Chapter 934 – Counterattack
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Lin Ming fell into the cave dwelling. He was dressed in white and spotless. The clothes he wore were formed from countless threads of thunder twined together, unstained by earthly dust. If the cloth tore in battle, it would automatically repair itself. If given to a mortal, they would be invulnerable to attacks, and these clothes would be a priceless treasure passed down through their family.
The aura exuding from Lin Ming’s body was like the great and vast sea, unfathomable.
“Little Brother Lin, you’ve finally come!” Shibai was filled with emotion upon seeing Lin Ming again after so many years. Lin Ming’s strength had already surpassed his; the speed of his growth was unbelievable!
“Patriarch Shibai!” Lin Ming respectfully bowed in the ceremony of a junior to a senior. He didn’t pull rank just because his strength surpassed Shibai’s. When Lin Ming was younger and far weaker, if it weren’t for the protection of the Forsaken God Clan, there would have been no way he would’ve been able to escape Situ Haotian’s clutches. This was the equivalent of a lifesaving graciousness, something he would never forget in his life.
“Haha, Little Brother Lin doesn’t need to be so polite, I’m not sure I can afford it. We’ve already been waiting for you for quite some time now.” Shibai chuckled in an extremely good mood.
Beside him, Duanmu Qun, Feng Shen, Lan Xin, Fairy Snow Gale, and Shang Yuetian all greeted Lin Ming. Of these people, Lin Ming had already seen all of them before.
“Little Brother Lin, I’m Li Yuxiao, the ruler of the Seven Star Divine Kingdom.” The only one Lin Ming hadn’t met before was the Seven Star Divine Kingdom’s Divine Emperor, Li Yuxiao’s tone was very pleasant and relaxed, even forgoing his title of Divine Emperor.
“So it’s the Seven Star Divine Emperor. Me and Li Yifeng can also be considered good friends.” Lin Ming smiled in return.
“Haha, no need to be humble, we’re all family here. Quick, come and sit. We’ve asked you to come this time because we want to discuss with you a plan on how to deal with Yang Yun.”
Duanmu Qun’s sound transmitting talisman had only mentioned that Yang Yun was arranging some massive transmission array network to deal with Lin Ming; it hadn’t gone into much detail.
Lin Ming had an extreme understanding into Yang Yun, giving him a great advantage. That was because he had taken a great portion of the Ancient Devil’s memories. As they said, know yourself, know your enemy, and be invincible in battle.
Before, Lin Ming only had to hear Duanmu Qun’s message to faintly guess just what Yang Yun was plotting.
“Okay.” Lin Ming nodded. He also wanted to know what Yang Yun had been up to recently to confirm his own thoughts.
“But let’s not speak about Yang Yun’s matters first. Fairy Snow Gale, Sage Shang, I’ve discovered that there’s a battle spirit mark left in your bodies. What happened?”
A battle spirit tracing mark was not some profound and mystical tracing technique. Someone with a battle spirit could easily sense it, but it was impossible to erase if one’s will was weaker.
Hearing Lin Ming’s question, Fairy Snow Gale and Shang Yuetian both bitterly sighed. Of the Divine Sea powerhouses that had entered the Temple of Marvels, the great majority of them had a battle spirit mark left within them by Yang Yun to control them. Those like Li Yuxiao had managed to luckily escape. And to them, even if Yang Yun controlled the entire world, they could still live to a comfortable old age if they were willing to discard everything they had worked for and hideaway far away in some deep sea island. Of course, this wouldn’t be a pleasant life; they would have to live forever under Yang Yun!
Fairy Snow Gale reiterated her knowledge of everything that happened. “I have no idea just what fortuitous encounter Yang Yun managed to run into, but his battle spirit has already reached silver perfection. That goes beyond our scope of understanding.”
Fairy Snow Gale sighed. In the Sky Spill Continent, a silver level battle spirit was already a legend, and silver perfection was simply unimaginable. The only reason Fairy Snow Gale was able to recognize this boundary was because she had heard about it from Old Man Good Fortune.
