"So this is the power of space and time..."
Chen Junting had already calmed his mind, focusing more of his attention on the power of time. After all, looking across the myriad of spirit beasts, although those involving spatial power were few, you could still count them on both hands. But if it was temporal power, that was truly an incredibly rare existence.
Therefore, this time, while absorbing the Evil Emperor's soul ring, with Elder Yi helping to hold the bottom line, Chen Junting completely ignored the mobilization of the soul ring's energy and just instinctively absorbed it. The time attribute was rare, so it was more important!
Until three days had passed...
"Buzz—"
The Evil Emperor's soul ring suddenly erupted with golden light, and the dark-red main body of the soul ring actually dimmed down along with it. The originally illusory eighth golden line completely condensed within the golden light!
"Woo—"
Inside the Immortal-Slaying Sword Array, a wind suddenly blew on its own!
Under the gaze of Di Tian and Ning Tian, the surrounding heaven and earth origin energy was like water being swallowed by a whale by that soul ring, crazily converging toward the soul ring to become a part of the eighth golden line.
At this moment, the 800,000-year soul ring was completed!
Before Chen Junting could even open his eyes, the grey sphere from the outside world had already merged into his body and returned to the Spirit Sea. Spinning around, it fell into Electrolux's palm. The two grey spheres revolved around each other in a Yin-Yang fish rotation pattern.
But Electrolux didn't pay much attention to this. Instead, he flipped his palm and took out the soul origin that had been transformed from the cluster of souls whose consciousness he had obliterated three days ago. Without taking another look, he lightly tossed it.
That cluster of soul origin quickly escaped Chen Junting's Spirit Sea. As soon as it arrived in the outside world, it seemed to be attracted by the soul ring above Chen Junting's head and rapidly approached it.
"This is..." Seeing this, Di Tian couldn't help but look at this scene in surprise. Because in the instant that the cluster of soul origin made contact with the soul ring, it was as if something was about to be revived, but it flashed by and disappeared.
Before he could figure it out in his mind, Clatter, clang— a sound resembling iron chains suddenly rang out. Chains formed by magic runes unexpectedly drilled out from the top of Chen Junting's head and, with lightning speed, tied up the Evil Emperor's soul ring and his soul origin.
The next second, golden light blazed!
"Wu xi..."
Strange sounds rang out, landing on the rune chains. As grey light and golden light illuminated, they wrapped around the two. Finally forming a cocoon, then a bead, until around that bead, a small, menacing figure faintly appeared. It instantly erupted with incomparably intense radiance, about to burst outward.
But right at this moment, "Mm—" It sounded like an acknowledgment, or maybe a light sigh... Anyway, after an incomprehensible tone rang out, the situation with the bead rapidly calmed down.
Under the gaze of Di Tian and Ning Tian, a figure dressed in a grey robe and holding a staff silently appeared behind Chen Junting. Just by raising his eyes and sweeping his gaze over Di Tian, it gave Di Tian an indescribable feeling in his heart. It wasn't a threat or anything else... It was purely a biological instinct brought about by the difference in their levels of existence.
At this moment, Electrolux waved the staff in his hand and pointed it exactly at the bead. Not only that, from within Electrolux's eyes, two dots of golden flame flew out and lightly landed on that bead which was undergoing a mutation. At the same time, the incantations in his mouth became abnormally high-pitched, as if reaching a climax. He raised his staff high in the air and slowly sketched out golden runes one by one.
Seeing this, a trace of thought appeared in Electrolux's eyes. But despite his thoughts, his hand movements didn't slow down. The golden symbols he drew floated toward the bead one after another and quickly merged into it, which also caused the bead's volume to change. From the size of a baby's fist at the beginning, it gradually grew to the size of an apple, and then expanded to the size of a watermelon. The originally perfect circle started to become irregular at this moment, and something inside began to squirm once again.
Right at this moment, Chen Junting suddenly opened his eyes. His consciousness had already returned earlier; opening his eyes now was just to wait for the best moment. Having already known what his teacher was doing, he immediately sketched out a series of array lines.
The array lines connected, deriving a contract. The next second, the contract merged into it. The thing, which had already taken the shape of an embryo, suddenly stopped squirming. However, this stop only lasted for a brief moment. It grew crazily and expanded, until...
Chen Junting's Spirit Sea was throbbing; his mental power and the heaven and earth origin energy continuously echoed each other from afar, merging into the embryo's body. As the movements of the spirit embryo became more and more violent, Chen Junting's own mental power began to gather toward the spirit embryo amidst the surging, and that spirit embryo was like treating his mental power as food, continuously absorbing and devouring it. He didn't use the Evil Emperor's mental power; anyway, as long as his own mental power was sufficient, consuming either one was fine.
