Spirit Realm

Whether it was Xue Moyan who used it first or Qin Lie who used it afterward, neither of them had actually been acknowledged by the Bloodthirsty Dragon. They hadn’t tamed this violent Heaven Grade spirit artifact.

The only person it would acknowledge as master was the Blood Progenitor!

The Blood Progenitor created the Bloodthirsty Dragon, tempered it with his own blood, and refined it using countless spirit materials.

To the Bloodthirsty Dragon, he was its true master!

No one could take the place of the Blood Progenitor in its heart.

Today, the Bloodthirsty Dragon found out that the Blood Progenitor’s soul had perished, leaving only the man’s body. It could smell its master’s familiar scent, but it could no longer feel his summons.

Yet it refused to accept that as reality!

Instead, it decided that it would use the souls of these two juniors who cultivated his master’s spirit art along with their tempered blood to gather its master’s fragmented thoughts!

If some of its master’s consciousness still remained, the Bloodthirsty Dragon would awaken it!

In the Bloodthirsty Dragon’s heart, its master was the only one who was qualified enough to control it, and in doing so, reclaim their former glory.

To that end, it desired the True Souls of Qin Lie and Xue Moyan!

A seemingly endless amount of fiendish blood energy condensed to form a viscous sea of blood. The Bloodthirsty Dragon carried its master’s body on its skull, roaring amidst this bloody sea thick with the smell of iron as it turned to devour Qin Lie and Xue Moyan.

A terrifying, fiendish aura covered the sky and the earth, enveloping Qin Lie’s group. It locked down the area, keeping them completely confined.

Every single one of them could only watch as the bloody sea flooded toward them. They couldn’t escape this area.

Even thoughts of resisting were thoroughly shattered by the impact of the fiendish blood aura. Before anyone could realize it, the Bloodthirsty Dragon’s blood energy permeated their blood vessels and spread across their bodies. Its violent soul had dominated their minds.

They were helpless.

“Ba-dump ba-dump! Ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump!”

The dull, intense throbbing of a heartbeat constantly resounded like the rumbling of thunder. Everyone’s faces and skin flushed red as blood slowly dripped from their eyes.

The speed at which their blood flowed within their bodies became ten times faster than before. This sudden increase in speed made them lose all control over themselves.

In the face of the bloody bone dragon’s terrible pressure, despair reigned over them. As much as they wracked their brains, trying to think up countermeasures, they couldn’t think of any.

Having consumed a huge amount of the fiendish blood aura within the Demon Sealing Tombstone, then later finding the Blood Progenitor’s body, the Bloodthirsty Dragon emanated an invincible, sky-changing, earth-rending power.

Who could possibly compete against it?

Grim expressions dominated the faces of Qin Lie’s group, all of them losing control of their tempers. All they could do was wait to receive the order that was about to arrive.

—the order to burst into pieces and die.

Qin Lie’s demeanor seemed especially grim.

He stood at the very front of the group. His had experienced the bloody bone dragon’s terrible, earthshaking aura, which had flooded everyone’s minds, restrained their souls, and effectively enveloped this entire area.

The color of blood had long since filled his mind consciousness. Countless bloody lights even penetrated and flooded his Soul Lake.

Before Qin Lie knew it, a thread of the Bloodthirsty Dragon’s soul consciousness had seeped into his mind and polluted his Soul Lake.

His soul consciousness became a bloody red, and his Soul Lake changed into a lake of blood. Even his True Soul was slowly being corrupted, bit by bit.

His True Soul had been repeatedly tempered by the power of thunder, a power that could eliminate all traces of evil souls. In spite of that, it paled before this bloody corruption and was powerless.

It seemed as if the power of thunder couldn’t eliminate the blood energy that invaded his soul consciousness.

Qin Lie’s heart became heavy as blood energy gradually filled his soul, making him feel as if he were slowly sinking toward an endless sea of blood.

He was well aware of how the Bloodthirsty Dragon’s blood energy was dominating his mind and soul, corrupting him.

He would ultimately lose all sense of himself and succumb, becoming the bloody bone dragon’s puppet. He would no longer have his own thoughts, his own consciousness.

He would suffer a fate even worse than death.

—and he slowly gave in.

“Whoosh!”

At that moment, a powerful suction force, one which he himself wasn’t sure existed, suddenly appeared in the space between his brows..

The two people closest to him, Xue Moyan and Song Tingyu, could clearly see that a ray of pitch black light had appeared there.

In the next moment, a whirlpool that resembled a black hole appeared there, consuming the seemingly endless amount of blood energy that surrounded them.

