Chapter 8: Chasing the Starry Sky

Qu Yi walked on the planets in the inner region, using one part of his spiritual awareness to sense the surroundings, while the other five parts were used to scan the Four Elements Path.
As for Bai Man, Wu Yuan, Jin Qilin, and Huan Wu Die, they remained inside the Inch Realm Sphere—their exit was forbidden by Qu Yi.
In this Five Souls Desolation, spiritual essences were everywhere, invisible and intangible. If such essences entered their bodies, Qu Yi would have no way to enter and expel them, making it a very dangerous situation.
Thus, Qu Yi continued to walk alone across the planets.
The grasslands seemed endless, and soon he arrived at a magical place within them. On the flat green grass stood a towering, mature Crown Tree—over a thousand meters high, with leaves that shone like diamonds. From the outside, the tree resembled a crown formed by ten “W”-shaped leaves.
Qu Yi gazed at the Crown Tree, speechless for a moment, when suddenly the Spirit God transmitted a message through his spiritual awareness.
“Qu Yi, congratulations! You’re truly lucky. There’s a soul essence resting inside this Crown Tree right now.”
In the Five Souls Desolation, there were only five soul essences—entities akin to great transcendence-stage primordial spirits. After wandering aimlessly for a month, Qu Yi had already encountered one. If this was luck, it was more likely the soul essence had been waiting for him on purpose.
It turned out that the five soul essences could move freely throughout the entire Five Souls Desolation, traveling between various planets. All the spiritual essences on those planets were under their control, allowing them to quickly learn of any activity on each planet.
Qu Yi, at a mid-stage tribulation soul realm, had already devoured a mid-stage tribulation spiritual essence. This news spread quickly among the spiritual essences on that planet. As a result, no spiritual essences harassed him as he walked, but those on the planet had already reported his information and movements to the soul essences.
The soul essence inside the Crown Tree was the Golden Soul Essence.
Upon hearing the Spirit God’s reminder, Qu Yi immediately flew into the air. He didn’t want to fight this soul essence yet, as he still needed to use them to deal with the ten people from the upper realm and the ten powerful sects.

Because Qu Yi’s soul contained the Dimensional Ball, and the Artifact God resided within it, Qu Yi naturally had nothing to fear from the attacks of these soul spirits. However, once trapped by one of these spirits, it would lead to a fight to the death. In the end, with the help of the Artifact God, Qu Yi managed to subdue the spirit, and the other four spirits stopped attacking him.

Qu Yi’s goal was to capture all five soul spirits at once. So, he had to play it low, pretending to flee at the sight of any spirit and avoiding battle. Sure enough, as soon as Qu Yi flew into the air, the Golden Soul Spirit inside the Crown Tree detected him. It immediately flew out of the tree and rushed at Qu Yi like a golden sword in the sky.

The Golden Soul Spirit had evolved from a misty spiritual entity into a tangible form—a golden sword in shape. Qu Yi chuckled. Seeing that the spirit truly intended to kill him, he didn’t bother fighting back. Instead, he used instant teleportation to reach the starry sky and then employed the Planet Shift technique there. He thought a single teleportation would be enough to throw the Golden Soul Spirit far away, but as soon as he completed the Planet Shift and stabilized himself in the sky, he realized the Golden Soul Spirit had also arrived there. Although it hadn’t caught up to him, its flight direction was exactly toward him. It seemed capable of locking onto his location.

Qu Yi didn’t realize that in this Realm of Five Souls, both within planets and in the starry sky, there were various spiritual substances with mental fluctuations. And since these soul spirits dominated the entire realm, wherever Qu Yi was, those spiritual substances would transmit his location to the spirits.

“This spirit really can’t be shaken off. Do I have to retreat into the Dimensional Ball?” Qu Yi sighed helplessly in the starry sky.

Just as Qu Yi was frustrated, the ten powerful warriors searching for the soul compass he had left on ten planets also arrived in the starry sky. They detected Qu Yi’s presence and learned that he was being chased by a soul spirit. “Haha, this Qu Yi keeps escaping, but now he’s finally caught by a soul spirit. Once the spirit devours his core spirit, all his magical treasures will appear automatically. That’s when it’s our turn to claim them,” thought each of the ten warriors.

Undoubtedly, they were all convinced that Qu Yi couldn’t defeat the soul spirit, so they only needed to wait for him to be consumed before returning to the upper realm.

