Chapter 322 – The Aroused Devil Soul
Underneath Swords Gate, Zhong Yue was threading his way carefully toward the heart of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land. He had been here before, but even so, he didn’t dare let his guard down.
The Devil Soul Forbidden Land was extremely dangerous. The last time he was here, he had found the devil souls gathering a substantial degree of power in attempt to break through the seals. However, the devil souls were not alerted by his unwelcome arrival, and it was only the corpse demons and evil eyes that had amalgamated together into a pseudo beast god which almost killed him on the spot.
The pseudo beast god’s skeletal frame was from the mount of a god that died here. The mounts here were in fact gods of the monster races, but at that point of time, the monster races were at the bottom of the power pyramid, not much better than humans. Even if the monsters became gods themselves, they could only still serve as mounts to other higher-class gods; the monster races had an appallingly low and humble status.
Even worse, some of the superior gods would actually serve the monster gods’ inner cores as delicacies to their guests during meals. At some point in time, the greatest hero of the monster races, the Monster Sovereign, rose high and led the monsters on a revolt against the gods. The action successfully lifted the monster races to a higher status.
In this Devil Soul Forbidden Land, there was only one pseudo beast god that had hunted after Zhong Yue. From the numbers of the gods’ coffins in here, with the norm of one god with one mount, there would be around two thousand monster gods! Adding in the celestial and demon gods, there would be around over four or even five thousand gods right in this Devil Soul Forbidden Land!
These gods were the exact reason why the headmasters of Swords Gate had to enter the Devil Soul Forbidden Land. The power these devil souls had gathered had to be attended to, their extrication from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land prevented, and the destruction of Swords Gate and the Great Wilderness could be halted.
Be it celestials, demons or monsters, the scattered souls and lacerated corpses of these gods were filled with the desire to search for their spirits. Because of this desire, a revolt would rise every ten years, and they would billow out to the face of Great Wilderness to consume and siphon the flesh and souls of the living. By doing so, they could slowly strengthen their own powers.
And if that power they gathered was not taken down, they would break through the Devil Soul Forbidden Land and the Seals of the devil souls and gods’ corpses. This would lead to a catastrophic event, it could even be the advent to the doomsday of this world.
And in order to prevent that, the headmasters would have to fight with their lives against it!
Along the way, Zhong Yue had yet to encounter any corpse demons, evil eyes, or any other peculiar creatures of the forbidden land. It seemed like they were slayed by Feng Shouzhu, after all, the corpse demons and the likes were only equivalent to the common Qi Practitioners, they wouldn’t stand a chance in the face of a strong magnate like Feng Shouzhu.
What was really threatening were the pseudo beast gods formed by these creatures. With the skeletal frame of the monster god as the base and the other creatures as its body tissues, the pseudo beast god could unleash the full power of a mortal body of the monster gods!
The Devil Soul Forbidden Land buried the celestials, demons and monsters. It could be called a tomb of the gods, but in actual fact, this is actually a Seal, a prison that sealed these gods away in a hemispherical dome.
Zhong Yue thought back to the things he had seen back in the Devil Soul Forbidden Land in the land of monsters. This whole dome is a Seal that covers thousands of square miles of land. On top of the seal is another sealing dimension, one that contains the spirits of these gods. This sealing dimension is spherical in shape, and independent of the forbidden land. The altar, it will be in another Sealed dimension, a third independent dimension above the spherical-shaped dimension. From Swords Gate to the altar, one would have to go through three layers of Seals that even the scattered souls of these gods couldn’t penetrate, so how did that person reach the altar and steal the Saint Spirit away?
Feng Wuji’s incarnation, Elder Pu, came from the top of Swords Gate Mountain and reached the dimension of the altar directly, it was a different path taken than the one who stole the Saint Spirit.
From the experience Zhong Yue had gained in the other forbidden land, there would have to be another guardian like the Monster God Ming King, who was tasked to secure the perimeter of this godly tomb.
