Spirit Realm

Since Xue Moyan was suspicious, Qin Lie clarified the situation with an indifferent smile.

“No, we do not have a messy relationship like that. Your father simply... asked me to help you in the Graveyard of Gods. I told Chu Li we were engaged because I was worried that your identity as a member of Blood Fiend Sect would be exposed. Don’t think too much of it.”

After Qin Lie explained everything, Xue Moyan heaved a sigh of relief. Although this made her rejoice, she simultaneously felt a hint of disappointment.

“Ah, it seems I was overthinking things.” Pan Qianqian stuck out her tongue.

“Swish swish swish!”

Suddenly, the speed at which the sharp blades of the Moon Blade Barricade spun started to slow down.

Those silver crescent blades that resembled tranquil moonlight gradually stopped rotating.

Qin Lie’s group focused their attention on the Moon Blade Barricade and realized that it had turned back into brilliant silver light shaped like several crescent moons. Without warning, they began descending into the depths of the thunder lagoon.

Feng Yiyou’s face instantly appeared in Qin Lie’s mind.

Qin Lie looked up into the sky only to see a bright silver spatial ring floating in the air, gathering up the crescent moon fragments of the Moon Blade Barricade.

Feng Yiyou was actually putting the Moon Blade Barricade away!

In addition to that, Feng Yiyou hastily flew out of the space that it originally enclosed, immediately landing at the edge of the thunder lagoon with two other Celestial Artifact Sect martial practitioners by his side.

Du Xiangyang and the others were finally able to see how the thunder lagoon actually looked.

Six Pure Soul Springs in the form of clear streams of light were constantly flying about like meteors. Clusters of electric flames and arced lightning enveloped each spring, moving as they did.

The martial practitioners of Black Voodoo Cult, the three great families, and Ten Thousand Beast Mountain were positioned behind three of the Pure Soul Springs, using various methods to try and seize them.

However, no matter what spirit arts they used or what powerful spirit artifacts they had, the moment anything touched those violent lightning flames, it would immediately be blasted to smithereens.

At the bottom of the thunder lagoon, the crystalline thunder spirit waited patiently. It simply crouched there, its intelligent eyes overflowing with disdain.

The black, charred remains of eight corpses that had exploded lay at the bottom of the lagoon. Every single corpse belonged to a martial practitioner of the three forces that had gone down there.

“This…”

Du Xiangyang stroked his chin, shaking his head in regret as he said, “It seems like the people from Celestial Artifact Sect aren’t that stupid and actually thought to remove the Moon Blade Barricade in time. Now they’ll still be able to leisurely take their leave upon realizing that things aren’t working out.”

Qin Lie looked regretful as well.

He had hoped that the three forces would engage in a bloody battle within the thunder lagoon while the thunder spirit assaulted them with thunder and lightning energy.

After all of them had died, Qin Lie would then use the Demon Sealing Tombstone to seal the thunder spirit. From that point onward, acquiring the Pure Soul Springs would be child’s play, wrapping this whole matter up perfectly.

Unfortunately, Feng Yiyou wasn’t a fool.

The moment he realized that they were stuck in an unfavorable situation and the Pure Soul Springs couldn’t be acquired easily, he instantly decided to remove the Moon Blade Barricade and immediately left the thunder lagoon.

As soon as Feng Yiyou left the lagoon, Huang Zhuli, Ye Yihao, Yu Men, and their respective groups came to the same realization, then they curbed their greed for the Pure Soul Springs, also retreating from the thunder lagoon.

All of them ended up returning to the edge of the thunder lagoon.

In just fifteen short minutes, eight people from the three forces had died.

Yet not a single force had acquired a Pure Soul Spring.

Qin Lie’s group, on the other hand, hadn’t taken any casualties.

“The anomalies in the thunder lagoon, the electric flames and arced lightning around the Pure Soul Springs… the thunder spirit is the source of it all!” Ye Yihao exclaimed with a grim expression. “As long as the thunder spirit exists, no one can even think of seizing a single one of the Pure Soul Springs or soul crystals!”

The gazes of every martial practitioner present gathered on Qin Lie.

“Qin Lie! You have the Demon Sealing Tombstone, so why haven’t you sealed the thunder spirit yet!?” Huang Zhuli gnashed her teeth in contempt.

