Chapter Eleven: Pursuing the Soul Imprints
The Five Soul Essences, along with the spirit essences at the Tribulation stage from various planets, ambushed the powerful cultivators at the Mahayana stage or late Tribulation stage of the Ten Great Sects, enabling many of those spirit essences at the Tribulation stage to further enhance their strength.
At this time, the five soul essences gathered together and hid on a planet in an outer region. The spirit essences following them were all those at the Tribulation stage on this planet, numbering in the hundreds. The five soul essences also possessed their own intelligence; by going to various planets and discovering that all the powerful cultivators from the Ten Great Sects had fled into space, they realized their attack plans had been exposed.
Thus, the five soul essences united, gathering together to launch a joint attack using their combined strength, aiming to eliminate the cultivators of the Ten Great Sects one by one.
The soul essences and spirit essences remained hidden underground. Qiu Rui, along with the powerful cultivators from the Yingtian Sect, had already arrived on this planet. The group of eleven flew through the air, scanning for any activity on the planet. At this point, Qiu Rui, who was at the Human-Immortal level, had concealed his aura, with only the subtle energy fluctuations of a Earth-type Mahayana cultivator visible among the ten members of the Yingtian Sect as they flew leisurely.
The group flew above a patch of grassland. Suddenly, the five soul essences, who had been lurking underground, burst out of the soil simultaneously and attacked the five Mahayana cultivators in the air. The Golden Soul Essence took the form of a golden long sword; the Wood Soul Essence took the form of a wooden spear; the Water Soul Essence took the form of a crescent ice blade; the Fire Soul Essence took the form of a burning torch; and the Earth Soul Essence took the form of a sharp stone axe.
These five soul essences attacked together, aiming to defeat the seven Mahayana cultivators at once. Of course, at this moment, they were unaware that Qiu Rui, at the Human-Immortal level, had disguised himself as a Mahayana cultivator. The Earth Soul Essence’s first target was Qiu Rui.
Following the attack by the five soul essences, the hundreds of spirit essences at the Tribulation stage also took to the air and simultaneously attacked the four powerful cultivators from the Yingtian Sect who were at the late Tribulation stage. Ying Hua and the other three late Tribulation-stage cultivators, upon seeing the appearance of the soul essences, seemed to have received orders in advance. Before the spirit essences could attack them all at once, they teleported away.
The hundreds of spirit essences flew in the air, completely unaware that they should have returned to the ground. By this time, the Golden Soul Essence, Wood Soul Essence, Water Soul Essence, and Fire Soul Essence had already entered the bodies of the four Mahayana cultivators. They quickly located their souls and swallowed them, killing the four instantly.
As for the Earth Soul Spirit, it was a bit unlucky—it actually attacked the human immortal Qiu Rui. When Qiu Rui saw five Soul Spirits appearing at once, he was almost driven mad with joy. If he could capture all five, he would be the only one among the ten who could pinpoint Qu Yi’s location at any time, giving him the chance to capture Qu Yi alive. Once he knew Qu Yi’s location, he was confident he could capture him alive, as he also possessed a secret technique to disguise his own aura as that of spiritual energy, allowing him to appear suddenly beside Qu Yi and capture him alive without anyone noticing. But for now, he still had to deal with this Earth Soul Spirit attacking him. “Soul Spirits, your carefree time is over,” Qiu Rui suddenly dispersed his aura and shouted loudly. Then, extending his right hand with his palm open, he pressed down, blocking the Earth Soul Spirit flying toward him while also creating an Earth domain that trapped the Spirit within it. The Earth Soul Spirit, realizing that its repeated attacks had failed and it couldn’t move at all, immediately panicked. Its axe-like body tried to struggle but remained motionless. Since it was a soul-type creature, it couldn’t even make a sound. Qiu Rui’s Earth domain not only trapped the Earth Soul Spirit but also confined the space around his own body, thus locking in the space where the four Great Perfection-stage beings were located as well. After devouring the souls of those four beings, the Gold Soul Spirit, Wood Soul Spirit, Water Soul Spirit, and Fire Soul Spirit were horrified to find they couldn’t move either. They struggled like the Earth Soul Spirit but to no avail. “Haha, five Soul Spirits, you mere soul-type creatures yet daring to occupy the entire Five Souls Desolation. Now that you’ve encountered me and are trapped in my Earth domain, you’ll never be able to escape again,” Qiu Rui said triumphantly. Then, he gently moved his palm, and the five Soul Spirits in the domain were suddenly brought together. Bringing them together personally might turn out to be the most regrettable decision Qiu Rui would make in the years to come. When the five Soul Spirits were gathered together in the domain, their panicked expressions vanished instantly. Suddenly, they connected end to end, as if becoming one entity.
