Chapter 123: This Seat Needs More Souls

"You're... still alive...?"

The blade-wielding man lay prostrate on the ground, his forehead pressed tightly against the icy stone surface as he trembled uncontrollably.

In this moment, he was no longer a looting cultivator of the Evil Soul Path, nor a ruthless thug at the Pseudo-Core stage. He was merely an insignificant disciple from Soul Wraith Island of years past—an ant who dared not even raise his head before the patriarch.

Upon the throne, Jiuyou slowly opened his eyes.

Within the great hall, cluster after cluster of ghostly blue flames ignited from nothing, illuminating the chamber in flickering light. A tide of cold air swept outward as frost crept over the man's limbs, gradually freezing them with faint creaking sounds.

Terrified out of his wits, the man kowtowed frantically, not daring to stop for even an instant.

"Patriarch... Patriarch! Have mercy and spare me! This disciple will never dare betray the sect again! This disciple..."

In the outside world.

The onlookers watched dumbfounded as the blade-wielding man's physical body mirrored his actions within the Divine Sense Space exactly, frantically kowtowing and muttering the same pleas for mercy.

"Patriarch? What patriarch? What is going on?"

Liu Tiezhu and his companions exchanged bewildered glances, completely at a loss as to what had occurred. Suddenly, they whipped their heads around, only to find the space behind them empty. Their fellow cultivator 'Qing You' was no longer aboard the spirit boat.

At some point, the surroundings had unknowingly turned bone-chillingly cold, causing even the spiritual power within their bodies to stagnate.

"Argh—!"

A miserable shriek pulled Liu Tiezhu back to reality.

He looked up, stunned to discover that aside from the blade-wielding man kneeling in midair, the other four Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Evil Soul Path had all been swallowed by ghostly blue flames. After a few harrowing screams, no sound remained.

And at some point, that green-robed figure had appeared before the blade-wielding man.

Jiuyou looked down at the prostrate ant, his expression indifferent. The blade-wielding man continued to kowtow and plead, his words incoherent.

"I don't know... We ran too fast back then, so we had no idea where the young master went, nor what happened after... Patriarch, please give me another chance..."

'Trash,' Jiuyou cursed inwardly, lightly swiping a finger through the air.

A flash of cold light streaked past, and a head tumbled into the sea with a plop. Blood sprayed, splashing water into the air. The headless corpse swayed twice before slowly toppling over.

Aboard the spirit boat, Liu Tiezhu and the others watched this scene, not daring to move. Their minds went entirely blank, completely at a loss for what to do.

Jiuyou turned his head slightly and looked at them.

Blood had sprayed onto his body and flowed down his cheek, gleaming an eerie dark red beneath the moonlight. The corners of his mouth curled up slightly. His voice was cold and clear, devoid of the slightest murderous intent, yet it sent chills down their spines.

"Rest easy, young friends. This patriarch always keeps his word, hehe..."

No one dared to answer.

No one dared to move.

The spirit boat drifted silently upon the sea, like an unmanned coffin.

...

Several days later.

The Yuqing Sect, a major sect of the Righteous Path Alliance, was a sacred cultivation land that countless rogue cultivators dreamed of joining.

Today was the Yuqing Sect's once-a-decade disciple recruitment ceremony. A sea of people crowded before the mountain gate, cultivators gathering as various spiritual lights wove into a brilliant ocean. Most of these people were unaffiliated rogue cultivators who had spent their entire lives waiting for this single chance to leap over the dragon gate.

Yet amid this grand spectacle of ten thousand cultivators paying homage, an anomaly appeared.

"Look! Who is that? He's covered in blood, and he's carrying... severed heads?"

Someone noticed a blood-red figure staggering toward them in the distance. He carried several bloody heads in his hand, and with every step, blood dripped onto the stone stairs—a startling sight.

"Is that guy insane? Looking like that, he dares to show up at the Yuqing Sect's recruitment ceremony? Isn't he courting death?"

"What a pity. He looks like a fairly young fellow; how could he be a madman?"

The crowd broke into discussions as countless gazes probed the blood-red figure, yet not a single person dared to step forward and stop him.

This was because none of them could see through the figure's aura. No fool would go up and court death.

At the Yuqing Sect's mountain gate, two Foundation Establishment disciples watched the bloody figure with furrowed brows. With his aura inscrutable, they did not dare act rashly. Exchanging a glance, one of them retrieved a message jade talisman from his robes and sent it out.