Right as the embryo's struggles grew even more intense, "Seize the opportunity." As the weathered yet compassionate voice rang out, Chen Junting suddenly extended his right hand, formed a sword finger, and waved it from afar.
Buzz—
Suddenly, a sword hum rang out! The Immortal-Trapping Sword—one of the cores of the Immortal-Slaying Sword Array—its sword intent suddenly let out a series of sword hums. The moment it soared into the air, it turned into a stream of air and merged into the embryo.
Chen Junting was very clear about the meaning of Elder Yi's reminder just now. Since he wanted the four great spirit souls to each hold a sword and suppress an array core, it was best for the spirit soul and the sword to match each other. In that case, for the "Immortal-Trapping Array Core"—the final missing corner of the Immortal-Slaying Sword Array—what could be more suitable than an innate spirit soul nurtured while carrying the Immortal-Trapping Sword Intent?
Suddenly, a surge of strong dark-green light spread out from that spirit embryo, startling the entire Immortal-Slaying Sword Array! Furthermore, because one of the array cores of the Immortal-Slaying Sword Array was temporarily missing a sword, the movements that were originally completely shielded inside leaked out, immediately attracting the attention of everyone outside the array.
In Di Tian's perception, he paused slightly. It seemed like he was sorting out his feelings... "The Old Evil Eye's aura."
Ding—
A melodious, crisp chime rang out in Chen Junting's mind. Right at this moment, "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—" Three streaks of flowing light darted out from his Spirit Sea, and Chen Junting watched the scene of the spirit embryo "hatching" under the gaze of everyone.
When the second crack subsequently appeared, a faint crack, crack sound rang out, and the remaining cracks spread out in a turtle-shell pattern. With a soft pop, a tentacle stretched out from the "eggshell." Then came more, Pop, pop, pop... Soon, only the top was left. Eighty-one tentacles propped against the ground, even more exaggerated than an octopus. In fact, the sheer number of tentacles could make some people's scalps tingle just looking at it!
The moment the dark-green color completely faded from Chen Junting's body, the appearance of the spirit within the embryo was fully revealed. It couldn't be said to look exactly the same as the Evil Emperor when he was alive, but the only unrelated thing was the surface color!
"Is this the newborn Evil Emperor?" Electrolux had already returned to the second Spirit Sea. He only spoke when Chen Junting asked, "This is a brand new lifeform. It's equivalent to a newborn of the Evil Eye clan, except that it possesses all of the Evil Emperor's abilities."
As they spoke, the newborn Evil Emperor spirit looked at Chen Junting. As their eyes met, a hint of confusion and thought appeared in that giant eye which occupied most of its body. A full half a minute passed before it seemed to react and "boot up," calling out: "Master."
"Good." Chen Junting wasn't surprised and directly acknowledged it. However, he still separated a sliver of his attention and asked, "Teacher, can this be considered an artificial spirit soul?"
The answer he received was a reply without the slightest hesitation. "No." "Not even half?" "How can something like this be calculated in halves?"
This time, Elder Yi fell silent for a long while after speaking. "If we really had to count it, it barely counts as half." After saying that, he completely fell silent. He still needed to continue his research. At the end of the day, this was just a half-finished product used for an experiment. It only succeeded because the foundational materials were too good.
Seeing this, Chen Junting slightly raised his hand. He allowed the newborn Evil Eye spirit to wrap its tentacles around his finger. Under the gaze of three pairs of eyes, he said, "You shall be called Xie Huang from now on. From today onwards, you will wield the Immortal-Trapping Sword and guard the Immortal-Trapping Array Core for me."
Xie Huang, born from the Xie Di (Evil Emperor). This title was just right for the little tentacled creature.
It seemed like they waited until everything was over. Seeing that there were no major issues or anything else continuing, Di Tian and Ning Tian finally walked over together. Looking at that little evil eye... "What is this?"
"Consider it a half-finished artificial spirit soul." Chen Junting didn't hide it and smiled, "Moreover, this technology wasn't developed by me either."
"I'm not blind." Such a huge figure, it's not like I, Di Tian, didn't see it.