“The Demon Sealing Tombstone? He has the Demon Sealing Tombstone?” Feng Yiyou cried.

“The Demon Sealing Tombstone is in his possession!?” Yu Men yelled, flying into a rage.

Feng Yiyou and Yu Men hadn’t participated in the struggle in the Forbidden Land of Wood, so they didn’t know that Qin Lie sealed the wood spirit with the Demon Sealing Tombstone. They even thought that the Demon Sealing Tombstone didn’t exist.

When they heard Huang Zhuli bring it up, both of them instantly figured out what Qin Lie had planned.

Qin Lie had purposefully left the thunder spirit unsealed, summoned everyone to the thunder lagoon, and tricked the three forces into entering the thunder lagoon at the same time and fighting over the Pure Soul Springs. He clearly planned to clean them all out in one fell swoop.

Huang Zhuli and Ye Yihao had figured this out long ago, but they were absolutely confident in their own forces.

They believed that, even if Qin Lie had a despicable plan in place, he wouldn’t be able to carry it out.

This was especially the case when the thunder spirit intervened and seized control of the thunder and lightning in the area, preventing Qin Lie from wielding their power. This made Huang Zhuli and Ye Yihao grow even more confident that they would be victorious in the Forbidden Land of Thunder.

Unfortunately, the two of them had underestimated the tenacity of the thunder spirit.

Despite using many different methods, they still weren’t able to break through the electric flames and arced lightning protecting the Pure Soul Springs. Four of their people had even been killed by the thunder and lightning in the lagoon

Celestial Artifact Sect and Ten Thousand Beast Mountain only understood the reality of the situation after paying a similarly painful price—As long as the thunder spirit was in the lagoon, no one could even think of seizing the Pure Soul Springs!

“He wants everyone to die!”

“He can obviously wield the Demon Sealing Tombstone and is even capable of using the Sealing Obelisks to get through the Moon Blade Barricade, yet he refuses to enter the thunder lagoon! How ruthlessly cunning!”

“He’s despicable! Shameless!”

“What a treacherous, lowly being!”

Martial practitioners from all three forces criticized Qin Lie, throwing curses one after another.

No one dared to enter the thunder lagoon again and continue to try seizing the Pure Soul Springs. Instead, they all focused on Qin Lie.

They made a firm decision in their hearts that, unless Qin Lie used the Demon Sealing Tombstone to seal the thunder spirit, they wouldn’t enter the thunder lagoon again.

“Seize the Demon Sealing Tombstone!”

“We need to get the Demon Sealing Tombstone!”

“Qin Lie! Hand over the Demon Sealing Tombstone!”

That very instant, the opinions of the three forces were astonishingly unanimous, and everybody started moving closer and closer to Qin Lie.

The eyes of everyone that wasn’t in Qin Lie’s group, including Huang Zhuli, Yu Men, Feng Yiyou, Ye Yihao, Su Yan, Xiahou Yuan, and Lin Dongxing, were filled with killing intent as they bore into Qin Lie.

“Don’t be rash… allow me to try sealing the thunder spirit then.” Qin Lie smiled wryly, a helpless look on his face. He seemed to have no choice in the matter.

Every single person who was about to slaughter their way to Qin Lie suddenly stopped moving.

“Qin Lie, what are you...?” Du Xiangyang asked, stunned.

“There’s nothing else we can do. If we don’t seal the thunder spirit with the Demon Sealing Tombstone, we’ll just be attacked from all sides.” Qin Lie shrugged, a worried frown on his face. It seemed as if he were actually going to pull the Demon Sealing Tombstone out and seal the thunder spirit in the depths of the lagoon.

“Eh?”

“Mn?”

Du Xiangyang, Yu Men, and everyone else who possessed Terminator Sect tokens, all looked at their waists.

The Terminator Sect tokens emitted ear-piercing howls. It was as if someone were recklessly transmitting messages.

The howls stunned everyone into action, and every single person who possessed one such token gripped them and tried to sense the message within.

“It’s not a message! It’s just a distress signal,” Ye Yihao declared with a shake of his head, a cold expression on his face as he held a token. “Probably a ploy of insects that can’t stand on the main stage!”

