Chapter 191 – Sea of Dead Souls
The Zifu Knowledge Sea before Wang Lin was like a large ball. It was clearly divided into two; one was blood-red and the other was pitch-black.
The blood red part must be the Sea of Blood and the pitch black part must be the Sea of Dead Souls.
As he stared at the strange ball before him, Wang Lin remembered something. Back then, the battle between the red-haired man and the remnant soul of the Ancient God had been incredibly intense. They fought to the death with the Ancient God’s body as the battleground. In the end, Ancient God Tu Si lost because he had already died and only had a fragment of his soul remaining, but he had divided his Knowledge Sea into two. One half was the Dead Soul Sea to prevent anyone from obtaining the inherited knowledge, and the other half was the Blood Sea, created to trap the red-haired man.
Witnessing the scene before him, he truly admired people like the Six Desire Devil Lord’s teacher, Sky Devil Magician. That person was truly a genius for thinking of using the Ancient God’s will, with the Ancient God’s bone as a guide, to temporarily open a path to the Sea of Dead Souls to obtain the inheritance of knowledge.
If it weren’t for the appearance of that middle-aged man, the Sky Demon Wizard would have already succeeded in obtaining the inheritance of knowledge.
A thought flashed through Wang Lin’s mind. He moved his body forward and charged toward the Sea of Dead Souls.
As his body neared the black area, a black mist suddenly surged out and surrounded him, preventing him from moving forward.
Wang Lin tried to move in another direction, but no matter where he went, the black fog seemed to block his path. No matter how hard he pushed forward, he couldn’t get past the black fog.
Wang Lin pondered for a moment. He slammed his storage bag shut and gulped down several large mouthfuls of liquid spiritual energy. Then, he sat cross-legged and began cultivating. His eyes revealed a cold gaze as his hands formed various techniques in front of him. Soon, countless illusionary circles appeared around him.
His eyes grew brighter and his hands moved faster. The illusionary circle of barriers began to expand. After a long moment, his hands suddenly stopped and pressed forward.
The illusionary halo formed countless rings and rapidly spread in all directions. Soon after, Wang Lin stood up. He placed his right hand on his chest and his left hand on his right shoulder. His hands appeared to be performing a strange seal while his feet moved him slowly forward.
Suddenly, a black snake emerged from where he had stepped. The snake quickly climbed up his body until it split in two at his chest. The black snake followed his arms and landed on each of the strange seals formed on his hands.
In an instant, a skull-sized ball with many tentacles attached to it appeared before Wang Lin.
Wang Lin let out a low roar, “Ancient God, destroy!” His eyes turned cold as he threw both hands to the side. The black ball shot forward like lightning, quickly chasing after the illusionary circle as it charged towards the black fog.
This Ancient God Break was the only technique Wang Lin could use after reading the Ancient God Tactics. Its power lay not in attack, but in using a vast amount of spiritual energy to destroy all restrictions.
The liquid spiritual energy that Wang Lin drank earlier was turned into a black ball by the Ancient God Break technique.
At the same time, Wang Lin charged forward like a meteor.
The first thing to touch the black fog was Wang Lin’s illusionary circle. The moment it touched it, it was like a hot iron touching snow. The fog quickly melted.
However, as the fog cleared, another mist appeared in its place. From the looks of it, the fog wasn’t diminishing, but instead increasing, forming a thicker layer.
Beyond the illusionary circle was a black sphere created by the Ancient God Break technique. Within this sphere were countless fiery tentacles, and the moment they touched the mist, the mist would shatter. As the mist shattered, four waves of pressure exploded outward in all directions.
As a result, a deep crevice opened up within the dense fog. Looking at the crevice from the outside, it appeared endless. Wang Lin seized the opportunity and quickly flew into the crevice.
After the four waves were pushed out, they were immediately enveloped in black mist. Gradually, as the waves could no longer withstand the pressure, they began to shrink, and as a result, the gap became smaller and smaller. Soon, the gap closed as the waves collapsed.
Wang Lin’s speed was extremely fast. He quickly charged toward the shrinking gap. Although he saw the gap shrinking, he knew that now was not the time to retreat. Even though the odds were slim, Wang Lin didn’t want to give up on his plan.
Seeing that the waves around him had receded and no end was in sight, a thought crossed his mind. He took another sip of liquid spiritual energy. He formed a seal with both hands and muttered a few incantations. After releasing his hands, another black ball appeared.
