Human beings are born with souls and spirits.
The hun souls govern the spirit, while the po spirits govern the physical flesh.
The hun soul is divided into three—Heaven, Earth, and Man. Among them, the Man soul is what common cultivation knowledge refers to as the life soul.
The two souls of Heaven and Earth remain perpetually outside, while the life soul dwells alone within the body.
A qi refiner's journey of cultivation is a process of the divine soul continually transforming and expanding. Only when the three souls of Heaven, Earth, and Man unite into one can it be called a Primordial Spirit, reaching the stage where the physical body may perish, but the self remains indestructible.
Before that stage, once a cultivator perishes, their soul and spirits disperse on their own; even possessing a Nascent Soul as a second vessel merely delays this process.
And the reason why ghost cultivators formed from low-realm cultivators are often dull-witted and muddled is also that their life souls were destroyed, leaving only the external souls of Heaven and Earth to grant them a rudimentary form.
Only through subsequent cultivation can such ghost cultivators gradually recover a fraction of their life souls, thereby regaining a consciousness uniquely their own.
One could say that among the three souls, the life soul is of paramount importance to a qi refiner, something that can never be allowed to be lost.
When Mo Shouzhuo abruptly uttered the words, “Luo Chen, do you still want your life soul?”, everyone present understood what that implied.
Yet the one who reacted the quickest was not Luo Chen out on the Yellow Springs Sea, but Monarch Qixia right before him!
Her face darkened, and without hesitation, she struck first.
Her target: Mo Shouzhuo!
With a thrust of her palm, the Nirvana Holy Fire surged in tandem.
Confronted by this lethal strike, Mo Shouzhuo’s eyelids twitched, and he hastily retreated.
Behind him, Zhan Buxiu, Lian Cheng, and the others charged forward in tacit unison, blocking his front and employing their various methods to counter Monarch Qixia’s attack.
Boom!
With just a single clash, the hazy spiritual radiance constructing the grand formation shuddered violently.
What followed immediately was an even more torrential wave of attacks from Monarch Qixia.
In the distance, Luo Chen, bathed in the Wither-Bloom flame cloak, walked out of the Yellow Springs Sea.
He looked into the distance with a grim expression.
“Sect Master Mo, please explain yourself!”
With his fellow sect brothers temporarily shouldering the pressure for him, Mo Shouzhuo grew much calmer. He said placidly, “Seeing as your cultivation is nearing the late Nascent Soul stage, you were probably close to discovering that your life soul was deficient, weren't you?”
As if foreseeing something, Luo Chen’s body, normally under complete control, began to tremble uncontrollably.
He had been unable to split off his ninth soul for so long. Even though his main soul had grown immensely powerful, he still had not dared to forcibly divide the ninth soul, because his intuition warned him that once he took that step, everything would become irreversible.
He had long cultivated the Soul Splitting Art to a consummate level, and during these years on Soul Island, he had reached full completion—far surpassing Han Zhan of the past. Yet he often felt a lingering sense of loss, as if something were missing, lacking even the completeness Han Zhan had possessed at minor attainment. He had assumed it was due to flaws in the technique itself, but now it appeared that was not the reason at all.
Furthermore!
Even after splitting off eight sub-souls, his divine soul foundation had long surpassed that of any late Nascent Soul grand cultivator in the world; judging by the fact that the reach of his divine sense had expanded nearly tenfold, he was already infinitely close to a Soul Formation sovereign.
Under such conditions, the fact that he still could not coalesce a true Primordial Spirit was truly baffling.
And all those baffling mysteries seemed to have found their answer in Mo Shouzhuo’s single sentence.
Luo Chen stepped out of the Yellow Springs Sea pace by pace, his gaze fixed dead on Mo Shouzhuo.
“When?”
“When you joined the Star Gate. When you entered the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven,” Mo Shouzhuo answered candidly.
Chi, chi, chi!
The azure Wither-Bloom flame cloak surged without wind, turning into wisps of flame that enveloped Luo Chen, hiding any shift in his expression.
Only his murmured voice drifted out from within.
“No wonder...”
No wonder the moment he stepped into the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven back then, his divine soul had seized with shock and he had fallen into a brief coma.
Meanwhile Fu Qinglan, whom he had been escorting—whose soul foundation and cultivation realm were both inferior to his—had seemed completely unaffected.
Back then, Fu Qinglan had explained that every cultivator entering the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven for the first time would be washed over by the lingering consciousness of the mirage dragon, falling unconscious as a result. Only by relying on the “entry pass” of the time—the illusory chess piece Mo Shouzhuo had distributed to everyone beforehand—could one break free from the illusion woven by the mirage dragon’s consciousness.
