was equipped with excellent weapons or guarded by powerful martial artists.

Most roaming raiders generally wouldn't encounter such situations, for if they truly possessed exemplary weapons or a powerful martial artist to guard them, most would choose to establish a camp and reign over a territory, as compared to daily exposure to the elements, most Chinese people still prefer a stable and comfortable life.

Faced with the sudden appearance of this giant White Bone creature, the raiders realized it must have been summoned by a camp expert to block their escape.

Though they were surprised by the sudden appearance of the giant White Bone creature, they weren't frightened, having lived a life of pillaging, they had seen their share of terrifying sights.

Faced with such a massive creature, one only needed to disperse the formation, then by running faster than the other teammates, one could certainly escape the strange camp safely.

Faced with this suddenly appearing obstacle blocking their path, the raiders didn't slow their pace to escape, but sped up instead. As they approached the colossal creature blocking their way, everyone seemed to silently agree on individual escape routes.

After all, to those raiders, no matter how strong the colossal creature was, as long as it didn't have powerful area effects, it could only attack one target at a time. With the raiders scattering, as long as they weren't the unfortunate target, escaping the camp was still relatively easy.

However, the raiders' attention was completely drawn to the White Bone creature that suddenly appeared, even as they dispersed, their focus remained on that colossal creature, curious to see who would be its unlucky target.

The raiders failed to notice that the shadows, which had been following them on the ground as they fled, suddenly began to tremble erratically. When the shadows on the ground finally stabilized and stopped shaking,

the reflections on the ground gradually detached from the surface, though still connected to their bodies, the standing shadows from the ground slowly morphed into pitch-black human figures, each clutching a longsword fashioned from shadow.

While the remaining raiders were unsuspecting, the shadows that detached from the ground behind them swung their longswords, piercing their own masters' hearts.

As the shadow longswords penetrated the raiders from behind, no wound appeared on their bodies, yet all of the raiders suddenly felt as if their hearts had burst, their bodies stiffening, and all the raiders dropped to the ground together.

Just as the raiders had fallen, the surrounding black snakes couldn't resist hurling themselves towards the raiders' bodies, only to be met with the sudden appearance of three small flags in mid-air in red, white, and grey.

The black snakes' bodies first stiffened in the air, then their bodies instantly shriveled as if they were sugarcanes being juiced, deflating like leaky balloons, and in just an instant, they were left as deflated as punctured balloons, leaving only a snake skin crashing onto the raiders below. At this time, those raiders who had collapsed on the ground were left just like those small black snakes, leaving behind only human skins, as all their flesh and bones were absorbed by the three flags in the air.

And the entity that had possessed the shadows, turning them into humanoid figures, was the evil spirit from the Hundred Ghosts Banner. The shadow longsword that pierced the raiders' hearts was merely one of the evil spirit's ordinary attack methods. It was displayed in this manner to instill fear in the raiders who noticed them.

It's unknown whether the raiders were normally careless, or if the giant White Bone creature that suddenly blocked their path captured all their attention. In any case, until their deaths, none had noticed the terrifying scene of the shadow killings.

When the raiders felt their hearts stop abruptly, the evil spirits released from the Hundred Ghosts Banner immediately dragged the raiders' souls out of their bodies.

Souls without the protection of a physical body were no match for evil spirits, let alone when they were attacked by multiple evil spirits at once. Hence, in just a few moments, the raiders' souls were torn apart and devoured by the surrounding evil spirits.

Once they lost their souls, their bodies naturally could no longer resist the power of the White Bone Banner and the Bloodthirsty Banner. The flesh and organs inside their bodies liquefied into fluid, which was instantly absorbed by the Bloodthirsty Banner, while the bones inside were instantly crushed into White Bone Essence, absorbed by the White Bone Banner.

After all the flesh and bones inside the Awakeners' bodies vanished, naturally, only a shriveled human skin remained on the ground.

If it could be said that the raiders who fell to the ground still needed the evil spirits in the Hundred Ghosts Banner to employ tactics to drag the raiders' souls out of their bodies,

then the souls of those black snakes on the ground, fragile as ants, simply could not resist the allure of the Hundred Ghosts Banner. Once they entered the area of the Hundred Ghosts Banner, they didn't even need an attack by evil spirits. Their souls were instantly transformed into soul essence and absorbed by the Hundred Ghosts Banner.

And those snakes, having lost their souls, would also have their bones and flesh absorbed by the White Bone Banner and the Bloodthirsty Banner, just like the raiders' bodies.

Once Dong Tianyu unleashed the Three Flags, the black snakes rampaging through the camp instantly turned into a collection of shriveled snake skins devoid of bones and flesh.

Since the Three Flags were already out, Dong Tianyu simply proceeded to eliminate all the black snakes in the camp, and since all the survivors were hiding inside the Companion Spiritual Treasures, Dong Tianyu only needed to control the Three Flags to attack the lives hiding in the Companion Spiritual Treasures without worrying too much about anything else.

In fact, even if Dong Tianyu didn't manipulate the Three Flags and bypass the Companion Spiritual Treasures in the camp, it wouldn't cause any significant damage to the survivors hiding within them.

After all, relying solely on the passive absorption and transformation ability of the Three Flags, let alone against Martial Artists, even ordinary people wouldn't experience instant absorption.

As mentioned before, to absorb a human's blood and bones, one must reach a state of complete incapacity to struggle or resist.

Even just relying on the body's instinctual struggle would significantly delay the speed of transformation and absorption. That is why the evil spirits initially had to attack actively, followed by dragging the raiders' souls out of their bodies and then having numerous evil spirits work together to destroy and devour the raiders' souls.

Even when the raiders' souls had just left their bodies, although their bodies lost their souls, they still retained an instinctual ability to resist in the face of danger.

Only when the raiders' souls were torn apart and devoured by the surrounding evil spirits, completely severing the unknown connection with their bodies, did their bodies lose the ability to instinctually resist and die completely.

Only after the body was completely dead could the White Bone Banner and the Bloodthirsty Banner's abilities to absorb bone and blood essence take effect.

That's why, as mentioned at the beginning, the souls of humans are closely bound with their bodies. Thus, even ordinary humans, relying only on the passive soul attraction ability of the Hundred Ghosts Banner at this time, temporarily cannot directly draw the soul out of the body, and without the soul leaving the body or the body dying, the passive absorption ability of the Hundred Ghosts Banner and the Bloodthirsty Banner naturally cannot take effect.

Of course, this situation is only temporary. As the number of soul essences absorbed by the Hundred Ghosts Banner gradually increases and the number of ghost creatures in the banner continues to grow, once the grade of the Hundred Ghosts Banner reaches a certain level, ordinary human souls approaching it will, like the black snakes on the ground now, have their souls directly pulled out of their bodies by the passive attraction, without the evil spirits having to lift a finger.