He picked up the orb and threw it aside. The orb shattered, and the surrounding waves seemed to regain their vitality and began to push outward again. Time was of the essence. The toll on his body was immense each time he used the Ancient God Break technique. If he used it just three times, the damage wouldn’t be significant, but more than three times would cause significant damage before he could master the Ancient God Tactics.
The Ancient God Destruction Technique was based on the Ancient God Tactics, but right now Wang Lin was only using spiritual energy to survive.
He continued moving forward. When the waves could no longer withstand the pressure of the fog and began to shrink, Wang Lin finally reached the end of the fog.
After glancing behind him, Wang Lin let out a bitter laugh, then turned to leave. At the bottom of the fog was a continuous layer of purple lightning. If he entered carelessly, he would definitely die.
Moreover, under the layer of purple lightning, he saw a black sea. In the roaring black sea water, there was a creature that looked like a dragon, but was not a dragon, staring at Wang Lin through the layer of purple lightning.
This wasn’t a place Wang Lin could forcefully enter. It seemed like he would die before he even entered the Sea of Dead Souls. Wang Lin had a very decisive personality. The moment he noticed something was wrong, he immediately retreated.
The waves began to collapse. Just before the gap was about to close, he charged out. He stared back at the black mist, his face grim and uncertain.
If he couldn’t enter the Sea of Dead Souls, then he wouldn’t be able to leave the Ancient God’s body. However, with his current strength, entering the Sea of Dead Souls was impossible. Even someone like the Six Demon Sorcerer wouldn’t be able to enter the Sea of Dead Souls.
The only person who can enter is the one who inherits the power of the Ancient Gods.
Wang Lin pondered as he stared at the other part of the large ball, the Blood Sea.
This was where the red-haired man was trapped. If he could break free, then entering the Sea of Dead Souls would be easy. It could be said that this man’s chances of entering the Sea of Dead Souls were much higher than Wang Lin’s.
After all, the Sea of Dead Souls contained a legacy of knowledge. If the red-haired man obtained it, he would gain both legacies and soon become an Ancient God.
Wang Lin stared at the Sea of Blood, a small smile slowly forming on his lips. He thought about the events that had occurred previously. It was because Wang Lin was a Soul Eater that all the demonic cultivators were frantically searching for him.
Then why were they looking for him? He recalled an earlier incident, when he encountered a large wandering soul that would become a soul eater. The appearance of a wandering soul of that size was not normal.
As a Soul Devourer, Wang Lin knew that, in the Decaying World, Soul Devourers had very clear boundaries between their domains. If a wandering soul was about to evolve into a Soul Devourer, a Soul Devourer would halt its evolution by devouring the wandering soul.
Unless there are no soul eaters nearby, can a wandering soul successfully evolve? Since there are already soul eaters in the third realm, such a large wandering soul should not exist. It is very possible that under some special circumstances, with the help of external forces, this might happen.
Especially considering that the soul eater seemed to be in a strange state, as if it were asleep, oblivious to its surroundings. Wang Lin knew the answer.
The Soul Eater’s slumber was caused by someone. The goal was to allow other wandering souls to evolve into Soul Eaters. This suggests that the other party has a grand plan.
This plan requires two soul eaters to complete it.
This was the only reason to explain why, when they realized Wang Lin was a soul devourer, all the demonic cultivators began searching for him like crazy. According to Wang Lin’s observations, it would still take a long time for those wandering souls to become soul devourers.
A thought crossed Wang Lin’s mind. The final question on his mind was, who were all these demonic cultivators working for?
Hunchback Meng had managed to rise from the dead. There must be a shocking secret behind all this. Also, the capture of Duanmu and Wang Qingyue. The more Wang Lin analyzed the situation, the more he began to understand the bigger picture. He felt like he was close to seeing the mystery.
Wang Lin stared at the Sea of Blood. His expression was calm. The person within the Ancient God’s body who possessed the power to control all these demonic cultivators must have inherited the power of the Ancient God. It must have been the red-haired man trapped in the Sea of Blood.
If it was really that person, then the reason they wanted the two Soul Devourers was obvious. Besides leaving the Blood Sea, Wang Lin couldn’t think of any other reason.
Wang Lin pondered for a moment. A cold look flashed across his eyes. He looked at the Sea of Blood again and placed his finger on his brow. His body began to turn transparent as he entered the space of the heaven-defying bead.
