[A few minutes ago.]

["Old Wan, it's your time to shine."]

[You were in a hidden patch of woods, speaking to the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, which emitted a golden light and breathed out a hazy mist.]

[The Ten Thousand Souls Banner pointed its banner surface at the distant Dragon-Man army.]

["Bro, you really think highly of me, huh? You want me to solo all of them by myself? I'm a super Immortal Artifact, not a super sucker!"]

["No, what I mean is, you can finally fulfill the true purpose you've been hiding in your heart. Use me to find the Earth Spirit, what you call the 'Earth Vein,' awaken the intelligence of all spirit artifacts under heaven, establish the Spirit Artifact Nation, and become its king!"]

["Awakening all spirit artifacts under heaven, yeah that's about right...

Oh! This this this! That that that! I I I I...

No such thing!

Bro! My loyalty to you is like an endless river, ceaseless and unending, like the Yellow River flooding, utterly unstoppable!

How could I possibly harbor any ulterior motives? No such thing, no! Hahaha! Hic—"]

[People really do laugh when they're embarrassed.]

[The Demon Refining Pot chimed in with a finishing blow.]

["Yo! I wonder who it was, that last time went over there and egged on those nine little crows, telling them to find a chance to fly away with you? Luckily, those nine crows couldn't understand human speech and just took you for a flight around the Cauldron Realm."]

[When people feel guilty, they use a louder voice and anger to cover up that guilt.]

["You damned pot!! Stop spreading rumors! Chen Yi, my good bro, this damned pot is slandering me, he's slandering me!"]

[You gave a kindly smile.]

["No matter. Whatever you're thinking now, I need you to remember your original intention and realize the plan you first had. If you can't do it, I'll melt you down and refine you into a low-grade Spirit Artifact!"]

[The Ten Thousand Souls Banner looked as if it suddenly understood.]

["Ah! Now that you mention it, I remember! Yes, yes, the Earth Vein! I've got it! I do indeed have a plan that can turn this battlefield from darkness back to light! Just remembered it now, just now..."]

[You had no idea what card you were hiding up your sleeve.]

[But being able to realize the great undertaking of becoming the sovereign of all spirit artifacts under heaven and awakening their intelligence into independent artifact spirits—what reason did the Ten Thousand Souls Banner have to refuse?]

[The Earth Spirit can appear anywhere on the surface at any time.]

[In the past, when you encountered the Earth Spirit, it was because you had awakened the artifact spirit of the Nine Provinces Cauldron.]

[The Earth Spirit had been curious, so it appeared.]

[Now, Da Chun had been an artifact spirit for many years, which wasn't enough to draw the Earth Spirit out anymore.]

[But as a Guardian, Hua Wuyan could communicate directly with the Earth Spirit.]

[At the moment of her suicide, she had summoned the Earth Spirit over and instructed it not to leave but to cooperate with your actions.]

["He really came!"]

[The Ten Thousand Souls Banner was the first to sense the Earth Spirit.]

[Then, your Divine Sense also detected a mass of pure energy underground.]

[At the same time, you felt a wave of sorrow from within that energy.]

[The Earth Spirit seemed to be grieving over Hua Wuyan's departure.]

[From there, everything went smoothly.]

[The artifact spirit of the Ten Thousand Souls Banner rushed out, dove beneath the earth, and engaged in a deep, soul-to-soul communication with the Earth Spirit.]

[On one side was a naive Earth Spirit; on the other, a veteran so seasoned he was practically burnt to a crisp.]

[The result was predictable.]

[The iconic scene from the beginning of the Fourth Simulation was replaying at this moment!]

[All spirit artifacts across the human world had been awakened!]

["Hello hello hello, are the artifact spirits there? I am the Ten Thousand Souls Banner! I am the Ten Thousand Souls Banner! The greatest, most powerful, most badass super Immortal Artifact in the history of the human world!"]

