A Will Eternal

Bai Xiaochun looked down wide-eyed at the crater which had been melted by the savage’s blood, and his heart trembled.

“They’re not savages,” he thought, “they’re more like pill furnaces on the verge of exploding.... I can’t believe that’s what happens when you kill them....”

Despite the fact that he was even more nervous than ever, he could tell that Li Hongming was looking at him differently than before, so he forced his chin up and coolly said, “It’s been quite some time that I’ve hoped to feast my eyes on fighting like this. Presumably, battles like this don’t happen very often.”

Li Hongming’s derision for Bai Xiaochun was continuing to lessen, so he smiled and explained, “Of course they do! Small-scale skirmishes like this happen every two or three days.”

Bai Xiaochun would rather have not heard such an explanation, and his heart immediately began to thump. Looking out beyond the wall, he saw a sea of souls, the countless savages, and even certain locations where there were huge, ferocious battle beasts.

“This is a small-scale skirmish?” he thought in surprise. “What are the big battles like?” Not only did everything look very dangerous, but it reminded him that he had to go outside of the Great Wall on at least three missions. What a headache!

Smiling faintly, Li Hongming looked at Zhao Tianjiao and the others and said, “Very well, it’s dangerous here on top of the wall. Now that you’ve had your look at war, why don’t we head back down?”

Bai Xiaochun was just about to agree when Zhao Tianjiao took a deep breath. Eyes sparkling, he looked down at the fighting and said, “Brother Li, how long will this battle last?”

Li Hongming looked around for a moment to assess the situation, then replied, “From the look of things, I’d say the soul tide will recede tonight. Then there will be a day or two of peace and quiet.”

“In that case, I’ll wait here. Once the battle is over... I’d like to immediately go out into the Wildlands to begin my training!”

Bai Xiaochun had known all along that Zhao Tianjiao would think in this way, and wasn’t surprised at all.

However, Li Hongming seemed quite taken aback. “You want to go outside of the Great Wall?”

“That’s why I came here. To go out into the Wildlands!”

Li Hongming looked at Zhao Tianjiao a bit more closely for a moment before clasping hands and bowing deeply. “In all the years I’ve been stationed here in Great Wall City, I can’t count how many people have gone out into the Wildlands, never to return. Fellow Daoist Zhao, the fact that you have such a goal despite your incredible status is truly worthy of respect. I truly hope that your journeys are safe, Fellow Daoist.”

Zhao Tianjiao laughed heartily, then looked over at Chen Yueshan.

Placing her hand over her mouth to cover her smile, she walked over without a word to stand at Zhao Tianjiao’s side. Her message was clear; she would stay with Zhao Tianjiao wherever he went. It might be dangerous on the outside, and she might have a reputation as being one of the most beloved young women in the sect, but at the moment, those things didn’t matter to her.

As for Zhao Tianjiao’s two followers, and Chen Yueshan’s two close friends, none of them said anything. Originally, they had planned to go along with Zhao Tianjiao and Chen Yueshan, but after seeing the deadly fighting just now, they were left so shaken that they could only look down at the ground in an attempt to hide the shame on their faces.

Zhao Tianjiao didn’t seem to care. Smiling broadly, he looked at Bai Xiaochun. “Xiaochun, will you be joining us?”

Bai Xiaochun cleared his throat. Considering that he was only in the late Gold Core stage, he didn’t feel that going out into the Wildlands would be a very good idea.

Perhaps once he reached the great circle, then he would go out. At least at that point, he would be more capable of defending himself. By then, he could just make a quick trip outside and back, and hopefully, wouldn’t find himself in too much danger.

By enduring the next ten years in such a fashion, he could then go back to the sect and trade his deva soul for a set of five elements deva beast souls. Taking the safe and easy route to the Nascent Soul stage was the way for him.

Having reached this point in his train of thought, Bai Xiaochun felt more confident in his decision than ever, and was just trying to decide whether or not to explain his decision, when suddenly, cries of shock could be heard from the surrounding Skin Flayers.

Many faces in the area filled with astonishment, and despite the fact that the spiritual energy was so weak, many people unleashed the power of their cultivation bases.

