Chapter 923 – Refine the Soul

…

…

…

“Mm? He wants me to return?”

After Whitedemon heard the message in the sound transmitting talisman, he hatefully glared at Lin Ming, “You brat, consider yourself lucky. One year from now is when you die!”

As Whitedemon finished speaking, his body turned into a beam of light that flew towards the north.

Lin Ming didn’t stop him, and in fact couldn’t stop him. The two of them had similar strength and neither could block the other. If Lin Ming wanted to leave, Whitedemon wouldn’t have been able to stop him either.

Whitedemon soon vanished in the horizon. Lin Ming was silent for a moment and then also left. He displayed his maximum speed and flew away from the Sky Fortune Kingdom, across the Southern Wildness, and then changed directions several more times before finding a isolated and lonely island in the South Sea where he landed.

“So this is the strength of the highest under the heavens. I wonder how Yang Yun’s strength can compare? If it were three years ago and Yang Yun drew support from the Ancient Devil then his strength would be about similar to Whitedemon.”

Lin Ming mumbled to himself. Although the Ancient Devil was also an officer of a Divine Realm army in the past, all he had left was an incomplete soul form. Soul force had no physical combat strength, thus it had no choice but to raise Yang Yun and rely on possessing Yang Yun’s body. Because the Ancient Devil mainly relied on Yang Yun’s own strength, he wasn’t much stronger than his subordinate Whitedemon.

“10 months ago I was able to easily kill the Steppes Master and that old Imp. One of them was a two-star Demon Emperor and the other was a three-star Demon Emperor near the end of his life; that is equivalent to a middle Divine Sea and late Divine Sea powerhouse. Afterwards I closed up and my strength rose again. After I was able to nearly instantly kill a middle Divine Sea martial artist – that is also the strength of the highest under the heavens. Even if I met the past Yang Yun I wouldn’t need to be afraid, but the only problem is that I have no idea what’s happened to Yang Yun in the past three years.”

As Lin Ming thought of this, his thoughts moved and he entered into the Extreme Violet Ring. The first sight that greeted him was Situ Yaoxi. Situ Yaoxi had been turned into a bloody mess by Lin Ming. Her spine was split apart, her thigh was pierced, and she looked like a bag of rotten meat. Her true essence was locked within her body and remained out of her control. She was only able to suffer here, barely surviving.

“You little bastard! If you have the guts, kill me!”

As Situ Yaoxi saw Lin Ming, both of her eyes erupted with flames of hatred. Her animosity towards Lin Ming had reached the extreme. She was well aware that after falling into Lin Ming’s hands there was no hope to survive. Softly pleading meant death and insulting him also meant death. Since that was the case, she might as well curse him to her heart’s content.

“I acknowledged my fate after falling into your hands, but I also don’t have many years left to live. You are different though, you still have a long life ahead of you, but what a pity. Hahahaha, you also won’t live much longer! I’ll wait for you in hell!”

Lin Ming indifferently looked at Situ Yaoxi and said, “My life isn’t something that you have a say in.”

“Humph! You’ll die! And you’ll die in the ugliest manner possible! Your body will be a gift and your soul will be turned into ash!” Situ Yaoxi roared with malice, her eyes blood red. She was about to speak further but Lin Ming suddenly kicked out and shattered her arm.

“Ahhh! You little bastard, you’ll get what you deserve!” Situ Yaoxi bitterly cried out.

“Get what I deserve? You tried to kill me, that is cause. And now I’ll kill you, that is effect. Cause and effect have both come full circle, and killing you now is perfectly justified!” Lin Ming reached down and grabbed Situ Yaoxi’s neck. Her entire body was exhausted and didn’t have the least bit of strength left. She limply dangled in Lin Ming’s hands like a trussed up chicken.

Roarr!

