Spirit Realm

It was constantly raining cats and dogs inside the Forbidden Land of Thunder. Thunder, lightning, wind, and rain were seldom absent.

Under the dark gray sky was a dangerous swampy land littered with ponds and pools of muddy water.

“We need to find the true location of the Land of Buried Gods,” Du Xiangyang said with a gloomy face. “According to Chu Li, Xue Moyan, and that Ye Yihao, the Land of Buried Gods is the real key to the Graveyard of Gods. Supposedly covered with the remains of ancient elites, it’s where the true essence lies and where the biggest secrets can be uncovered!”

“And you know where it is?” Song Tingyu cast a glance at him.

Du Xiangyang gave her a bitter smile. “If I knew, I would’ve led you guys there a long time ago.”

Today the location they were in wasn’t experiencing heavy rain or thunder, but it could still be considered a wetland.

Du Xiangyang and the two women did not need to summon their spirit energy shields of light. This rare moment of relaxation allowed them to leisurely discuss their future plans.

Qin Lie calmly followed them with a smile on his face. He only listened quietly, not expressing any opinions.

Qin Lie felt that he was currently in excellent condition, and after going through half a month of True Soul tempering, he discovered that his soul consciousness now contained the might of thunder.

It was initially very difficult for a martial practitioner to sense the surrounding spirit energy in the Graveyard of Gods since there wasn’t any worldly spirit energy to sense.

Now, however, he could.

This was the Forbidden Land of Thunder. From the moment that Qin Lie’s True Soul was tempered by lightning, his consciousness contained the power of lightning. He could use it to sense the tiniest of movements in the Forbidden Land of Thunder.

He could even attract the thunder and lightning in the sky, easily manifesting the might of thunder to strike at the surrounding area.

In this Forbidden Land of Thunder, Qin Lie’s strength was definitely much stronger than it had been in the Forbidden Land of Wood. If he ran into Ye Yihao again, he was confident that the current him, which had broken through to the middle stage of the Netherpassage Realm, tempered his True Soul, and was able to use this land to his advantage, would not be at a disadvantage if he forcefully clashed against Ye Yihao.

“What do you think, Qin Lie.” Mid-discussion, Song Tingyu turned around to look at Qin Lie.

Qin Lie smiled calmly and said, “The supposed fire spirit in the land of flames was the Fire Qilin. Even though it was just a corpse when I found it, the Demon Sealing Tombstone still sealed it away. I can feel that the Demon Sealing Tombstone became a bit different after doing that.

“In the Forbidden Land of Wood, the Demon Sealing Tombstone sealed the wood spirit. The wood spirit still possessed its sentience and soul, and after sealing it, the Demon Sealing Tombstone once again changed slightly.” Qin Lie paused for a moment, then seriously said, “There should be a thunder spirit inside the Forbidden Land of Thunder as well. If we can find it and seal it, I believe that… it may be useful to our journey in the Graveyard of Gods!”

In reality, Qin Lie had some thoughts about the Demon Sealing Tombstone’s gift.

After sealing the fire spirit, he obtained three refined blood essences from the Fire Qilin. After sealing away the wood spirit, he acquired three emerald drops of immense life energy. Would he obtain another reward if he sealed the thunder spirit as well?

“What kind of strange creature would the thunder spirit be?” Du Xiangyang asked after a moment of pondering. “And how do we find it?”

“Let’s keep moving. As long as this thunder spirit exists, I should be able to detect it within a certain range.” Qin Lie smiled confidently.

“Are you saying that consecutively sealing the fire spirit, wood spirit, and thunder spirit has something to do with the Graveyard of Gods?” Du Xiangyang’s eyes gradually grew brighter.

“Chu Li and Xue Moyan both said something about seven spirits. They should be talking about the seven types of spirits in seven great forbidden lands. The Forbidden Land of Fire has a fire spirit, and the Forbidden Land of Wood has a wood spirit. Naturally, there is a thunder spirit at the Forbidden Land of Thunder as well.”

“What?” Du Xiangyang’s expression shook.

“I think that the Demon Sealing Tombstone is the actual key to the Land of Buried Gods!” Qin Lie softly exclaimed.

“Hahaha!” Du Xiang laughed and nodded, saying, “That makes sense... that makes a lot of sense! Before I coming here, I asked around and learned that the martial practitioners of all nine great Silver rank forces were searching for this tombstone. They had shackled all eight god corpses together and trapped them in an underwater island before allowing us to enter the Graveyard of Gods. The Demon Sealing Tombstone came from one of those eight god corpses, so it’s probably closely connected to the Land of Buried Gods!”

“What are you so happy about?” Song Tingyu was confused.

“I’m just happy that I made the right choice. Right now I’m in your group, so maybe I’ll be able to obtain something from the Land of Buried Gods through Qin Lie!” Du Xiangyang said, appearing quite pleased with himself.

“I owe you a favor, so if we really find the Land of Buried Gods and are able to obtain rewards through the Demon Sealing Tombstone, we naturally won’t forget yours!”” Qin Lie smiled and promised.

“Heh heh!” Du Xiangyang nodded over and over. “I don’t know why, but I keep on feeling like the current you is more trustworthy! So... I trust you!”

Xie Jingxuan glanced at Qin Lie and also nodded slightly. “I think so too.”

Qin Lie was surprised by their reactions.

It was at this moment that a strange ripple of energy came from the token at Song Tingyu’s waist.

“Eh, it’s the token of Celestial Artifact Sect. There are Celestial Artifact Sect martial practitioners in the area.” She took a moment to inspect the token, then said, “They’re very close!”

“It can’t be that Situ Tong and his ilk, can it?” Qin Lie frowned.

