by A P Gore
“Senior, why— are— you— not— retreating?” An exhausted voice reached his ears, as grandfather Shua was pushed back and fell next to him. “I can’t hold— on much— longer.” He spat a mouthful of blood. He looked like a fallen warrior on the verge of dying in his tattered clothes, soaked with blood from countless wounds. Even his vitality had taken a big hit. Wei could feel it from a few feet away.
Wei’s eyes turned bloodshot, and his mind screamed, Kill!
“Patriarch Shua, stay here and let me handle this for you.” Lifting his chin, he glanced in Du Su’s eyes. With half of his face charred black, he looked like a demon from hell, but his eyes remained intact. He was in bad condition and couldn’t possibly sustain the spirit artifact. If Wei didn’t kill him and take control of the artifact, a catastrophic event would occur.
Kill! His mind roared, and he rushed forward with his sword extended to hit. Every step he took, cold energy penetrated his skin, trying to freeze his blood and muscles, but his meridians were on overdrive, converting heaven and earth’s essence energy into his muscles and bones and everywhere. Whenever his blood touched the icy energy, it evaporated. This was his blood, and it could destroy anything.
When came within twenty steps of Du Su, Du Su’s bloodshot eyes stared at him in disbelief. Pulling another medium-quality Qi Stone out, he inserted it into the Icy Hell Disk, and a huge undulation of cold energy swept through the spirit artifact and turned Wei into an ice sculpture.
“Break!” Wei shouted, and a stream of energy rushed out from his dantian. The icy feeling vanished from his body. The thick layer of ice formed on his body melted like it had been placed on a hot stove.
“Du Su, is that all you got?” Wei snickered and dashed forward with his sword aimed at Du Su’s heart.
Chapter 62 Heaven's Suppression
Du Su pulled another medium-quality Qi Stone and pressed it into the Icy Hell Disk spirit artifact.
“Heaven’s Suppression.”
“Heaven’s Suppression? He’s gone mad!” Grandfather Shua cried. “That will suppress everyone’s power in a thousand-foot area by at least thirty percent and kill the young generation.” His dire words exploded in Wei’s mind.
Ten feet. Nine feet.
However, before Wei reached five feet’s distance, a strange undulation of power shot into his body, suppressing the qi whirlpool inside his dantian and restricting his body cultivation by fifteen percent.
How was this possible? But then he realized he was fighting against a spirit artifact made by an ancient civilization, and anything was possible when it came to spirit artifacts. They went beyond the Martial World’s senses, and that’s why they were highly dangerous in a fool’s hands.
After Wei’s cultivation was suppressed by thirty percent, he struggled against the cold energy thrashing against his whole body.
His body cultivation art failed to expel the icy energy invading his body, and soon he was covered in thin film of ice.
Damn! He hadn’t even reached fucking Du Su, and he was restricted.
“Whoever you are, give up. I’ll not stop before killing everyone in the Li clan today.” Du Su’s ugly voice reverberated inside his ears, and his mind jolted awake.
“You think so?” Snorting coldly, Wei spread his divine sense inside his body, monitoring everything carefully. Although the icy energy had penetrated his skin, it had stopped before reaching his muscles. It wasn’t impossible to resist this energy.
Gritting his teeth, he marched forward, maintaining a slow pace. But every step forward was like walking against a thousand kg of pressure that tried to push him back.
One step.
The icy energy broke through his chest and entered his muscles, but he was ready and moved a blood pearl to counter against the icy energy. When the icy energy and his blood pearl collided, his blood pearl overwhelmed the icy energy and expelled it from his body. But in doing so he consumed the blood pearl.
Not bad.
Second step.
The icy energy broke through his stomach, and once again he sent a blood pearl to expel it as soon as it entered. Too bad he couldn’t form a protective shield of these blood pearls outside his body, else he could have saved a lot of trouble.
Third step.
Fourth step.
Fifth step.
