The Five Devils in his inner world gathered despair, fear, bloodl.u.s.t, greed, and resentment into one ent.i.ty. In the land of the hollow spirits, they had swallowed a lot of hollow spirits, and then laid dormant. They had no response, as they seemed to head towards an evolution, changing slowly.
s.h.i.+ Yan had almost forgotten that he had these Five Devils hiding in his Sea of Consciousness. As they were flying above the Dead Soul Mountain range, he didn’t know what sort of energy provoked them, making them scream inside his Sea of Consciousness. Soon, they would wake up the thought of which frightened s.h.i.+ Yan. He couldn’t help but sink into his mind to carefully check the status of the Five Devils.
In his Sea of Consciousness, the Five Devils were like five groups of dusky smoke where he couldn’t see the despair, fear, bloodthirsty, greed, and resentment hovering clearly. Usually, just a small stir up was enough to provoke these negative feelings.
The screaming came from the middle of the Five Devils. At the same time, those dark groups of smoke took turns to transform marvelously.
The energy meandering around them was dragged into the center. The ma.s.sive cl.u.s.ter shrank fast. Roughly ten seconds later, it disappeared. Five light dots that were as small as the fireflies blinked with a strange light.
The volume decreased, but the energy fluctuations became purer. It seemed there were some transformations that were about to happen.
After a while, the luminous dots suddenly expanded. Seconds later, they turned into five ferocious things, which looked like Demogorgons from the antiquity. One had sharp horns on its head, while another one had a green face and yellow fangs. The others had scale armors covering the body entirely, or a pair of wings extended from the back. None of them looked alike.
The only similar feature of the Five of them was the cold, sinister appearance.
The technique to cultivate the Five Devils of the inner world came from the Blood Vein Ring. To help the Five Devils grow, he needed to absorb the negative feelings and some kind of energy in his Sea of Consciousness. When the Five Devils had just been formed, they weren"t that strong. So, they could only use soul attacks to restrict the enemies. After a while, when they could finally escape his Sea of Consciousness, they had the energy enough to build a half-real body, which wasn"t too bad.
Today, the Five Devils had the second transformation. Observing his mind, s.h.i.+ Yan found that the appearance of the Five Devils had been improved, too. Even though they were still in his Sea of Consciousness, they seemed to have real bodies. Flows of grey energy wound around their bodies, which were like human bodies, giving people a feeling of vitality.
Roar… Roar… Roar!
Inside the Sea of Consciousness, the Five Devils were roaring just like demonic beasts who had sensed the scent of fresh blood. They were gliding around and around, trying to escape his Sea of Consciousness.
s.h.i.+ Yan’s pupils shrank, while his face changed. He restored his sound mind, releasing his Soul Consciousness to the surroundings to check what had attracted his Five Devils.
"Are you okay?" Cherry was astounded, her eyes suspicious as she didn’t know what was happening to him.
This man halted in the middle of the way. Before that, he had been flying smoothly with her. But then, his eyes went blank. Does he have any disease he doesn’t want to tell about? Or have the dead souls possessed him?
Cherry suddenly felt tense, while her deep blue eyes chilled. She instinctively kept a distance from s.h.i.+ Yan.
When one was possessed by the dead souls, he would become wildly evil, and would attack every creature near him. At that time, he wouldn"t feel pain or have a fear of death. Most of the ones who got possessed would instantly vent out their most violent attacks, using brutal and deadly ways to kill every living thing around them.
The dead souls didn’t have a body, so they didn’t worry that the explosion of the body they possessed would affect them. What they needed to do was to utilize all skills to kill the others. Then, they would draw the others’ souls into the dead soul’s evil lairs to create new dead souls.
As Cherry lived in the Dead Soul Mountain range, she understood the features of the dead souls pretty well. When she saw s.h.i.+ Yan’s posture, she started to put up her guard.
A lozenge blue crystal that looked like a flame emerged from her palm. The immense blue light was moving inside the crystal, s.h.i.+ning like the stars in the sky. The blue light expanded inaudibly, s.h.i.+ning on s.h.i.+ Yan.
Sss Sss Sss
When the blue light touched s.h.i.+ Yan, it was like it got burned, turning into smoke and scattering.
Cherry was frightened, screaming inside. As she could sense something wrong, she was about to leave.
Her Soul Checking Crystal could check whether a warrior was possessed or not. When the light of the blue crystal reached the ones who got possessed, it would be evaporated instantly.
Why was he possessed? There’s no aura of dead souls around. Sigh, it’s pretty bad this time. How can I answer my teacher!
Cherry felt as if she had just swallowed bitter juice. She thought that she should leave s.h.i.+ Yan and run away.
She knew s.h.i.+ Yan had the Third Sky of Sky Realm. After the dead soul possessed him, if he burst out instantly his power to kill everyone around, she wouldn’t be able to endure it. Also, the treasures she had could hardly resist his strength. So, she didn’t want to do the useless things, and wanted to get back to the Spirit Potion Valley first, and then plan the next move.