Fu Qinglan and the other Dao Sect cultivators were different; they had undergone a baptism of mirage dragon qi within the sect beforehand, so they had not fallen into a coma.
Thinking back on it now, there were so many flaws in that explanation!
A baptism of mirage dragon qi was not a baptism of mirage dragon consciousness.
No matter how familiar they were with it, how could they not have been affected in the slightest?
At the time, his attention had been focused on the Heavenly Mechanism Pill given to him by Alchemy Saint Chu Yan before ascending, and he had not believed the Tianyuan Dao Sect would harm their Dao Protectors, so he had not thought too deeply about it.
Connecting everything from start to finish now, he finally had the answer.
The moment he entered the Mirage Dragon Grotto-Heaven, not only was he washed over by the lingering consciousness of the mirage dragon, but Sect Master Mo Shouzhuo of Tianyuan had also used the illusory chess piece to sever and seize a portion of his life soul!
And that was the true culprit behind his soul convulsions back then, and why his life soul was deficient today!
“Despicable!”
“Hardly despicable. The moment you agreed to join the Star Gate, your life and death were bound to Heaven and Earth Peak. That seized portion of your life soul would have been returned at any time and would not have hindered your breakthrough to the Soul Formation realm. It was you! You, Luo Chen, were the first to betray the Star Gate, to betray the Tianyuan Dao Sect!”
“Words are useless now. What will it take for you to return that wisp of my life soul?”
Faced with this question, Mo Shouzhuo had no time to answer.
Because...
Bang!
A violent explosion rang out, followed by Lian Cheng tumbling across the ground like a rolling gourd.
Spitting up a mouthful of blood, Lian Cheng wore a panicked look.
“Senior Brother, help, quickly!”
Four of them still could not suppress Monarch Qixia?
His conversation with Luo Chen had lasted only a brief moment, yet in that short span, Monarch Qixia had unleashed her ferocious might. Even trapped within the grand formation, even facing four Soul Formation sovereigns at once, she still swept through unhindered, unmatched and unstoppable.
Mo Shouzhuo slowly raised a hand, intercepting an attack from Monarch Qixia as she pursued Lian Cheng, while barking a command at Luo Chen:
“Kill Qingshuang, and your life soul will be returned to you! If not, your soul shall return to the Yellow Springs this very moment!”
“Fine!”
Without any hesitation, a thunderous boom erupted across the vast Yellow Springs Sea.
Amid drifting sparks, Luo Chen’s figure had already vanished.
When he reappeared, he was standing beside the green-robed woman.
A punch was unleashed!
Pa!
Qingshuang calmly caught Luo Chen’s thick fist and shook her head coldly.
“That life soul of yours might not even be in his hands right now.”
“I can't afford to gamble!” Luo Chen’s expression turned ruthless.
With a flick of her wrist, drawing back and shoving forward, unmatched force pushed Luo Chen away.
As her dark hair fluttered, her eyes remained tranquil.
“Yet you are no match for me!”
Luo Chen grinned. “Tying you down and keeping you from affecting their battle—that much, at least, I can manage.”
Even as he spoke, his attacks did not pause.
Stepping on the Moon Steps, his figure became elusive as he circled Qingshuang, kicking out a barrage of afterimages.
Frowning slightly, Qingshuang had no choice but to set aside any thought of aiding Monarch Qixia and focus entirely on dealing with Luo Chen.
And the moment they engaged, she immediately noticed changes in him compared to before.
Faster!
Stronger!
Tougher!
When their midair kicks collided, it actually brought her a faint pang of pain.
This was a pain Qingshuang had never felt in all her years of body refinement—a pain inflicted upon her by someone else.
Pa! Pa! Pa!
After another exchange of clashing palms, both were forced backward.
Qingshuang asked in surprise, “You’ve grown stronger again?”
Luo Chen let his arms hang down, wisps of crimson and black creeping along his fingertips. He said calmly, “People always change. Not just you, but me as well.”
Qingshuang nodded slightly. That was certainly true.
She was now only a single step away from the Soul Formation realm.
And Luo Chen’s transformation over these years was plain to see.
During their first encounter, he had possessed no strength to resist and had been swept into her Sleeves of Heaven and Earth without even realizing it.
During their second encounter, he had possessed the strength to resist, even using that Wither-Bloom Divine Fire to injure her at one point, but in the end, it was merely desperate resistance, and she had captured him.
And now, this third time!
“You are worthy of my full strength.”
Luo Chen smiled faintly. “I also wish to test what I've gained from these years of cultivation.”
With those words, both struck simultaneously.
The void cracked with an explosion, leaving only afterimages where they stood; when they reappeared, their silhouettes had already collided.
From the moment they first set foot on Soul-Severing Cliff, both Luo Chen and Qingshuang had realized that spells and divine abilities were difficult to use here, heavily suppressed.