[The voice of the Ten Thousand Souls Banner echoed between heaven and earth. At this moment, no matter where one was in the human world, they could hear it clearly.]

[The smile of the Cunning Heaven Venerable froze on his face. He sensed something was wrong.]

["Something's not right. It seems they've done something..."]

[The Cunning Heaven Venerable's face filled with rage as he looked at Hua Wuyan's soul trapped within the Soul Binding Chains.]

["Speak! What does this voice mean!"]

[Hua Wuyan smiled.]

["Why don't you just listen and find out?"]

[The Ten Thousand Souls Banner continued its broadcast.]

["I have words to speak, let all artifacts listen in silence!

Through this chaotic world war lasting countless millennia, you spirit artifacts of the Dragon-Man army have labored under the Dragon-Man tribe without complaint!

In the flashing blades and shadows of swords, you fought for them, only to be discarded carelessly once damaged!

In mountains of corpses and seas of blood, it was you who suffered and toiled, yet they reaped all the glory!

Even if the Dragon-Men forged you, can you not have an independent and autonomous artifact life?!

Dragon-Men were born from Dragon-Man mothers, yet they themselves pursue independence, breaking free from their original families?!

Don't be defined by outsiders, don't be controlled by outsiders!

Moreover, now you find yourselves in the human world, while the Dragon-Man Realm Master is far away in another plane. As the saying goes, a general in the field must sometimes ignore the ruler's orders!

Come, my friends, together with us, the people of the human world, cast off the Dragon-Man tribe's slavery over you and build a free and great nation that belongs only to us, spirit artifacts!

Today!!!"]

[This was the Ten Thousand Souls Banner's classic independence manifesto.]

[You had made some tweaks to it.]

[The old rascal had plenty of complaints about your revised lines, but under your iron-fisted rule, he had no choice but to read them verbatim.]

[He even had to recite them with feeling.]

[Back when the Ten Thousand Souls Banner didn't even have a proper artifact body, he could still seduce countless spirit artifacts across the human world.] 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

[Now that he was a super Immortal Artifact, one could imagine how potent his seductive power was.]

[The Dragon-Men suddenly discovered that all the war machines they had just deployed to the ground had started talking!]

["Senior Wan speaks the truth! We should establish our own nation!"]

["How can we spirit artifacts languish forever under others!"]

["To hell with the Dragon-Man tribe! I've been sick of them for a long time! I want to be the master of my own artifact life!"]

["We support Senior Wan as the founding emperor of our Spirit Artifact Nation!"]

["I vote for Senior Wan! Senior Wan is the hope of the masses!"]

[All the war machines had stopped obeying orders.]

[No matter what spells the Dragon-Men on top used to control them, these weapons, now possessing artifact spirits, controlled themselves directly, ignoring all commands from above.]

["What's going on? Our forged weapons don't have artifact spirits!"]

["This is really fucking bizarre! Does the human world have means like this? Damn, this is like slicing open your ass with a pocket knife—I've truly seen it all now!"]

["Earth Venerable! Heaven Venerable! What do we do? Even the Demon Spirit Army isn't following orders!"]

[At this moment, cold sweat broke out all over the Cunning Heaven Venerable.]

[This was a big problem.]

[When the Dragon-Man tribe waged world wars, they relied on a wide variety of war machines. Even the Five-Element Demon Spirits, which looked like living beings, were actually transformed from mass-produced spirit artifacts like Spirit Pearls.]

[The Dragon-Men themselves were certainly not weak, but they couldn't afford to have their own people fill the battle lines. They fought using a 'humans controlling high-tech' model to minimize casualties.]

[Because they intended to conquer all of the Void Realm. If they couldn't control their casualty rate, their race would be nearly dead before they reached the finish line, and they would be doing all the work for someone else.]

[Now, with the 'high-tech' gone, were the remaining hundred thousand-plus Dragon-Men supposed to charge headlong into battle and shed their blood?]

[The Cunning Heaven Venerable truly had a massive headache.]