In the Heaven-Defying Bead’s space, Wang Lin looked at Situ Nan and his parents, then sat down where only a small amount of light was floating. Since he had entered the Core Formation stage, he was no longer restricted from bringing objects with spiritual energy into the Heaven-Defying Bead’s space. This was a very obvious change to the bead.
Wang Lin decided that unless it was his last resort, he would not seek out the red-haired man to open the Sea of Dead Souls. Now that he had the Ancient God Tactic and many treasures to help him improve his cultivation, he decided to enter closed-door training to try and reach the Nascent Soul stage.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and focused his divine sense on the three big words remaining in his mind. Gradually, intricate techniques emerged one by one in his mind.
The first layer of the Ancient God Tactics contains three parts: stealing spiritual energy, swallowing spiritual energy, and melting spiritual energy.
When every Ancient God is born, their body automatically uses the first technique. However, as the Ancient God grows into a child, the first layer will develop into a liquefied spiritual energy stage. If the Ancient God breaks through to the second layer, they can absorb the planet’s energy. If this is not achieved, the infant will continue to sleep. After a certain period of time passes, the golden liquid surrounding the infant will disappear. After losing the protection that prevents detection, the only path left is to be discovered and devoured by others.
After studying the first technique for a very long time, Wang Lin let out a sigh and opened his eyes, revealing a thoughtful expression. After studying this technique, Wang Lin understood one of the reasons why the Ancient God’s body was so large.
The ancient gods and goddesses focused on cultivating their bodies and rarely used weapons. It could even be said that their bodies were the finest treasures. Their physical hardness could be compared to the finest treasures in the world.
The focus of the Ancient God Tactics is to use all stolen spiritual energy to strengthen the body. Once the body’s limits are reached, one must expand the body, or cultivation will cease. The larger the body, the more spiritual energy it requires. After reaching a certain size, the Ancient God will undergo body reconstruction. This is a process of improving the body’s quality.
For the Ancient Gods, the more often their bodies underwent reconstruction, the stronger their cultivation and bodies became.
Furthermore, with each reconstruction, their souls would also grow larger. Among the Ancient Gods, there were no cultivation levels like in the world of cultivators. The Ancient Gods’ cultivation primarily concerned only their souls and bodies.
The body is the weapon and the soul is the hand that controls the weapon, united into the nearly invincible Ancient God Family.
In ancient times, the Ancient Gods and Goddesses were majestic, but ultimately, they were buried in history. To this day, they have disappeared without a trace except for a few mentions in ancient texts.
Wang Lin realized that by using the Ancient God Tactics, he could use the stolen spiritual energy to increase his cultivation. This would allow him to increase his cultivation rapidly.
He took out his bag of belongings. After searching for a while, he pulled out an object.
It was a dantian. It was obtained during his killing spree. This dantian contained all the cultivation of a mid-level cultivator.
Without a word, Wang Lin threw the dantian into his mouth. As it entered his mouth, it released a tremendous amount of spiritual energy into his body.
Wang Lin immediately used the spiritual energy stealing technique from the first layer of the Ancient God Tactics, then put his hands together and sat down to cultivate. All the spiritual energy was quickly absorbed by the spiritual energy stealing technique, but just as it was about to merge into this body, Wang Lin stopped it and transferred all the spiritual energy to his core.
Waves of spiritual energy surged within his core, forming patterns.
A storm swept through his body, and the spiritual energy he had accumulated over two hours vanished in an instant.
If Wang Lin did not have the Spiritual Energy Stealing technique, he would need to spend several months to several years to digest the dantian, and he would only be able to absorb 70 to 80 percent of it while the rest would be lost.
Although time moved faster in the Heaven-defying Bead’s space, it would still waste a lot of time. However, in the real world, he was able to completely absorb the dantian in an instant.
His core revolved in a pattern, sending waves of spiritual energy through his body. Wang Lin’s eyes lit up. One dantian had allowed him to reach the peak of the middle stage of Core Formation, one step away from the late stage.
Wang Lin’s right hand reached into his bag and took out the bottles of immortal pills Li MuWan had refined. He began popping them into his mouth, one by one. Time passed very quickly. As the pills were consumed, the Spiritual Energy Stealing Technique would completely absorb them. Just before the spiritual energy entered his body, Wang Lin would redirect it back to his core.
As a result, his cultivation increased rapidly as he broke through the middle stage of Core Formation to the late stage.
Next, Wang Lin took out the most precious item in his bag of holding: the spinal fluid he had obtained from the dragon in the tunnel.
