Chapter 572 - 39: Fire of Sin (Part 2)

After deterring the Continuous Prayer Meeting, Su Zhou had recently been traveling across the country, capturing or killing criminal Transcendents. Among them were quite a few hardened villains who had begun their Cultivation long before the Spiritual Energy Revival and had been committing evil for many years.

These Evil Ones, who hid in remote mountains and forests or lurked near the country’s borders, had long since disappeared. However, thanks to the ’Curse Detection’ Magic Technique Su Zhou developed a while back, some Veteran Patrols who were authorized to practice it quickly tracked the relevant Curses and located their hideouts.

Afterward, Su Zhou accompanied these Veteran Patrols to arrest all of them, and those who attempted to put up a desperate resistance were killed on the spot.

Every one of these hardened villains was monstrously evil, with the blood of dozens or more on their hands. Some had been drug smugglers, others arms dealers. But regardless of who they were, the Curses clinging to them were a red so deep it verged on black. The sheer malice radiating from them was instantly distinguishable from the Curses on Evil Ones who had not taken a life.

Su Zhou felt that ’even the Demon Generals of the Divine Wood World might not have carried more Curse than these hardened villains.’

However, after killing these Evil People, Su Zhou did not obtain any Evil Souls.

Of course, that didn’t really matter—after all, Su Zhou wasn’t doling out justice just for the sake of collecting Evil Souls. He had, however, discovered a principle governing the formation of Evil Souls for his Divine Technique.

’At the very least, an Evil Person has to be in the same major cultivation realm as me. Only then do they qualify to become an Evil Soul upon death. Otherwise, what little residual power they leave behind would be obliterated by my own Spiritual Pressure.’

After a quick test, Su Zhou confirmed his theory. For the Divine Technique of the Evil-Devouring Demon Lord to activate, the enemy had to be sufficiently powerful.

「Western Capital Qinxing Academy」

Inside his office at the Academy, Su Zhou stared at the stalk of wheat in his palm, deep in thought. ’So, if those Divine Beasts from the Beast God Realm hadn’t used the remains of their Primordial Ancestor in the end, they wouldn’t even have qualified to become Evil Souls for me to devour? How pathetic...’

’It makes sense, now that I think about it. For someone at my Commander Tier, the residual spiritual power left by an Extraordinary Tier is practically nothing.’

’For instance, if a typical Awakener has around five thousand points of Spiritual Power, a typical Extraordinary Tier individual has over one hundred thousand. The baseline difference is more than twenty-fold.’

’An Extraordinary High-tier or Extraordinary Peak cultivator can reach over a million, or even several million points—another gap of ten to dozens of times.’

’Among them, some with exceptional Talent—like the Golden-winged Bird Jin Qiong, a cultivator with a Divine Beast Bloodline and a True Body—are on another level. Before transforming into her True Body, she could easily surpass five million points of Spiritual Power. After transforming, she could even reach fifteen million. That’s equivalent to three thousand Awakeners, or one hundred and fifty cultivators who had just entered the Extraordinary Tier.’

And Su Zhou’s own Spiritual Power, at the Commander Tier, would only be greater than hers.

After advancing to the Commander Tier, his body and Soul began to merge with nature’s spiritual energy. He could influence the weather with a mere thought, and his total Spiritual Energy was simply beyond calculation.

At his level, the residual Spiritual Power left behind by a slain Extraordinary High-tier Monster was less than the amount he could gather just by breathing for a few seconds.

’As I grow stronger, obtaining Evil Souls will become increasingly difficult.’

Su Zhou had already come to this realization. A common Evil One could be incredibly weak, but an Evil One who managed to cultivate to the Commander Tier must possess some unique advantage. Otherwise, it would be impossible to reach such a level while simultaneously being universally despised.

To use an analogy, a common insect might be extremely fragile, perhaps even dying upon exposure to light. But to be as loathed as a cockroach and still avoid extinction, it must possess exceptional Life Force, escape abilities, and reproductive capabilities.

In any case, the higher one’s level of Cultivation, the fewer the number of potential Evil Souls.

But there was an upside to this—although there wouldn’t be a large number of ordinary Evil Souls, every single one Su Zhou harvested from now on would likely be a premium-grade soul containing an entire legacy.

A trade of quantity for quality.

As this thought crossed his mind, Su Zhou gazed at the stalk of wheat and sighed. ’To think, this might be the last soul I get to eat for a very long time... I’m almost reluctant to do it.’

"You’re just craving it, aren’t you?"