They were not Soul Formation beings like Monarch Qixia and the Five Elders of Tianyuan, who could resist such suppression.
Therefore, close-quarters combat was the best way to fight.
This shared understanding became a tacit agreement.
Yet fighting this way meant that while the spectacle might not be as grand as the other battlefield, the brutality and peril increased tenfold, a hundredfold.
Bang!
With a muffled thud, Luo Chen—lacking the protection of the Xuanchen Armor—had a massive hollow caved into his chest, his back bulging sharply outward.
He clawed back with a reverse swipe across her slender, resilient arm.
Shua!
Five crimson-and-black claw marks appeared clearly, accompanied by a faint, lingering foul stench that assailed the nose.
Qingshuang’s face changed slightly, and she shook her arm.
The claw marks vanished, yet the foul stench refused to dissipate.
Lethal poison!
“A poison art? Is this why your body refinement progressed so swiftly?”
Speaking, she threw herself forward, her fingers pressed together like a sword, thrusting directly at Luo Chen’s vital points.
Luo Chen’s vitality surged, and as his source power circulated, his chest restored to normal. Facing the incoming sword fingers, he retreated rapidly on the Moon Steps, then spun around and drove his elbow backward in a heavy strike.
Mountain-Leaning Stance!
Pu!
Extreme pain shot through his shoulder; upon closer inspection, a gruesome bloody hole had been pierced through.
Qingshuang was hardly better off, knocked flying backward, her knuckles visibly bent out of shape.
“You have no idea how many times I simulated this battle in my mind!”
Ignoring the bloody hole in his shoulder, Luo Chen pressed the advantage, chaining together the Demonic Lord Seven Scattered Hands and Wind, Moon, Thunder, and Cloud Treading the Immortal Path without a single seam.
Qingshuang countered move for move—fists, palms, fingers, claws, flurry kicks—meeting him head-on without giving an inch.
On the perimeter of Soul Island, the two figures collided and parted in rapid succession.
Moving like ghosts and apparitions, blood scattered like rain.
Where palm winds clashed, ocean waves surged.
Yet even with such perilous close-quarters slaughter, they were still not the protagonists here.
The grand formation covering almost the entire Soul Island had already been pushed to its absolute limit.
Within it, six figures rose and fell in fierce engagement.
Formidable magic treasures streaked back and forth like shooting stars.
From time to time, an aura capable of destroying all things radiated outwards, shaking Soul Island until it resonated with thunderous booms.
This battle involving the lives of eight people would ultimately have to be settled by life and death.
Luo Chen had no leisure to attend to the other side; he only knew that his life soul was in the hands of the Tianyuan Dao Sect, and that his life in this moment was held within each and every clash.
With the Huntian Cudgel in hand, lengthening and shortening at will, it whipped up vast sheets of murky waves.
Meanwhile, Qingshuang had put on a pair of silvery-white gloves at some point; even when the Huntian Cudgel smashed down with the weight of a mountain, she met and parried it head-on without the slightest fear.
In fact, those gloves were forged from unknown materials of exceptionally high grade.
When gripping the Huntian Cudgel, she actually crushed off a handful of pale stone powder.
That was the Huntian Cudgel, an object upon which even the Yuantu Sword could only leave a faint white scratch!
That moment made Luo Chen’s pupils contract.
He dared not hold back in the slightest; the Life-Claiming Gold Feather wavered at his side, stabbing one moment and whipping the next, preventing Qingshuang from getting too close to his body.
If True Person Jinling of the Five Elements Divine Sect were still alive to witness this, he would likely curse furiously.
The incomparably sharp Life-Claiming Gold Feather was meant to be used alongside spells and divine abilities, yet Luo Chen was using it as a melee weapon.
Yet Luo Chen could not care; if Qingshuang’s palms touched him, broken tendons and fractured bones aside, having his flesh torn open was an absolute certainty.
After another close clash of weapons, Luo Chen leaped forward with a thrust.
The Huntian Cudgel abruptly swelled and lengthened, pushing against Qingshuang and driving her dozens of zhang backward.
Then, a fierce glint flashed in Luo Chen’s eyes.
“Go!”
The Wither-Bloom Divine Fire surged along the Huntian Cudgel, spitting forth like a fiery serpent.
Yet just as it was about to reach Qingshuang, her figure vanished like a ghost.
“A spatial technique?” Luo Chen started. He suddenly remembered that on this Soul Island, other law powers might be suppressed, unable to channel the world's origin qi, but Qingshuang would not be.
Simply because what she had comprehended was the true intent of the Law of Space!
Time and space exist everywhere and anywhere!
