Chapter 1974 — 1974: Creating An Opening

The sky was light purple in color, gathered in mid-air was a large area of grey clouds resembling thick fog, making the view of Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven quite unclear.

But the layout of this place was good, even Spectral Soul could not help but praise it.

He had disguised as a soul beast, he successfully infiltrated the grotto-heaven, after many days, he finally found out a lot of information about Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven.

This was a soul path grotto-heaven, there were a lot of soul path cultivation resources here, it had at least ten giant resource points! In history, it had once produced two rank eight soul path immortals at the same point in time, it was a very rare situation.

The biggest trait of Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven was that it had a soul pacifying immortal killer move that influenced all lifeforms in this grotto-heaven. This killer move could pacify soul beasts and bring peace to Gu Immortals' souls, it had a huge supplementary effect in soul cultivation.

There were three aspects in soul path cultivation, strengthening, refining, and pacifying the soul.

The most effective method to pacify the soul was using the water of Bewitching Lake, it was known as pacifying soul soup, the most delicious wine in the world. This was recorded in <>.

The soul pacifying killer move in Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven was created by mimicking the pacifying soul soup. Even Spectral Soul thought that the effect of this move was good.

Within Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, soul beasts were the most plentiful of beasts.

It had raised soul beasts to begin with, now that Fate was destroyed and the five regions unified, in order to prepare for war, the Gu Immortals of Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven went outside to hunt and store more soul beasts.

But the higher-ups with Lady Cold Ash as the leader still did not think this was enough, they sent even more Gu Immortals outside to search for even more soul beasts.

Thanks to the soul pacifying killer move, even if immemorial soul beasts went into Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, they would remain peaceful and would not rampage.

After An Xun returned to the grotto-heaven to rest for a few days, he received orders to go out and hunt soul beasts again.

"I am letting you command three thousand soul beasts with one immemorial soul beast as the guardian, do your best." Before leaving, Lady Cold Ash called for him.

An Xun was the tall and skinny Gu Immortal from earlier, he was the nephew of Lady Cold Ash, and also the Gu Immortal with the best prospects to go beyond rank seven in Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven.

"Thank you for the concern, aunt." An Xun said with difficulty: "But such a huge soul beast group, I do not have the ability to command them."

Lady Cold Ash waved her hand: "My killer move can allow you to command this soul beast group with ease for twenty days."

An Xun was overjoyed, he quickly thanked her.

He understood that his aunt was helping in secret and taking care of him. Even though Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven did not lack resources and had deep foundation, when nurturing Gu Immortals, seniority mattered.

Lady Cold Ash helped An Xun secretly, hoping that he would emerge victorious in the contest against An Chong and become the rank seven Gu Immortal who received the most support.

She was his aunt after all!

An Xun led the soul beast army and left Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, heading to black heaven for his hunt.

For the next few days, his gains were little, he became a little anxious.

"Logically speaking, after the qi tide passes, there would be many dead lifeforms, their souls would be left behind and form more soul beasts." An Xun could not understand why this was not happening.

Along the way, he did not meet many soul beasts, but he gathered a lot of qi path immortal materials, he did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven was a soul path grotto-heaven, these qi path immortal materials were almost unusable, they could only be traded away.

An Xun could not understand why, but Spectral Soul knew: "It seems that after the qi tide passes, qi path dao marks flood the area, causing other paths to be suppressed. Soul path is no exception, it is hard to form new soul beasts. In contrast, qi path immortal materials are going to increase in numbers, they will be at an absurd number in the future."

Spectral Soul saw the trend and felt a little strange internally: "To think that qi path would regain its former glory!"

Qi path had been declining, but with the current situation where qi path immortal materials get produced widely in the five regions and two heavens, the abundance of resources would lower the cost of cultivation. It would create a trend of numerous qi path cultivators.

Spectral Soul turned into an ancient soul beast and secretly followed An Xun, he left Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven for his own objectives.

He had already inspected Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, but he could not take action inside. Outside, it was a different story.

However, Spectral Soul did not act immediately, he patiently waited for a chance.

As expected, after more than ten days, An Xun encountered a group of soul beasts that numbered to more than a thousand.

"I finally met some." An Xun was overjoyed, he quickly manipulated the soul beast army to attack.

A huge battle began.

Initially, An Xun had the advantage, but soon, he found that an immemorial soul beast appeared in the enemy's group.

He quickly let out his guardian, it was also an immemorial soul beast.

The two immemorial soul beasts fought intensely, creating a small battlefield for themselves.

The enemy immemorial soul beast was much stronger than An Xun had expected, his immemorial soul beast quickly fell into a disadvantage, about to be defeated.

An Xun was shocked, he quickly acted to help out his immemorial soul beast.

Eventually, An Xun paid a huge price of suffering injuries to exterminate the enemy immemorial soul beast.