“It’s He Wei and her group!” Du Xiangyang’s expression went cold as he couldn’t help but snort. “I wonder what kind of trick they’re trying to pull. Their strength alone doesn’t qualify them to even try seizing the Pure Soul Springs. What’s the point of these little tricks?”

Everyone believed that He Wei seeking aid was a part of her scheme to disrupt everyone’s plans and lure some of them away from the thunder lagoon, and by extension, the Pure Soul Springs.

“No, that’s wrong! He Wei is quickly approaching us!” Chu Li exclaimed, becoming anxious.

“Zzzz! Whoosh! Oooo!”

Tied to the waists of numerous people, tokens from every force began to emit strange howls and buzz wildly.

“Did He Wei’s group have tokens from so many different forces?” Song Tingyu asked in surprise.

“No! They definitely don’t have this many! Something’s wrong!” Chu Li constantly shook his head.

“This is definitely strange.” Du Xiangyang frowned.

“Qin Lie! Can you still use your soul consciousness to sense the area around us?” Chu Li asked nervously.

Qin Lie nodded, saying, “I can, but my range is limited. I can sense several kilometers around us at the most., Any farther than that is impossible.”

“Help me sense them!” Chu Li burned with worry.

Qin Lie thought for a moment before saying, “Fine!”

He sat in a lotus position, held his breath, and concentrated as he used his soul consciousness to sense their surroundings.

An instant later, he stood right up. His expression became extremely grim as he roared, “More than two hundred life signatures are currently approaching us! They’re extremely fast, too!”

A huge number of life signatures flared up in his soul perception like blazing fireballs. They were one and a half kilometers away from them, coming from the direction that He Wei’s group had gone.

“What?!”

“There are that many life signatures?”

“More than two hundred of them? How is that possible!?”

Everyone was shocked.

“What are they, Qin Lie? Could they be foreign races?” Even Du Xiangyang eyes held fear within them.

The instant he said that, chills ran down the bodies of Huang Zhuli, Ye Yihao, Feng Yiyou, and Yu Men.

Years ago, during another Trial in the Land of Chaos, martial practitioners from the nine great Silver rank forces inadvertently entered Asura World, the territory of the Asura Race which had been nourishing their strength for many years.

Out of every Trial that had ever taken place, that one was the most tragic...

All of the martial practitioners who participated in that Trial, were completely massacred by the people of the Asura Race. Several powerful martial practitioners were killed, and the Asura Race made use of the void passage to charge into the Land of Chaos, starting a grisly war that continued for ages.

As a result of this, blood flowed through the Land of Chaos like rivers, countless experts were annihilated, and many weaker forces disappeared.

That disaster had been carved into everyone’s hearts.

Could it be that, just when they were on the verge of seizing good fortune, they were about to encounter another foreign race that had been hidden in the Graveyard of Gods?

“It’s not a foreign race! They’re humans! They’re just like us!” Qin Lie roared.

“H-how is that possible? Among the nine great Silver rank forces of the Land of Chaos, the Trial participants of each force amounted to no more than twenty people. Even if none of us had died, it’d be impossible for there to be more than two hundred of us!” Pan Qianqian inadvertently cried out.

After how long all of them had engaged in bloody conflict, the martial practitioners of the nine great Silver rank forces had suffered terrible losses. Most of the lucky survivors were all present, so how could more than two hundred people suddenly appear?

“Could it be that the people outside let a new batch of participants in?” Du Xiangyang speculated.

“Impossible! Celestial Artifact Sect and Ten Thousand Beast Mountain sealed the passageway after we entered. It definitely wouldn’t be opened again!” Feng Yiyou roared out.

“Then who could those two hundred people be?” Qin Lie asked.

“Maybe you sensed wrongly!” Feng Yiyou snorted.

“Qin Lie! I’m taking my leave first!” Chu Li completely trusted Qin Lie. Not daring to hesitate any further, he immediately charged in the direction that He Wei’s group had gone.

“Prepare for battle!” Qin Lie barked in a hollow voice.

While Ye Yihao, Yu Men, and everyone else were still hesitating, Du Xiangyang, Xue Moyan, Luo Chen, Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, and Pan Qianqian pulled their spirit artifacts out one after another as if they were about to face a formidable foe.

They were preparing to face an unknown enemy.