As Monster God Ming King was the guardian of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land underneath Xian Kong Saint City, then there would also be a guardian who had long passed away, whose cultivation base was on par with Monster God Ming King.
Feng Wuji must have known something even the Swords Gate headmasters didn’t know. He has held the headmaster’s jade seal and found where the dead guardian stayed, and reached the dimension of the altar directly from there. However, he was late by a step, and the Saint Spirit was taken by someone else…
Enter the dimension of the altar from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land was something even Xin Huo couldn’t have done. The last time Xin Huo guided him in escaping from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land was because of the loosened Seal, where the restrictive power wasn’t as strong. Breaking through one layer after another from the Devil Soul Forbidden Land… the difficulty was undoubtedly thousands of times harder!
On his way, Zhong Yue could see recent signs of battle. The battle was so intense that it left behind severe injuries and unerasable marks on the walls of flesh!
Clearly, Feng Shouzhu had left these signs, but some of them carried a faint sensation of a godly aura. Those would be the doings of a pseudo beast god that broke out into a bloody battle with Feng Shouzhu at this place…
Glancing around, he couldn’t see the beast god’s skeletal frame. When the pseudo beast god was slain by Feng Shouzhu, the squirming flesh had then gobbled it up. Most likely, the skeletal frame would be sent to the heart of the Devil Soul Forbidden Land, where it would be nourished and gather more power before its prowess was restored again.
Fourteenth Swords Gate headmaster, You Yu Clan Yu Tianya, felt the end of my life, and here I enter the forbidden land with a sword of mine…
Zhong Yue walked up to the skeletal frame of the fourteenth Swords Gate headmaster. He stared at the words on the ground, and than bowed to the great headmaster before he placed the fourteenth headmaster’s skeleton into his Yuan Shen secret realm.
Unlike before, where he didn’t have enough strength to roam around in the forbidden land and he didn’t even think he could actually survive, right now he was strong enough to bring back these headmasters to Swords Gate and bury them together with the old headmaster.
And now, he would bring them back and let all of Swords Gate, all the Great Wilderness, know the contributions of the Swords Gate headmasters and the prices they had paid for the safety of humankind!
He walked further along, and found more battle scars. They were even more intense than before, even parts of the flesh walls were destroyed, revealing the bloody red mountain body underneath.
The sanguine mountain body was paved with the ancient godly seals. The archaic totem patterns were still glimmering as they worked, unscathed from the battle, continuing their function of a Seal normally.
Did Elder Feng really last until now?
Zhong Yue’s heart pounded rapidly. From the battle signs, Feng Shouzhu was ambushed by tens of pseudo beast gods right here!
Although the peculiar creatures that formed the pseudo beast gods’ body tissues were weak, when they coalesced together into the pseudo beast gods, they could unleash the power of beast gods’ mortal body! They were was incredibly strong, and even Feng Shouzhu would have to pay a hefty price to defeat them!
Zhong Yue continued moving forward. There were dozens of battlefields of the same kind, denoting that Feng Shouzhu had gone through scores of bloody battles without any time to rest, as the battles came one after another unceasingly!
Zhong Yue’s heart sank. Such a frequent pace of bloody battles with no time to rest, even a magnate in his prime couldn’t last too long, let alone an old man!
But Feng Shouzhu managed to persist! The battle marks continued down the road, where he had battled through more pseudo beast gods and reduced the power of this forbidden land.
Along the way, Zhong Yue didn’t see any other creatures, they were all exterminated by Feng Shouzhu. Zhong Yue was also storing away the headmasters’ skeletons into his Yuan Shen secret realm.
After a long time, Zhong Yue finally reached the heart of this forbidden land, directly below Swords Gate Mountain. In this huge space, countless thick and sturdy blood veins extended through the mountain body and held the huge heart firmly in the center of this space.
The godly heart was still pounding heavily, but the creatures that were once here were now gone. Even the evil eyes hovering in the air had been reduced in number. There were only hundreds of them floating around now.
