Chapter 572: Bloodline
When Hui Yue had refined souls previously, he had trouble fighting the soul’s consciousness. Earlier the soul’s resentment, anger, and its desperation required him to spend quite a lot of time to refine the souls.
Now things were different. These souls all had slave seals used on them before they were turned into souls, and thus their awareness was already controlled. They were simply incapable of fighting back and could only allow their soul to be refined.
Hui Yue spent a short amount of time refining the souls before he absorbed them straight afterward. The soul energy, which was the purest energy one could find after having been refined, entered his soul and nourished it. As his soul became stronger not only did his Ancestral Worldpower pool expand but also the quality of his soul increased as well. It became many times more powerful as soon as he was able to use it for attacking purposes.
He could compress his soulforce into shapes and attack his opponent. As soon as he was capable of forming his soulforce into shapes, he instantly stopped refining the souls and stored both the remaining souls and the chaos cauldron in his Universe Box.
On his finger was his new spatial ring, but he had yet to put anything in it. He just wore it for the sake of making it seem as if he had no other storage treasure.
As he had succeeded in reaching mastery with his soulforce to the level that he could materialize it. Hui Yue instantly stood up from the room and went straight to the meditation room.
As he entered the meditation room, he slowly took a deep breath and closed his eyes before he released his soulforce.
Although his eyes were closed everything he could sense everything before him, and it was even much clearer than if his eyes had been open.
Focusing on his soulforce, he slowly started molding it into different shapes. The first shape he formed was a ball. Although this ball would not be of much use during attacks, it was the easiest shape to make. He just wanted to test and see how difficult it was before forming things much more challenging.
To his surprise, he found that soulforce was quite different from other energies he had used, but it worked somewhat like the blue cloud. It worked in such a way that as soon as Hui Yue thought of something, then his soulforce would react to it.
He soon created arrows, swords, and even barriers with ease causing a smile to appear on his face.
His strength had increased, and he added another attacking technique to his arsenal of skills. This meant that he had one more trick up his sleeve now and that even though his Ancestral Worldpower pool was considered small, he had other energies that could assist him.
“When I merged with the memories of my past self from the Celestial Sword Sect, I did not learn any additional daos, but I did get access to the bloodline of the great roc!” Hui Yue mused to himself as he finished controlling his soulforce and felt proficient with its uses.
“I never took the time to look over it, but let’s see what it does.”
“I already have a drop of blood of the Vermilion Bird meaning that all birds submit to me, my affinity with fire and fire daos is better than it would be otherwise but I really don’t know what the bloodline of the great roc does.”
Pondering for a moment, Hui Yue reached out to the wings in his core and summoned them forth. As he did, he suddenly felt a change in his body. It was as if the wind surrounding him was now a part of his body. It felt as if every single wisp of wind surrounding him was one with him. The wind was a part of him, and he was a part of the wind.
“This level of control over the wind is like the control over flames that the Vermilion Bird has, but it is at least a hundred times more powerful. Not only do I feel the wind, and can effortlessly merge with it, I also feel the dao of wind as well. I wonder why my previous life did not cultivate this dao!”
But no matter how Hui Yue thought about it, this sudden feeling was not something that he had experienced before. Not even in his previous life.
‘Perhaps your bloodline had not awakened in your previous life,’ Lan Feng commented casually. ‘Although I had control over blue flames before, my bloodline did not awaken until just now. So I think it is likely that he had not activated his bloodline.’
‘Now that you merged with his memories, something must have triggered his bloodline. Now it is active, and you can feel the connection between the bloodline and the wind.’
‘I don’t know much about bloodlines, but I understand that they seem to have something to do with specific elements. My bloodline has to do with fire, you have the fire bloodline, albeit rather weakly, but you also have the powerful bloodline of the great roc!’
Hui Yue nodded his head in agreement. What the phoenix said made perfect sense. Hui Yue did not know much about bloodlines, and he had no idea what to expect from them, but he had benefitted from the previous one when he understood the dao of inferno. The only reason he could comprehend the dao at such a speed was due to his affinity with fire.
Now he also had a strong affinity with wind, and he felt that this would be a great benefit to him. Not only would it increase his speed, but it would also help him mask and hide attacks by using the wind.
