Chapter 67 - Soul Armor

Having learned the soul fusion technique, Leng Yan and Chu Jianfeng were eager to seal fierce souls to enhance their survival capabilities. Thus, they parted ways once again.

Leng Yan first set up a seal at his location and then summoned the netherworld ghost banner, infusing the soul fusion formation into his magical treasure.

…

Three days quickly passed, during which Leng Yan sealed a total of sixty thousand fierce souls. His nine Asuras had already begun to condense their unique soul armor. Leng Mo, having a physical body, also needed to cultivate soul armor in a human-like manner, just like Leng Yan.

The wind howled as Leng Yan waved his hands, creating massive handprints that transformed into a large net in the air, capturing these mindless, fleeing fierce souls.

“Sixty-five thousand should be enough!” Leng Yan calculated silently, feeling it was time to condense the soul armor.

Inside the hill, he dug a deep stone chamber and set up various seals before entering confidently.

With a wave of his hand, five hundred fierce souls were extracted. They were then surrounded by flames, liquefied, and slowly refined.

Once refined to the point where only soul energy remained, Leng Yan set the energy aside and extracted another five hundred fierce souls to refine.

He repeated this process, refining up to five thousand fierce souls per day. Refining fifty thousand souls took him a full ten days!

Ten days later, a grindstone-sized mass of translucent energy floated before Leng Yan-these were the soul energies refined from fifty thousand fierce souls. Leng Yan would use a special refining technique to forge the soul armor.

In addition to the soul energy, crafting the soul armor required some refining materials. Although Leng Yan didn’t have many materials himself, he found quite a few on Lin Fan. The best part was that since Lin Fan was a member of the Soul Refinement Sect, his cultivation technique was also related to souls, so the materials he collected were soul-related as well.

Seven Soul Stones, Red Soul Iron, Soul Refinement Spirit Crystals, Rocks, Lunar Stones, and Elephant Dragon Horns.

Leng Yan selected several high-grade materials, then used the Scarlet Flame Emperor Technique to condense the essence fire, melting and refining each material one by one. Next, he fused the liquid materials together in a design he had already envisioned, forming the shape of the armor.

With soul energy, Leng Yan inscribed various runes onto the soul armor, as documented in the nine yin fiend god technique. Many of these runes depicted creatures and beasts Leng Yan had never seen before.

This inscription process was the most crucial step in crafting the soul armor. Although the armor was only the size of a palm, it required the engraving of hundreds of thousands of intricate patterns.

Leng Yan worked meticulously, knowing even the slightest error in a line’s length could lead to failure. After two days, the first group of patterns was successfully inscribed. Leng Yan bit his fingertip, squeezing out a drop of essence blood, which he then integrated into the soul armor. As the blood infused with the armor, Leng Yan felt a deep connection with it.

Encouraged by his success, Leng Yan regained his focus and continued with the inscriptions.

Six days later, the soul armor was nearing completion. Once the final rune was successfully etched, Leng Yan quickly infused all the remaining soul energy into it.

As the soul energy surged into the armor, the lines on it emitted a faint glow. Leng Yan took this opportunity to merge his essence blood into the armor once more.

“Soul departure, soul armor fusion.”

Leng Yan’s body of belief stepped out, appearing only palm-sized, yet radiating golden light like a divine being.

The soul armor, called by the body of belief, flew towards it, gradually merging. With a thought, the armor appeared on Leng Yan’s body of belief.

“It’s done. Now, even if my physical body is destroyed, my soul can withstand a strike. That strike could be the turning point between life and death!” Leng Yan thought as he retracted the body of belief back inside him.

With his soul armor completed, Leng Yan didn’t stop. He gathered the remaining materials and fierce souls, refining them all for Leng Mo’s soul armor.

Once everything was ready, Leng Yan summoned Leng Mo to join him in consolidating the soul armor.

Three days later, Leng Mo’s soul armor was completed with the combined efforts of both men. However, the other Asuras, lacking physical bodies, had to adapt their cultivation method. They utilized pure soul energy to condense their armor, which was far less effective, but still better than nothing.