The dragon’s spinal fluid was only enough to fill a small bottle. One could see how precious it was. This was the most precious medicine Wang Lin had obtained so far. After some hesitation, he opened the bottle.
After taking a sip, his body emitted a searing heat. The Spiritual Energy Stealing Technique activated and rapidly circulated spiritual energy. Time slowly passed. Wang Lin could clearly feel his core becoming larger, its color brighter, and its rotation increasing.
After the sip of spinal fluid was absorbed, Wang took another sip.
One day, two days, three days… until a month later, Wang Lin had been cultivating with his eyes closed the entire time. The Spiritual Energy Stealing Technique continued to activate within his body.
Only ten drops of spinal fluid remained. His inner core was the size of two fists. It was golden with a hint of red. Every time it rotated, the meridians in his body would ache, but he still hadn’t reached the Nascent Soul stage.
A month ago, Wang Lin took a pill that could increase the chances of forming his Nascent Soul, but the pill only turned his core red, there was no sign of it breaking open and forming a Nascent Soul.
After pondering for a moment, Wang Lin sighed. He wondered if other people had this kind of difficulty forming their Nascent Soul, but it seemed to be much more difficult than he had imagined.
The pills in his storage bag were almost gone, and there wasn’t much Liquid Spiritual Energy left. After pondering for a moment, he arrived at where Situ Nan and his parents were. He kowtowed a few times before his parents, then pointed his finger at his brow and left behind the Heaven-defying Bead.
Outside the Sea of Knowledge, Wang Lin’s body transformed from an illusory form into an increasingly solid form. He stared at the Sea of Knowledge and sighed. Based on his previous plans, if he was lucky enough to enter the Nascent Soul stage, then he might have a chance to enter the Sea of Dead Souls. Perhaps when he obtained the inheritance, he would be able to leave the body of an Ancient God.
But now, he is not confident.
After pondering for a moment, Wang Lin raised his hand and a cold look appeared in his eyes. Now there was only one way left. If he didn’t want to be trapped here, forever avoiding the pursuit of the demonic cultivators, there was only one way.
His right hand reached into the void, created a gap, and entered it. After exiting, he left the Sea of Knowledge and arrived somewhere within the Sea of Qi.
After he appeared, he hesitated. His hands came together and emitted several rays of light in all directions, creating numerous cracks. As the cracks closed, he spread his divine sense in all directions. As a result, the demonic cultivators who had been bitterly searching for him noticed his presence and quickly charged toward him.
Soon, demonic cultivators appeared near Wang Lin, one by one. They stared at Wang Lin, revealing smiles. One of them was Hunchback Meng. Upon seeing Wang Lin, a feeling of disgust arose. Without a word, his right hand reached out to grab Wang Lin.
Wang Lin’s expression was calm and collected. As Hunchback Meng reached out his hand toward him, he sneered, “Don’t you want to break the seal on your master?”
As Wang Lin spoke those words, although all the surrounding demonic cultivators maintained their normal expressions, their eyes were filled with shock. Hunchback Meng was stunned and stopped his right hand.
Wang Lin noticed this pause. He was now certain that his guess was correct. Now the only thing he needed to confirm was that their master was the red-haired man trapped in the Sea of Blood.
Hunchback Meng’s face darkened and showed uncertainty. He snorted coldly, and his right hand gripped Wang Lin even faster.
Wang Lin had a stern expression. He didn’t move an inch. He had set a trap here beforehand. If anyone tried to capture him, the nearby rift would immediately open and take them away from this place. After all, they were in the body of an Ancient God, and no one was more familiar with this place than he was.
His eyes were calm. If Meng made a move and no other demonic cultivators intervened, his prediction was wrong. They didn’t care whether the soul devourer lived or died.
Just as Hunchback Meng’s hand was about to catch Wang Lin, a cold voice suddenly echoed.
“Stop!”
As soon as the voice rang out, Hunchback Meng felt as if he had been grabbed by an invisible hand and thrown backward. He stopped after spitting out a few mouthfuls of black blood, then knelt on the ground. There was not a hint of annoyance on his face. He respectfully said, “Greetings, Lord Duo Mu.”
Meanwhile all the other demon cultivators knelt down.
The middle-aged man who had destroyed the Sky Demon Witch’s plan appeared before Wang Lin, staring at him with a cold expression.
Wang Lin’s expression was calm as he replied.
“You truly are a soul devourer. Very good, follow me!” After the middle-aged man finished speaking, he waved his hand in the void and a crack hundreds of feet wide appeared in the sky.