Spirit Realm

Lines of ravines filled the inside of the bowl-shaped valley like spirit lines, sketching the picture of a burning fire on the valley’s stone ground.

A layer of soft soil was paved on top of the ravine, and there was light peeking from underneath. The light appeared to be due to special sort of crystal.

Black clouds that were like washbasins gathered on the sky above the valley. There were hundreds of them, and they covered both the sky and the ground in heavy black.

They were all the soul fragments of the Soul Devouring Beast.

At this moment, the clumps of soul fragments of the Soul Devouring Beast were like layers of thick black clouds blocking out the light, and these black clouds were even slowly pushing downwards.

Previously, there were always Ghost Birds flying above Qin Lie and the others’ heads. Liang Zhong was able to borrow the Ghost Bird’s ability to grasp the movements and precise location of everyone in the stone forest.

However, there were no longer any birds above their heads, only the Soul Devouring Beasts’ soul fragments.

—Not a single Ghost Bird dared to circle above the valley where the Soul Devouring Beast resided.

From time to time, the true body of the Soul Devouring Beast would roar from the cave entrance inside the valley. Each roar would shake the sky, causing even the stone pillars to shake violently and the valley to almost collapse.

The scythe vanished from Xie Jingxuan’s hands, and she got off the Profound Nether Beast before running swiftly inside the valley like a black ghost.

One after another, she pressed the enhanced Spirit Gathering Boards Qin Lie had created onto the stone pillars inside the stone valley. With the addition of new Spirit Gathering Boards, the world’s spirit energy that gathered inside the valley grew thicker and thicker.

Ban Hong and the rest of the Dark Asura Hall martial practitioners left their unicorns outside. They held fine-looking spirit artifacts and their expressions were solemn, ready to face battle at any time.

“Get down.” Liang Zhong exclaimed softly, leading the way by getting off the Profound Nether Beast before the others and walking towards Ban Hong and his group with a heavy expression.

The lines of intersecting ravines were right in front of him. The crystals beneath the soft soil seemed to be growing even brighter.

Qin Lie and Gao Yu also slowly dismounted, and the moment they got off, the Profound Nether Beast immediately escaped outside the valley and stood together with the other Profound Nether Beast and the unicorns.

“When a Soul Devouring Beast prepares to breaks into the next rank, they often find some place dark and cold. That cave entrance is one of such spots that connects straight to the mouth of a cold underground spring. We have locked on to this cold spring mouth since half a year ago in order to deal with this Soul Devouring Beast.”

Liang Zhong frown was deep as he continued, “There were two things a Soul Devouring Beast is most afraid of. One is lightning, and the other fire. Both of these things can truly kill a Soul Devouring Beast.”

“The power of lightning is usually very hard to borrow, and it is not easy to summon it either. Therefore, we have laid down an ‘Eight Extreme Trigram Fire Formation’ with this cold spring’s mouth as the center. A rich amount of spirit energy would be able to draw out the maximum output of the power of the ‘Eight Extreme Trigram Fire Formation.’ This was why we bought a large number of Spirit Gathering Boards from Li’s Shop in hopes to increase the power of the flames as much as possible…”

“Whoo Whoo Whoo!”

While Liang Zhong was speaking, waves of dark and chilly wind blew out from inside the cave in the valley. The cold wind spread out, and the valley slowly turned cold and icy.

A kind of suppressed, confusing, oppressing, and maddening aura quietly spread to every corner in the valley, affecting every person standing within it.

Qin Lie, Gao Yu, and even generals like Ban Hong and the others all changed their expressions slightly, a trace of evil seemingly breeding from their pupils.

“Calm your hearts!” Liang Zhong yelled coldly.

Everyone’s eyes focused, and they turned to look at him along the way. Shock leaked out of their gazes.

“A Soul Devouring Beast is breaking through. It needs to absorb the soul fragments it has released into its true body. Those soul fragments operating outside the body have eaten many martial practitioners and spirit beasts’ souls, and those souls were mixed with a great deal of hatred, fear, irritation, madness, and other negative emotions.”

Liang Zhong looked towards the sky. “Before it evolves, it needs to wash out the dregs from its soul fragments first, and only then can it absorb them. If you pay attention, you will see that there are many layers of cold and near indistinguishable ripples that can purify a portion of those negative emotions.”

Qin Lie hurriedly lifted his head and concentrated, and he found that there were layers of tide-like ripples tens of meters above his head.

When the Soul Devouring Beast’s soul fragments, that were like black clouds, gradually descended, they would go through those cold ripples.

Meanwhile, there would be wisps of gray smoke seeping out of the Soul Devouring Beast’s soul fragments.

Once these gray substances were detached from the Soul Devouring Beast’s soul fragments, they would spread out to every corner of the valley. They carried an intense wave of negative emotions and could affect a martial practitioner’s heart.

“The purified dregs, the jumbled memories, and all sorts of maddening emotions will only accumulate over time. They will spread to every corner of the valley and slowly erode your willpower. Liang Zhong lowered his head and frowned at Qin Lie and Gao Yu. “The two of you have the lowest realm, so you are most susceptible to the soul erosion. The first thing you need to face is your heart. Remember, you must protect your heart and not let it be affected by those negative emotions. Else, not only will you be completely useless, you will even become a burden!”

“Understood,” Qin Lie and Gao Yu affirmed together.

Meanwhile, Xie Jingxuan had already placed all of the enhanced Spirit Gathering Boards one by one, and the world’s spirit energy inside the valley was growing thicker and thicker.

“I will be activating the ‘Eight Extreme Trigram Fire Formation.’ Get ready to protect me, and be careful of the attacks from the vile souls!” Like a flashing light, she abruptly appeared beside Liang Zhong and sat down next to a ravine near the crowd’s feet.

