by A P Gore
The beasts growled, their red eyes looking behind him, and he realized Fei’er had regained consciousness.
There was a rustle behind him, and he knew she had gotten up. His bloody lips curled in a faint smile. This should cut him some slack. “Stupid lass, if you are awake, throw some Beast Subduing Pills, would you?”
Suddenly his heart thumped with an unknown danger, and his gaze jumped to the door illuminated in purple.
“Fuck, no.” Dozens—no, hundreds of eyes stared at them from the connected tunnel. A huge number of Two Fang Wolves had come to hunt them. They must have been attracted to the blood smell permeating the room.
Damn, he should have placed the White Cicada Fruit outside of the room to avoid this trouble.
All his viciousness and strength slipped out of his body, and his legs turned weak.
Yes, he was afraid. There was no way he could survive this. If only he had hundreds of Beast Subduing Pills, he might have a chance to escape.
Yes, he needed to throw all the pills at the beast horde and then make a beeline through the array behind them. The array was a defense array, so he would have to break or deactivate it to open the door. Only that way could he save their beaten asses.
However, when he looked over his shoulder, he found Fei’er lying unconscious again.
“Damn, this stupid lass.” It was like she was hell-bent on killing him today.
What should he do? The future looked bleak, and he wasn’t ready to die just after reincarnating in a new start.
Did he have to die today? Did he have to lose his only chance of embarking on a different path than before?
Desperation surged through his heart, but he saw no option. His previous enemies had spotted their backup, and they seemed to sneer at him.
Was this his end?
No.
This wasn’t.
A light flashed in his mind. There was still a way out. But it was dangerous, and it might destroy his divine sense, but that could save them both.
The Soul Stone. It was a half-used Soul Stone, but it possessed the unending might needed to destroy all these beasts in front of him. But the moment he pulled it out of the array diagram, it would strike his soul and destroy it. If he wanted to deactivate the array, he would need a few breaths, and he didn’t have that much time.
There was only one way. He had to form a protective cocoon of his divine sense when he pulled out the Soul Stone and then throw the stone at the beast pack. But that might just destroy his fragile divine sense, making him lose all the experience of his previous life.
He might even damage his soul and lose all his memories.
But there was no other option.
Gritting his teeth, he turned and dashed toward the door.
The beasts howled and charged. He could hear their footsteps coming closer to him with every passing moment. He only had a few breaths before he would be drowned in the beast tide.
Stopping right in front of the array, his fingers dashed around the array diagram, tapping on a few power points, and then suddenly the Soul Stone lost its luster a bit.
This was it.
This was the moment before array could be deactivated.
This was the step that could destroy the whole array.
A formless energy wrapped around his right arm, and he clawed at the Soul Stone, using all his might. Fortunately, the array had lost its luster because of remaining active for so long. It had drained a lot of power from the Soul Stone, so it was easier to pull it out.
Suddenly, a purple stone fell in his hand and a purple light surrounded him. It pierced through the protective barrier he had formed with his divine sense.
His divine sense failed at that crucial moment, and the soul energy that should have wiped out the beast tide actually shot for his soul.
This was it. He had failed to protect himself and Fei’er once again.
This was the end.
Chapter 22 Soul Stone
Bone-cutting cold entered Li Wei’s skin when the purple light from the Soul Stone penetrated through his divine sense cocoon—cold like someone had put ten-thousand-year-old ice below his skin.
In a split second his arm froze, including the vigorous blood he was proud of. It was so cold that he feared his mind would freeze too. The tyrannical energy coming from the Soul Stone wasn’t something a mere layer one Refinement Realm body cultivator could withstand.
This was the end.
The complete end.
There was nothing after this end.
And yet his mind was clear as crystal water from Heaven’s Spring, a treasure found in the Martial Realm.
The purple light passed through his arm and into his brain, freezing every drop of blood along the way. It was shooting for his soul, and despite his low cultivation, he spotted his tiny soul for the first time since reincarnating. It wavered like a boat in a huge sea storm.
When the purple light reached his tiny soul, it broke into pieces.
He wanted to shout as unimaginable pain swept across his being. People said the tearing of one’s soul was the worst pain imaginable, but he’d never thought about it. Today he felt it. Felt it with all his might. It was the most excruciating pain he’d felt in his two lifetimes. Even after spending ten days in a thousand-degree furnace, he hadn’t felt this much pain.
It was inhuman torture. Every piece of his soul stung like ten thousand ants bit it from all sides and his soul had split into thousands of tiny pieces.
Yet he wasn’t dead.
But why?
After all this happened, he wondered for many days on this question. This was impossible. When a cultivator’s soul broke apart, there was no tomorrow. Heck, there was no next moment. It was final destruction. Even if his body survived, he would live as a corpse. The most precious thing he would lose would be the belonging of self, his mind. And yet Wei could observe everything from a corner of his mind, like someone else’s soul was being destroyed.