Right when she had flown a hundred meters backward, s.h.i.+ Yan’s body shook as he shouted. "Hey, why are you running back?"
Cherry"s soft body s.h.i.+vered, her face discoloring with fear. She didn"t dare to stop and even sped up.
s.h.i.+ Yan was surprised as he had no clue. "What are you doing?"
While he was talking, s.h.i.+ Yan flew like lightning, shooting towards her. He shouted, "What the heck you are doing? I"m not going to harm you. Why do you wear a face as if you have seen a pervert? Well, it"s true that your appearance"s attractive to perverts, but you shouldn"t think that every man is a pervert, right?"
"Ah!"
Cherry screamed, looking at s.h.i.+ Yan blocking her way with shock. She muttered suspiciously, "When the high-level dead soul possesses someone, one can still talk like normal people. But should they talk vulgar things like that?"
Dead souls in the Dead Soul Mountain range divided into many levels. Low levels dead souls didn’t have strong soul erosive power. Even if they could possess the warrior, they couldn’t talk. Only dead souls at high levels with intimidating soul power could use the host to communicate with people.
However, even if it was a high-level dead soul, it could only say some simple things, and it wouldn"t be fluent enough.
He was possessed by the highest level dead soul, perhaps? Legends said that the highest level dead soul had the same intelligence as mankind. When a warrior was taken over by this kind of a dead soul, the dead souls" behavior wasn"t much different from humans. Anyway, this sort of dead soul was rare. Not many people had seen them for hundreds of years. Would her luck be that bad today?
Cherry was frightened and surprised at the same time, but she didn’t continue to flee away.
She understood that if she encountered the highest level, dead souls, let alone herself, even her teacher couldn"t escape death.
Usually, the highest level dead souls would show up when the dead souls’ evil lairs had some changes.
Once this kind of a dead soul appeared, all the alchemists and blacksmiths living in the Dead Soul Mountain range would join hands, and they would even invite the experts from the Radiant G.o.d Cult, the Pure Land, and the Devil Valley around to help them encounter the enemy.
That kind of a dead soul was the most formidable existence. Rumor said that only the absolute True G.o.d Realm warriors knew the method to exterminate them.
She was just a Sky Realm warrior. If the high-level dead souls used the Soul Consciousness to control her soul, she couldn"t do anything.
"You… Who are you? Human or dead soul?" Cherry regretted it now. She cursed her teacher under her breath. Why he had a.s.signed her such a mission?.
"It’s just been a while. Why did you have such big change?" s.h.i.+ Yan was quite happy. "Did you see ghosts?"
"You saw ghosts!" Cherry barked. Then she was astounded, looking at him. "You… Aren’t you possessed by a dead soul? But why did my Soul Checking crystal say that you have other souls in your Sea of Consciousness? Only the sinister dead souls can burn the light of the Soul Checking crystal."
Having hearing her say that, s.h.i.+ Yan immediately responded. Turned out the existence of the Five Devils had her in doubt.
"The things inside my head aren’t the dead souls. They’re something else. The features of their souls are somehow similar to the dead souls though," explained s.h.i.+ Yan.
Cherry was startled, her face odd. "You’re a freak. If one has no reason, who would keep strange things in their heads? Don"t you know that when you’re wounded or careless, they can take over your soul and control your body?"
"I know. And, I have the method to deal with that," s.h.i.+ Yan didn’t explain further.
The Nine Serenities Soul Devouring Flame lived in his host soul, which could swallow all kinds of soul-like beings. Even if the Five Devils were more dangerous, they didn’t dare to act rashly in his Sea of Consciousness. Or else, they would be purified by the flame of the Nine Serenities Soul Devouring Flame.
With such a tremendous existence to rely on, no matter what kind of souls or strange things entered his Sea of Consciousness, they would be just finding a way to death for themselves.
"What happened to you just now?" Cherry was dumbstruck. She frowned, asking him as curiosity filled her blue eyes.
"Nothing. I just found something." s.h.i.+ Yan smiled, looking at one direction. "We’ll go there and check it out. Something interesting is happening there."
Cherry followed his line of sight, and her smiling face faded. She spoke up with a serious face. "That’s the place the dead souls’ evil lairs often appear. Dead souls linger there a lot. Why do you want to get there?"
"To learn about the dead souls."
"Aren’t you afraid that the dead souls would erode your soul? I’ve seen a lot of young men like you get possessed by the dead souls because they acted rashly and intruded the forbidden area. Their own souls were expelled. I advise you not to take risks."
"It’s okay. I believe nothing would happen to me."
Strange light sparked in Cherry’s deep blue eyes. Hesitating for a while, she took out a Rock Panacea, handing it to s.h.i.+ Yan while feeling painful inside. "You should take this Rock Panacea. It will harden your soul as solid as a rock. Most of the dead souls can’t attack you then. I can’t refine this type of panacea yet, and my teacher gave me this. Remember, you owe me now."
"No need. You should keep it. I don’t need the support from medicines." s.h.i.+ Yan shook his head, and didn’t talk more as he flew towards the direction that the Five Devils had induced.