Afterward, he placed more of his attention on the little evil eye, clicking his tongue in wonder. This made the newborn little evil eye inevitably feel fear, causing it to continuously shrink back. But don't misunderstand this as the little evil eye being cowardly. This was purely because of Di Tian—the culprit who violently beat the little evil eye in its "previous life" and, in a sense, killed it... Seeking fortune and avoiding disaster was just the instinctual reaction of a new life. However, if the person leaning in was swapped for someone else, like Bear Lord or the Ten Thousand Demon King, the result would really be... with a "scratch," the little evil eye's naturally violent temper would flare up, and it would absolutely attack!
"You guys chat for a bit." Seeing the little evil eye so afraid of Di Tian, and that Di Tian seemed to have a childlike innocence as he teased it, Chen Junting withdrew the little evil eye back into his Spirit Sea and asked Snow Empress and the others to take good care of it.
His interest having been spoiled, Di Tian didn't linger any longer. He glanced at Chen Junting's ninth soul ring, "This Evil Eye is truly lucky. Once you become a god in the future, it will ascend to the heavens in a single step too."
"The two are different." Chen Junting deliberately emphasized this. "Once a soul's consciousness is wiped out, the newborn entity is no longer him. The Evil Emperor has already had his soul scattered to the winds. What is left behind, the one who can ascend to the heavens in a single step in the future, is called 'Xie Huang'."
Hearing this, the corners of Di Tian's mouth couldn't help but rise. "Kid, you are quite confident."
Chen Junting spoke no more and just slowly stood up. But before he could fully stand, a stream of nine-colored light merged into his body, making his condition—which had just finished absorbing the soul ring—immediately improve significantly, even directly returning to his peak state. At the same time, a jade-like arm held onto him from the side. Before he even turned his head, a few strands of golden hair brushed against his ear.
Di Tian raised an eyebrow and turned to leave. There was nothing good to watch next.
The moment he stepped out of the sword array... "What are you all doing?" He saw that around the perimeter of the array missing the Immortal-Trapping Sword, basically all the humans and spirit beasts had gathered here, seemingly eavesdropping and peeking. This scene made Di Tian raise his eyebrow yet again.
"Ah— nothing, nothing..."
"Right, right, we were just curious—"
"Say less, you idiot." "..."
The crowd of humans and spirit beasts instantly scattered. At this moment, the Immortal-Slaying Sword Array also let out a tremor. Chen Junting, who had already put his clothes back on, waved his hand and retracted the remaining three swords derived from the three sword intents, along with the Immortal-Slaying Array Diagram. He walked out, one after the other with Ning Tian.
Looking at the scattered crowd, "What happened?" With this question asked, very few people responded. Chen Junting didn't really care. Instead, he cast his gaze beneath the ruins of the Holy Spirit Cult's headquarters and said, "The matter here is mostly settled. But are any of you interested in coming with me to see what exactly is hidden inside this Holy Spirit Cult headquarters?"
Once these words were spoken, everyone immediately became interested. They rubbed their fists, eager to dig something up.
"Let me take a look first." Huo Yuhao spoke up first, and then his Mental Detection blanketed the entire ruins of the Holy Spirit Cult's headquarters, as well as its underground structures. At the same time, through his mental sharing soul skill, he broadcasted every scene and every view from underground into the minds of Chen Junting, the others, and Di Tian's group of spirit beasts in real-time.
Soon, some of the headquarters' vaults came into view. Although the soul tools were completely destroyed in the explosions, quite a few rare metals were still left behind. If gathered up, most of them could still be used, and they could even be sold for an astonishingly high price. It could be said that in the few years of cooperating with the Sun Moon Empire, the Holy Spirit Cult had made a killing! They even hoarded all the good stuff at home! But now, it was all cheap for them.
"...The stuff is here, mark them all."
"Be careful later, don't let the top collapse. Otherwise, we might all sink down there, and that would be troublesome..."
"..."
You say a word, I say a phrase, as they started dividing up this batch of rare metals. But no matter how they discussed it, the lion's share all went to the Nine Treasures Glazed Tile Sect's side. This was an unspoken mutual understanding among everyone.
As for Chen Junting's side, he didn't tell Huo Yuhao to stop scanning. He wanted to find an even more important item in the ruins. But as time passed, he found nothing.
"Nothing?" Chen Junting frowned slightly.
At this moment, Huo Yuhao didn't retract his gaze, just asked curiously, "Brother Junting, what are you looking for?"
Chen Junting didn't answer directly, but asked a question in return. "Do you still remember the Holy Emperor's stone statue?"
Hearing this, Huo Yuhao suddenly realized. "You're looking for that."
"Mhm, keep looking."
He refused to believe that this headquarters wouldn't have the stone statue. "Yuhao, put your back into it." As the Child of Destiny, your luck can't be that bad!
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