Seven Souls Connected, Spirit Gathering Begins

Three hours later.

Lu Feng slowly woke, still lying inside the Six Paths Coffin.

The slaughter within the Six Paths Domain earlier felt like a dream, yet Lu Feng clearly remembered the trajectory of every kill, remembered the Blood Killing Skill that struck with lethal precision every time.

It did not belong to any martial technique or Spirit Skill, but was instead a method of combat. As his realm and strength improved, its power would become ever more terrifying.

"My injuries have actually healed completely?" Lu Feng was astonished to find that recovering for half a day within the Six Paths Coffin was comparable to recovering for months outside. He could not help but feel overjoyed.

"The Demonic Nature and Blood Addiction Poison inside my body... seem to be gone too?"

Good fortune never came in pairs, yet one joyous surprise followed another. After comprehending the Blood Killing Skill, Lu Feng had successfully opened his final soul.

The Essence Soul, which governed temperament, comprehension, and the power of Sudden Enlightenment!

It was finally open!

With the seven souls connected, Spirit Gathering could begin.

Lu Feng lacked only the final Dragon Saliva Water.

Yet at this moment... he no longer worried. Instead, he felt as though, where the mountains and rivers had seemed exhausted and no road remained, another village had suddenly appeared amid the dark willows and bright flowers.

After the stone chamber had collapsed, he had sensed dragon aura—the aura of a true dragon!

It was directly beneath the stone chamber.

Lu Feng slowly pushed open the lid of the Six Paths Coffin, then shifted and blasted away the stones pressing down upon it.

Though his strength remained far inferior to that of ordinary people even after connecting his seven souls, knocking aside a few rocks was still easy enough.

Lu Feng crawled out of the Six Paths Coffin and casually stored it back in the Kirin Ring. After enduring so many attacks, the Six Paths Coffin had not suffered the slightest damage. Lu Feng could not help but marvel even more at its peculiar nature.

After the stone chamber collapsed, a crack had appeared in the ground. Lu Feng hammered apart and cleared away the shattered rocks, then looked down.

His eyes brimmed with delight, even a trace of greed.

An enormous dragon skeleton appeared in the space beneath the stone chamber. The surroundings there were entirely different from the chamber above, and Lu Feng surmised that they might not have come from the same era.

The sealed stone chamber had existed for a thousand years, while the vast space beneath it appeared to date back even further.

The yellowed stone walls and the true dragon reduced to white bones both attested to the passage of countless years.

Lu Feng chiseled out an opening and jumped down. The joy of survival surged through him as he excitedly ran toward the enormous dragon skeleton.

Before this true dragon skeleton, nearly a hundred meters long, even the Earth Flood Dragon he had seen earlier was no more than a kitten.

Even a single little-finger bone from its claw was as large as a human. Standing beneath the dragon bones, Lu Feng felt as insignificant as an ant.

Walking from the dragon skeleton's head toward its tail, Lu Feng examined it as he went, growing ever more shaken.

"B-Black Dragon..." Lu Feng cried out. The black flowing patterns emerging across the surface of the true dragon's bones were a distinctive trait unique to the Black Dragon Clan among the Dragon Race.

Unlike azure dragons, Black Dragons were infamous evil dragons—violent and bloodthirsty, ravaging all living creatures.

"What is this?" Lu Feng reached beneath the Black Dragon's abdomen and raised his head to look at the flowing light rippling over the skeletal frame of its torso.

His expression was no longer one of shock. It had turned into fear!

"A Beast Control Mark???" Lu Feng trembled violently in astonishment.

"Who possessed such ability, to actually imprint a Beast Control Mark onto a dragon's bones?"

"To take such a terrifying Black Dragon as a 'pet'?"

Lu Feng's understanding of the world was battered again and again. He had always believed that this continent had not existed only for the years recorded in the Profound Heaven Calendar, that before that calendar there must have been an unknown civilization. Now, he believed it more firmly than ever.

Before the Profound Heaven Calendar, there had to have been a lost era.

Though the Black Dragon had already become white bones, it still emitted such towering dragon aura. One could imagine how filled with resentment and unwillingness it must have been before its death.

Lu Feng searched for the Dragon Core. That was the source from which the dragon aura radiated.

A Dragon Core passed down from such a distant era had surely been preserved by some special method. Otherwise, its dragon aura would have dispersed long ago.

"Hm?" Lu Feng exclaimed in surprise and walked toward the Black Dragon's rear claw in the distance.

There was an enormous box covered by the massive claw.

Lu Feng studied it curiously.

The box was carved with exquisite patterns, depicting beautiful mountains, rivers, and landscapes...

Lu Feng had initially thought the Dragon Core was sealed and preserved using formation patterns, but on closer inspection, he found no trace of any formation patterns on the box. No matter how he looked at it, it was an utterly ordinary box.

Lu Feng hesitated, but ultimately reached out and moved out the waist-high box.

Using several wooden sticks to support the dragon claw in its place,

Lu Feng carefully reached out and lifted the lid of the box open by a narrow crack.

Buzz!

Lu Feng felt his soul sea undergo a violent upheaval. It was as if his soul were being torn apart, causing pain so extreme it reached its limit.

Compared to the agony of being brutally tortured in the stone chamber, the tearing pain caused by this assault and shock to his soul far surpassed anything before.

Had Lu Feng not possessed a soul tempered by the Heaven Soul Realm, that instant of impact alone might have been enough to scatter his soul and end his life.

Only then did he understand the trick hidden within the box. It was actually a rare soul seal.

The Soul Strength of the person who had placed it was terrifying beyond compare.

"Who are you? Why have you trespassed into this place!"