Pausing, he took a deep breath and collected his composure. This was exhausting. If he had reached Foundation Realm in body cultivation, this would have been easier.
“How can you—” Du Su’s ugly voice struck his ears, and he spotted Du Su panting. Using a spirit artifact wasn’t a small task. Only high-level cultivators could make full use of its abilities, and Du Su was merely in Bone Baptization Realm. He was powering the artifact with medium-quality Qi Stones, but how could a spirit artifact be used by a low lever cultivator at all? Every extra second he spent with the spirit artifact meant he spent a lot of his life force.
If Wei could hold on a little bit longer, Du Su would naturally die of exhaustion. He was already injured, and he couldn’t possibly hold on much longer.
“Du Su, I know you’re dying. But wait for my sword.” Smirking, Wei pushed forward.
“You’re courting your death. Give up.” Du Su panted hard.
Sixth step.
Seventh step.
Eighth step.
Ninth step.
Tenth step.
When Wei reached ten steps away from Du Su, Du Su pulled out another medium-quality Qi Stone.
“Don’t.” Wei watched Du Su’s body wavering like a wooden pole in a whirlpool. If he continued like this, he would die, and that meant no one would be controlling that damn spirit artifact. It would go berserk.
But Du Su didn’t stop. He shoved the medium-quality Qi Stone into the spirit artifact.
The spirit artifact shuddered, and a thick film of white ice swept out of it. It was so thick, Wei was sure he would lose half of his abilities if this continued.
Damn!
The icy energy gushed through his skin like a roaring sea and penetrated into his muscles from all over. Although he had his divine sense spread around his body and used his blood pearls to resist the icy energy, how many places could he protect at once?
But he couldn’t give up, so he spread his blood pearls thin and sent them everywhere inside his body, rushing inside the muscles and bones and fighting against the biting icy energy. His body turned into a battlefield, and everything became a mess.
A complete mess.
Yet it couldn’t stop him, so he took another step. Albeit slow and painful, he took that step.
Eleventh step.
Twelfth step.
Thirteenth step.
The icy energy became more tyrannical, and Wei struggled to press forward, but when he spotted Du Su, lying on the ground at death’s door, he bit his tongue and gave another strong push.
Spirit artifacts had their own will, and if they went berserk, they could destroy a whole city until they powered down. So, powerful sects had put strict laws in place for their use, and only the strongest cultivators dared to use them. But this fool had awakened a spirit artifact and was about to die. The fallout might destroy Old Martial City entirely.
Wei endured and pushed forward with all his might.
Fourteenth step.
Fifteenth step.
The icy energy penetrated his heart this time and threatened his life, but he utilized the blood qi from his dantian to fight against it. Of course, the blood qi was just a borrowed power, and it couldn’t fight like his blood pearls, which had his vitality stored in them, but it could at least protect his vital organs.
Wei’s blood-red eyes gawked at Du Su’s sorry figure. His eyes had turned black, and Wei could see red vital energy gushing out of him and entering spirit artifact.
This was bad. That fool had lost control of the spirit artifact, and it was feeding on his vitality. Wei had to kill him and take control before the spirit artifact went berserk.
“
Consume. Break for me.” Wei’s body flared with a bright red light, and he burned one hundred blood pearls instantly. This was the highest number of blood pearls he had ever consumed. If he was still in layer six, he wouldn’t have dared to do this, but with layer eight of body Refinement Realm, he took the gamble.
Immense energy rushed inside his body, like he’d eaten a hundred ginsengs at a time. With this newfound power, he raised his leg and took another step.
Sixteenth step.
Seventeenth step.
Du Su’s body quivered a final last time, and his eyes went glossy as the last strand of vitality rushed out of his body, entering spirit artifact.
Dread filled Wei’s heart, and he dashed forward with all his might. If he couldn’t restrict the spirit artifact in a breath’s time, everything would be over.
Eighteenth step.
Nineteenth step.
