Chapter 88 Thirty Thousand Souls
The old ancestor was determined to die.
Duan Jiuyou was startled awake from her sleep. Siji was sleeping in her arms, but the imperial capital on the other side had disappeared without a trace. Outside the window was a peaceful night.
She wasn't sure if Dijiang had returned to his room, only that she was unusually tired today. Siji came in carrying a cloth tiger and said she wanted to sleep with her. She drowsily hugged the child to her arms, and halfway through, she thought Dijiang had come back, but perhaps it was just her imagination.
"The third quarter of the hour of Zi." She deduced the time based on the sky. If there were no surprises, Di Jiang should be hunting beasts in the mountains at this moment, but his body should be resting more.
Duan Jiuyou was worried and decided to go to the mountains to check on things, but his body felt heavy and hesitant. Combining this with his previous inexplicable drowsiness, he suddenly realized something.
"Yun Qing, please allow me!" she called out. Since returning to the abandoned house, the disciples had been living in the Yinhe Garden, which was not far from her. There was no reason why there was no response when she called out so loudly. Even the Four Seasons in the room, when she looked at the child on the bed, was "sleeping very soundly"!
Duan Jiuyou struggled to sit up and pushed open the door with difficulty. The moonlight was bright and the night was peaceful. The night seemed normal at first glance, but the clouds in the sky were not moving, and there was no wind or insect chirping in the courtyard.
“…It’s a barrier,” Duan Jiuyou murmured.
Someone had arranged a peaceful and tranquil night for her. If he hadn't left in such a hurry, with his magical powers, he would have made the arrangements even more meticulous.
He left in such a hurry that he only had time to leave behind a poem about clouds and moon. He didn't want her to wake up, he didn't want her to go out, out there—
"Imperial Territory!"
...
Within the barrier, all was peaceful; outside, however, the sky and clouds had changed color.
On the ground, two armies clashed. Although the warriors of the Wild Tribe had lost their souls, their strength and reflexes were no different from when they were alive, and they were even more courageous. They had no sense of pain, like walking corpses, and could not feel any injury.
Emperor Jiang used the Blood-Melting Seal to bind the lives of 30,000 soldiers to himself; as long as he lived, his soldiers would not die!
Unable to break through the ten realms' demon army's defenses, they could only place their hopes on Yuan Chi. In the battle between Yuan Chi and Di Jiang, Yuan Chi held the upper hand.
"So your primordial spirit hasn't recovered, Di Jiang. Should I call you arrogant, or overestimating yourself?!"
The two fought in the air for hundreds of rounds. Yuan Chi devoured 30,000 souls, and his power was almost the same as that of Di Jiang at his peak. The two formations clashed several times, and Di Jiang barely managed to resist each time.
The formation was broken, and Di Jiang suffered a backlash. He wiped the thick blood from the corner of his mouth and laughed in a deep voice: "Why should I care about whether you have recovered or not when we fight? You are just a turbid demon from the deep mountains and forests, born of miasma. You don't even have a decent physical body. You can only fight with a human body. If you don't have this body, you are just a dark cloud."
Yuan Chi rarely gained the upper hand over Di Jiang, and instead of being angry, he laughed.
"I had no idea you were fighting with your mouth? You've suffered a great loss of your primordial spirit, and you can't even conjure up a real body?"
"Using your true form too often gets boring. Today, I'll use this fragile human body to send you off. How about that?"
Di Jiang's eyes were filled with mockery, and he didn't take Yuan Chi seriously at all. Yuan Chi was really angry at that arrogant attitude of the god race. A fierce light flashed in his eyes, and he charged fiercely at Di Jiang: "You're asking for death!"
Yuan Chi was unaware that Di Jiang had been waiting for this moment of close combat!
He conjured the Shaowu Sword in a backhand motion, advancing instead of retreating, and thrusting the sword towards Yuan Chi's neck. Yuan Chi instinctively leaned back, but Di Jiang's move was merely a feint; in an instant, the sword transformed into a palm strike, piercing Yuan Chi's vital point at the heart!
Yuan Chi tried to retreat, but was trapped inside by Di Jiang's Resurrection Array. Yuan Chi knew something was wrong when he saw the Desolate Clan's Crimson Flame Divine Seal appear between Di Jiang's eyebrows!
Both of them had severe chest wounds, and these wounds were deliberately inflicted by Di Jiang as a blood sacrifice to draw 30,000 souls back to his body!
Yuan Chi struggled desperately, only then realizing that he had been tricked by the Imperial Army!
Di Jiang silently chanted the incantation, and both of their bodies simultaneously emitted azure flames. Thirty thousand souls sensed the guidance and gradually swam into Di Jiang's body. During this process, Di Jiang also had to endure immense pain, akin to being pierced by ten thousand arrows.
Seeing his own radiance fading, Yuan Chi cried out in desperation, "Why are you suffering this excruciating pain? They can risk their lives for you even without souls or spirits, they'll just be puppets for life. Your primordial spirit is unstable, yet you still use your divine essence to guide it? Are you out of your mind?!"
"I agree to give you my soul now, as long as you spare my life, spare my life!"