“There’s only one person,” Song Tingyu said. After another brief moment of surveilling their surroundings, she declared, “They’re swiftly approaching us.”

“We’ll wait for them!” Qin Lie smiled.

The Graveyard of Gods had always been filled with cruel competition. When martial practitioners of different forces encountered each other, bloodshed would often follow.

Powerful forces would acquire the tokens of rival forces by hunting and killing other martial practitioners. They would then use those tokens to find and kill more of them—

—all for the sake of exterminating the opposition.

“The four of us currently have tokens of the other eight great forces in our possession. This means that, wherever we go in the future, we’ll be able to immediately detect martial practitioners of those eight forces.” Du Xiangyang smiled bitterly. “Of course, they will be able to detect us as well, so if their strength exceeds ours, then we’ll be the ones out of luck.”

The martial practitioners of eight great Silver rank forces—the three great families, Black Voodoo Cult, Heavenly Sword Mountain, Ten Thousand Beast Mountain, Terminator Sect, and Celestial Artifact Sect—had been killed one after another.

Qin Lie happened to participate in all of those killings.

Except for Xue Moyan’s Illusory Demon Sect, Qin Lie and company now held one or several tokens of eight of the great Silver rank forces.

“If we were anywhere else, I wouldn’t dare to think of us as hunters. However, in this Forbidden Land of Thunder, we definitely aren’t prey!” Qin Lie grinned. “This is especially true since I’ve broken through to the middle stage of the Netherpassage Realm!”

“Feeling confident, are we?” Du Xiangyang chuckled strangely.

“Even if we ran into Luo Chen, Ye Yihao, or Yu Men, I’m certain that I’d win by a small margin!” Qin Lie said full of confidence.

“That’s great!” Du Xiangyang grew increasingly happy. “In that case, the four of us can go anywhere we want in the Forbidden Land of Thunder!”

Du Xiangyang himself was only a bit weaker than Luo Chen, Chu Li, and other ringers. Song Tingyu was at the peak of the Netherpassage Realm, and even Xie Jingxuan’s strength had largely increased after she acquired an inheritance and stepped into the late stage of the Netherpassage Realm.

Adding Qin Lie, a martial practitioner who could control thunder and lightning, to their midst, they truly were a force to be reckoned with in the Forbidden Land of Thunder.

They almost didn’t need to be afraid of anyone!

“Let’s see who it is. If it’s Situ Tong, we’ll just kill him outright!” Song Tingyu snorted coldly.

“As we should!” Du Xiangyang laughed loudly.

Not only did their group of four not move away, they even approached the newcomer of their own accord.

An hour later, an unfamiliar Celestial Artifact Sect martial practitioner appeared in front of them, a look of shock on his face.

He was a martial practitioner at the middle stage of the Netherpassage Realm with treacherous eyes and a nose shaped like a bird’s beak. He looked to be around thirty years old and wore the uniform of Celestial Artifact Sect.

The second he came near and discovered that the person with the Celestial Artifact Sect token wasn’t a Celestial Artifact Sect martial practitioner, and that there were actually four people, his expression immediately changed.

“You people…” Zhang Sheng frowned, gripping his Celestial Artifact Sect token. “Why do you have tokens of my sect?”

“Why do you think we would have them?” Du Xiangyang countered with a smile.

Zhang Sheng frowned.

The answer was clear. These four people must have killed martial practitioners of Celestial Artifact Sect and robbed them of their tokens.

“He isn’t one of the people we saw working with Situ Tong. Should we...?” Song Tingyu turned around to look at Qin Lie beside her.

“This is the Graveyard of Gods. When martial practitioners of opposing forces meet, bloodshed often follows.” Qin Lie’s tone was indifferent. “I don’t really like the way he looks.”

“Same here,” Xie Jingxuan said calmly.

“Then let’s kill him.” Song Tingyu let out a beautiful smile.

“Hey, Qin Lie, didn’t the two beautiful ladies say you became more benevolent? Why are you acting the same?” Du Xiangyang asked in surprise.

“Benevolent?” Qin Lie shook his head and smiled calmly, saying, “That depends on the person. I’m getting a bad vibe from this person, and I feel that killing him will save us a lot of trouble.”

“Alright!” Du Xiangyang wore an odd expression, but he accepted it in the end. “Leave him to me.”

The moment he said this, he took out his Scarlet Fire Sword. A soul-burning fiery light gradually formed at the tip of his sword.

After a moment of amazement, Zhang Sheng hastily screamed, “Situ Tong and I are not of the same group! I am here to find people who will work with my young sect master. We have have discovered a strange land and are sure that there are good things inside of it. We can’t handle the situation alone, so we need allies!”

“Strange land? Good stuff?” Du Xiangyang hesitated.

“What strange land? Also, by young sect master, you mean Feng Yiyou, right?” Song Tingyu frowned.

“That’s right, Feng Yiyou is the young sect master of Celestial Artifact Sect. He is also our leader in this Trial! As for that Situ Tong, he’s only pretending to be friendly with our young sect master. We aren’t working together. The land we discovered is filled with incredibly dense lightning, powerful life energy, and sentient beings!” Zhang Sheng shouted loudly. “We need allies!”

“What do you think, Qin Lie?” Du Xiangyang turned around.

“This guy’s probably up to no good.” Xie Jingxuan said to Qin Lie in a low voice.

Qin Lie shrugged. In a relaxed, confident manner, he said, “Lead the way!”

“Lead the way?” Zhang Sheng looked dumbfounded.

“We are your allies! Now lead us to Feng Yiyou and the strange land you discovered!” Qin Lie’s smile was warm. “We can fight side by side.”