Xue Moyan instantly discovered that the blood energy that had spread into her soul consciousness rapidly decreased, as if it were some sort of paint being drained from her mind.

Like Qin Lie’s soul consciousness, hers had been flooded with blood energy.

Her consciousness had initially been blurry, leaving her powerless to resist.

She had gradually given in to the despair.

Yet, when that pitch black light shone from between Qin Lie’s eyebrows, everything underwent an astonishing change!

Her blood-polluted soul consciousness quickly returned to normal. The bloody haze in her mind scattered as if a strong wind had blown through, freeing her frozen thoughts and cleansing her blood-polluted soul. In this way, her consciousness became clear once more.

Even the dense fiendish blood aura that had invaded her body was quickly extracted.

Xue Moyan was dumbstruck.

She could see wisps of bloody smoke entering the black dot between Qin Lie’s eyebrows.

That black dot was a deep, far-seeing eye.

—It was the Soul Suppressing Orb.

“Boom!”

Qin Lie’s mind shook, and he instantly broke free of his powerless state from earlier.

The blood that had dyed his soul consciousness had been entirely extracted, and the moment the last of it vanished, he regained his wits. Upon focusing his attention and checking his surroundings, he saw countless bloody lights being absorbed into the Soul Suppressing Orb and pulled into the vast space inside of it.

His third eye, the Soul Suppressing Orb, unleashed an absolute suppressive force capable of subduing all violent spirits and making them yield.

“Whoosh!”

A terrifying suction force erupted from the Soul Suppressing Orb.

The seemingly endless, turbulent sea of blood, the Bloodthirsty Dragon fiendishly roaring within it, and the Blood Progenitor’s body sitting on its skull… all of them transformed into rays of bloody light that Qin Lie’s third eye devoured.

—And they completely disappeared.

Only the Soul Suppressing Orb between Qin Lie’s eyebrows remained. It shone with dazzling light, traces of bloody rays swimming within it.

Song Tingyu, Xue Moyan, Du Xiangyang, Luo Chen, Xie Jingxuan, and Pan Qianqian froze where they stood.

To them, what had just happened seemed like the unlikeliest dream.

It was as if everything that had just occurred—the crazed, howling Bloodthirsty Dragon, the Blood Progenitor’s body atop its skull, and the terrible aura that shook the earth and blotted out the sky—were just an illusion.

All because they suddenly disappeared in a bizarre, untraceable way.

As a result, everyone felt astonished and confused. They suspected that the Bloodthirsty Dragon’s soul consciousness had created an illusion that tampered with their memories.

However, if everything that had just taken place weren’t an illusion and was actually real, why would Qin Lie possess a third eye? And why was that third eye capable of devouring Blood Fiend Sect’s ultimate treasure, the sea of blood, and the Blood Progenitor’s body?

“Just now…”

Du Xiangyang’s voice was hoarse. He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t know where to start.

“Was all of that... real?” Pan Qianqian asked timidly, giving voice to what everyone was thinking..

“I think… that everything we saw just now was real. None of it was an illusion,” Xue Moyan said, gripping the Illusory Demon Orb. Her eyes shone clearly with a strange, bright light. “At the very least... the Illusory Demon Orb tells me there weren’t any.”

This news startled the rest of the group.

Then everyone’s eyes simultaneously fell upon Qin Lie.

Under everyone’s gazes, Qin Lie’s third eye slowly withdrew into his forehead. The Soul Suppressing Orb almost instantly vanished into his flesh once more.

Qin Lie had regained his normal appearance.

In the eyes of the rest of the group, however, Qin Lie was obviously different from them.

“B-Big Brother Qin… you’re not… a member of a foreign race, are you?” Pan Qianqian spoke up again. “What in Spirit Realm was that eye?”

“It’s not an eye,” Qin Lie exclaimed. “It’s a spirit artifact as powerful as the Bloodthirsty Dragon."

A spirit artifact?

One that could devour a Heaven Grade spirit artifact like the Bloodthirsty Dragon?

This revelation stunned everyone into silence for a second time.

“Don’t ask.” Qin Lie sighed. “Even I’m not entirely sure… what it is. It’s occupied the space between my brows for as long as I could remember, but I don’t know where it came from or what it’s capable of...”

“Do you feel any different now?” Song Tingyu asked worriedly. “Has anything changed after that spirit artifact devoured the Bloodthirsty Dragon, absorbed that sea of blood, and took in the Blood Progenitor’s body?”

“I have yet to sense anything,” Qin Lie said.

His words shocked everyone.