Merging his swordlight with the wind would make it so that everywhere the wind was, his sword could also be, everywhere the wind was, Hui Yue could also be. Since it was like this, he would be able to move much faster. If he mastered this skill, it would seem like he was teleporting. As long as he had Ancestral Worldpower, he would be able to flee from almost any enemy as long as they were outside where the wind was blowing freely.
Being inside the meditation room there was not a lot of wind, and thus Hui Yue could only come up with tactics and not actually test them out. When he exited the room, he found that the guard was waiting for him.
“You spent quite some time in there. There are only four hours left before the next trial commences, had you not come out within the next two hours then I would have been forced to interrupt you,” he said apologetically, but he also understood that to Hui Yue the most important thing was to become the new Judge of Hell. As for why that was so important to this young man, he really had no idea.
“Thank you,” Hui Yue said. “Let’s go to the next test’s location,” he continued. Since the test was going to start soon, then he might as well get there early. Hearing this, the guard nodded his head and led the way.
Walking through the palace grounds, they didn’t talk. Both of them just kept on walking until they reached a big pavilion.
Outside the pavilion was a long line of souls; all of whom looked rather worried as demons kept them calm and in line.
Very slowly this queue was moving forward, but as they moved no one seemed to exit the building. It was as if it swallowed everyone up whole.
Moving towards this building Hui Yue was quite curious about what their next trial would be. Were they to judge someone? Would they be judged themselves? It was hard to say, but it was clear that this pavilion with many souls waiting outside was their destination.
As they entered, Hui Yue saw that Pei Ze, Pei Feng, and the youth from the Nightcrawler Sect had already arrived. Not only them, but also the man who had previously looked at Hui Yue with great enmity was also there, but he did not even give Hui Yue a glance. It was as if he did not notice Hui Yue’s existence.
Hui Yue did not pay too much attention to the ones who had already arrived. Instead, he looked at the inside of the building with curiosity.
As he looked around, he found that the entire ceiling was painted with various images of the Ten Courts of Hell. He recognized the many punishments and the cities he had read about earlier.
The building had a podium where a round mirror around two meters tall was placed. Each person in the queue moved towards the mirror and looked into it. Some turned pale while others smiled.
Next to the mirror was a group of teleportation arrays. One was golden, another was silver, and the rest were black. There were a total of ten teleportation portals present.
The mirror was the mirror of retribution, a mirror that showed the sins of a person’s previous life. When one had witnessed their sins, a demon would measure one’s sins and virtuous actions. If one had been virtuous in their previous life, then they would be sent to the golden teleportation array. This array would send them to the best part of the Plains of Despair, a place called the Gardens of Perpetual Peace.
Those who had sinned in life but done more good than bad would be sent through the silver teleportation array to the Plains of Despair, and finally, the rest of the teleportation arrays would send them to their respective Courts of Hell.
‘I wonder what will happen here,’ Lan Feng voiced Hui Yue’s worries. ‘You have the memories of all your previous lives, so if you have to face the mirror of retribution for all of them then you will be in quite a bad spot,’ the phoenix continued, and Hui Yue could only agree. He felt quite the headache coming his way as he worried about this trial.
It was not only Hui Yue who looked worried about the trial, but the hateful man was also sweating slightly. Pei Feng, thought, had a rather peculiar expression on his face.
Four hours went by in a flash, and soon the doors were closed to the building. A set of demons stood outside ensuring that no one would be able to enter while the trial was ongoing.
Yanluo and King Qinguang came strolling inside the building at a leisurely pace, both were chatting together, and smiles were on their faces.
“Welcome to the third trial to become the Judge of Hell.” Yanluo gladly welcomed them all. “As you might have guessed, this trial is very simple. You will stand in front of the Mirror of Retribution which will look through your life and decide whether or not you’re able to become the Judge of Hell. Only those who have not sinned too much are entitled to judge others.”
“Murder is acceptable as long as you killed in self-defense while slaughtering people, torture, abuse and the like will mean failure to pass the trail.”
“This is a review of your current life you are living now and not any of your previous lives, so do not worry too much about what you have no control over,” Yanluo continued, and Hui Yue heaved a heavy sigh of relief. It was clear that this message was for him. Hearing Yanluo say this, Hui Yue steeled his resolve. Although he wasn’t the most virtuous person, he did not consider himself a bad person either. Therefore, in the end, he was not too worried about what the mirror would say about him; he was ready for the third trial.
