572 Stealing Bodies
Fifty-five thousand miles was a huge distance. It took Ye Chen ten days to get from the East Royal City to the underground crack on his flying puppet. Luckily, he did not just waste the ten days, managing to make a couple of breakthroughs on his Sky Thunder Cut and Amaranthine Nature attack—the former reached eighty percent while the latter slowly caught up to eighty percent as well. Before, when his Sky Thunder Cut was at seventy percent, it was just as powerful as the Gold Resonant Radiance Art at ninety percent, when combined with Reverse Sky Thunder Cut. But now that it had reached eighty percent already, its power had doubled, even reaching beyond the completed Gold Resonant Radiance Sword Attack and becoming Ye Chen's ace attack.
Although Amaranthine Nature was not as powerful as the Gold Resonant Radiance Sword Attack, but in terms of technique, it would be something that the former could not compete with.
After the top two sword attacks had attained their improvement, Ye Chen's general power had reached the next level.
Unfortunately, ever since his Void Shattering Finger Attack reached fifty percent, it had been stuck right there. Ye Chen knew that there was a huge gap between the space mentality and the space profound. If he wanted to make the leap, it would be rather difficult; but once he made it through, his power would reach the next level again.
Putting away his flying puppet, he let out his soul power. With that, everything five hundred miles around him was within the detection area.
"Hm? No?"
Ye Chen frowned—even with his soul power detection, the underground crack was nowhere to be found.
"Perhaps it was false news?"
"No, the news from the pavilion would be worth their century-long reputation. Without one hundred percent certainty, they would not put it out there for sale. There must be something blocking my soul power detection."
"The Eye of the Soul, open!"
In between his eyes, a third silvery eye opened on Ye Chen's forehead. It was vertical and squeezed into a line, but that bright silver light still shot out from within, slicing through the surreal space. The scenery within few thousand miles appeared before Ye Chen's eye instantly.
Pap!
The third eye of Ye Chen was sealed shut suddenly, his face slightly pale.
"It is still too hard to control the third eye. With my power now, I can only make it work for a slight bit. It would still be impossible to make it work the way I want it to. I wanted to detect the scenery within five hundred miles, but somehow, I could see upto a few thousand miles away. It wasted a lot of my soul power. Once I fully train this, it would be able to show me whatever distance I want to peer through…Even things a million miles away would be right in front of me."
The Eye of the Soul was Ye Chen's special power. The farther Ye Chen reached in the Sea of Souls Realm, the more he could use this power, which would always be slightly more powerful than his soul power. Things that could not be detected by the soul power would be revealed under the Eye of the Soul easily. Even if it were activated for a fraction of a second, he was able to see everything within a few thousand miles.
In his brain, countless shadows flashed. What he saw in his third eye would not disappear; instead, it would be stored inside his brain, ready for a second examination at any time. Otherwise, since there was just too much information all at once, it would be impossible even for Ye Chen to tell what was what within that short period of time, since the memory of human beings was limited after all.
"There is indeed an underground crack here. No! It is just a small one, less than thousand miles in depth, it should be a result of the Epic War of the Sea of Souls Realm warriors."
"Secret river in the underground!"
"Spring water under the volcano!"
"Great canyon!"
"Inside the mountain, there seems to be black smoke coming out from here. There is a crack! That must be it!"
As countless images flashed past his eyes, Ye Chen's focus landed on the latest one. It was from a huge mountain three hundred miles away. Within the mountain, the tunnels overlapped each other like a net. On the right-hand corner of the mountain was a stone cave, with a few-hundred-meters-long crack there. Running black smoke came out from within; it seemed to have the power to devour soul power, which was why that Ye Chen did not spot it before.
…
A few hundred miles away, a massive, strange-looking bird beast was flying, one of its wing in flames. On top of it was a group of people: it was indeed Gu Ping in the lead.
"Mr. Ping, the Thousand Miles Soul Tracker Powder has burned out."
Behind Gu Ping, a person's expression changed drastically as he hurried to say.
Gu Ping frowned, "I thought the tracking distance of that powder was eighteen thousand miles? You were just saying that we were thirteen miles away from him. How come it is gone suddenly?"
"I have no idea! Perhaps he figured it out?"
"Impossible!" Gu Ping shook his head, "The powder is colorless, odorless, shapeless, and even shadowless, made from the top rank Shadowless Plant and other extremely valuable ingredients. If it is not a king warrior, it would be impossible to find out its existence. Plus, even if he found out about it, he could just simply throw it on the ground, and there would be no point in destroying it. It would be just telling us that he had found out about it, wouldn't it?"
"True."
"Perhaps he entered some kind of an unknown realm?" Gu Ping said as his expression darkened, "What we are heading for is exactly where he was. Perhaps he had gotten the same information in the pavilion as I did? Or perhaps there is some kind of relationship?"
"What does Mr. Ping plan to do?"
"No need to worry about him for now. Let's find the underground crack first. If he is also in there, then we can take care of two things at the same time." A cold light flashed in the deepest part of his eyes. No one really knew what Gu Ping was planning to do.