Behind Lin Ming, a massive demon spirit phantom appeared. This monstrous demon spirit had three horns on its head, had fierce features, and dark green teeth. It’s six arms each held onto different strange weapons. There was a battle drum, a bell, rosary beads, a hammer, iron needles, and an ancient mirror. All around this six-armed ancient demon spirit, there were countless creatures that lay down in worship; looks of reverence and awe on their faces.

This was the High Chaos Devil Arts, a soul cultivation method that originated from the Eternal Demon Abyss. Although it wasn’t some top ranked technique from the Divine Realm, it was still very useful for the current Lin Ming to practice. For instance, surprise souls, more profound and effective slave seals, and even techniques to suck out a soul and refine it. It even had the soul searching technique that Lin Ming was about to use.

Moreover, it was simple to practice and didn’t require much effort. It was an extremely useful transitive law formula.

The chaos demon spirit stretched out its claws and directly grabbed Situ Yaoxi by her neck. She screamed out like a cat that had its tail stomped on. “You! What are you doing, stop –”

Situ Yaoxi issued out a soul-rending scream. She watched as the chaos demon spirit lifted a hammer in one hand and lifted a rusty black iron needle in the other, and then continued watching as the iron needle was placed between her eyebrows.

It was obvious that this chaos demon spirit wanted to use this immaterial iron needle to enter her spiritual sea!

Anyone that saw such a needle about to be pounded into their heads would also have their courage crack apart.

The chaos demon spirit used two hands to hold down Situ Yaoxi’s neck. It lifted the hammer and suddenly pounded down.

“Ahhh –”

In that moment, Situ Yaoxi’s throat cracked as if fragments of glass had been thrust into her mouth. It was hard to imagine that a human could emit such a hoarse and terrified scream.

The hammer pounded down again and again. Situ Yaoxi’s body began shaking. After her soul was smashed by that iron needle again and again, it was almost forced out of her body by that chaos demon spirit.

“You little beast, y-you’ll die like a dog!”

Situ Yaoxi screamed out as she began kicking out her legs. However, her efforts soon subsided as she slumped down, motionless. Her entire body went soft as her soul was completely pulled out. Her soul became a ball of light that was gripped into the chaos demon spirit’s hand and held beneath the iron needle. Above the iron needle, a distorted image of a pained face appeared – it was Situ Yaoxi’s.

Puff!

The ball of light was shattered by the iron needle. Situ Yaoxi let out one last miserable scream as her soul shattered into countless fragments that were eaten up by the chaos demon spirit.

Lin Ming closed his eyes and sifted through the memories for valuable information. A soul searching technique could not be compared to the wonders of using the Magic Cube to swallow a soul fragment; at most he could obtain a few fuzzy memories, searching for a cultivation method was basically impossible. He could only search for pieces of information and events.

“Mm, this Situ Yaoxi doesn’t seem to know what Yang Yun has been doing for these past three years. However, what she can confirm is that Yang Yun’s strength has sharply risen since then. Moreover, it seems as if Yang Yun is completing some type of arcane skill. In at most one year, he’ll be able to lock onto my position.”

“Now that Whitedemon has returned, he’s already identified my limit and Yang Yun now knows just how strong I am. If he continues with his old plan then that means he is confident he can still deal with me.”

Lin Ming thought for a moment. This Yang Yun had kept his cards too well hidden, and he was also far too patient and smart. Such an opponent truly made one dread facing. When Lin Ming faced Xuan Wuji, even he hadn’t been so thorny as Yang Yun.

Lin Ming fully understood Xuan Wuji’s background and was able to estimate his strength and contrast it with his own, thus he knew that victory was in his hands. After he returned from Timeworn Phoenix City, he had been able to smoothly exterminate Xuan Wuji.

But against Yang Yun, Lin Ming actually didn’t have much confidence.

“This Sky Fortune Kingdom trap should be a chess move that Yang Yun casually arranged. His original intention should have been to probe the limit of my strength; he probably didn’t expect it to kill me.”