Stretching and straining toward the artifact, he tapped on the control point while stabbing the sword into Du Su’s heart with the other hand, ending his final connection with the spirit artifact.
But he was too late. Tyrannical ice and fire energy burst out of the spirit artifact and enveloped him in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 63 Fire and Ice
Li Wei felt like his whole body was trapped in a thousand-year-old glacier. It was so cold his thoughts turned sluggish, and the air in his lungs froze. Every tiny part of his body revolted against the cold, but nothing worked. Everything froze and refused to obey his command.
While he tried to fight the bone-breaking cold, a mad rush of fire burned at his soul, giving him the experience of the ninth hell.
Rage built inside his heart, but there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t even cry out, as he couldn’t feel his mouth. Everything had turned dark around him, and the only sensations he felt were ice and fire. A foreboding intuition occupied his mind; if he couldn’t overcome this, his mind would collapse, and his body would become soulless.
But a tiny purple flame flickered inside his mind, and when he focused on it, the sensations of ice and fire vanished for a moment, giving him a brief glimpse of clarity.
However, when he tried to focus on the purple flame, it vanished, and he was once again drawn into the abyss of ice and fire. It was an unending abyss, and he had no hope of surviving it.
How could one survive when trapped in thousand-year-old ice while burning up inside from hellfire?
Was he going to die, accomplishing nothing? Was his new life going to end in a void like this?
Maybe he deserved this because he couldn’t save his family in his previous life. Maybe it was the retribution of heaven that made him go through the whole cycle only to see his family destroyed with his own eyes.
Sigh!
In the end, he’d lacked courage. In his previous life, he’d lacked the courage to do what needed to be done, and in this life, he’d lacked the courage to gain absolute power. If he gave himself an excuse like he had been reincarnated only for a few days, then he would be looking down on himself. That wasn’t an excuse he would give a rat’s ass in his final breath.
He had failed to live.
Grrrr!
The last speck of air vanished from his lungs, and the feeling of breathlessness jolted his body awake.
System: Host body is in danger. Activating . . .
No, he couldn’t fall unconscious. The last time this message appeared, he’d lost consciousness for an entire night.
Before his final thought vanished, the purple flame appeared again, and he gained another moment of clarity.
Break!
An undulation of power erupted from the purple flame and spread through his mind, and everything around him changed. The unending ice-fire abyss melted away, and he appeared in a barren world with a gigantic beast standing a few hundred feet away. The beast had a body of fire and ice, ten legs, a serpent’s body, and a dragon’s head.
Realization struck his mind. This was a soul space. A legendary space every cultivator created after reaching an unprecedented realm. But it wasn’t his own soul space, as he had not reached that cultivation realm yet. When a cultivator formed a soul space, a new entity was born out of it: their divine sense. Wei having a divine sense without a soul space was a miracle in itself.
Tapping with his leather shoes, he tried to feel the surface below his feet. The land hovered between real and unreal, air that one could breathe but couldn’t smell, entities one could see but couldn’t touch. This was indeed a soul space.
But it wasn’t his soul space, instead it was the Icy Hell Disk’s soul space.
A smiled curled on Wei’s lips as he stared at the beast standing in the middle of this soul space. It was a snake with ten legs and the mouth of a dragon. It was a Yin Yang beast, as half of its body was made up from ice and half from fire. That explained why he felt similar pressure from the spirit artifact.
Wei couldn’t help but chuckle. That stupid Yin Yang Beast had pulled him into its soul space to fight a war and regain control.
How naïve. It had dug its own grave.
Spirit artifacts were left behind by ancient people, and people had spent thousands of years studying them, but no one could unlock the mysteries behind them. But that didn’t mean they’d failed completely. With the passing of time, humans had unlocked many mysteries of spirit artifacts. They knew that ancient people had sealed a high-level Ferocious Beast’s soul inside each spirit artifact, and because of that the spirit artifacts normally had their own will. This was also the reason why spirit artifacts went berserk. If the beast soul sealed inside gained control of the spirit artifact, it could cause massive destruction, or just fly away to an unknown place.