System: Power source found. Activating Absorption Mode.
Once again, the mysterious system popped into his vision, and then something happened that made his mind quiver.
His tiny soul pieces gathered together at a rapid pace. Even the divine sense he’d brought from his previous life was sucked into the soul pieces.
But there was something else coming with his divine sense. The Soul Stone had entered his body and moved toward his soul pieces.
What the heck was happening, and why was he still alive? Not that he regretted it, but this was all inconceivable.
Wei didn’t understand anything. It was like some deity had been playing a game with his soul, and he was left outside to watch the game.
System: Activating Merging Mode.
His divine sense and the Soul Stone smashed into the blob of his soul pieces and everything swirled around each other. The bean-sized Soul Stone suddenly cracked into thousands of pieces and joined the fun his divine sense and soul pieces were having in the whirlpool. It painted everything dark purple, and then it started changing. His soul pieces absorbed his divine sense and the Soul Stone powder, merging to form a bigger piece.
The process went on for an unknown time that felt like months until it finally converged in a big fist-sized soul.
A soul without a soul space. How was that even possible? If someone had told him this was possible, he would have laughed out loud, but it was happening in his own body. He couldn’t deny it.
This was just impossible. Every person had a soul, but it remained hidden in one’s body until they formed a soul space. It was a qualitative change in cultivation, and it required a person to undergo metamorphosis. And before forming a soul space, one’s soul would be bean sized.
But he had formed a fist-sized soul and that too without a soul space. Then he felt a new entity emerging out of his soul.
His divine sense. And it wasn’t something he’d brought from his previous life, but his own divine sense formed from his soul.
What the hec
k?
A bout of pain shot across his brain, and his memories and experiences merged with his soul. They flooded his soul like a river meeting the sea, but his soul wasn’t a sea. It was just a stream, and the river was about to overrun it.
It was too much for his tiny soul. Although he now had divine sense merged with his soul, he didn’t have enough space for all those memories and experience. His existing soul could store his memories, and his divine sense could carry his previous life experience, but after merging, his soul had increased in size while his divine sense had shrunk by a huge margin. It was like an infant when compared to his previous adult divine sense. Both of them combined couldn’t handle his 200 years of memories and experience, and it was growing exponentially in value.
The memories and experience kept rushing in, and if this continued, his soul would explode, and there would be no coming back.
It would bloat, expand, and then boom.
If he’d had a corporeal body, he would have been sweating like an animal. He’d had a fortuitous encounter and gave birth to a strong soul with divine sense, but he was going to lose it in the end.
System: Storage function unlocked.
System: Absorbing large memories and experience.
System: Initiating index creation.
What the heck was this “system” thing?
He had no clear answer, but after whatever storage function was activated, his soul calmed down. Memories and experiences stormed inside, but it didn’t bloat and explode like he expected.
Suddenly everything calmed down, and he found himself in control of his body. He stood in front of the now lifeless array diagram while the beasts charged him.
What the heck? It felt like he had spent months inside his mind, but it took only a fraction of a second outside.
Bending down, he scooped up Fei’er’s fragile body and tapped on the array diagram, opening the door for himself.
But before he could move through the door, a beast leaped in the air and latched onto his left shoulder. His hand went numb, and he accidentally dropped Fei’er.
Fear gripped his heart. He was just a moment away from going through the door, and the bastard beast had ruined it.
Now he had two options: jump through the door along with the beast and kill it, but that meant giving up on Fei’er, or pick Fei’er back up and then most probably die under the beast tide.
No way. He couldn’t leave Fei’er behind. Nor he could die here after his soul had formed a divine sense for itself. It was a miracle, and it would be foolish to give up on the opportunities life provided him.
So, he chose a third option.
Turning back, he burned his remaining thirty blood pearls and struck with one last One Sword Strike. Power surged around his Yangming meridian and tore apart small blood vessels connecting to it. Piercing pain flooded his body, but he felt the emergence of power greater than he could imagine.
A volcano exploded in his body, sending waves of power through his muscles to his sword—the sword that had already reached a crazy momentum with his final strike. It cut through the air and struck the ground next to him.
The tip of the blade cut through the metal ground and sent tremors through the floor like an earthquake. It rushed toward the beast tide.
The hundreds of beasts sensed something, and they all halted and turned back to leave.
But how could a sword strike activated with thirty blood pearls be easy to dodge?
Before the first line of beasts could step out of the door, the quake had hit them hard.
It was a clusterfuck.
Hundreds of beasts howled in pain and dropped on the ground one after another. Their inner organs churned through the vibrating wave, and they lost all their prowess. Wei could see this clearly because there were two beasts that he had wounded, and he saw their viscera churning inside and then turning into a jelly.
It might have killed all the beasts, but he didn’t linger to verify. Instead, he collected all his strength, mixed it with his willpower, and lifted Fei’er to jump through the door. He had suffered heavily after using thirty blood pearls, and he knew he wouldn’t last long.
