The Journey of Immortal Cultivation

For Yin Jiu You, this haul could truly be called hard-won and precious. One must know, although Changtian had signed a Blood Covenant with him, any contract in itself will always have loopholes to exploit, just like the legal clauses of the present age.

Yin Jiu You knew that Changtian would never possibly help him collect Soul Power, so what was stipulated on the Blood Covenant was that Changtian must slaughter four hundred thousand Cultivators to provide Yin Jiu You with Soul Power. However, do not forget there was still a Tu Jin, likewise a Soul Cultivator, within the Hidden Stream; as long as Changtian sent him onto the battlefield, he could compete with Yin Jiu You, or Yin Jiu You’s avatars, for a share of the spoils! Moreover, after continuously devouring Yin Jiu You’s two avatars Duanmu Yan and Elder Bian, Tu Jin’s cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds, even surpassing Gongshu Zhao, who had betrayed Yin Jiu You back then.

So over these three years, the Soul Power Yin Jiu You actually got his hands on from the Hidden Stream’s slaughter was at most only half; adding in the disputes and wars stirred up by several of Yin Jiu You’s avatars in the North, he had merely gathered the Soul Power of three hundred thousand Cultivators.

Who would have thought that the moment he stepped into this underground palace, he would instantly gain the Soul Power of over a hundred thousand Cultivators? The "slaughter four hundred thousand Cultivators" number he had raised to Changtian back then was proposed only after careful consideration. Though in order to conceal his strength, there was some moisture in the reported number, it could at least show that this four hundred thousand Soul Power was enough to let him undergo transformation, drawing another step closer to the peak strength of his heyday in years past—this was precisely the so‑called shift from quantitative change to qualitative change.

No matter how shrewd Changtian was, he absolutely had not expected that after Yin Jiu You entered the inner palace, a massive amount of Soul Power would suddenly be credited to his account. The designer of this underground palace had intended to use evil ghosts to take lives; who knew it had just so happened to become a free meal delivered to Yin Jiu You?

Yet he remained utterly unafraid, let out a cold laugh, and said, "Putting on a show!" He still kept his arms folded before his chest, only raising his right palm slightly, his long five fingers moving faintly, like a spider twitching the fine threads of its web.

Yin Jiu You sensed something amiss, took a sip of tea, and suddenly sprayed it forward with a puff; sure enough, the black fog before his eyes was blown apart in a breath, and faint Jing Guang surfaced within the water vapor—the air of this Quiet Room had, at some unknown time, been filled with golden silk that was a hundred times thinner than human hair, clasped like crosses, crisscrossing vertically and horizontally. There were countless tens of millions of threads, yet each so fine it seemed a breath of wind would snap it; hidden within the Evil Qi fog as black as ink, they were extremely inconspicuous.

Yin Jiu You would certainly not truly believe these golden silk threads were weak and soft; in fact, these filaments had practically fixed him in this region. Let alone dodging and leaping, he didn’t have even the slightest space to move. He seemed to have turned into a puppet on control wires, and the ends of the wires were in Changtian’s hands; as long as the other party moved a finger, he could manipulate the filaments condensed from the air to obey their master’s will and slice off his head and legs, or carve him with a thousand cuts!

"Isn’t this fellow’s true form a snake? When did he learn a spider’s tricks?" Before Yin Jiu You’s thought had even finished turning, the great golden net had already begun to draw closed; innumerable strands of thread gathered from all directions in an instant, overlapping. Every single golden silk strand flashed with a cold light, about to evenly divide him and cut him into tiny fragments!

Thus Yin Jiu You indeed turned into countless tiny fragments, except this was not Changtian’s doing, but his own act of reverting to Soul Body, scattering into black smoke that broke apart, turning into particles so small they were hard to see even with the naked eye, slipping through the countless tiny mesh openings of the golden net!

If one said Changtian had pulled tight the Heavenly Net woven from condensed Divine Power, then what Yin Jiu You did was to transform into formless water, flowing sand, leaking through the mesh openings of the net!

Only, these golden silk threads were indeed not easy to deal with. To worm his way through an amount of mesh holes as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, even though Yin Jiu You’s Divine Thought was powerful enough to turn his body into tens of millions of pieces, there was ultimately the slightest slip.

A few wisps of black smoke miscalculated and could not dodge in time, and were cut in half at the waist by the golden silk. When the two intersected, several faint hissing sounds rang out; the golden silk dissolved, and the black smoke instantly vaporized as well.

From the moment the two crossed hands until Yin Jiu You responded, not even one‑tenth of a split‑second had passed. Changtian would of course not let him off like this; his left hand had already formed a Dharma Seal, its shape resembling leaping flames. Strangely enough, he merely pinched a hand gesture, and Yin Jiu You on the opposite side already felt a scorching heat rushing toward his face, clearly showing that Changtian was also highly adept in the Dao of Imitation and Transformation. The next second, he pressed this flame seal downward, lightly wiping it onto the control wires manipulated by his right hand.

Instantly a strand of transparent flame surged out along the golden silk, one becoming four, four becoming ten, ten becoming a hundred, diffusing along the mesh openings. In less than the blink of an eye, the great golden net was already covered in this kind of flame. Even with Yin Jiu You’s eyesight, he simply could not see the flame’s shape or color, and could only sense its existence from the slight distortion of the air.

This flame didn’t even have a terrifying temperature; the temperature in this Quiet Room had not risen in the slightest, and it was simply not comparable to the Divine Fire Changtian had placed in the Nangying passageway. Yet encircled by the flames, Yin Jiu You let out a roar of pain and fury!

He was still in soul state, so the roar he emitted naturally did not pass through his vocal cords, but arose from his soul itself. Fortunately, when the golden silk and black smoke had collided just now, a tiny breach had been left. Yin Jiu You shrank with all his might, drawing the black smoke into a thin strand, and quickly drilled out from that tiny flaw.

When he landed and transformed back into human form, the purple robe on his body had already been burned through, and his fair skin was covered with burns; even his always‑composed, delicate features twisted slightly. "This is..."

Before he finished speaking, Changtian, who had originally been leaning at the doorway, had already taken a single step across a distance of twenty meters, directly closing in on him. The Nanming Lihuo Sword had somehow already been raised in his hand, and then came a single sword strike slashing out. (To be continued. If you enjoy this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast recommendation tickets and Monthly Tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please go to m.qidian.com to read.)