An Xun felt regret that he could not capture the wild immemorial soul beast, he had tried many methods to subdue it but he failed, he had no choice but to kill it in the end.

After the battle, An Xun counted his gains and losses, despite his heavy injuries, he gained eight hundred soul beasts overall, among which were many ancient soul beasts.

"This should be enough." An Xun let out a sigh of relief, these gains were sufficient, he did not let down Lady Cold Ash and her expectations.

But right when An Xun relaxed his mind, Spectral Soul struck at lightning speed, flying into An Xun's body.

An Xun's face distorted as he shook intensely, after a while, he returned to normal.

Spectral Soul came out of his body as An Xun knelt down: "I pay respects to master!"

"Mm." Spectral Soul nodded with a tired expression.

He had an ability to enter a life form's soul and forcefully modify it so that they would obey Spectral Soul from the depths of their soul with absolute loyalty.

But there were many limitations to this, he could not use it casually.

Back then, Spectral Soul subdued Fairy Zi Wei and Old Man Zheng Yuan when they were at their weakest. Fairy Zi Wei and Old Man Zheng Yuan were in poor conditions then, while she had also been subconsciously influenced by him over time.

Thus, in order to deal with An Xun, Spectral Soul had to wait until he was at his weakest.

The reason he caused this huge soul beast battle instead of directly attacking because he needed to deceive Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven. An Xun was a rank seven Gu Immortal, it was not easy for him to explore black heaven, there were investigative methods used on him. If anything happened to him, Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven would react to it rapidly.

"After subduing An Xun, I have an opening in Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven, is Lady Cold Ash still far from my grasp? Hehe." Spectral Soul chuckled.

Soul Pacifying grotto-heaven had the most suitable cultivation resources for Spectral Soul, he could take control of it and use it to interfere in the world affairs to accomplish his goals.

"I have already created my opening here, it is far better than hunting soul beasts myself! I wonder what breakthrough Fairy Zi Wei has made already."

At the same time, in a certain Central Continent valley.

"Fang Yuan, you cannot escape." Fairy Zi Wei called out, using a purple meteor attack.

The purple meteor landed on Fang Yuan as it pierced his chest, creating a gaping hole.

Fang Yuan stared at Fairy Zi Wei, he fell with a loud sound and scattered into smoke.

"Another clone!" Even though Fairy Zi Wei was prepared for it, she still felt tired seeing this.

Fairy Zi Wei and Old Man Zheng Yuan had already killed hundreds of Fang Yuan's clones.

She immediately captured and stored the smoke that the myriad self clone turned into.

Next, she took out a sealed clone of Fang Yuan from her aperture.

She instilled the smoke of the destroyed myriad self clone into the sealed clone.

Soon, the white smoke was absorbed by the clone, its cultivation level rose again.

These myriad self clones were summoned by Fang Yuan during the battle in Heavenly Court, Fairy Zi Wei had used the transportation formation to send them all over Central Continent.

Fairy Zi Wei was ordered by Spectral Soul to find Fang Yuan, after putting up the arrest warrant, all the information she received involved these clones.

Fairy Zi Wei had no choice but to pay them the reward as they had provided information. But she also went around laboriously to capture the Fang Yuan myriad self clones all over the continent.

If she left them unattended to, these clones would be the best concealment for Fang Yuan's main body. Fairy Zi Wei also had another idea, what if Fang Yuan was hiding among these clones?

This was not impossible.

"Thankfully, these myriad self clones can sense each other, when I capture one, I can use the connection to find the next clone."

"But…"

Fairy Zi Wei watched as the sealed clone of Fang Yuan rose in cultivation level, she felt worried: "Fang Yuan's human path attainment level is so high. These clones can actually devour each other and show such autonomy…"

"Fang Yuan's strength is low because because of two reasons. Firstly, the heaven and earth qi are converging and forming qi tides, immortal apertures are becoming unstable, secondly, the heaven path dao marks he absorbed are also like a seal."

"Among the different paths, human path is the most suitable for dealing with heaven path. Who knows how many heaven path dao marks Fang Yuan gained, how long can they suppress him for?"

Inside the sovereign immortal aperture.

The thousand wish tree was planted in Mini Central Continent.

An immortal formation with the thousand wish tree as the core was already set up, it started to activate now.

Due to the influence of the heaven path dao marks, Sovereign grotto-heaven had been encountering disasters and calamities endlessly, but even in this situation, Fang Yuan still spent effort to create and defend this formation.

"Good." After observing for a while, Fang Yuan smiled as he saw the formation working normally.

This was a human path formation, the thousand wish tree was a human path ancient desolate plant, with his formation path and human path attainment levels, Fang Yuan finally made such progress.

The formation in Mini Central Continent was the main formation, there was going to be four more human path sub-formations created in the other mini regions.

"I am trying to use human path to restrict heaven path, let's see how well it works!" Fang Yuan held high expectations for this plan.