Fairy Snow Gale’s Honorable Master White Fengfeng had a very good friendship with Old Man Good Fortune before her passing. As this calamity befell Fairy Snow Gale, her first thought was to look for Old Man Good Fortune to help erase the battle spirit mark within her. However, even he was helpless. A perfect silver battle spirit was not something a Divine Sea powerhouse should possess.
“According to Senior Good Fortune, there is likely a powerful divine soul that resides within Yang Yun. Perhaps this divine soul might be at the boundary above the Divine Sea, Divine Transformation. It might be at the mid or late Divine Transformation realm, or even surpass that.” As Fairy Snow Gale spoke, a sense of powerlessness filled her heart. A late Divine Sea martial artist might have the capital to be the highest under the heavens, or at least be someone close to it. As for what lay beyond the Divine Sea, such a boundary hadn’t appeared in the Sky Spill Continent in the last 100,000 years. If it weren’t for Old Man Good Fortune informing her of this, she would’ve never known about Divine Transformation.
Lin Ming nodded. Old Man Good Fortune was indeed experienced and insightful. Although he didn’t have much talent for cultivation, he stayed in the Divine Realm for many years and his horizons couldn’t be compared to a martial artist from the lower realms. He had been able to gather all the various clues and hints and come to this conclusion about Yang Yun.
Lin Ming said, “Yang Yun really does have a perfect silver battle spirit, but this battle spirit originates from a devil that came from the Sea of Miracles. That devil is temporarily residing within Yang Yun. During the Temple of Marvels, this devil once tried to possess my body, and it depended on a perfect silver battle spirit back then.
Everyone was startled by Lin Ming’s words. Li Yuxiao said, boggled, “It wanted to possess your body? Then how did you?”
Li Yuxiao looked at Lin Ming with disbelief, clearly wondering just how Lin Ming managed to escape the clutches of the Ancient Devil. During the Temple of Marvels, Lin Ming’s strength was only on par with the weakest Divine Sea powerhouse.
“I had some fortunate encounters and managed to escape with luck,” Lin Ming casually said. Everyone could hear that Lin Ming didn’t want to speak further about the topic so they didn’t push him on it.
Lin Ming said, “A perfect silver battle spirit is truly formidable, but that Ancient Devil has already been sealed away in the Sea of Miracles for the last 100,000 years. His soul has weakened, and his battle spirit should no longer be as strong as a true perfect silver battle spirit. Moreover, my own battle spirit has a special quality to it, so it won’t be difficult for me to erase the tracing mark from your body.”
Lin Ming stretched out his finger and a gray energy lingered on his fingertip, slowly spinning. This was his grandmist battle spirit. Lin Ming’s battle spirit had reached the peak of silver large success, and although its rank was slightly inferior to silver perfection, it had been tempered in grandmist energy for a long period of time and it was superior in quality to the Ancient Devil’s battle spirit.
“You can erase the battle spirit mark left behind by Yang Yun?” Fairy Snow Gale and Shang Yuetian were ecstatic to hear Lin Ming say that, and some others even glanced at him incredulously. Although they knew that Lin Ming’s battle spirit was strong, they never imagined that he could possess a perfect battle spirit at the fifth stage of Life Destruction. It was something someone at the late Divine Transformation might not even have.
The battle spirit mark that Yang Yun had placed within them was like a curse that hung over their heads. They had to be constantly careful, not daring to disobey Yang Yun’s orders in the least, lest they draw his wrath.
A Divine Sea Supreme Elder could live from 4 thousand years all the way up to 10 thousand years. In this world, they stood at the highest stage of power with everything at their fingertips. They freely wandered the world, proud and arrogant. Which one of them would possibly be willing to be slaves to others and have to send every waking moment in fear and unease?
Upon hearing that Lin Ming could erase the battle spirit tracing mark in their bodies, Fairy Snow Gale and Shang Yuetian were especially excited.
Lin Ming sent out a bit of his perception to investigate the tracing mark in their bodies. Indeed, it was a perfect silver battle spirit. He hesitated for a moment, thinking, “During the Temple of Marvels, the Ancient Devil abandoned two thirds of his soul to escape from the Magic Cube, but now it looks like the Ancient Devil didn’t discard the important part of his soul; the true core of his being was kept behind. Otherwise, his battle spirit would be like that old Imp from the Blood Slaughter Steppes and it would’ve dropped a few small boundaries.”
