To what extent could a cultivator's remnant soul interfere with reality?
Those in Qi Refinement were ignorant and benighted; even if their spirits lingered in the mortal realm, they could do little more than disturb someone's dreams.
Foundation Establishment True Cultivators might, even in a state of clouded intellect, retain their instinct to pursue the Dao, gathering yin qi to become ghost generals.
Only Masters who had condensed a Golden Core possessed divine sense; thus, even as a mere remnant soul, they had a chance to return to the Grand Dao by walking the path of a ghost cultivator.
Even so, a ghost king transformed from a Golden Core cultivator would require a very long time to return to the proper path unless gifted with an exceptionally favorable environment.
By contrast, Nascent Soul cultivators, who held the title of "Perfected Cultivator," were an entirely different matter.
Even if someone shattered the Five Qi in their chest, scattered the Three Flowers atop their head, and crushed their Nascent Soul, whatever remnant soul remained would still retain the intrinsic nature of a Nascent Soul.
With the aid of this wisp of remnant soul, a Nascent Soul cultivator could interfere with reality and execute all manner of formidable techniques.
Though far from what they had been in life, they still commanded an overwhelming advantage compared to ordinary Golden Core cultivators.
At this moment!
With Han Zhan's assistance, Luo Chen's Water Mirror Art instantly stabilized.
Even though demonic qi surged to the heavens and spiritual power was thrown into chaos across the battlefield, the surface of that Water Mirror still faithfully displayed the scene across a seven-hundred-li radius of Xuanyan Island.
The images were minuscule, difficult to discern with the naked eye. However, since Luo Chen had cast the art himself, he embedded his divine sense into it, meticulously selecting certain battlefields that drew his attention.
Soon, confrontations between Tier 3 demon kings began to magnify one after another.
"The Ring-Headed Turtle clan truly possesses a deep foundation. After several years of fighting, their headquarters still boasts no fewer than thirty Tier 3 beings."
Wonder filled Luo Chen's eyes, accompanied by a touch of shock in his heart.
They truly lived up to their reputation as turtles renowned for longevity; after accumulated centuries, they still maintained a terrifying heritage.
Such might would unquestionably rival the very top Golden Core grand sects even in the human cultivation world.
In fact, some nascent high-tier sects at the Nascent Soul level—excluding their newly ascended Nascent Soul Perfected Cultivator—might not necessarily measure up to the Ring-Headed Turtle clan.
Take the Luoyun Sect, for instance.
At its peak, it had possessed barely a dozen Golden Core cultivators.
Producing a single Nascent Soul Perfected Cultivator like Han Zhan had taken countless generations of relentless effort and accumulation.
He wondered how the Luoyun Sect was faring now following "Han Zhan's death."
Shaking his head, Luo Chen cast those thoughts aside, focusing his gaze intently on the images.
His prey was right in their midst!
Under his scrutiny, he soon formed a rough assessment of both sides' strength.
Overall, the demon crabs held an absolute advantage!
Even if the Ring-Headed Turtle clan possessed a formidable foundation, the number of high-tier experts from the five royal demon crab clans gave them an overwhelming superiority.
On the battlefield at this moment, the five patriarchs had not even made a move; the remaining experts of their clans alone were already suppressing the Tier 3 demon kings of the Ring-Headed Turtles. Moreover, they were mostly outnumbering them!
Not only that, the number of late-stage Tier 3 great demon kings among the five royal demon crab clans depicted in the images exceeded Luo Chen's expectations.
The Overlord Crab clan had four great demon kings in total, while the Red Rock Crabs and Demon Spider Crabs each had three.
The Nine-Clawed Poison King Crabs and Azure Emperor Crabs were much weaker, with only two each. Deducting their patriarchs who held back from battle, each clan had only a single great demon king free to engage.
Yet even so, the sheer number of great demon kings in the Xuanyan Sea Domain astonished Luo Chen.
If one treated each clan as a Golden Core grand sect, the distribution of their top experts was practically overwhelming compared to human cultivators.
Taking the Jade Cauldron Domain as an example: among Ice Fort's nine Golden Cores, Master Canglong was the sole and only grand cultivator.
