Chapter 70: Youhuo Ling

After killing Qing Xu and Shan Zhen, Qu Yi immediately entered the Dimensional Sphere, then used it to traverse several areas of true fire and reach the Purple Flame Heavenly Fire region. The Dimensional Sphere was of extremely high quality and could not be destroyed by any true fire or heavenly fire, allowing it to travel smoothly. Naturally, it also quickly reached the vicinity of Tai Ming and Ying Hua.

However, Qu Yi remained inside the Dimensional Sphere and did not block Tai Ming and Ying Hua’s attacks until the two launched a powerful strike that interrupted the Purple Flame Heavenly Fire Dragon and forced it to release a mid-grade immortal artifact. Only then did Qu Yi suddenly emerge from the Dimensional Sphere. As soon as he appeared, he held up the Star Luo Ding and covered the red silk before it could attack. Having successfully obtained the silk, Qu Yi spoke to Tai Ming and Ying Hua.

“Both of you, you’ve worked hard. I’ll take this mid-grade immortal artifact,” Qu Yi said, his tone tinged with pity as he looked at Tai Ming and Ying Hua with deep sympathy.

“Qu Yi, you…”

Tai Ming and Ying Hua were furious to see that the mid-grade immortal artifact they had struggled so hard to obtain was taken away by Qu Yi, who appeared out of nowhere. Even if all the seawater in the cultivation world were poured out, their anger could not be calmed. Yet, despite their anger, they dared not question Qu Yi.

The memory of Qu Yi killing Shan Zhen with a single sword was still fresh in their minds. Now, they could only pray that he wouldn’t pull out the Shang Jin Sword to attack them, so they didn’t dare to get angry or confront him.

Qu Yi was surprised to see that Tai Ming and Ying Hua weren’t angry at him. Before, whenever they saw him, they were determined to destroy him no matter what. Now, they seemed to have changed their attitude.

Soon, Qu Yi realized that Tai Ming and Ying Hua were afraid of him.

“Tai Ming, Ying Hua, you have two choices: submit to me or die. Now, you can make your choice,” Qu Yi said with a sudden smile.

Qu Yi could already sense that his journey to the Vast Heavenly Immortal Mansion was coming to an end. Outside the mansion, there were likely powerful beings from the Immortal Realm, Demon Realm, and the Nine Realms waiting for him. If he could plant his own people within the Ten Major Sects, he might be able to contend with those powerful beings from the higher realms.

Upon hearing this, Tai Ming and Ying Hua’s faces turned pale with anger. They were sect leaders, after all. From Qu Yi’s words, it seemed he wanted them to become his slaves, planting soul shackles in their souls so they would be under his control forever.

If they refused, they would be attacked by Qu Yi.
Surrender? Resist?
Tai Ming and Ying Hua both frowned deeply, looking distressed and agonized—clearly, having to weigh these two outcomes was extremely painful for them.
“Hmph, thinking we’ll submit to you is just a dream. Even if I self-destruct as a Yuan Ying, I’ll still injure you badly,” Tai Ming suddenly shouted angrily.
Influenced by Tai Ming, Ying Hua immediately took out a sword-shaped lower-grade immortal weapon and watched Qu Yi warily.
Qu Yi smiled faintly, already holding the Shang Jin Sword in his hand. With two quick swings, two beams of sword light suddenly appeared in front of Tai Ming and Ying Hua.
Immediately afterward, countless square spaces formed around them, trapping the two leaders tightly.
“I know you two won’t submit easily, so I’ll force you to. You don’t have many spirit stones left, do you? Well, I’ll use them all up. If you still refuse to submit, I won’t spare your lives,” Qu Yi said with a faint smile.
From outside the mountain range, where Qing Xu and Shan Zhen were staying, Qu Yi had already deduced that Tai Ming and Ying Hua had few spirit stones left. Naturally, after exhausting their true energy, they wouldn’t be able to recover it for long by absorbing spirit stones.
Trapped in those square spaces, no matter how hard Tai Ming and Ying Hua tried to attack with their lower-grade immortal weapons, it was useless—they couldn’t destroy those independent spaces. Even if they tried to self-destruct, it would only damage a few spaces, causing no harm to Qu Yi at all.
Thus, Tai Ming and Ying Hua were trapped in those spaces, desperately resisting waves of sword energy while their true energy rapidly depleted.
Qu Yi had the Xing Luo Ding, which already contained a vast amount of gold-element energy. He kept drawing on this energy while continuously swinging the Shang Jin Sword, maintaining the spatial lockdown around them.
Tai Ming and Ying Hua kept taking pills, and high-grade spirit stones kept appearing in their hands to replenish their true energy, which was then quickly spent resisting the sword energy.
Half a day passed.
By now, Tai Ming and Ying Hua no longer had any spirit stones left, and all the pills in their space rings had been consumed.
Their true energy was about to run out!
“Tell me, are you willing to submit to me?” Qu Yi asked with a faint smile.
Trapped in those spaces, Tai Ming and Ying Hua had completely exhausted their true energy. They collapsed weakly, their spiritual eyes fixed on Qu Yi.
Seeing that they didn’t respond, Qu Yi narrowed his eyes, his killing intent evident. He immediately flew over to them.

