Screams echoed without cease from within the cave, punctuated by the booming impacts of some massive creature colliding with the cavern walls. Shattered rock rained down like a storm.
"Brutal," Yang Kai remarked with a shake of his head.
The purple-furred creature beside him nodded in agreement.
Moments later, the commotion inside the cave gradually subsided until it faded to nothing.
The Soul Devouring Insects had clearly finished off the demonic beast within.
In the world of the Soul Wandering Mirror, any prey that caught the Soul Devouring Insects' attention never met a good end.
Once he was certain it was safe, Yang Kai stepped forward and entered the cave.
The interior was dim, but that posed no obstacle to his perception. He was, after all, a spiritual soul form — a sweep of his Divine Sense imprinted everything inside directly into his mind.
The cave was neither deep nor especially spacious. Along the way, the place was in utter disarray, with remnants of desperate struggles scattered everywhere. The cave's owner had clearly suffered terribly at the hands of the Soul Devouring Insects, thrashing about violently before its end.
Yang Kai didn't even know what kind of demonic beast had made its lair here. By the time he arrived, the creature had already been devoured clean, not even a scrap left behind.
In his current state, he could no longer absorb the Origin of Souls, so he hadn't instructed the Soul Devouring Insects to preserve any.
After recalling the insects, Yang Kai began to examine the cave's contents.
His Divine Sense swept through — and found nothing of note.
There were no spirit fruits or other treasures inside. It seemed to be nothing more than a resting place for a demonic beast.
The discovery was mildly disappointing, but Yang Kai didn't dwell on it.
After all, not every powerful demonic beast guarded a treasure…
Just as he was about to turn and leave, his body suddenly froze. His gaze locked onto a particular spot deeper in the cave.
Something unusual had caught his attention.
After observing it for a moment, Yang Kai walked over, bent down, and picked the object up from the ground.
The instant it touched his hands, his entire body jolted. His eyes blazed with brilliant light, and he drew in a sharp breath.
This sudden reaction startled the little purple creature, whose fur bristled on end as it scrambled away from Yang Kai in a panic.
"This is…" Yang Kai murmured, running his fingers over the object while extending his Divine Sense to probe it.
Before long, he had a clear picture of what it looked like.
It was a disc-shaped object, roughly the size of a millstone, its entire surface pristine white like flawless jade, without a single blemish.
When his Divine Sense had swept past it earlier, he hadn't detected anything remarkable — he'd simply noted its unusual shape and decided to take a closer look.
He had not expected that the moment it made contact with his hands, his spiritual soul would form an inexplicable resonance with the white jade millstone, sending a faint tremor through his entire spiritual soul form.
At the same time, a stream of pure, concentrated spiritual soul energy flowed gently from the jade disc into his body, enveloping him in a warm comfort reminiscent of soaking in a heated bath.
The sensation was deeply relaxing, exquisitely pleasant, utterly addictive — he felt as though he might float right off the ground…
To put it more precisely, the feeling was reminiscent of the sole intimacy he had once shared with Su Yan — a fusion of their very souls.
"Soul Jade!"
A cascade of thoughts flashed through his mind like lightning, and Yang Kai cried out in astonishment.
Though he had never laid eyes on a Soul Jade before, didn't know what one looked like, and had only heard of its existence from Gao Xueting a few days prior, in this moment he was one hundred percent certain that the object in his hands was exactly what Gao Xueting had described.
According to Gao Xueting, Soul Jades were treasures one could only hope to stumble upon, even within the world of the Soul Wandering Mirror. She herself had entered this place four times over the years, yet to date had obtained only a single mid-grade Soul Jade — and even that single piece had benefited her immensely.
Yang Kai didn't know how the grades of Soul Jades were classified, but he had a feeling that what he held was far beyond mid-grade. It was very likely high-grade — perhaps even supreme-grade!
Soul Jades were formed from the purest spiritual soul energy within the Soul Wandering Mirror's world. They could be easily absorbed by warriors, strengthening their Divine Sense without the slightest worry or hidden consequence.
Gao Xueting had made it sound so rare that Yang Kai hadn't considered himself lucky enough to find one.
Yet here he was, holding a piece in his very hands.
"Such a big one…" Yang Kai grinned, his excitement plain on his face, then immediately shifted to a look of mock distress. "How long will it take to absorb all of this?"
As he spoke, he had already begun drawing energy from the Soul Jade, eager to test whether it truly worked as marvelously as Gao Xueting had claimed.
A wisp of pure energy was born from the jade disc, flowing along his arms and into his body. A warm, golden comfort spread through every part of him, and an expression of blissful indulgence surfaced on his face.
And as the energy continued to pour in, Yang Kai discovered that it was exactly as Gao Xueting had described — absorbing the Soul Jade's energy caused absolutely no harm whatsoever to his spiritual soul form.
His current spiritual soul body was already in a state of saturation, completely unable to absorb any more Origin of Souls left behind by slain demonic beasts.
Yet drawing energy from this Soul Jade met with no resistance at all — it was as natural and effortless as water flowing downhill.