The Luoyun Sect had only Master Cheng Yan, while Mount Ailao and Hundred Blossoms Palace had none at all.
Even Azure Pill Valley, which possessed the greatest number of Golden Core cultivators, strictly speaking only counted Supreme Elder Qingdanzi and the peak lord of Dragon Head Peak, where the War Hall was based, as grand cultivators in late Golden Core.
"No wonder even back when the Yuan Demon Sect existed—a demonic sacred ground that revered the law of the jungle and the strong preying on the weak—this Northern Sea cultivation world was still known as the Demon Sea, where humans and demons lived side by side.
"Now it seems that the demon race of just a mere Xuanyan Sea Domain already harbors so many hidden dragons and crouching tigers.
"Across the vast Northern Sea and its countless sea domains, who knows how many peerless great demons lie concealed? How could human cultivators ever conquer every realm? Especially now that the Yuan Demon Sect has fallen—once the demon race frees up its hands and launches a counteroffensive, I fear the flames of war will ignite across this cultivation world once more."
Amid his lamentations, Luo Chen searched carefully for suitable prey.
Because the demon crabs were dominating the Ring-Headed Turtles, although the overall situation was chaotic and tumultuous, it remained orderly beneath the surface. As a result, it was actually unsuitable for Luo Chen to make a move.
Still, Luo Chen did not give up.
"Faced with life and death, no one will willingly wait for doom forever; at the very least, they will drag their enemies down with them."
Over the years, Luo Chen had taken part in numerous major battles. He knew all too well how desperate and frenzied an enemy could become when pushed to the brink. Especially when this was a war of extinction between races!
Time trickled by. In scarcely the time it took an incense stick to burn, Tier 3 demon kings of the Ring-Headed Turtle clan began to fall.
Yet Luo Chen remained still and patient.
He was waiting for a signal!
Suddenly!
Luo Chen's divine sense locked onto a patch of the mirror surface. The image magnified continuously, revealing demonic qi fluctuations that were surging with increasing ferocity—bordering on self-destruction.
In the image:
Besieged by three demon kings, a Ring-Headed Turtle as massive as a palace suddenly turned blood-red in the eyes.
It drew every shred of boundless demonic qi back into its body.
Its colossal frame began swelling uncontrollably.
The next instant—
BOOM!
Bloody light rippled outward like tidal waves, and a violent explosion rattled Xuanyan Island.
The three demon kings participating in the siege retreated in shrieking agony.
Witnessing such a scene, anyone would know what had happened: a Tier 3 demon king had not hesitated to detonate itself just to drag its foes into hell.
Inside the swamp, Luo Chen sighed at the demon king's sheer resoluteness while channeling magic power to steady the trembling Water Mirror Art.
The signal had arrived!
"Senior Han, I'll trouble you to keep watch over this water mirror and notify me via divine sense voice transmissions when to act."
Luo Chen swept a hand across the mirror's surface, memorizing the terrain of the surrounding battlefield.
From the Ten Thousand Soul Banner, a three-inch figure drifted out, taking the illusory form of an elderly man.
It was none other than Han Zhan!
What Luo Chen intended to do next was personally roam the battlefield to hunt demon kings, while having Han Zhan monitor the scene from afar and relay updates at any moment.
Only by coordinating from inside and outside could he smoothly pull chestnuts from the fire!
Han Zhan gave Luo Chen a helpless look. "Go on. If anything comes up, I'll let you know."
Luo Chen gave a faint smile, slipped into the Tier 2 demon crab puppet, and controlled it to quietly slip out of the swamp.
...
With the signal given, imitators followed in droves.
To protect their homeland and secure their domain of survival, the high-tier experts of the Ring-Headed Turtles, having no retreat left, held back nothing.
When an early-stage Tier 3 Ring-Headed Turtle demon king found himself heavily wounded under the siege of two formidable foes, devoid of any hope of turning the tables, he chose to perish together with his enemies.
"To hell with you all!"
With a furious roar, the demon core in his body contracted and expanded, and the demonic power he had amassed over a lifetime exploded with a roar!
The tremendous blast of the self-detonation instantly engulfed an area of a hundred li.