The sudden development left Bai Xiaochun, Zhao Tianjiao and everyone else stunned. Looking out at the battlefield, they saw that the seemingly endless tide of souls had suddenly stopped moving.

In fact, they even began to back up. At the same time, there were no vicious expressions on their faces anymore, but rather, what appeared to be flickers of intelligence. It was a very odd-looking sight; such expressions seemed very out of place.

If that were all there were to the situation, it might not have been a big deal. But then, the vengeful souls threw their heads back and let out ear-piercing howls, and at the same time began to rush toward each other and clump into groups.

In the blink of an eye, more than ten 300-meter-tall soul emperors had formed on the battlefield. They had broad shoulders and seemingly muscular bodies made up of countless souls, and each one of them wielded different magical weapons. The mere sight of them was enough to shake heaven and earth.

The more than ten enormous soul emperors let out terrifying howls as they brandished their magical weapons in shocking fashion.

Bai Xiaochun’s eyes went wide at the sight of the soul emperors, and he couldn’t help but think of the soul emperor he had seen in the cyan trial by fire back in the Starry Sky Dao Polarity Sect!

That soul emperor there looked almost exactly like these ones!!

“This... this....” The terrifying soul emperors out on the battlefield seemed incredibly powerful, almost as if they were comparable to... Nascent Soul experts!

In addition to the more than ten soul emperors, Bai Xiaochun could also see... that there were certain souls out on the battlefield that were different from the others!

The ordinary vengeful souls weren’t intelligent, and couldn’t use magical items. For the most part, they acted on instinct, and were mostly illusory, like smoke. But now, seven or eight figures could be seen on the battlefield, clad in voluminous black robes complete with deep hoods that obscured their heads and faces.

It was impossible to say when they had appeared, but now they hovered in midair, surrounded by crackling black lightning.

There were also some vengeful souls that were beast-like in appearance, and held enormous weapons in their hands as they strode forward.

In addition, at one point off in the distance, swirling smoke formed into the shape of a warhorse with blood-red eyes and flames surrounding its hooves.

Seated on the back of the warhorse of smoke was a gray-robed man!

Clearly, that man was no vengeful spirit, and neither was he a savage. He was... a cultivator!! Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he was like a cultivator. He was tall and thin, and the skin of the hand which held the reins of the horse was pure white and seemingly devoid of any dirt or filth whatsoever.

There was something elegant about him, something that made him seem beyond ordinary. Furthermore, he wasn’t alone. Flanking him were seven or eight men and women wearing dilapidated clothing, yet who were very good-looking. As they stood there staring at the Great Wall, eyes flickering coldly, the cultivation base fluctuations rolling off of them placed them in the Core Formation stage.

Immediately, the nearby emaciated savages bowed their heads and clasped hands, expressions of awe and reverence on their faces.

When Bai Xiaochun saw the black warhorse, the first thing he thought of was Bruiser. Then he looked more closely at the figure in the gray robe mounted atop it, and realized that there was definitely something different about him.

He almost seemed like a king to the vengeful souls and the savages, as if he could single-handedly control all of them.... For some reason, Bai Xiaochun found himself thinking about Chen Manyao and the group she represented.

When Li Hongming saw the gray-robed figure, his expression flickered.

“Who would have thought that a small-scale skirmish like this would see the appearance of... soul cultivators and necromancers!!”

Zhao Tianjiao stared at the gray-robed man, coldness rising up in his heart as he asked, “Soul cultivators? Necromancers?”

“In the Wildlands," Li Hongming said in a low voice, "vengeful souls are considered to be the lowest ranking and least powerful of all entities. Then come the savages, and after that, the soul cultivators. At the top... are the necromancers! As for the soul cultivators, they are powerful cultivators who treat the savages like nothing more than servants. There is no spiritual energy for them to cultivate, so they settle for the next best thing. They use soul vitality instead of spiritual power, and that is why they are called soul cultivators!

“The people responsible for capturing the most powerful vengeful souls, the masters of soul manipulation techniques, and the ones who extract soul vitality for the soul cultivators to use, are rare in the Wildlands, and are highly valued. They are the necromancers!

“Necromancers are terrifying beings. Each and every one is a powerful expert who can control souls, merge them together, and even contain souls inside their bodies to be unleashed with devastating power!”