Chapter 527: Soul Curse

The scarlet barbarians that were just about to fall apart regained their fighting spirit after Sen Ye and Jia Yue sent word that they would reinforce them soon.

Di Fei snorted indifferently and sat down behind his tribesmen. The earth spirit’s eyes opened above his own and shone with a grim, ruthless light.

Three scarlet barbarians instantly moved behind Di Fei. After taking a moment to look each other in the eyes, they each brandished a dagger, gritted their teeth, and slashed at their fingers.

Fresh red blood welled from the cuts at their fingertips.

Eyes filled with intense ferocity, the three barbarians smeared blood against the tattoos on their necks, shoulders, and chests. This made their tattoos seem thicker, causing them to glow with bloody traces of evil and terror.

Each of the barbarians had their own tattoo. All three grew brighter and more distinct on their bodies. One was a dancing butterfly, one was a porcupine-like spirit beast, and the last one looked like blossoming spirit grass.

“Sacrifice!” the three scarlet barbarians exclaimed in unison.

The moment they did, their blood, spirit energy, soul energy, and mind consciousnesses combined into a formless current of energy that flooded their tattoos.

A bizarre light erupted from the trio’s eyes as they suddenly looked at Luo Chen with strange, grim smiles.

Luo Chen stood in the middle of the scarlet barbarians, sword at the ready. He radiated a sword aura that seemed capable of rending the sky. Wherever he pointed his sword, mighty beams of sword light would stream out like rushing rivers.

None of the barbarians nearby could match him. All of them fell back, not daring to get close to him.

However, the moment the three distinctly tattooed barbarians looked at Luo Chen, pain appeared on his proud, indifferent face.

In the very next moment, Luo Chen grunted as if he had suffered a heavy blow. The sword in his hand went dim as well.

“Ugh!” Luo Chen exclaimed painfully. He fell to his knees, seemingly battered, and instantly lost his ability to fight.

“Well done!” Di Fei shouted, praising the three men behind him.

His praise encouraged them, and they turned their sharp eyes to Du Xiangyang.

As soon as they locked onto him, the scarlet flames around his body died out all at once.

In the next instant, traces of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. He had clearly suffered some sort of backlash.

Du Xiangyang had no idea who had secretly struck him. He shuddered and surveyed the scarlet barbarians around him, eyes full of murderous intent.

“Next!” Di Fei said as he found another target. “Him! That Qin Lie!”

The three tattooed barbarians laughed sinisterly, then sucked in a deep breath. Gathering their strength once more, they directed their eerie gazes toward Qin Lie.

Qin Lie was currently rampaging throughout the scarlet barbarians, laughing continuously. With every swing of his arms, he threw out rays of bloody light and thunderous bolts of lightning.

“Jiang Tianxing!” Qin Lie shouted in a mocking tone, passing through the throng of fighting and heading straight for Jiang Tianxing. “Do you dare fight me?”

Back in the sea around Spirit Eagle Island, Qin Lie hadn’t been able to gain the upper hand against Jiang Tianxing, and had even been at a disadvantage when Jiang Tianxing executed his Blood Spirit Art.

More than half a year later, Qin Lie encountered Jiang Tianxing again in the Graveyard of Gods. Qin Lie’s realm had risen to the middle stage of the Netherpassage Realm, and the strength of his body had increased to a new level. He no longer shied away from fighting Jiang Tianxing.

On the other hand, Jiang Tianxing actually didn’t dare to fight Qin Lie. He could only constantly retreat in face of Qin Lie’s aggressiveness.

However, at this very moment, a butterfly, a porcupine, and blossoming spirit grass suddenly appeared within Qin Lie’s mind.

As soon as these foreign elements appeared in his mind, Qin Lie’s True Soul shook as he turned all of his attention to them.

The blossoming spirit grass abruptly released a bewitching scent that intoxicated Qin Lie’s True Soul.

The porcupine like spirit beast let out a series of cries as the strange quills on its body pierced Qin Lie’s Soul Lake like rays of golden light.

In the outside world, Qin Lie felt terrible pain in his True Soul and suddenly lost control of the spirit art he was about to unleash.

Back in his mind, the butterfly flapped its wings and caused enormous waves to develop in Qin Lie’s Soul Lake, forcing his mind to lose focus.

The combined attack of these ethereal creatures had a huge effect on Qin Lie, just like it did on Luo Chen and Du Xiangyang. He instantly sat down on the ground, an expression of both shock and pain on his face.

The faces of the three barbarians next to Di Fei grew even more sinister.

“Great job! You’ve done very well!” Di Fei said with a nod, relaxing. Then he pointed at Song Tingyu. “Attack her next! When Sen Ye and Jia Yue arrive, none of these Land of Chaos martial practitioners will leave this place alive!”

“Understood,” the trio said.

The faces of the three were pale, but their minds were in great condition. They moved to attack Song Tingyu.

However, just as they were about to do so, Qin Lie’s bloodsoaked eyes pierced through the fighting around him and locked onto them.

The three scarlet barbarians that had been secretly attacking Qin Lie’s group suddenly stopped. Their faces twisted in shock, intense fear clouding their eyes.

Since Di Fei was closest to them, he felt the sudden change in their demeanor. Turning to look at them, he saw that their eyes were full of thunder and lightning.

It was as if their eyes had been struck by lightning!

“Ahhhh!” the trio screamed in pain.

They rubbed their eyes with all their might, seemingly trying to force the lightning from their eyes.

At his position in the distance, Qin Lie stood up. He wore an indifferent expression as his eyes shone with bloody light, sparks of lightning shooting around his body.

“Prak prak prak!”