From the void came a voice of praise, an accolade between well-matched rivals:
“I acknowledge your progress over these years!”
The next moment, ripples stirred in the void, and a silvery-white palm reached out, pressing toward Luo Chen’s back.
The instant before contact, magic power devoid of any radiance burst forth, seeking to obliterate everything.
Boom!
The palm force erupted, shattering an illusory bubble.
Qingshuang froze, a look of disbelief appearing on her exquisite face.
This sure-kill strike had actually struck empty air.
Answering her was a streak of bloody sword tip.
Luo Chen wheeled around with a sword thrust, plucking stars and seizing the moon, stabbing straight toward her heart.
Warning bells screamed in Qingshuang’s mind. Her left hand twisted unnaturally and appeared before her in an abrupt blur, blocking before her flat chest.
Clang!
The tip of the sword met the glove, producing a deafening screeching friction, so shrill it nearly ruptured their eardrums.
Luo Chen gritted his teeth, his expression savage. Gripping the sword with one hand, he slammed his other palm against the hilt.
“Break!”
The incomparably sharp Yuantu Sword surged forward another three inches out of nowhere, forcefully piercing past the silvery-white glove.
Shua!
Qingshuang drifted backward, her green robes blossoming like a flower as blood suddenly bloomed.
Beneath what had been a flat chest and abdomen, towering peaks were faintly discernible.
She slowly raised her hand, looked at it, and then thoughtfully lifted her head.
“A fine sword!”
“Yet what is truly finest is that illusion technique of yours that confounded my divine sense!”
Yet facing this praise, Luo Chen showed little sign of complacency.
Soul Art—Devils and Gods Disperse!
It was an art he had created himself after observing the illusions of the desolate beast Ghost Immortal Tower; against those whose soul foundation fell short of his own, it had proven virtually invincible.
Especially now that his soul foundation had expanded to its limit, virtually no one in the Nascent Soul realm could compare.
Since the start of the battle, he had suppressed the urge and refrained from using this soul art.
All of it had been to create a single sure-kill opportunity.
Yet even though Qingshuang had fallen for it, he had still failed to slay her, merely inflicting a moderate wound.
“Countless times, I simulated the scene of fighting you again, overestimating you again and again. Yet now that this moment has truly come to pass, I find that I still vastly underestimated you.”
Luo Chen held the bloody sword, the Life-Claiming Gold Feather swaying above his head as he stood in the void, his silhouette flickering between illusion and reality, his true form obscured.
Even his voice seemed to emanate from all directions, leaving no clue as to where his true body was.
Qingshuang looked at him, her expression turning exceedingly grave.
She was hailed by the outside world as the foremost existence beneath the Soul Formation realm!
And her past record was fully worthy of that acclaim.
Had her cultivation not gone awry, even Sovereign Chunyuan of the Tianyuan Dao Sect might not have captured her so easily.
Yet now, she had been wounded by someone of the same realm; had her reaction not been swift enough, she would have ended up pierced through the heart.
There was no room for carelessness!
Neither spoke another word; each exerting their full strength, they charged at each other.
Halfway through her charge, Qingshuang’s figure vanished again.
Ripples stirred in the void; when she reappeared, she was already at Luo Chen’s flank.
Miraculously, the Yuantu Sword was already poised right before her swan-like neck, with pinpoint timing.
As if she had run straight into it of her own accord.
Chi...
A bloody line surfaced.
Yet Luo Chen fared no better; a hefty palm strike completely ignored the confounding effects of Devils and Gods Disperse, striking his ribs from a distance.
Bang!
Luo Chen plummeted from the air and crashed into the wind-lashed, surging Yellow Springs Sea. Leaning on his sword with one hand and clutching his waist with the other, his expression was grim to the extreme.
‘Why was she able to ignore Devils and Gods Disperse?’
On the other side, Qingshuang wiped her fingertips across her neck, the blood as vivid as a blossom. Disbelief flickered across her exquisite face.
‘Why was he able to detect my Void Escape Divine Technique?’
In the dusky yellow sea, two gazes met from afar, both steeped in utmost solemnity.
Pa!
Slapping a palm against the sea's surface, Luo Chen leaped back up.
Unafraid, Qingshuang tore through the air once more.
Magic power surged and source power spurred them on; the two figures tumbled and soared, constantly clashing, wounds uncontrollably appearing on both of them.
This battle, far less grand in spectacle than the one atop Soul-Severing Cliff, was steadily spiraling into extremity.
Rumble!
Waves rolled in, surging with ever greater fury, buffeting the two tiny figures like seabirds swaying in a storm.
And Soul-Severing Cliff, standing like a wall hewn by blades and axes, rose silently in the distance, bearing witness as the topmost figures of this world walked toward each other's destruction.
Chapter 978