A voice abruptly appeared out of nowhere in Lu Feng's mind.

Lu Feng was greatly alarmed. Feeling that voice suddenly intrude into his soul sea, he replied tremblingly, "I accidentally fell into this place. Senior, please forgive me."

The suppression of his soul kept even the slightest thought of resistance from arising. Since the other party could so easily enter his soul sea, they could naturally erase his soul just as easily.

The voice fell silent for a while before saying with a trace of hostility, "Your seven souls are strange... You came for my wife's Dragon Saliva Water, didn't you!"

The words carried immense pressure, that domineering voice shaking his very soul.

Though Lu Feng was surprised by the meaning of the word "wife," he did not dare ask.

"Senior, this junior truly needs Dragon Saliva Water to preserve his life, but I have absolutely no intention of forcibly taking or stealing it."

The moment he heard the voice, Lu Feng had already begun considering retreat. It was not because he feared the soul pressure, but because the Dragon Saliva Water had an owner. He bore no grudge against this person, and forceful plunder was not what he wished to do. He did not want to go against his heart.

The voice became somewhat mournful and resentful. "Even if you harbored a thief's heart, you would have no life to use it. My wife was a Nine Nether Black Dragon. How could the saliva attached to her Dragon Core be something a person of your strength could absorb and refine..."

Despair appeared on Lu Feng's face. The voice had struck directly at the heart of his concerns.

Black Dragons were inherently tyrannical and violent. Although Dragon Saliva Water was an excellent substance for fusing the seven souls, Black Dragon saliva was the exact opposite. Used improperly, it would have the opposite effect and bring death even faster.

The voice was silent for a while, then became deep and solemn. "Boy, do you want to live?"

Lu Feng nodded without the slightest hesitation.

"Promise me three things, and I will teach you a way to survive."

Lu Feng replied excitedly, "Let alone three things—even thirty or three hundred would be fine. So long as they do not go against my heart, Senior may have me do anything."

The voice laughed, but its laughter was somewhat cold and sinister. "There is no need for so many. Just three. If, with your strength, you can accomplish these three things... this old man will be able to rest in peace."

Lu Feng said seriously, "What three things?"

"First, I want you to slaughter every last member of the Jiang Clan..."

Lu Feng immediately interrupted, "My apologies, but wantonly killing people, I..."

"Young man, do not be so hasty. Listen to this old man finish," the voice said with some displeasure. "In the past, my wife and I roamed freely between heaven and earth. In order to save someone, my wife inadvertently revealed her dragon form, attracting greedy villains. They used Despicable Means to severely wound and ambush us both, leaving my wife critically injured..."

"As my wife lay dying, I brought her here and set up a barrier. I left alone to seek revenge, but how could one man contend with a great sect's power? In a bloody battle, I fought my way into their sect, washed their outer sect in blood, but was also struck by their Sect Protecting Grand Formation. I fled while injured, became trapped in the deep mountains, and perished there."

Astonishment filled Lu Feng's face as he asked in confusion, "Since Senior died in the deep mountains, why are you here?"

"This place is a barrier I established. Before I left, I left behind a wisp of my remnant soul, sealing it within this wooden box to remain forever beside my wife."

A mere wisp of remnant soul possessed such might?

Lu Feng was shaken once more!

"May I ask what era Senior came from? Have you ever heard of the Profound Heaven Calendar?"

The voice noticeably paused, clearly having never heard of that calendar.

The Profound Heaven Calendar had been established after the continent's third great calamity, in commemoration of the Xuan Tian Emperor...

This showed that the origin of that voice dated back at least to before the Three Calamities.

Ten thousand years ago!

Lu Feng said in shock, "Senior, I fear your enemies from back then no longer exist."

The voice sounded somewhat melancholy, but also carried a trace of determination. "That sect was immensely powerful. Perhaps it has endured to this day..."

"For this first matter, you need only remember it in your heart. Should you encounter that clan by fate, destroy it for this old man!"

Lu Feng agreed, thinking that the world was vast and so many years had passed. Surely they had already vanished into the long river of history.

To show his sincerity and determination to do his utmost, Lu Feng added, "May I ask if that clan has any specific traits?"

"They excel at using force aura. The Jiang Clan!"

The voice brimmed with boundless hatred.

Lu Feng silently committed it to memory.

"What about the remaining two matters?"

The voice reminded him, "All three of these matters require you humans to reach above the Heaven Realm before there is even a sliver of possibility that you can accomplish them."

Lu Feng gave a proud laugh and replied confidently, "If I can successfully resolve the injuries to my seven souls, reaching the Heaven Soul Realm will be just around the corner!"

What Lu Feng did not think deeply about was whether the Heaven Realm of that voice's era could possibly be on the same level as the Heaven Soul Realm of the present age, when spiritual energy had grown thin.

The voice seemed somewhat satisfied by Lu Feng's proud reply. "For the second matter, I want you to go to the place where I died, retrieve my remains, find a spiritual treasure land, and bury my wife and me together."

Lu Feng nodded. Compared with the vague first task, arranging their joint burial was clearly much easier.

"Do not celebrate yet. The place where I died was extremely dangerous. Without reaching the Heaven Realm, there is only death and no life," the voice warned.

"May I ask where Senior died?" Lu Feng still agreed to it.

"Hua Yuan Valley!"

Lu Feng froze again. "What place is that?"

Then he reacted. It was probably another place from ten thousand years ago.

Lu Feng repeated what he had said before, promising to search with all his strength, but he did not make any absolute guarantee.

After tens of thousands of years of development, the continent's terrain had long undergone earth-shaking changes. The valley might even have become a deep sea.