Qu Yi also spotted those ten beings from the upper realm and the powerful warriors from the ten sects in the starry sky. With a sudden smile, he turned around and instantly teleported to the central area of the Five Souls Perilous Realm. The Golden Soul Spirit never expected Qu Yi to avoid fleeing to the periphery of the realm and instead head toward its center, much to its surprise. The central area of the Five Souls Perilous Realm was home to numerous powerful spirits, including many at the Tribulation stage. The Golden Soul Spirit quickly turned and continued chasing after Qu Yi. The ten beings from the upper realm, who were far away in the periphery, watched Qu Yi’s movements. They were stunned for a moment before filling with anger. “This Qu Yi is truly audacious. He was already being chased by spirits in the inner area and now dares to fly toward the center.” “Don’t underestimate Qu Yi. He doesn’t want to be trapped within our ten people’s domain, so he dares not fly toward us.” “That kid Qu Yi knows we’re here to seize the treasures on him, so he deliberately flies toward the center of the Five Souls Perilous Realm, trying to lure us all in so that the spirits can hold us back while he uses that space-traveling artifact to escape.” “Does he think he can escape that easily? We’ve set up space teleportation arrays on various planets here. No matter where Qu Yi escapes to, we can catch up immediately. I’m curious to see how many times he can use that space-traveling artifact.” … The ten powerful beings from the Immortal Realm, Demon Realm, and Fiend Realm began communicating with each other. Soon, the ten beings from the upper realm arranged for the warriors from the ten sects to immediately set up space teleportation arrays on the planets surrounding the Five Souls Perilous Realm. Then, each of the ten beings carried a space teleportation array as they flew together toward the central area of the realm. The ten beings from the upper realm used space jumps and vanished quickly from the starry sky. The Great Perfection-stage beings and those in the later stages of Tribulation from the ten sects followed the plan set by the ten beings from the upper realm. They took the space teleportation arrays and went to the planets in the periphery of the Five Souls Perilous Realm, setting up one on each planet. Meanwhile, Qu Yi kept using the Planet Great Migration technique to fly rapidly toward the center of the realm. With the Star Luo Ding, an energy storage device, in his body, his vital energy remained abundant, so he didn’t have to worry about running out of energy while using this technique.

Although the Golden Soul Spirit was also very fast, it was much slower compared to long-distance teleportation techniques like Planet Shift. If Qu Yi’s speed was that of a rabbit, then the Golden Soul Spirit’s speed was that of a turtle. As a result, the distance between Qu Yi and the Golden Soul Spirit kept increasing. However, Qu Yi’s location remained under the Golden Soul Spirit’s control, so as long as he stayed still, the Golden Soul Spirit would surely be able to catch up. But now the situation had changed—it wasn’t the Golden Soul Spirit chasing Qu Yi anymore. The ten people from the Upper Realm had arrived first and, using spatial teleportation, had overtaken the Golden Soul Spirit and were now chasing after Qu Yi directly. Sensing the presence of these ten people from the Upper Realm, the Golden Soul Spirit immediately realized that with its current strength, it couldn’t defeat even one of them, let alone be surrounded by all of them. Suddenly, the Golden Soul Spirit disappeared, as if it had never been there in the starry sky. Throughout the starry sky, only Qu Yi was fleeing ahead, with ten people rapidly pursuing him. “Qu Yi, you can’t escape. Stop already,” called Zong Xi from the Immortal Realm. It turned out that these ten people from the Upper Realm, thanks to their formidable strength, were even faster than Qu Yi’s Planet Shift and were about to catch up with him. Teleportation mainly depended on the range of one’s spiritual perception—wherever the spiritual perception reached, the body could teleport there, though longer distances required much more vital energy. These ten people from the three realms were all powerful beings at the Human-Immortal level, their spiritual perception two ranks higher than Qu Yi’s mid-stage Soul Transformation realm. Naturally, no matter how much Qu Yi teleported, he couldn’t match them. Thus, the distance between the two sides kept shrinking. After hearing Zong Xi’s words, Qu Yi stopped in the starry sky and smiled faintly at the ten people. When they were almost at his side, he said, “Gentlemen, you’ve already entered the central area of the Five Souls Desolation. I’ll head back to the outer area first.” With that, Qu Yi activated Boundless Stars and disappeared suddenly. The ten people from the Upper Realm stared blankly at the spot where Qu Yi had stopped, then each of them showed a fierce gaze. “Qu Yi, you’ve crossed from the central area to the outer area using that teleportation artifact. Your vital energy must be exhausted by now. In the outer area, it’s time for us, the Great Perfection-level practitioners from the ten sects, to come into play.”

“Qu Yi, using such a trick once works, but it won’t work a second time. We ten all have space teleportation arrays, allowing us to return to the outer area immediately.”
“Everyone, since Qu Yi has already gone to the outer area, let’s go back together and try to catch him by luck.”
……
The ten from the upper realm immediately burst into mocking laughter, then landed on a nearby planet, set up space teleportation arrays, and promptly returned to the outer area of the Five Souls Perilous Realm.