Roar!
A massive ancient soul beast, with two horns atop its head and a body as large as a mountain, let out a heaven-shaking roar.
But it wasn't exuding dominance — it was frantically struggling, pouring every ounce of its strength into fleeing.
Its tail was firmly gripped by a single ordinary-looking hand.
Then, from that hand, an utterly terrifying suction force erupted. A deafening roar, like a hurricane howling, and in just a few breaths of time, the entire ancient soul beast was completely devoured by that hand.
The hand's owner let out a satisfied burp.
It was none other than the Eighth Transformation Soul Path cultivator, the master of Soul Peace Grotto-Heaven — Hanhui Fairy.
Her eyes were now entirely black, and wisps of dark qi coiled around her entire body. After a moment, she retracted her killing move, and all the dark qi receded. From the outside, she appeared perfectly normal.
But in truth, her body had already been seized by Demon Venerable Spectral Soul, who had devoured her soul.
Spectral Soul sighed. "Full again."
With Hanhui Fairy's identity, he immediately enjoyed far greater freedom. Over these past days, he had been actively devouring ancient soul beasts, and his strength was skyrocketing, recovering at a truly astonishing pace.
But Spectral Soul was not satisfied.
Devouring ancient soul beasts was not the same as using Courage Gu. Spectral Soul needed to digest them; otherwise the ancient soul beasts would contaminate his soul, causing him to lose his sanity and ultimately transform into a deformed soul beast monstrosity.
The ideal choice for strengthening one's soul was, of course, the Courage Gu atop Soul Mountain. Using it required no digestion at all — absorption was nearly instantaneous.
The more Spectral Soul yearned for Soul Mountain, the more desperately he wanted to find Fang Yuan and kill him!
"Where exactly did that little brat Fang Yuan run off to?" Every time Spectral Soul thought of Fang Yuan, he couldn't help but narrow his eyes.
Zi Wei Fairy had gathered intelligence on Bai Ningbing and already reported it to Spectral Soul.
For Spectral Soul, this was excellent news.
Zi Wei Fairy had already found a lead on Ying Wuxie. As long as he systematically gathered Fang Yuan's subordinates one by one, he would obtain enough clues to deduce Fang Yuan's location.
"Fang Yuan obtained so many Heavenly Dao Marks, yet after the Fate War he's remained completely unseen. His situation must be absolutely dire. This is the perfect opportunity to capture him."
Spectral Soul had once been a Venerable. He told himself that even at his peak, refining that many Heavenly Dao Marks would have been a rather difficult task — let alone the current Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan was powerful, but he was not a Venerable, after all. His understanding of Heavenly Dao Marks was quite limited.
"But the measures I planted in the Supreme Immortal Aperture Gu can no longer be relied upon."
Spectral Soul understood that Heavenly Dao Marks evolved naturally. The tricks he had secretly planted were fundamentally Dao Marks themselves — being altered by the Heavenly Dao Marks was inevitable.
Once altered, his measures would naturally become ineffective.
If they were still effective, why would Spectral Soul go through all the trouble of hunting down Fang Yuan's former subordinates? He would have gone straight to Fang Yuan's doorstep.
"Wait half a month, and I can devour another ancient soul beast to help restore my strength... hmm?" Spectral Soul was in the midst of planning when he suddenly received a transmission.
His face immediately lit up with delight. "Wu Shuai has called a meeting of all Eighth Transformation Gu Immortals from the Two Heavens Alliance to discuss important matters, and Hanhui Fairy is among those invited. Excellent — Wu Shuai has deep ties with Fang Yuan; he might very well be one of Fang Yuan's clones. Once I enslave him, I might be able to lure out the real Fang Yuan."
Spectral Soul set out immediately, wearing Hanhui Fairy's identity, and departed Soul Peace Grotto-Heaven. After a lengthy journey, he descended to the East Sea Xia Family's main base.
In the public blessed land, he smoothly entered the Dragon Palace and met with Wu Shuai.
Wu Shuai sat in the seat of honor while the rest were arranged in two columns. On the left was Vice Alliance Leader Ice Crystal Immortal King, and on the right was Xiao Hejian, an Eighth Transformation powerhouse who had recently defected to their side.
Below the two of them were the leaders of the various variant human Gu Immortal factions.
The human Grotto-Heaven masters were ranked even further back. Hanhui Fairy's position, for instance, was nearly at the very gates of the Dragon Palace.
From this arrangement of standing positions alone, one could discern the political dynamics of the Two Heavens Alliance. The variant humans clearly held the mainstream, controlling the vast majority of political power. The human Gu Immortals were firmly relegated to a subordinate position. It wasn't that they hadn't fought back — but there was nothing to be done. After all, Wu Shuai was of the Dragonman race; it was only natural for him to favor the other variant humans.
"If I killed every last one of them, how much of my strength would I recover?" Spectral Soul's gaze swept across the room, and killing intent surged in his heart.