The low-tier demon beasts caught within—whether from the five royal demon crab clans or his own Ring-Headed Turtles—had no hope of survival.
At the center of the clash, the two Azure Emperor Crab demon kings, despite retreating desperately as fast as they could, were still swept up in the massive shockwave of demonic qi.
Without wasting a word, both demon kings unleashed defensive measures simultaneously: one flipped its shell forward as a shield, while the other spat out bubbles to encase itself within.
Endless shockwaves surged and rolled.
Blood mist and dust billowed together, turning this battlefield into a hellish scene of slaughter.
Through the haze, a Tier 3 Azure Emperor Crab tumbled ceaselessly across the ground.
Bubbles shattered, reformed, and shattered again.
She continued to spit bubbles frantically, maintaining her outer defense.
Seeing that she had weathered the worst of the blast, she inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.
"I don't know why these fellows are so obstinate. Wouldn't it be better to surrender and become servants or vassals?
"Years ago, weren't our demon crab clans vassals of the Ring-Headed Turtles as well?
"Good thing it's dead. I wonder how Fifth Brother is doing; I only hope he survived."
Just as thoughts raced through her mind, the bubble before her burst once more.
Without hesitation, demonic power surged within her, and she opened her mouth to spit another defensive bubble.
But an anomaly occurred!
A hand, five fingers hooked into a claw, thrust into the half-formed bubble.
With a vicious rake, it tore into her soft underbelly.
When it pulled free, an azure-gleaming golden core was clasped within.
It happened so suddenly that the demon had yet to register it.
Yet she could never mistake that demon core.
It was the very essence of several centuries of painstaking cultivation!
Within her field of vision, a figure materialized. She was about to cry for help, but meeting that person's eyes, her mind fell into a trance.
A moon inverted in the sea, blossoms blooming and withering in the heart.
By the time clarity returned, her head was already severed from her body, her demon core sealed.
Having succeeded in a single strike, Luo Chen blinked and waved his wide sleeve; the massive crab corpse vanished in an instant.
As for himself, he burrowed into the ground, entered the sturdy Hunyuan Cauldron, and fully activated the Yinwei Formation to conceal his aura.
The Hunyuan Cauldron was a high-grade magic treasure, yet its materials were incomparably hard.
According to both Tianyezi and Han Zhan, once fully tempered, it would be equivalent to a semi-genuine artifact.
Though it possessed no inherent defensive powers, its physical material alone was enough to serve as a defensive magic treasure.
With it, Luo Chen could withstand the self-detonation of a demon king!
Outside, the aftermath of the explosion gradually subsided.
A figure surged into the sky, its aura thoroughly withered.
Flying into midair, it shouted loudly, yet received no response.
He circled round and round, sweeping his gaze across the sky and earth, finding nothing.
In the end, he left the battlefield powerlessly.
For the growth of their clan, sacrifices were inevitable, but when such a fate befell his own younger sister, it remained hard for him to accept.
Inside the Hunyuan Cauldron, Luo Chen sensed the external situation. Once that heavily wounded demon king departed, he let out a breath of relief.
He hadn't expected both Azure Emperor Crab demon kings to be so capable, surviving the self-detonation of a same-tier enemy at the same time.
That the other survived was somewhat within Luo Chen's expectations; after all, that fellow had looked formidable.
Yet the one he had hunted had managed it as well.
Recalling the bubbles she had spat out, such defensive demon arts were truly unique.
Unfortunately, under his sneak attack, she had fallen nonetheless.
When Cloud-Seeking Divine Claw and the illusion art Mirror Flower, Water Moon erupted together, let alone an early-stage Tier 3 demon king already hanging by a thread from an explosion, Luo Chen could contest even an intact late-stage Tier 3 great demon king.
Her death was completely to be expected.
"The first one," Luo Chen murmured.
Suddenly, his expression shifted as a voice transmission entered his mind.
"Fifty li to the southeast?
"Very close!"
Soil churned within the massive crater blasted out by the self-detonation.
A demon crab crawled out from beneath the ground.
Discerning directions left and right, it spread its eight legs and sprinted swiftly.
In normal times, such movement would surely draw attention.
But on this chaotic battlefield, such speed was hardly conspicuous.
