Martial Peak

In this white void, everyone was like headless flies, so the Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess had once again come over to talk to the only person she knew, Yang Kai.

Yang Kai slowly shook his head before suddenly turning to look at her and chuckling.

“What are you laughing at?” The Saintess frowned, “I suddenly found that you’re quite hateful.”

“Then why do you keep trying to talk to me?”

“I don’t know anyone else here, and if they were to recognize me as a Saintess…” Since she came here, she had been hiding her identity, not daring to show her true face to anyone here; After all, the masters of the Seven Family Alliance had all come to welcome her when she first appeared in this island chain and would definitely remember her appearance.

As a Saintess, she had been held up as a symbol of nobility and purity, if today’s matter were to be spread out, not only would it damage her reputation as a Saintess, but even the majesty of Nine Heavens Holy Land would be tarnished.

Therefore, she was quite worried someone would recognize her, and even if she didn’t have a particularly good opinion of Yang Kai, he was really the only one her she could consult with.

“We probably can’t exit this place,” Yang Kai continued to shake his head as he let out a sigh.

“We can’t?” The Saintess’ beautiful face paled slightly, “Could it be we’ll be trapped in here for the rest of our lives?”

“Most likely!” Yang Kai nodded sternly.

“Don’t frighten me, I still haven’t found the next Holy Master yet…” The Saintess really began panicking. Through their few brief contacts, Yang Kai had realized that this silly girl was relatively naive and didn’t understand the cruel and sinister nature of the world; it was probably a result of her status and upbringing.

She was the exact opposite of Yang Kai, who from very young had become accustomed to trials and tribulation and could now face situations like this with a kind of calm indifference.

“I heard that the Holy Masters of your Nine Heavens Holy Land are all found outside your borders by you Saintesses, do you all have some special method of choosing who becomes your Holy Master?” Yang Kai suddenly asked curiously.

“Why would you ask that now? Naturally I have my methods!” The Saintess suddenly becomes somewhat vigilant, “This is something only we Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintesses can achieve, even if you ask me I won’t tell you anything.”

“I was just curious!” Yang Kai shrugged his shoulders, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to.”

The Saintess secretly breathed a sigh of relief, apparently quite worried that Yang Kai would continue to inquire about the secrets of the Holy Land. Nonetheless, she took the initiative to slightly distance herself from him.

Time passed and the more than a hundred cultivators continued to constantly search their strange environment, but none of them was able to uncover anything.

Gradually, anxiety, panic, and uneasiness began to set in and the cultivators became increasingly agitated as they wandered aimlessly around the white space.

The masters from the Seven Family Alliance also had ugly expressions.

They were well aware of the seriousness of the problem.

The light sphere everyone had been seeking had actually forcibly pulled all their Souls into this inexplicable space which seemed to have no way out; that meant their fate was die in this place!

Those who were present had cultivations of at least the Immortal Ascension Boundary Seventh Stage. Although their Souls being separated from their bodies wouldn’t be a problem for a short time, once a certain period had passed, without any care, their physical bodies would wither and die.

Once their physical bodies perished, their Souls would become rootless wood, and if they couldn’t find an appropriate vessel to inhabit, they would soon disappear.

Panic and fear of this eventuality began to subtly spread throughout the crowd.

Yang Kai stood back and observed; having felt the rising tension, he had quietly slipped out of the crowd and put some distance between him and everyone else, raising his vigilance as he did so.

The Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess also noticed the strange atmosphere and attached herself to Yang Kai; wherever he went, she would follow, keeping a not too close yet not too far distance from him.

Yang Kai paid her actions no mind and simply allowed her to do as she pleased.

After an unknown period of time, everyone had finally given up exploring their surroundings because there was simply nothing to find!

Everyone sat down where they were to take a break, though, their dark and gloomy expression said otherwise.

Suddenly, a quarrel broke out, it seemed like two cultivators had gotten into an argument and things had begun to escalate. They began shouting and cursing one another, their voices growing louder very quickly. This verbal spat was like a spark in a dry field, igniting the irritability of everyone around.

“Old bastard, if you hadn’t insisted on breaking that damn barrier, none of us would have fallen into this mess! Now that we’ve all been trapped in here, how are you going to compensate us for this?” Someone suddenly shouted towards Old Man Cheng.

With this man taking the lead, many other foreign cultivators began levying condemnations, all of them believing that this disaster was all Old Man Cheng’s responsibility.

There were even many people from the Seven Family Alliance who were giving Old Man Cheng unfriendly looks.

Old Man Cheng’s expression became grim as he sneered audibly, “Aren’t all of you being a bit unreasonable? Although it’s true I summoned all of you here, before breaking the barrier, none of you raised any objections or were forced to accompany us. Didn’t you all want to search the palace behind the barrier for treasure? Yet now that this has happened, you want to push all the blame onto this old Cheng’s head? ”

“No matter what, it was you who caused all of this, if you can’t find a way out of this place, you must pay with your life!”

“That’s right! You Cheng Family bastards are responsible for this mess, so you have to clean it up, otherwise we’ll make you pay the price!”

“The Seven Family Alliance has this responsibility!”

“Since we’re all going to die anyways, we’ll make sure you suffer for this first!”