A wisp of fiery, crimson red light suddenly lit up from the spatial ring on her translucent finger. When the crowd watched closely, they realized that the light came from a finger-sized gem.

The gem was like a red jade. It was a red’s transparency and a red’s purity, and on the inside, it seemed to be sealing a cluster of crimson red flames.

The fiery light had come from the flame inside the gem. Initially, it was incredibly slow, but it was gradually growing bigger.

A fist-sized flame formed first inside the gem and immediately flew out afterwards. It was like a flapping fiery bird that had landed in the ravine before her eyes.

“Boom!”

The ravine abruptly burned fiercely. The blazing light soared towards the sky, and it was as if the ravine had instantly turned into an irritable fire dragon!

The long ravine that exceeded ten meters was about the width of an arm’s length. At the moment, the fire raged, and it burned until there were many crackles, immediately sweeping away the chilly feeling inside the valley .

When Qin Lie crept closer to take a look, he realized that there was actually a layer of Sunshine Stones laid beneath the ravines’ soil!

This was a Profound Grade Two spirit material, one rank higher than the Fire Crystal. It was one of the essential sources of fire required to refine a Profound Grade spirit artifact.

The flames of a Sunshine Stone could melt down a great deal of extremely hard Profound Grade iron and stone into fiery juices, and the high temperature it created was incredibly scary.

Once it was ignited, if the power of fire inside a Sunshine Stone wasn’t mustered and drawn out through special techniques, it could only burn for a couple of days and nights.

There was actually an entire layer of Sunshine Stones covering the over ten meter ravine. Qin Lie could not help but be shocked by such an extravagant arrangement.

“Protect me!”

Xie Jingxuan exclaimed once softly and then immediately closed her eyes, seemingly gathering her energy to activate the flames inside the gem to ignite even more Sunshine Stone inside the ravines with this special flame.

A ravine’s Sunshine Stone was ignited, and it was as if a fire dragon was formed, causing the valley’s chilliness to be thoroughly suppressed.

Within the cave, the Soul Devouring Beast that was using all his energy to break to the next rank sensed the changes inside the valley. Immediately, it roared loudly, and waves of evil and cold consciousness suddenly spread upwards to the sky.

Up in the sky, the clumps of the beast’s soul fragments abruptly turned irritable.

They saw about ten soul fragments that did not continue the next wave of purification. Instead, they had condensed together, transforming into a green-faced, sharp-fanged, one-eyed fiend.

All sorts of negative waves filling the valley suddenly condensed into an evil mind and consciousness and was carried by the one-eyed fiend. It aimed at the top of Xie Jingxuan’s head and abruptly charged over.

The cold and evil waves of fear rushed over like an avalanche, as if it would directly kill any weaklings on its path.

From where they stood, Qin Lie and Gao Yu felt as if there were demons and monsters murderously charging at them from every direction. They felt as if they were trapped in a deep part in hell and were about to have their flesh and blood eaten bit by bit by countless demons…

Within their minds, they found their arms, their legs, and even their hearts being ripped apart by those terrible demons in a mix of blood and flesh before they were eaten.

It was an indescribable kind of great fear, capable of demolishing a person instantly which could cause them to never wake up again for the rest of their lives.

This was the Soul Tremor unleashed by the Soul Devouring Beast, and it was specialized against souls, specialized to destroy a person’s heart!

At this moment, Qin Lie could no longer see anyone around him, and the only thing he felt was that he was missing body parts and was being devoured by the demons in the terrifying nine levels of hell.

“Noo!”

He screamed hysterically, screamed with every scrap of power inside him, wanting to struggle out of this terrifying land and leave this endless purgatory.

Within the boiling blood and countless corpses, the endless demons hideously laughed and continued their all-out charge towards him…

He had become the delicious food of this evil world’s demons.

“No!” He roared crazily; his consciousness was fading, the influence on him getting worse and worse.

Just when he was about to succumb completely, the trace of a cool sensation slowly appeared from within his forehead…

Amidst the endless world of evil, a beam of light abruptly appeared before his eyes, and it was as if this beam of cooling light could cleanse every evil and purify all the filth.

The sea of roiling blood and the world where countless corpses and demons roamed abruptly shattered because of the appearance of this single beam of light!

Like a shattered mirror, the terrifying scenes turned fragmented and broken, and the scenes that had sunk deep into his mind and seeped into his souls melted away like snow.

He returned to the real world.

He finally saw the people around him.

Inside the valley, many hideous and evil fiends howled from every direction, and they were all charging in his direction.

Liang Zhong and the martial practitioners from Dark Asura Hall were swinging their fine-looking spirit artifacts about, forming many layers of beautiful shields of light, and blocked those fiends formed from the Soul Devouring Beast’s soul fragments outside.

They were completely absorbed, and their expressions were absolutely serious.

Gao Yu was screaming beside him, his expression sometimes grim and sometimes filled with extreme terror.

—He had not yet escaped the influence of the Soul Devouring Beast’s evil consciousness.

Xie Jingxuan closed her eyes and focused her energy to activate the flames inside the gem. Many flames were formed inside her gem, and once they flew out and landed on the other ravines, they ignited the Sunshine Stone, then formed a new fire dragon.

At the moment, seven fire dragons had already been formed inside the valley, and the blazing flames shone so bright that even the stone pillars beside them looked completely red.

After the originally ordinary stone pillars were baked by fire, many red colored spirit patterns began to appear on their surface. These spirit patterns resonated with the flames and turned vivid, causing the stone pillars to look like they were slowly burning up…

The Eight Extreme Trigram Fire Formation was slowly shaping into existence.

……