This Icy Hell Disk was trying to do the same. It was trying to wrestle out of his control.
That also meant Wei had established control at the final moment. This eased his mind a little. Because after entering this soul space, he had lost connection with his body, so he didn’t know what was going on outside. What if the spirit artifact had already destroyed the whole Li clan?
But that didn’t seem to be the case. It would have to obey Wei’s commands in the outside world, since he was its master. That’s why the stupid beast had brought him here to fight.
When Wei stared at the beast, he couldn’t control his laugh. This stupid beast might have thought it could pull in a mere Refinement Realm cultivator’s soul and consume it in one shot.
But it had underestimated Wei’s prowess when it came to soul.
Space collapsed when the beast opened its eyes, and an impeccable force locked onto him. One icy blue and one fiery red eye stared at him with resentment.
Shaa!
A wall of fire emerged out of the fiery red eye, and an arrow of ice shot out of the icy blue eye. In the blink of an eye, it appeared in front of Wei, sending a shiver down his legs.
The attack was strong. Stronger than he’d expected.
“Six Directional Shield Array,” Wei shouted, and six array diagrams floated around him, one in each cardinal direction, one above him, and one below his feet. It was a complex array formation he had learned in his previous life. To perform it in the outside world, he would require precious materials that could be only found in the Martial Realm. Some of them were so expensive that one couldn’t buy them with money and could only trade for them with equally valuable treasure. On top of that, he couldn’t carve it with his current powers.
But inside a soul space, everything could be manipulated. Whoever had stronger soul power and divine sense ruled in this world.
The wall of fire and icy arrow crashed into the arrays around Wei, but they failed to make a dent before vanishing completely.
The beast paused for a moment as if it couldn’t understand the change, and began a powerful torrent of back-to-back attacks at Wei. They were all made up of fire and ice and an unbound might that could destroy a mountain.
Wei smirked, and with a thought, a hundred-foot-tall golden sword appeared in his hand
s. It exuded a heavenly might, and everything in a thousand-foot area trembled. Be it a stone, a speck of dust, or the Yin Yang Beast.
The sword was his divine sense. The divine sense was born from the soul, and in a soul space, it was the best weapon.
“Three Layered Beast Subduing Array.” A three-layered array appeared on the golden sword. Five arrays formed one after another and carved themselves into the divine sword’s blade. When they appeared on the divine sword, an intricate pattern shone with a bright gold color, and the sword’s might increase one hundredfold.
Break!
Wei swung his sword vertically, slicing down the attacks sent by the beast. Copies of the sword instantly appeared in front of the myriad attacks and sliced them in half.
The beast seemed to be startled and ceased its attacks. But the sword didn’t stop.
Just before the divine sword pierced the beast’s forehead, it grew larger, changing into thousand feet avatar of itself, and using one leg, it pinned down the divine sword.
“Spirit Trapping Array,” Wei shouted, and the array on the divine sword transformed into a huge array that seemed to cover heaven and earth. It flickered brightly and then enveloped the beast, trapping it in a huge net. The divine sword pulsed with a strange white light and shot for the beast’s forehead. Wei intended to finish the fight in one go.
For the first time since the fight started, the beast seemed to fear the sword. Its whole body shook and shrank back to its original size. A boundless might emitted from the beast’s body, clashing with the white light coming out of the divine sword, but no matter how hard it tried, the beast couldn’t resist the might of the divine sword.
“No!” A thought appeared in Wei's mind just before the sword pierced the Yin Yang Beast’s forehead.
Excitement gripped Wei. He had branded a soul mark on the beast, and that meant the spirit artifact belonged to him. With his understanding of spirit artifacts, it would be easy to sweep through the whole Mortal World and live the life of an emperor.