…
Arriving inside the mountain, Ye Chen soon found the entrance of the underground crack.
Black qi filled up the whole place while a cold, evil wind roared. He spread out his soul power, but most of it was devoured by a wave of invasive power as if there were a lot of horrifying "monsters" inside this black mist, continuously devouring his soul power.
"Thunder Bird Change!"
Ye Chen waved his right hand once. A thunder-based flying bird flapped its wings, drawing a perfect line in the air before it crawled into the crack.
Pap!
Countless thunder sparks exploded, and the blue light shone on for a long while.
Shoo!
There did not seem to be anything dangerous, so Ye Chen's body flashed once, jumping into that crack as well. Soon, that crumbling black qi filled that entrance up again.
Stepping on rough surface of the tough rock, Ye Chen could sense that the extreme Yin qi was crawling into his body through his feet. Being within this area of extreme Yin, normal humans would easily get sick and start to have hallucinations. Even tough men with boiling qi and blood would start to feel fear.
Ye Chen carried the slaughter sword spirit, so no evil could affect him. The second the extreme Yin qi entered his body, it was shattered by his pure slaughter qi.
There was a slope inside the underground crack, so Ye Chen followed the angle of the crack and slid down. He continued to wave his hand to cut down the sharp rocks that were in his way.
"Demonic Evil Stone!"
He glanced casually and spotted a silver black crystal rock, which was indeed the rare product of the extreme Yin place.
He waved his hand and the stone left the wall, landing in his hand.
"This place has the extreme Yin qi, which seems to be even more intense than that Extreme Yin Place from before. The Demonic Evil Stones exposed to this kind of qi would be top rank stones, probably worth four normal Demonic Evil Stones."
Putting the stone away, Ye Chen continued to slide down.
Soon, Ye Chen had obtained dozens of stones which would be great for mental purification to those who had yet not trained their martial spirit. It could make a difference even for those Sea of Souls Realm warriors with low rank martial spirits. But, Ye Chen's slaughter sword spirit was already peak level rank 4, so even the most powerful Demonic Evil Stone would be useless for him, unless he could get his hands on a Demon Evil Crystal.
Swoosh!
There was a water flowing sound coming from under the ground, making the underground crack even more eery.
Hearing that noise, Ye Chen's eyebrows flicked. According to the news he obtained from the pavilion, the Rootless Flower would appear next to the lake area.
With that thought in mind, he increased his speed, flying toward the source of the sound like a ghost in the dark, without a sound.
Soon, he stopped in front of an unknown river. Obviously, it was not a lake, and there were no light spots on the surface. Even when he spread out his soul power, it would actually be absorbed by the river. The deeper he dove, the more soul power was sucked in. After ten meters, he could not sense anything anymore.
He did not know where this secret river was leading to; the further it went, the deeper it reached as if it was connected directly with hell, making people feel extremely depressed.
"Ah!"
Suddenly, an extremely frightened cry was heard, sounding like a powerful evil ghost's groan. In this creepy environment, it would be enough to frighten a normal man to death.
Ye Chen frowned. After thinking about it, he decided to take a look.
Right then, a strange-looking snake with a tumor on its head jumped out of the water. He opened his mouth and a fishy poison qi shot out like arrows, right toward Ye Chen's forehead.
Ye Chen did not even look at it before shooting out a thunder lion.
The aggressive thunder power was indeed the archenemy of such evil beings. As a result, the snake was burnt severely as it fell back into the water.
Inside the dead silent cave was a young couple.
The young man had a frightened look on his face as if his eyes were about to pop out, already completely bloodshot. His mouth was wide open, and an inhuman cry continued to come out of his throat. He was surrounded by an evil atmosphere, and something seemed to have invaded his body from behind. With a casual glance, one could see that there was a blurry human shadow which could make a chill crawl down one's spine on looking at it.
"Let go! Go!"
The young man had one of his hand around his own neck while using the other to push the girl with all of his power.
"No!"
Tears ran down the girl's face. There was shock, fear, along with more unwillingness to give up and regret. She would not have come here if she knew how messed-up this place was.
"Go! Now! If you…don't…go now, I don't think I…can control myself. It is taking over my body…Go!"
"I will not leave without you!"
The girl was very tough; she waved her hand to attack behind the young man. But unfortunately, Zhen yuan could not reach the blurry human shape. Zhen yuan went all the way through, cracking down the cave a bit more.
"Ah!"
The young man's eyes went white, such that one could no longer see his pupils. The extreme Yin qi on his body had slowed down the air while only a hint of the human shadow remained outside.
Shoo!
The dead silent air shook lightly once and a blue-clothed young man appeared not far away from the two. The young man's pupils shone with silver light, carrying a slight surprise.
"Who are you? Go! If you don't, you will die with us!" The young woman was shocked first, then a hint of happiness rushed up from his heart, turning into desperation in the next second. She and the young man were both master level warriors, and even they could not handle this evil being; so, this young man standing before her could definitely not either. She did not want to drag another person down with them. She was not evil, after all.
"Perhaps I can do something."
The young man in blue appeared right in front of that troubled young man and put his hand on the latter's shoulder.