Soon, the demon crab arrived at a new battlefield.
Dodging several clusters of combat, Luo Chen crouched behind a boulder and looked up at the sky.
There, four demon kings were engaged in fierce combat.
In a three-against-one standoff, the scales of victory were already tilting steadily.
"In the sky?
"This time is going to be a bit tricky."
...
Sun and moon rose and fell; stars shifted across the sky.
The decisive battle on Xuanyan Island developed an unstoppable momentum as the demon crabs pushed forward layer by layer.
Claiming victory in this battle was now just around the corner.
However, for the advance to go so smoothly, the five royal demon crab clans had paid a tremendous price!
Out on the sea, the five-colored clam floated atop the waves.
The five patriarchs waited with bated breath.
Demon crabs bustled in and out, reporting on the situation across the battlefield.
"Patriarch, the Ring-Headed Turtles have gone mad!
"Faced with calls to surrender, they resist to the death. In fact, large-scale self-detonations have begun to occur, inflicting massive casualties on us.
"Although we haven't conducted a detailed tally, the casualties..."
Listening to the subordinate's report, all five patriarchs wore solemn expressions.
At their head, Jin Hun maintained his composure as best he could beneath his grim countenance.
"No matter. All of this was within our expectations. If our positions were reversed, we would likely do the same. Continue advancing—we must push into the island's center. Qihuan and Hailuo have yet to make a move."
Qihuan and Hailuo were the two pinnacle experts of the Ring-Headed Turtle clan.
Having cultivated for an extraordinarily long time, their prowess surpassed any single one of the five patriarchs.
This was also why the five patriarchs, as the absolute pinnacle combatants, had delayed setting foot on the island.
Upon receiving this order, the subordinate hurried to comply.
Yet before departing, he hesitated for a moment and added, "Reporting to the Patriarch, Lord Jin Jia has noticed something amiss."
"What is amiss?" Jin Hun asked, puzzled.
"The casualties among our Tier 3 kinsmen have somewhat exceeded expectations. Not only that, after falling in battle, their corpses cannot be found. This bizarre occurrence has happened more than once."
Confronted with this, Jin Hun's eyes shifted, his face flickering with suspicion and uncertainty.
Corpses were going missing again?
His gaze fell upon the other four patriarchs.
"What about your sides?"
"The same!" the other four demons replied.
If it were just one or two, it might be overlooked, but over the past year, nearly ten Tier 3 demon crab kings had vanished without a trace of bone or shell.
How could leaders like them remain indifferent to such a bizarre situation?
Zhu Xiang of the Demon Spider Crab clan suddenly spoke up: "Intelligence came yesterday that a human cultivator appeared on Xuanyan Island. Based on identification, it is none other than Gu Shaoshang, who had previously departed."
"He returned?"
"Returning after leaving—what is he after?"
"I fear he returned long ago," Zhu Xiang said slowly. "We are not the only ones whose corpses are disappearing. Many corpses of fallen experts from the Ring-Headed Turtles have vanished as well."
Put this way, the anomalies from before and after seemed to connect.
Gu Shaoshang returning to secretly collect Ring-Headed Turtle carcasses on the battlefield was highly probable.
And scooping up a few Tier 3 demon crab corpses along the way would be completely normal behavior for a human cultivator.
However, when the five royal demon crab clans found themselves on the receiving end of such actions, they could not accept it.
Chi Yan roared in fury, "Humans are despicable and treacherous as expected!"
"Is he still on the island?" Jiu Zhua said angrily. "If he is, I wouldn't mind going to hunt him down myself!"
Zhu Xiang shook his head, sharing the intelligence that Gu Shaoshang had already departed Xuanyan Island.
"Good thing he left, otherwise if I caught him..."
"Wait, that's not right!"
Jin Hun suddenly realized.
"Since he has already departed, why are corpses still vanishing into thin air on the Xuanyan Island battlefield?"
The demons looked at one another in dismay.
A suspicion crept into their minds:
Could there be another mastermind behind the scenes?
Right as they were speculating, Zhu Xiang's expression abruptly shifted.
Almost in unison, the other four demons' faces changed as well.
"Hailuo has finally made a move!"
Chapter 553