The last thing he heard was the metal door slamming shut, and he lost consciousness with a smile on his face.
Chapter 23 Golden worm
Something crawled over her face, jolting Ki Fei out of her half-unconscious state. After struggling to open her weighted eyes, she spotted a six-inch golden worm crawling over her arm. It looked like a silkworm, but it didn’t at the same time. Silkworms didn’t have a golden color.
Then she suddenly realized it was a worm crawling over her arm. And she hated worms and insects. Its tiny legs crawled over her soft skin, sending chills across her core. It felt so weird and disgusting that she wanted to throw up her last meal, but she was too frightened to even do that.
Worms and insects were the most frightening things in this world for her. No, ghosts would be first.
“Young master, save me!” Shouting, she waved her arm like her life depended on it, and the worm dropped onto the young master’s blood-soaked body.
“Young master,” she said again, but the tone had changed from fear to desperation. He lay in the pool of blood, and his chest wasn’t moving even an inch.
Grabbing his arm, she checked his pulse, but she didn’t find it.
Fear gathered under her heart, forming a lump, and it was worse than the worm crawling over her skin. It was a cold fear, a fear of losing her young master. No, this couldn’t be happening. She didn’t know when, but she’d become dependent on this young master from her childhood. He was like the last flickering candle in a dark storm, and she couldn’t lose him. She would die without him. That scary beast would devour her.
“Are you afraid of death?” Someone spoke, and she almost jumped away from the young master. It wasn’t his voice, and that meant someone else was here too.
But where was she? Her gaze traced her surroundings. It was a strange rectangular room with an invisible fourth wall. Golden and black silk threads covered the other side of the room, hiding it from her.
“I asked you a question, lass.” That voice spoke once again, and it came out shrill, like someone was talking for the first time after a long, long time. A man in her neighborhood had lost his voice for a decade, and when he’d got it back, he’d sounded like this.
“Who, are you?” She picked up the sword lying next to her. “Don’t you dare come near me, else I’ll cut you into pieces . . .” She hesitated. “I’m a super cultivator, and I’ll cut you into pieces just with a thought.”
A low chuckle echoed in her ears, and her fear heightened. Who was it? Was it a ghost?
No way. There was golden light everywhere, so how could a ghost come here? The young master once said ghosts fear light, so she always burned a candle in her small room every night.
“I don’t care if you are super cultivator or a naïve lass who can’t even pee straight.”
What? Her head spun at the verbal attack. What did—whatever it was—mean by she couldn’t pee straight? She could very well pee straight. Straighter than an arrow.
Could she?
“Answer my question. Are you afraid of death?”
Afraid of death? What a weird question. Everyone was afraid of death. Didn’t this stupid thing understand that? Wait, maybe this thing could help.
“Do you have a pill to save my young master?” Her gaze dropped to the lifeless body of her young master. He was missing big chunks of his body, and she wasn’t sure if anyone could save him from this condition. Looking at him again, the lump in heart expanded. Any more and it would stretch to the limits of her heart.
“Are you afraid of death?” The same question came again, but it seemed to be a different voice. This voice had a bit of smoothness in it.
“Yes, I’m afraid of death.” Ki Fei bit her lip. “But I’m more afraid of my young master’s death. Can you save him?”
“A brat with a strange smell. Why
are you afraid of his death? He is beyond help.”
“Then I’m not afraid of my death,” Ki Fei answered. If the young master wouldn’t live, her life had no value. It was he who had taken care of her in her direst hour. He’d sold his precious amulet from his mother so he could treat her wounds. Her life was his lease.
“Biyu, you take her. She is suited for your yin power. I’ll eat this lad’s body. He has so much blood vitality.” This time the voice came out of the golden worm lying on the young master’s body. It then slipped into one of the wounds and vanished inside the young master’s body.
“Hey you . . .” She was going to do something when a black thing shot from behind the golden threads and drilled into her skull right between her brows.
Pain fiercer than anything she had ever experienced shot from her forehead. That black thing pierced her skull like it was tofu. Rolling her eyes up, she could see the black thing was a worm like the golden one.
She tried to move her hands, but they didn’t move. She had lost control of her body.
Desperation filled her heart. Was she going to see her young master die like this?
“No!” a shout came from the young master’s body, and the golden worm shot out of the wound. It trembled like it was afraid of something.
The black dot that was drilling into her brain shot out too and landed next to the golden worm. It looked exactly like the golden worm, other than its pitch-black color.
“Niyu, what happened? Why did you jump out?” the black one asked.
“This lad can’t even pee, and he has a Blood Essence Body. When I tried to devour his heart, it sucked half of my blood instead. Let’s get away from his body and just devour the girl instead.”
It was black worm’s turn to shudder, and it leaped away from the young master’s body, but it was too late. A thread of blood shot from the young master’s body and wrapped around the two worms, sucking them dry. In less than a breath’s time, their shiny bodies turned into bloodless corpses.