Shang Jinjian’s sword tip was aimed straight at Ying Hua’s throat.
“I… surrender!” Ying Hua, staring at Qu Yi’s icy gaze, knew that any further hesitation would cost him his life.
At this moment, Ying Hua truly understood that the leaders of the ten major sects meant nothing in Qu Yi’s eyes—kill them if you wanted to; there was no need to regret it.
Qu Yi smiled faintly before using his spiritual consciousness to enter Ying Hua’s vital spirit, locating his soul and imprinting a soul seal upon it.
The soul shackles were successfully activated.
Ying Hua stood trembling beside Qu Yi, clearly still struggling to accept this sudden change in his status, undergoing intense psychological torment.
Meanwhile, Qu Yi smiled lightly as he looked at Tai Ming.
Back then, as the head of the Taiyuan Sect’s enforcement team, Qu Yi had been imprisoned by the cold-hearted Tai Ming. Now, Qu Yi had the power to imprison Tai Ming in return.
Seeing Shang Jinjian’s sword pointed at him, Tai Ming knew Qu Yi was waiting for his response.
“I surrender!” Tai Ming suddenly shouted.
As soon as he spoke, a cold glint flashed in his eyes as he lowered his head, seemingly plotting something.
Qu Yi smiled again and sent his spiritual consciousness into Tai Ming’s vital spirit, directly penetrating his soul.
“Haha, Qu Yi! You want to use soul control on me? Let me show you my own soul magic—soul backlash!” A resonant voice came from within Tai Ming’s vital spirit.
It turned out that Tai Ming had agreed to Qu Yi’s request only to trick him into letting his spiritual consciousness enter his own vital spirit. Then, using his advanced soul realm after overcoming tribulations, he planned to counterattack Qu Yi’s spiritual consciousness and plant soul shackles within it.
Tai Ming still wanted to resist Qu Yi and even enslave him.
As soon as the words faded, Tai Ming’s soul seemed to transform into a spiritual entity, wrapping around Qu Yi’s spiritual consciousness. Then, following that thread, Tai Ming’s own spiritual consciousness entered Qu Yi’s vital spirit and found his soul.
Just as Tai Ming tried to counterattack and control Qu Yi by leveraging his superior soul realm, a golden light suddenly appeared in Qu Yi’s soul—the Weapon God finally intervened.
The Weapon God’s soul emitted a tangible golden light.
Tai Ming’s spiritual consciousness was instantly destroyed by the light, and that golden light entered Tai Ming’s soul, planting the soul shackles there.
Soon, the entire space fell silent.

“Taiming, you thought you could hide your thoughts from me. Your soul realm is higher than mine, but you’ll never know how powerful the figures behind me are. You can never defeat me,” Qu Yi said with a sudden light laugh.

It was precisely because of the strength of the Soul God’s soul that Qu Yi dared to use his own spiritual awareness to enter Taiming’s soul.

Taiming’s face turned ashen. He now knew that within Qu Yi’s soul, there was a very powerful being. However, he couldn’t guess the exact identity of the Soul God.

With his soul under control, Taiming could no longer do anything, no matter how unwilling he was—even attempting to self-destruct with his primordial embryo was impossible.

“I lost,” Taiming said softly through gritted teeth, in pain.

Qu Yi smiled faintly and then said, “Taiming, Ying Hua, you two can leave this Flaming Mountains Realm now. From now on, you can act as before—remain my enemies. When I want to contact you, I’ll come to you myself.”

Qu Yi planned to use these two as insiders, so he naturally didn’t want their identities exposed. He still wanted them to act as usual, drawing their swords at the moment they saw him.

“Yes, master!” Taiming and Ying Hua replied with embarrassed expressions.

Immediately afterward, Qu Yi flew away.

Taiming and Ying Hua also flew out of the Flaming Mountains and returned to the Liuhe Hall.

Qu Yi, on the other hand, entered another world through a wall of light.

This world was the one that Jin Xiong, Feng Han, and Cang Huang—the three cultivators of magic—had entered together.

Upon entering the wall of light, Qu Yi landed in a world of flat terrain. The entire world was nothing but barren yellow soil, devoid of any vegetation.

“Welcome to the Underground Maze Realm. There is only one entrance to the maze, and at the exit lies a spatial teleportation array,” Emperor Hao’s voice suddenly rang out.

Hearing this, Qu Yi understood the general situation of this world: the surface was an endless plain, with an entrance somewhere in it. Below that entrance lay a maze, and only by passing through it could one find the spatial teleportation array to leave this world.

“Heh, mazes? I’ve encountered many of them. But first, I should claim ownership of the mid-tier immortal artifact I obtained from the Flaming Mountains Realm,” Qu Yi said with a faint smile.

Immediately afterward, he took out the red silk from where he had stored the Xingluo Ding and dropped a drop of blood onto it. The blood quickly fell onto the silk, which suddenly seemed to come to life, floating gently in the air.

“Mid-tier immortal artifact, Youhuo Ling—congratulations!” Emperor Hao’s voice came as expected.

Qu Yi obtained another mid-grade immortal artifact.