"Save you? How?" Di Jiang opened his eyes, staring intently at Yuan Chi. "You devoured thirty thousand souls, which bound your true form to them. To spare your life, I would have to leave you half of your soul. Do you think you deserve it?"
"You think you can gain anything?" Yuan Chi became even more agitated. "If you use your divine essence as a catalyst, even if your primordial spirit is intact, you will still lose most of your life. Besides, you only have less than 60% of your divine power now, and you are already half-crippled. Why take this risk? Give me half of your soul, and we'll each have a way out!"
A thousand souls entered his heart, and the imperial realm burst open with a laugh.
"What do you know? The soldiers of the Wilderness Clan are never anyone's sword or anyone's puppet. They have flesh and blood, parents, wives and children. Although they are warriors of the Great Wilderness, they are also husbands and sons of others. They respect me, and I have a duty to protect them. As long as I live, I will not let them live in ignorance and unawareness!"
Emperor Jiang was surrounded by intense blue flames, almost burning himself up. He endured the pain within the soul fire, refusing to miss a single one.
He was the one who led them to the battlefield, so he personally brought them home!
"I truly regret not killing you when you fell into the tenth realm!" Yuan Chi gritted his teeth in anger as he watched his soul dissipate.
"Back then? You might not have wanted to kill me, but you were poisoned and extremely weak, so you didn't dare to fight me."
"How did you know I was poisoned? Did you poison me?!" Yuan Chi's expression changed drastically, and he questioned her sharply.
"It's just a matter of exchanging some time to settle down, recuperate, and rebuild your life. The defenses of your Tenth Realm Royal Palace are really not that great."
"Emperor! Territory!!"
Yuan Chi was extremely shocked and furious, wishing he could perish together with the Emperor, but unfortunately only he himself vanished.
Thirty thousand souls entered Emperor Jiang's body, and Yuan Chi finally turned into a handful of scattered dust and fell into endless darkness.
The emperor closed his eyes once more.
Yuan Chi's death was just a turning point; the most crucial step was returning his soul to its rightful place. He seemed to hear someone calling his name, but he was too weak to open his eyes. He seemed to hear the person crying, filled with extreme hatred and pain.
"9game?"
He chuckled, marveling at how he could still accurately recognize her voice at that moment.
She seemed to be cursing, as if she were saying: You bastard!
What a jerk! If she hadn't woken up so early, he would have kept it a secret.
...
The moment Duan Jiuyou broke through the barrier, he saw Di Jiang "courting death." Thirty thousand souls entered his body, divine marrow served as the guide, and heart's blood as the seal, causing the resurrection array to rise. Even someone as powerful as Di Jiang lost consciousness at that moment. Within the array, the souls surged, restless, bewildered, and at a loss.
The souls of the Wilderness Clan soldiers are conscious. Their lord fell into a coma, and they wanted him to give up, but he had bound his life to theirs!
"Imperial Territory..."
Duan Jiuyou's heart clenched tightly. Once the magic array was activated, it couldn't be stopped; she could only wait!
"Dijiang, Dijiang!" Duan Jiuyou cried out urgently, fearing he would lose his mind. "Since you've chosen to be a hero, go all the way! Wake up! Wake up!"
A full quarter of an hour passed.
When Duan Jiuyou saw that Di Jiang had moved, he gathered his soul in his hand and condensed it into a flame, then turned his palm over and clenched it into a fist!
The divine light gathered in Di Jiang's hand instantly transformed into ten thousand beams of light under his command, flowing into the bodies of the thirty thousand soldiers. As the beams burned out, Di Jiang lost all support and teetered on the brink of collapse. At the same time, Duan Jiuyou rushed into the air and steadily caught Di Jiang with her petite body.
She landed with him, letting him half-lie in her arms, and Huang Yi rushed over with disordered steps.
Emperor Jiang fell into a coma again. Duan Jiuyou gleaned a message from the grave look on the doctor's face: his condition was bad, very bad.
"It's you! If it weren't for you, the Desolate Lord would have swallowed all those spiritual sources. If he hadn't used sixty percent of his primordial spirit to guide thirty thousand souls, how could he have been so severely injured?!"
The vassal roared in anger, but was held down firmly by the three generals beside him.
They were often out on business, and only the vassals stayed by the Lord's side the longest. They knew his feelings and understood his feelings, but this was the Lord's own choice. This choice was related to Duan Jiuyou, but it was not just because of her.
In Zhaozhao City, Chiyan Ridge, and even earlier in the Ten Realms period, the Venerable Lord had already put aside his prejudice against those who were "not of our kind." He had saved many people outside the Desolate Clan and had developed a benevolent heart. Even without Duan Jiuyou, he would not have had the heart to touch those spiritual sources.
Duan Jiuyou couldn't think of much right now; her attention was entirely focused on Di Jiang. She asked the Wilderness Doctor.
“What can I do? If you can’t save them, there must be someone else who can. Is it Yan Kuo of Huangchen Palace, or Yun Sheng Wang of Futu Sea? I will beg anyone who can save them.”
The doctor said none of that was true—"Your Excellency took the Soul-Evolving Pill before the Resurrection Array. Even if you were injured, you shouldn't be unconscious. But right now, your pulse is erratic and you have no consciousness. It seems like you've been poisoned."
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