Qiu Rui immediately sensed something was wrong! The five soul spirits used some unknown secret technique—outside their domain, those hundreds of spirit spirits still flying in the air suddenly merged into one. Then, all the spiritual energies in that space converged, instantly extracting the primal energy from them and rapidly forming five primal knives. These five primal knives simultaneously struck into Qiu Rui’s Earthly Element domain. The Earthly Element domain was actually a manifestation of Earthly Element primal energy, filling the entire space with it to create a stable field of such energy. The cutting power of the five primal knives also relied on primal energy as their attack method, quickly breaking through Qiu Rui’s Earthly Element primal energy. Seeing the Earthly Element domain collapse, the five soul spirits immediately flew into the ground and vanished. Qiu Rui was stunned, then filled with rage. He swung his palms like swords and knives swiftly, sending flashes of dazzling yellow primal energy blades through the starry sky to seal off those hundreds of spirit spirits in the transition phase. With the five soul spirits escaped, Qiu Rui had no choice but to exterminate them to calm his anger. It turned out that both spirit spirits and soul spirits originated from primal energy. Primal energy was the deepest and most essential essence among all spiritual energies in the world, which was also the origin of their names. Thus, spirit spirits and soul spirits could naturally extract primal energy and use it to launch attacks. Earlier, when Qiu Rui’s Earthly Element domain targeted the five soul spirits, it could counter any primal energy attack from any of them. But when the five combined, they were able to unleash the Five Elements Primal Destruction Technique, which could not only break through various elemental domains but also dismantle even those containing hidden magical principles. “I’m such an idiot! How could I let this opportunity slip away?” Qiu Rui pounded his chest in frustration as he hovered in the air. But it was too late to regret—the five soul spirits had escaped and would never attack him again. Moreover, these five soul spirits were highly intelligent; realizing that Qiu Rui had pretended to be a Great Perfection-stage being among the crowd, they could also infer that the other nine Human Immortal-level powerhouses might have done the same. Therefore, after escaping, they immediately decided to return to the central area of the Five Souls Desolation and head back to their home planet, refraining from attacking these foreign powerhouses anymore. So, the five soul spirits flew toward the five core planets in the central area.
After complaining for a while, Qiu Rui suddenly remembered something and smiled. “I almost forgot—that Earth Soul Spirit seems to have been hit by my Pursuing Soul Seal. Now I can keep tracking it.” It turned out that when Qiu Rui delivered his first palm strike, he secretly used the Pursuing Soul Seal to implant his own soul mark inside the Earth Soul Spirit’s body. Soon after, Qiu Rui ignored the remaining six members of the Ying Tian Sect and flew into space. By sensing the fluctuations of his own soul, he quickly determined the Earth Soul Spirit’s flight direction. After diving underground, the Earth Soul Spirit emerged on another piece of land and headed straight into space, constantly moving toward the center of the Five Souls Desolation. Yet, it never imagined that Qiu Rui was following its path the entire time. As for the other nine Human Immortal-level powerhouses, they took the warriors from their nine sects to nine different planets but found no trace of the soul spirit. Soon, these nine powerhouses returned to space and realized Qiu Rui was not there. They then went to the planet where Qiu Rui had gone and found Ying Hua and the other six powerhouses from the Ying Tian Sect. After pressing them hard, they finally learned that Qiu Rui had flown to the center of the Five Souls Desolation. Naturally, they guessed that Qiu Rui must have gone to capture the soul spirit. So, they ignored the warriors from the other nine sects and immediately used their teleportation skills to head toward the center of the Five Souls Desolation. … Qu Yi had no interest in paying attention to the activities on the outer planets. At that moment, he arrived at the Reincarnation Planet and was drawn to a strange soul-absorbing breeze. These drifting winds carried an aura that absorbed souls, seemingly trying to lure the souls of cultivators and gradually strip them away, killing them slowly. “It’s indeed strange. There must be some soul-related treasure on this Reincarnation Planet,” said the Artifact God happily. Qu Yi quickly regained his composure and stopped being affected by the breeze. Then he smiled and said, “Artifact God, could a soul-related treasure make my soul stronger and increase the speed of my spiritual perception?” Clearly, Qu Yi already knew that even after scanning the Four Elements Dao Formation, he would still need to scan the Five Elements Dao. Therefore, he wanted to boost his spiritual perception speed further to save time when scanning the Five Elements Dao later. “It’s possible!” the Artifact God replied with a faint smile. Hearing this, Qu Yi’s lips curved into a smile as he looked forward to the adventures on the Reincarnation Planet.