Leng Yan stood up and dispelled the seals. Looking into the distance, he noticed a hill much larger than the one they were on. That should be the gathering place of the Asuras. If thousands of Asuras were congregating there, Leng Yan figured there was no need to venture further.

As for that mysterious old man, it seemed unlikely they would encounter him again. Deciding to halt his journey, Leng Yan resolved to meet up with Chu Jianfeng and search for a teleportation formation to leave this place.

Heading in Chu Jianfeng’s direction, Leng Yan passed through two fierce soul gathering points. He sealed them casually, keeping some to refine Fiend Thunder and imbue his Divine Power, while the rest were fed to the netherworld ghost banner for the Asuras to consume.

Dressed in his white robe, Leng Yan moved swiftly towards his destination, his figure flickering like a phantom in the gusty winds. Suddenly, a distant hill emitted an astonishing Fiendish Qi. The intensity of this Qi was beyond what a unification realm Asura could possess, bringing Leng Yan to an abrupt halt, his face etched with surprise.

“What is happening? How can there be such powerful Fiendish Qi? Could there be a golden core realm Asura there? But how is that possible?” Leng Yan wondered.

Pondering the situation, Leng Yan took a fierce soul in his hand, erased its spiritual awareness, and infused his own. He sent it flying forward while concealing his own body in the Void.

Through the fierce soul, Leng Yan could see the hill’s appearance. Surprisingly, there were no Asuras present, not even a single fierce soul!

As he marveled at this, Leng Yan noticed an opening at the top of the hill, where the Fiendish Qi was most concentrated.

Using just a strand of spiritual awareness attached to the fierce soul meant that even if there was danger, only a small part of his awareness would be lost. With this reassurance, Leng Yan guided the fierce soul into the opening.

Traveling deeper inside, he noted the faint glow emanating from something within.

“Could there be a treasure inside?” Leng Yan thought, feeling a twinge of excitement.

After flying for over ten minutes and taking numerous turns, a bright stone chamber finally appeared ahead. Leng Yan quickly slowed down.

Cautiously, Leng Yan guided the fierce soul into the stone chamber.

Inside the stone chamber, it was empty except for a solitary stele standing in the center. The stele was inscribed with: “Houtu Stele.”

The light within the cave emanated from this stele.

“This aura feels the same as the ancient mirror’s. Could it be another immortal treasure? This is incredible,” thought Leng Yan, his heart pounding with excitement.

Trying to calm himself, he mused, “If there’s such an immortal treasure here, it’s unlikely to be unguarded. I can’t believe that the quirky old man wouldn’t know there’s an immortal treasure right under his nose.”

After pondering for a while, Leng Yan decided to probe for any lurking threats. He couldn’t just walk away without trying, not when such a treasure was in sight-it was against his dignity, once as a Beggar.

He commanded the fierce soul to rush towards the Houtu Stele. Just as it approached, a black light shield appeared abruptly, and the fierce soul couldn’t dodge in time, crashing into it.

“What’s going on?” Leng Yan suddenly sensed his spiritual awareness vanish without a trace, like a stone sinking into the sea.

“Let’s try again!” He summoned five more fierce souls, imbuing each with his spiritual awareness, and sent them flying towards the Houtu Stele together.

Upon reaching the chamber again, Leng Yan carefully surveyed his surroundings, finding nothing unusual. The Houtu Stele stood silently, its etched characters emitting a soft glow.

Controlling one fierce soul to charge at the stele, he encountered the same result: it collided with the light shield and vanished without a trace, severing the connection of his spiritual awareness.

However, this time, through the other fierce souls, Leng Yan spotted something he hadn’t before. When the black shield rose, a gust of wind swept away some dust on the ground, revealing a few rune seals concealed beneath.

Knowing now that there was a seal, Leng Yan furrowed his brow. Given his current understanding, he felt helpless about breaking it. The two exposed runes alone contained all the knowledge he possessed. If the entire seal were to be revealed, he might consider his understanding to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Realizing this, Leng Yan’s desire to claim the immortal treasure diminished. However, he wasn’t ready to leave yet; he wanted to study the seal further, to deepen his understanding.