Before long, an escape light flew out from deep within the mountain gate. A Golden Core peak master landed before the mountain gate, his divine sense instantly locking onto that blood-red figure dozens of li away.

He blanked slightly; even with his Golden Core stage cultivation, he could not see through the other party.

Yet under the watchful eyes of the crowd, as a dignified Golden Core peak master of the Yuqing Sect, he represented the face of the entire sect. If he retreated, it would be tantamount to slapping the Yuqing Sect in the face.

After thinking it over, he was just about to speak.

The figure suddenly vanished.

Even his divine sense could not lock onto him.

"What's going on?"

The Golden Core peak master's heart tightened, and he instantly activated his protective spiritual light.

In the next second, a flash of bloody light burst before him. The slender, blood-red figure was already standing in front of him, less than half a meter away.

A pair of extremely icy eyes looked down upon him from above.

Under the gazes of the cultivators, the Golden Core peak master and the two Foundation Establishment disciples behind him froze in place in unison. The next moment, three heads fell to the ground simultaneously as blood sprayed out.

A dead silence.

Immediately after, the entire venue erupted into an uproar.

An existence that could instantly kill a Golden Core cultivator in a single move—the 'madman' they had just mocked actually possessed such terrifying strength.

Cold air violently erupted from the blood-red figure, sweeping in all directions. Countless cultivators didn't even have time to react; they only saw a flash of white light before losing consciousness entirely.

"Ah... run! An evil cultivator! This person is an evil cultivator!"

"How terrifying, it's a Nascent Soul class evil cultivator!"

"I remember now! The heads in his hands... they belong to the Nascent Soul cultivators of the Three Demonic Path Sects that were wiped out not long ago!"

The cultivators screamed and fled, none daring to linger. But their speed ultimately could not outrun the spreading ice. One by one, they were frozen; one by one, they collapsed. Shrieks rose and fell in succession before quickly returning to silence.

The Yuqing Sect mountain gate, which had just been joyous with ten thousand cultivators paying homage, was now left as nothing but a frozen tomb.

The cold air burst through the mountain gate. Sensing the intrusion, the Yuqing Sect's Protective Mountain Array activated on its own, snapping a milky-white light barrier over the entire sect in an instant.

The violent cold air collided thunderously with the light barrier.

As the two powerful forces clashed, wild shockwaves surged outward across a radius of several hundred li. Distant rogue cultivators who sensed that something was wrong fled screaming in every direction, not daring to stay a moment longer.

Standing atop the frozen mountain gate, Jiuyou licked his lips and closed his eyes.

He felt the increasing number of divine souls he had recently devoured pouring into his sea of consciousness like trickling streams. He was going to refine these souls, turning them into nourishment for himself or storing them to condense into refined spirits.

His slaughter naturally served another purpose:

According to the research of Nether Luo True Lord, if the Nether Soul Spirit Mushroom was to replace the soul of a Nascent Soul Late Stage cultivator, it had to absorb a vast quantity of divine souls—a process that easily took thousands or even tens of thousands of years.

But this process could be artificially manipulated by refining those captured souls into refined spirits, and then using the Spirit Velvet as a carrier that could automatically fuse and absorb them. Accumulated over time, this could foster a substitute convincing enough to pass for the real thing.

Even if the Spirit Velvet couldn't be found, it didn't matter. After all, if he were to cast that Deity Transformation Forbidden Art in the future, increasing its probability of success would inevitably require the 'enthusiastic assistance' of a large number of 'cultivators'...

And these required a massive amount of souls.

Jiuyou opened his profound eyes and looked toward the depths of the Yuqing Sect.

There, even more prey was waiting for him.

"Hahaha—!"

He laughed heartily amidst the frost and blood.

"Souls. Right, this seat needs more souls. Since you of the Yuqing Sect love playing your little tricks, I'll just use you as the first targets. Hahahaha..."

Before the mountain gate of the Yuqing Sect, corpses littered the field.

Frozen severed limbs were scattered everywhere. Dark red blood seeped from shattered bodies, meandering across the ice and converging into a glaring pool of blood.

Countless frozen corpses of cultivators lay with contorted faces, their eyes wide in death.

Shattered dharma artifacts and scattered storage pouches, mingled with minced flesh and ice shards, covered the entire flight of stone steps.

The cold wind whimpered, swirling up scarlet snow foam like an Asura purgatory.

A blood-red figure, wrapped in ghostly cyan chains upon which flickered eerie blue flames, stood eerily amidst the pool of blood.