The night was cool as water, and with just a gentle breeze passing, Lin Lei's figure had already traveled dozens of miles. Although the Dawson Trading Company's branch in the great canyon was several thousand miles from Dragon Blood Castle, for Lin Lei as he was now, several thousand miles was truly nothing at all.
The wind stopped, and only then did Lin Lei's figure condense and become clear.
Looking down at the sprawling valley below, especially that conspicuous great canyon — inside it was an important branch of the Dawson Trading Company. Just by sensing the wind, Lin Lei discovered that the great canyon held a large number of people.
"Slaves being delivered?" Lin Lei let out a cold laugh.
He now knew that the Dawson Trading Company had been purchasing large numbers of slaves to provide souls for that god-level powerhouse to refine.
"Although the Coiling Dragon Ring is only a damaged soul-defensive divine artifact, at least I only need to defend that gap." After more than a day of nurturing, the scale-like transparent membrane at the gap position — the patch formed by his spiritual force — had become quite sturdy.
Looking down, with a gust of wind, Lin Lei's entire body transformed into a breeze and dove downward.
Deep in the great canyon, inside a cold and sinister punishment chamber.
The floor of the punishment chamber was stained with dark blood. A bare-chested, bald man holding a butcher's cleaver stood in the chamber. On the wall behind him hung a crystal sphere, and inside the sphere churned thick fog.
A slave, blindfolded with hands bound, was pushed in by guards.
"Pfft." The bald man cruelly drove the cleaver into the slave's heart. "Ah~~" The hoarse, dry scream lasted only a second or two before weakening and dying.
Fast, precise, ruthless!
The slave was killed in an instant. The slave's dry wail faded after just a second or two before the body collapsed powerlessly. Guards immediately carried the corpse out.
The thick fog inside the crystal sphere roiled, and another soul had been added within.
"Next." The bald man licked the blood off his cleaver, his excitement growing.
The bald man loved this work. Ever since he had been assigned to it six years ago, he had become addicted to the sensation of killing. In six years, even he wasn't sure how many people had died by his hand.
"At least a million, definitely," the bald man thought to himself.
Six years of killing — hundreds a day, sometimes over a thousand. Over six years, the death toll exceeded a million. And in this great canyon, there were plenty more doing the same job as him. Though the bald man didn't know the exact number, he personally knew at least six other butchers.
"The fog inside this crystal sphere should be dense enough by now." The bald man glanced to the side.
He was very experienced — how many people to kill each day, at what density the fog in the sphere should reach, he knew it all clearly. But when he turned his head this time, he discovered —
The crystal sphere had become perfectly clear, without a trace of fog inside.
"Ah!" Cold sweat instantly broke out across the bald man's forehead and back. "What's going on? Where did it all go? That's impossible — that's impossible — nobody's been near here!" Even the bald man, bold as he was, felt his heart trembling with fear.
Yes, the souls inside the crystal sphere were gone.
Not just from this one bald man's punishment chamber — the collected souls within the crystal spheres in all the other punishment chambers had vanished as well.
Lin Lei had already descended into the great canyon, standing on the branch of a large tree.
"What — what's going on here?" Lin Lei was surprised. Through the Coiling Dragon Ring, he could clearly sense over twenty locations within a one-mile radius where large quantities of souls were gathered together. Yes, he sensed them through the Coiling Dragon Ring.
"这么 many souls?"
Lin Lei's brow furrowed. He understood that this had to be everything arranged by that god-level powerhouse — killing and collecting souls without stop.
"Hmph. This many killed in a single day — after several years, how many have been killed in total?" Just thinking about that number shocked Lin Lei. "This god-level powerhouse — how many methods did they use to collect this many souls?"
Lin Lei truly didn't know. The Grand Sorcerer had not only dispatched his nine silver-robed guards to collect souls, but had also taken control of the three most powerful trading companies on the Yulan Continent. The three companies together continuously delivered slaves and killed them to harvest souls.
After all, there was no shortage of slaves on the Yulan Continent.
With the three companies working together, gathering tens of millions of slaves over six years wasn't particularly difficult.
"Hm?" Lin Lei sensed that the Coiling Dragon Ring seemed to have some strange power that had locked onto the souls within those twenty-odd crystal spheres. He had a feeling that with just a single thought, he could seize all those souls into the Coiling Dragon Ring.
Lin Lei tried to seize them.
In an instant!
The vast multitude of souls that had been inside the crystal spheres all vanished — and appeared inside the Coiling Dragon Ring.
"This many souls? Over ten thousand, surely." The souls from the twenty-odd crystal spheres combined numbered over ten thousand. And these souls were directly devoured by the Coiling Dragon Ring. What shocked Lin Lei the most was that after swallowing all these souls, the Coiling Dragon Ring had actually refined them on its own.
Countless souls were refined and converted back into a large quantity of golden mist.
When Lin Lei's spiritual force merely touched this golden mist, it began to naturally absorb it.
"Chi chi~~" Enormous quantities of golden mist flowed along Lin Lei's spiritual force directly into his soul space.
"Saisler once said that once one's research into souls reaches a certain level, one can refine and absorb souls to strengthen one's own soul." Watching all of this, understanding dawned on Lin Lei. "This Coiling Dragon Ring can actually absorb souls — and refine them naturally as well."