Everyone seemed to be filled with righteous indignation and were now openly denouncing the Seven Family Alliance, putting on an aggressive stance as if a fight would break out at any moment.

Seeing the tide turn against him, Hai Wang Gu’s face became sullen, “Before coming here, this old master had said that benefits and risks coexist and that whether you live or die is your responsibility. All of you knew this yet still chose to come. My Seven Family Alliance has no obligation to protect your safety, what do your lives have to do with me?”

These words, at this time when emotions were running high, did not calm the crowd and instead inflamed the situation, Hai Wang Gu shirking all responsibility at this point only made him appear even less sympathetic.

However, this was exactly what the sly Old Man Cheng wanted, soon wearing a smile and turning to the first cultivator who had yelled at him and coldly declaring, “Wanting me dead with such meager skill? Foolishness!”

As he spoke, a sharp blade of Spiritual Energy shot out from Old Man Cheng’s Soul Avatar and instantly slashed into the foreign cultivator’s figure.

A scream rang out and the cultivator didn’t even have a chance to fight back before his Soul Avatar directly broke up.

This man was only was only an Immortal Ascension Boundary Eighth Stage cultivator, against the Second Order Transcendent Old Man Cheng, how could he possibly resist?

The crowd suddenly went silent, and the rioters from before all trembled in fear as they stared towards the spot where the previous cultivator had disappeared.

None of them had expected Old Man Cheng to act so ruthlessly, suddenly killing someone without any prior warning.

But soon, the people standing nearby where the unlucky cultivator had died wore strange expressions, their faces showing a look of unexpected happiness, as if they had just tasted the finest wine, the aura of their Soul Avatars even becoming slightly stronger.

“Hm?” Hai Wang Gu raised his brow as he stared at this scene fixedly.

At the same time, all the Transcendents present seemed to notice something surprising.

The Soul Avatar of the dead cultivator had broken up and transformed into strands of Spiritual Energy which had then been absorbed by the several nearby cultivators. Because they had absorbed this Spiritual Energy from the deceased cultivator, their own Souls had grown visibly stronger.

Yang Kai also saw this scene, and his mouth couldn’t help curling into a strange smile, quietly muttering under his breath, “It seems things are about to get interesting!”

“What’s going on?” The Nine Heavens Holy Land Saintess asked nervously, she was just following Yang Kai around at this point and hadn’t seen much of the scene just now, so Yang Kai suddenly making such a comment was a bit incomprehensible to her.

“It seems most people here are going to die!” Yang Kai smiled menacingly.

Even as he spoke these words, the Seven Family Alliance’s Transcendents quickly exchanged a glance and instantly understood what each of them was thinking.

An average cultivator found it many times more difficult to cultivate their Spiritual Energy than their physique or True Qi. If they didn’t possess a high grade Soul type Secret Art, they could only use pills to slowly nourish their Souls; such a process took many years to yield results though.

However, in this strange space, there seemed to be some inexplicable law that allowed the residual Spiritual Energy of any Soul Avatar that was destroyed to be swallowed up by others!

This was extremely tempting for anyone.

However, this situation was also accompanied by risks, when another’s Soul collapsed and scattered, the remnants would contain fragmented memories and experiences from that cultivator’s life. If one absorbed too many of these fragmented thoughts, their own personality and memory would likely be affect. In the most serious of cases, one might lose their sense of identity all together or even go completely insane.

Yang Kai had devoured the Soul remnants of many other cultivators before, but only after using his Demon Eye of Annihilation to purge these impurities from them, leaving behind only the pure Spiritual Energy and sentiment. If not for this, he would already have become a madman.

The benefits to his overall Spiritual Energy density were much smaller than directly swallowing these remnants, but the enlightenments about the Heavenly Way and Martial Dao could be completely preserved in this manner, something Yang Kai needed far more than simply improving his cultivation.

But everyone else present obviously didn’t have so many reservations. They had never seen a Secret Art that allowed a cultivator to directly devour the Spiritual Energy of others, even if there was one, it would be far too rare and precious for them to ever get their hands on.

After seeing the people around the dead cultivator receive such benefits, the Seven Family Alliance’s masters were inevitably tempted.

Glancing around at each other, they all quickly wore fierce grins.

The Spiritual Energy of many Transcendents suddenly erupted without any warning and. Since they didn’t possess their flesh and blood bodies here and couldn’t use any of their respective Martial Skills or artifacts, the only thing anyone here could use to attack another was Soul Skills!

Various Soul Skills landed upon the crowd, and before the many foreign cultivators had a chance to respond, more than a dozen of them were instantly killed, their Soul Avatars breaking apart.

The masters from the Seven Family Alliance rushed over to where these cultivators had died and madly devoured the Spiritual Energy which had been left behind.

Whether it was Old Man Cheng or Hai Wang Gu, their old wrinkled faces were filled with exhilaration and excitement.

In that moment, they felt themselves becoming stronger, absorbing the Spiritual Energy remnants of these dead cultivators’ Souls had saved them one or two years of cultivation!

They didn’t care one bit about these foreign cultivators’ lives and instead were eager to have all of them die; this way, not only could they strengthen their Souls, all the treasures obtained in the Ancient Ruins would belong to them.

Facing such temptation, naturally, they had no qualms about slaughtering everyone!