Bolts of lightning struck the butterfly, porcupine, and spirit grass in his mind, destroying them.

At the same time, Qin Lie’s mind consciousness flowed through the soul connection between the three creatures and their owners, carrying the power of thunder and lightning directly into heads and eyes of the three barbarians.

Qin Lie watched the trio, softly exclaiming, “Explode!”

A dull noise resounded in the heads of the three scarlet barbarians as their eyes actually exploded.

“My eyes! My eyes!”

“I’m blind! I can’t see!”

“Ahhhh! My eyes!”

The trio clawed at their eye sockets, blood flowing through the gaps between their fingers as they screeched in pain.

This turn of events prompted Di Fei to get to his feet. He considered the situation for a few seconds, then yelled, “Retreat!”

He ended up changing his mind once more.

Upon hearing Di Fei’s command once again, all of the scarlet barbarians only hesitated for a moment before turning around and retreating.

“Follow me!” Di Fei instructed the now-blind barbarian trio before leading the way out of the valley. He didn’t turn around even once.

The barbarians that had been fighting Qin Lie’s group immediately turned around and fled.

“Don’t chase them.” Qin Lie frowned.

Song Tingyu and Xie Jingxuan stopped immediately. Luo Chen and Du Xiangyang reluctantly stopped as well, indifferent expressions on their faces.

“They’re probably retreating in the direction that Sen Ye and Jia Yue will be coming from,” Qin Lie said. “We’ll run into the main force of eastern barbarians if we give chase. That wouldn’t be very wise.”

“We should leave this place while the opponent has yet to regroup,” Song Tingyu suggested. “We don’t have any tokens they can track, and finding us again won’t be a simple matter if we find a new mountain to hide in.”

Everyone agreed with Song Tingyu’s suggestion, and no one had any other ideas. As a result, they left without even looting the corpses of the scarlet barbarians.

……

Leading the twenty-or-so scarlet barbarians that remained, Di Fei finally met up with Sen Ye’s black barbarians and Jia Yue’s white barbarians an hour later.

“Where are your tribesmen, Di Fei?” Sen Ye yelled from afar.

“Why do you only have around twenty people with you?” Jia Yue was also puzzled. “Are the rest of your tribesmen still ahead of us attacking the Land of Chaos martial practitioners?”

They all assumed that Di Fei had left some of his tribesmen behind.

Every scarlet barbarian, including Di Fei, wore expression of defeat. Hatred filled their eyes.

One man struck an ice rock out of extreme anger shattering it and yelling, “I swear to kill all the martial practitioners of the Land of Chaos!”

“What’s going on?” Jia Yue asked, growing serious.

Gao Yu silently stood beside her, maintaining a grim, aloof expression.

“Jiang Tianxing!” Sen Ye yelled. “Tell us what happened!”

“We’re the only ones left.” Jiang Tianxing glanced at Di Fei’s grim face, then sighed. “We split up into smaller teams to search for the ice spirit. Qin Lie’s group took us out one team after another, resulting in severe losses…”

He slowly revealed the truth.

Sen Ye and Jia Yue’s faces became uglier as they quietly listened to his account of events.

“Are they really that powerful?” A brawny white barbarian beside Jia Yue found it hard to believe Jiang Tianxing. “We fought Black Voodoo Cult, Ten Thousand Beast Mountain, and Celestial Artifact Sect. None of them seemed all that strong. Why did you suffer so many losses?”

“That Qin Lie fellow is extremely scary!” a scarlet barbarian screamed. “He broke our tribe’s soul curse!”

It was only then that everyone noticed that there were three scarlet barbarians beside Di Fei. They had been clutching their eyes and crying softly all this time.

“Qin Lie cultivates the power of thunder. He was extremely formidable in the Forbidden Land of Thunder,” Sen Ye said, taking a deep breath. “However, this is the Forbidden Land of Ice. How could he overturn the heavens in here?”

“Gao Yu, you came from the Scarlet Tide Continent with that Qin Lie. You should know about him. Is he as scary as they say?” the brawny white barbarian suddenly asked.

All of the eastern barbarians, including Sen Ye and Di Fei, turned their attention to Gao Yu.

“I do not know,” Gao Yu said indifferently.

Dissatisfaction could clearly be seen in the eyes of the scarlet and black barbarians as they gazed at him.

“They aren’t far from here,” Jiang Tianxing said hurriedly. “If we pursue them immediately, we may still be able to find them!”

“Then we shall give chase!” Sen Ye ordered.

“Turn back!” Di Fei yelled.

……

Qin Lie’s group found their way up another icy mountain that ringed the frozen lake. Halfway up that mountain, everyone dug out their own caves and sat inside of them, recovering their strength with spirit stones.

“You need to use the Spring of Life,” Qin Lie said within one of the caves.

𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

The only other person in this cave was Xue Moyan. The blood had drained out of her face, leaving it deathly pale. She had used more than half the blood spirit energy in her blood.

The Bloodthirsty Dragon was a domineering killing tool. Since Xue Moyan used it despite her low realm, it had exhausted an astonishing amount of her blood energy to match its terrifyingly deadly power.

Qin Lie could sense how much blood energy she had used up. He knew that she was in extremely poor condition, which was why he purposely came over to look after her.

“My mother is the only one who should use this Spring of Life.” Xue Moyan shook her head firmly. “I need to save it for her.”

“That battle exhausted your life energy.” Qin Lie sighed. “If you don’t consume the Spring of Life as soon as possible… you might not be able to leave the Graveyard of Gods alive.”

He could already see a small clump of white hair on Xue Moyan’s head. This was a sign that her life force was running out.

At this rate, even if they didn’t get caught in any other battles, time would slowly kill her.