“Swoosh!”

As Qin Lie’s group was repeatedly being astonished, the Demon Sealing Tombstone, which had been hovering above the Land of Buried Gods, whistled through the air at a surprisingly fast speed.

It arrived above Qin Lie’s head, floating in the air and letting out rays of prismatic divine light as if it were searching for something.

It seemed to have been attracted here by the aura of the Soul Suppressing Orb.

Unfortunately for the Demon Sealing Tombstone, the Soul Suppressing Orb hadn’t taken much time at all to devour the Bloodthirsty Dragon and everything that accompanied it.

The Demon Sealing Tombstone had detected the Soul Suppressing Orb’s aura, but by the time it rushed over to Qin Lie’s group from its position above the Land of Buried Gods, the orb had already vanished into the space between Qin Lie’s eyebrows.

“Look! It’s Di Fei!” Du Xiangyang suddenly shouted. “Di Fei has appeared!”

Di Fei, who had vanished earlier, currently sat atop the head of an ancient giant that lay flat on the ground of the Land of Buried Gods. The earth spirit’s set of eyes above his own exuded the immense power of earth.

“Rrrrmb...!”

This ancient hundred-meter-tall giant, which resembled a small hill from its prone position, suddenly sat up.

Revolving yellow rings of potent earthly energy appeared around the giant’s body. It opened its gruesome maw and unleashed an inaudible roar, suddenly standing up with Di Fei still seated atop its head.

Driven by the power of the earth spirit, this giant was the first corpse in the Land of Buried Gods to stand.

“That ancient giant’s body contains an immense, refined power of earth!” Luo Chen cried in surprise. “It’s like its body were made with soil, as if it were born into this world from the earth itself.”

The second it detected the strange events occurring in the Land of Buried Gods, the Demon Sealing Tombstone that had been hovering above Qin Lie’s head flew away once again.

The Demon Sealing Tombstone shot through the air, seemingly in a hurry to suppress the earth spirit along with the earthen body of the ancient giant that stood up in the desolate plain. It seemed as though the tombstone was trying to prevent an earthshaking calamity from happening.

After a moment of contemplation, Du Xiangyang spoke up.

“I understand now!” he said. “Some of the ancient elites buried here cultivated one power, and one power alone. For the seven spirits, all of these elites… are powerful puppets at their disposal!”

“The other two eastern barbarians, that Ka Deng and that A’Yue, probably have spirits within them as well,” Song Tingyu added, having understood the situation as well. “The sharp power of metal and gentle power of water inside of those elites could temporarily prevent the Demon Sealing Tombstone from discovering them if they to possess their corpses.

And things happened exactly as she said.

The moment Song Tingyu and Du Xiangyang finished speaking, abnormal changes occurred in the bodies of two other ancient elites in the Land of Buried Gods.

One was a giant, two-hundred-meter tall ape. It seemed to have been forged from gold and steel because its body was completely golden yellow. Every hair on its body resembled a golden needle that glittered with a sharp, metallic light.

Like the ancient giant, this giant ape was a beast of a bygone era. Both were members of the Giant Spirit Race.

However, this giant golden ape was significantly stronger than the members of the Giant Spirit Race that had escaped their seals in the freezing land beneath the Arctic Mountain Range.

Even in death, the violent power of metal that emanated from the giant ape’s body seemed sharp enough to pierce the sky.

This ancient giant ape clearly must’ve been far stronger than Mang Wang when it was alive and in peak condition!

Along with the ancient giant and the ape, the enormous dragon that the Blood Progenitor used to create the Bloodthirsty Dragon was a member of the Giant Spirit Race. During ancient times, the Giant Spirit Race was one of the most powerful races. They were capable of causing chaos that changed the color of the sky itself.

In terms of purely physical, explosive strength and potential to wreak havoc upon all living beings in the world, the Giant Spirit Race had always been considered the best amongst all the powerful races.

“Fssshhhh… fshhhh… fssshhhh…”

The melodious sound of murmuring streams came from a graceful woman with the tail of a fish in place of her lower body.

This woman was a member of the Merfolk, a foreign Sea Race. She was nearly five meters tall and had been dead for many years.

A’Yue of the Black Barbarian Tribe currently lay on the ground beside that woman. She didn’t seem to be breathing or showing any other signs of life.

The water spirit had abandoned her and instead taken over the body of this Merfolk elite who had been dead for many years, using it as its new puppet.

A’Yue had fallen, and this Sea Race elite stood, her body releasing the harmonic sound of hundreds of murmuring streams flowing at the same time.