But what was odd to Zhong Yue was that the banners suffused with the godly aura that once floated around in here were also now gone.
All of a sudden, one of the evil eyes spotted Zhong Yue. It let out a shrill cry and all of the other evil eyes rushed over like a patch of gloomy clouds.
They opened their crimson eyes and blasted their death rays at Zhong Yue!
“Is this all of you that are left?” Zhong Yue raised his head, and when his eyes opened, two bright rays flitted out towards the sky, one auric and one white.
The two rays of light revolved in a circle and slew all of the evil eyes straightaway. Blood rained from the sky as the evil eyes were instantly bisected.
The two light rays appeared for only a split second before they flitted back into Zhong Yue’s eyes. All of the evil eyes were killed by the Yin Yang Qi, dead before they could even react.
If it was before, Zhong Yue would have run as far and as quick as he could from the evil eyes. Now, he was already one of the strongest Qi Practitioners at the Atman Body level, and these evil eyes weren’t an issue to him anymore.
Furthermore, these evil eyes were the strongest when they attached themselves to the pseudo beast gods. Without them, their prowess was far weaker.
Zhong Yue glanced around and found nothing. He then looked down, and suddenly tears were flowing down his cheeks as he sighed deeply.
Right there, thousands of dark black coffins were standing vertically. They were ten thousand feet tall, and beneath them were beast god skeletons piled up like mountains. These were the beast god skeletons Feng Shouzhu had slain and were transported here by the squirming flesh wall.
In the coffins were the corpses of the gods. The devil souls were the scattered souls of these dead gods.
In stark contrast to the last time he was here, these coffins were placed in different spots than before. They were now arranged in a circular pattern, forming enveloping circles, as if they were besieging something.
Zhong Yue shifted his sight to the center of the circles. Right there was a standing skeleton, holding a sword in its hand which kept it from falling.
Feng Shouzhu has still died from the battles, he couldn’t survive the devil souls.
He was the only reason why the Devil Soul Forbidden Land was so quiet today; he had exterminated the creatures and reached the core of this forbidden land, where he was trapped in the array formation of the coffins. He had fought against the devil souls to the last second of his life.
Like the other headmasters, Feng Shouzhu’s flesh and blood was siphoned away by the Devil Soul Forbidden Land, leaving only his skeleton behind.
Zhong Yue bowed to Feng Shouzhu’s corpse from afar. He then brought out the Golden Feathery Peng Sword and prepared to control the golden sword to lift the elder’s corpse back to him.
“Brat Yue, wait a second!” Within him, Xin Huo suddenly tensed up and said quickly, “Feng Shouzhu wasn’t strong enough to completely wipe away the devil souls’ powers. If you move his corpse now, the devil souls will be alerted and I assure you, the aroused devil souls are not something you want to play with!”
The golden sword halted in mid-air. Zhong Yue then reached his hand out to his Yuan Shen secret realm and took out the copper lamp, and the beast god inner core in his psyche ocean also flew out as he said placidly, “Elder Feng’s corpse is something I will never leave behind! No matter what I have to face with, regardless of the risks, I will bring him out of this forsaken place and I will bury him with the headmasters!”
Xin Huo prompted him, “Your beast god inner core is at less than half of its peak already, if you decide to do so, I’m afraid the beast god inner core will be fully depleted…”
“The beast god inner core, how can it be said in same breath with the headmasters’ corpses?!?”
Zhong Yue cast out the Golden Feathery Peng Sword. The feathery golden sword reached out to the center of the coffins, threading itself to the feet of Feng Shouzhu’s skeleton and like a leafy boat, it lifted Feng Shouzhu up into mid-air…
Krack…
An ear-piercing creaking sound shook the surroundings as one of the dark black coffins quivered for a split second. A narrow slit was created as the coffin lid was slowly pushed to the side, and the hundred-foot long nails of a hairy, greenish hand could be seen grabbing onto the coffin lid. Suddenly, it heaved the coffin lid open!