Reaching out his hand, a gray energy sunk into Fairy Snow Gale’s body, flowing within her and wrapping around the battle spirit mark that Yang Yun left behind.
“Little Brother Lin, if you remove these two battle spirit marks then Yang Yun will immediately know,” Shang Yuetian cautioned. Although he eagerly wished to rid the shadow of this tracing mark from his body, he also didn’t want to alert the enemy.
Lin Ming said, “If he knows, he knows. I already have a general idea of what Yang Yun is doing to deal with me. He is practicing a type of devil arts, but he still hasn’t completed it. Brother Duanmu, didn’t you say that there was nearly a month before the transmission array network has to be completed?”
“Yes.” Duanmu Qun nodded. “Yang Yun gave us two months. We now have 20 days left.”
“With several hundred array formations, wanting to lay them all down without fault is nearly impossible. These array formations must be tested and the faults must be fixed. That should take several more months to complete. Yang Yun is a very intelligent man with clever methods, the type that can even obtain oil from sand. How can he possibly give me the time to cultivate? I’m guessing that he’s practicing some demonic path cultivation method and it’ll be several more months until he reaches large success. At that time, he might even break through to the middle Divine Sea in a single go. When his cultivation reaches large success and his strength rises to another level, those hundreds of array formations should finally be fixed and ready to go. He probably thinks that day will also be my last day.”
Lin Ming was able to guess Yang Yun’s plans after thinking about it. Of course, he naturally relied on the memories of the Ancient Devil to do so.
“Demonic path cultivation method?” Shang Yuetian seemed to come to a realization. “No wonder. The last time I saw Yang Yun, his aura was much deeper and the atmosphere around him had become demonic with blood energy exuding from him. It’s completely different from the elegant and untouchable atmosphere that he had in the past.”
“Oh? Then it should be the Great Blood Refining Art.” Lin Ming confirmed his own thoughts. The Ancient Devil knew a great number of cultivation methods, but the one that suited the early Divine Sea Yang Yun the most and could rapidly increase his strength was the Great Blood Refining Art. Moreover, and most importantly, after perfecting the Great Blood Refining Art, he could lock onto a person’s blood vitality and locate anyone within a million miles. This was the ideal method for Yang Yun to hunt him down.
“Great Blood Refining Art. Everything is becoming clear now. That’s why when Yang Yun killed Yang Laotian and Ouye Hua, he drew out all of their blood essence. So it was all in order to cultivate his martial arts. There’s also those seven variation bloodline Divine Sea powerhouses that’ve gone missing in the past year. They were likely killed by Yang Yun to help his cultivation.” Fairy Snow Gale was a smart woman. Just by hearing the name of the Great Blood Refining Art, she was able to deduce what sort of cultivation method it was. Within the demonic path cultivation methods, types that used blood essence to cultivate were extremely common.
“He killed Yang Laotian, Ouye Hua, and seven variation bloodline Divine Sea powerhouse?” Lin Ming was stunned for a moment. He never thought that the Nine Furnace Highest Divine Emperor and the Sublime Smelting Imperial Grand Uncle, two characters that had lorded over the Sky Spill Continent, would actually die in such a manner and be used as Yang Yun’s tonic. The twists and turns of life were truly unpredictable.
“Little Brother Lin, since you know about the Great Blood Refining Art, that makes things easier. How about you use these next few months and flee deep into the South Sea beyond the range of the transmission arrays. You can cultivate for 8-10 years and then return to kill Yang Yun.” Li Yuxiao laughed, all smiles. The unknown was scary. Now that he knew just what Yang Yun was and what he was doing, he wasn’t really afraid anymore.
“Flee?” Lin Ming faintly smiled. “Why would I run away? Yang Yun’s devil arts haven’t been completed yet, so wouldn’t this be the best time to kill him?”
Lin Ming’s voice contained a light killing intent, causing all of the people present to be startled. They speechlessly stared at him.