Yara, who was nearby browsing the news on Su Zhou’s phone, shook her head and retorted.

"So what if I’m craving it? I’m being honest, and that’s praiseworthy!"

Unfazed, Su Zhou closed his eyes and focused his mind for a moment. Then, he acted, extracting the ’True Soul of Those Who Desired Change’ from the single, small stalk of wheat.

A light of black and white flared into existence.

In the Beast God Realm, the old Order—the law of the jungle, where Divine Beasts controlled all resources—had been shattered by the arrival of humanity.

Before it could dissipate, the vast majority of the Desire Power from those who prayed for change had followed the unseen threads of Cause and Effect, gathering its most essential part into the stalk of wheat that symbolized Su Zhou’s pact with the Spirit Beasts of the Beast God Realm. There, it fused with the Evil Souls of numerous Divine Beasts, transforming into something far more mysterious and powerful: a ’True Soul’.

’The True Soul of Those Who Prayed for Change... I truly hope that one day, this world will have no more supplicants, and no more bearers of Curses.’

’I wonder... what is the true taste of your Souls?’

Neither eagerly anticipating it nor entirely indifferent, Su Zhou stared for a moment at the True Soul—a chaotic mote of stardust, one part Curse and one part Desire Power—before popping it neatly into his mouth.

The moment it entered his mouth, it felt like he had swallowed a shot of frigid, clear liquor.

A chaotic, black-and-white Spiritual Power surged down Su Zhou’s throat and spread throughout his entire being. Instantly, a vast, pure, and unbelievably mellow yet gentle power permeated his body and Soul.

The first sensation was the stinging pain of the Curse.

The blood-red Curse, condensed from the countless Spirit Beasts that had been devoured in the Beast God Realm, was so dense it resembled a storm cloud of near-blackness. Like the most potent liquor, it assailed Su Zhou’s Soul from every direction.

Su Zhou could almost see them: phantom after phantom of Wisdom Spirit Beasts that had been treated as food, used as tools for amusement, devoured, slaughtered, sacrificed, and torn to shreds. He saw them wailing in agony, their forms twisting in their final moments as they laid a Curse upon the Divine Beasts.

—They were the phantoms of the pitiable and the pathetic, who had never tried to resist, to revolt, or to find any other means of saving themselves. All they had left was the power to Curse.

Next came the Desire Power—frigid and clear, pure and bright, yet as ephemeral as an afterimage.

—It was the will of countless Wisdom Spirit Beasts who had been brainwashed and remolded, left with no method of resistance but to pray in their hearts. The phantoms of those who yearned for change, yet were powerless to achieve it.

The phantoms flickered and intertwined, light and dark alternating in a cycle.

And underpinning it all was something tangible: sin, burning like a Flame.

It was Karmic Fire.

—Legend says it is the Flame that burns eternally in Hell, a fire capable of incinerating all the sins of the mortal world and punishing all evildoers.

A Tearing pain erupted from the depths of Su Zhou’s Soul, yet he remained utterly silent.

Infinite Curse and Desire Power surged within Su Zhou. The immense, black-and-white Spiritual Powers clashed, mingling and colliding without neutralizing each other. And at the very center of that clash, the entity known as the ’Fire of Sin’ was born.

Like a silhouette drawn with a black pencil, a grim, cold, black-and-white flame began to burn in the depths of Su Zhou’s body and mind. The remnants of every Evil Soul he had ever devoured became the initial fuel for this Karmic Fire, allowing it to grow stronger until it finally transformed into a ’Divine Technique.’

—When a sinful thought arises, the Karmic Fire blazes. It is not another that burns you; you set yourself ablaze.

Karmic Fire is always born from the heart... No one who has not witnessed true sin could ever possess such a Divine Technique.

Unless one was a Demon Hunting Master for whom Demon Suppression had become a part of life, a Demon Subduer, or a Redemption Evil Demon who, though once deeply sinful, had chosen to repent—even if they were lucky enough to obtain a seed of Karmic Fire, they would be unable to nurture it, let alone transform it into a Divine Technique.

The excruciating pain in his Soul, born from the conflict between Curse and Desire Power, gradually subsided. A gentler, warmer power began to mend the wounds left by the Awakening of the new Divine Technique.

"Ah..."

After a long sigh, Su Zhou opened his eyes.

In that instant, what flickered within his Dragon Pupils was not a cyan-and-violet Spiritual Light, but a furiously burning, cold black-and-white flame.

Three minutes and twenty-seven seconds after swallowing the True Soul.

Su Zhou had mastered the ’Fire of Sin’.