There’s no way to know whether or not Lin Ming would have returned to the Sky Fortune Kingdom. And even if Yang Yun knew Lin Ming would return, it was still impossible for someone like him to keep guard around the Sky Fortune Kingdom. If he did so for 2-3 years, then he wouldn’t have been able to grow any stronger than Whitedemon and it would’ve been impossible for him to deal with Lin Ming.

The Sky Fortune Kingdom was only a probing move. The true killing move should still be behind.

Peng!

With a light cracking sound, Situ Yaoxi’s soul completely turned to smoke and faded to nothing. Lin Ming opened his eyes. He didn’t obtain much valuable information from this soul search, but aside from some minor information on Yang Yun, there was also some other information that could barely be considered valuable to him.

Lin Ming had finally learnt just how his true identity had been exposed.

When Lin Ming crossed Life Destruction, the wood spirit jade mask he wore had been crushed, and his true appearance had been revealed and known to the world.

Afterwards, Yang Yun had used his absolute strength to kill Yang Laotian and Ouye Hua. He used their blood essence to restore the life vitality that had been sucked up by the Magic Cube. He put a part of his collection of Divine Realm inheritances as a reward, united the deep sea clans of the Fog Sea, planted a tracing mark in many of the other three Divine Kingdom powerhouses, and was able to thoroughly control all four Divine Kingdoms.

After obtaining control of the four Divine Kingdoms, Yang Yun immediately launched a massive manhunt for Lin Ming. Lin Ming’s portrait was naturally posted everywhere. Those that knew Lin Ming’s status like Li Yifeng, Duanmu Qun, Feng Shen, Lan Xin, and others had all kept hidden; they certainly wouldn’t betray Lin Ming. Yang Yun also didn’t know that these individuals knew Lin Ming so he didn’t search for them either.

However, near the four Divine Kingdoms, there was also someone else that knew of Lin Ming’s true identity.

That was the Northwest Great Desert’s Wang Yichan.

During Lin Ming’s great marriage celebrations, Wang Yichan had come because of Xuan Wuji’s inheritance and got entangled in a dispute with Lin Ming. There was a violent fight at the wedding banquet and Wang Yichan lost to Lin Ming. As a result, Wang Yichan was forced to compensate with his concubine from the Forsaken God Clan, a girl named ‘Jue’.

Wang Yichan had a grudge against Lin Ming, selling him out was only natural, let alone that Yang Yun also provided sufficient benefits for doing so.

“Wang Yichan, Northwest Great Desert, very good.”

A thick killing intent flashed in Lin Ming’s eyes. Although the Northwest Great Desert held some resentment towards Lin Ming, Lin Ming was simply disinclined to bother with them over such minor matters. The Northwest Great Desert was only the weakest of the weak Holy Lands. With Lin Ming’s current strength, he could extinguish their entire sect with a wave of his hand.

But now, because of the Northwest Great Desert’s Wang Yichan, the Lin Family Clan and even Lan Yunyue were forced to suffer a great calamity. They had been mercilessly tortured and humiliated for the last two years. This debt had to be cleared.

Without sufficient strength, rushing into a battle between two giants was the behavior of an idiot. If one of those giants didn’t die, then their bad luck could only be blamed on their own stupidity; it would be easy for them to become the victim.

Lin Ming had sentenced the Northwest Great Desert and Wang Yichan to death!

At this time, the Lin Family descendants as well as Lan Yunyue came walking over. The group of thousands was comprised of the young and the old. The one at the head was the Lin Family Clan Patriarch, Lin Wanshan.

As Lin Wanshan saw Lin Ming once more, his thoughts were very complex. This youth in front of him, this junior, had already reached heights that he could never comprehend. It was no different from a mortal meeting a god; they were individuals that lived in two completely different worlds, and their paths should never have crossed to begin with.

And beside Lin Wanshan, Lan Yunyue hesitated in her step.

In the blink of an eye, ten years had already passed. The passing of time, the wearing of the years, all of this had left deep and swelling emotions within her.