[Upon hearing this name, Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable's expression changed drastically!]
"Dark Soul Society?"
This was also Su Yang's first time hearing this name.
[In the simulation, Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable's reaction suggested that he seemed to have some connection with it.] [Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable sent you a voice transmission, asking you to inquire about the current situation of the hypocritical, shameless, cruel, and utterly deranged force known as the Dark Soul Society.]
"So many descriptions... Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable clearly hated the Dark Soul Society to the bone."
"Could there be some life-and-death enmity between them?" Su Yang rubbed his nose, forming a guess.
[You continued asking.] [Dock True Monarch told you the Dark Soul Society's detailed history.] [Like the Seven Islands Alliance, the Dark Soul Society was also a large alliance organization.] [The difference was that one stood in the light, while the other lurked in the shadows.] [The Dark Soul Society's greatest goal was to overthrow the Seven Islands Alliance and rule this sea region once more.] [Two hundred thousand years ago, the Seven Islands Alliance did not yet exist in this sea region.] [The ones ruling this place were the seven great factions now within the Dark Soul Society.] [At the time, they were not yet an alliance.] [Not only did they wage war against one another.] [They also wantonly destroyed the territories of other factions.] [They squeezed ordinary cultivators dry with extreme brutality.] [Supreme-grade spiritual roots and special physiques—so long as they were discovered, those factions would find ways to extract them and implant them into their own descendants and disciples.] [This situation continued until Lingguang Saint, the first grand leader of the Seven Islands Alliance, was born, bringing it to an end.] [He was born on Lingguang Island and discovered his peerless talent at a young age.] [Yet he did not reveal it, cultivating silently instead. Once he was capable of crossing the sea on long journeys, he left this sea region and headed to Tianqing Continent.] [After achieving success in cultivation, he returned and overthrew the seven great factions.] [He shattered mountains and razed temples, pulled out spiritual veins, leveled ancestral lands, liberated cultivation resources, and established the Seven Islands Alliance.] [He laid down the order for the entire sea region.] [Only then did the cultivation world of the present Seven Islands Alliance, with order and peace as its whole, come into being.] [Yet a centipede did not go stiff even in death. Although the seven great factions had perished.] [Some of their disciples and elders survived, taking with them a portion of their factions' foundations.] [Once they came together and discussed matters, the Dark Soul Society was established.] [The Dark Soul Society's methods were exceedingly vile.] [Not only did they strike at cultivators of the Seven Islands Alliance, they also led some small and medium-sized factions toward ruin.] [That way, they could obtain talented people and the wealth accumulated by those factions.] [They would thereby strengthen the Dark Soul Society's foundations, then seize everything through trickery and force to benefit themselves.] [This time, they had somehow influenced and controlled a Strange Lifeform, endangering Minghuang Island's safety.] [You were somewhat astonished. You had originally believed that the Strange Lifeform appearing on Minghuang Island was also commanded by some leader, never expecting it to be connected to the Dark Soul Society.] [You bid farewell to Dock True Monarch and headed toward Fire Source City.] [Along the way, you asked Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable whether he had any grievances with the Dark Soul Society.] [He told you that he had once established a faction of his own. Yet because his alchemy was too exceptional, he stood head and shoulders above the rest among Minghuang Island's fifth-rank alchemists.] [Even the island's sixth-rank Dan Kings were less skilled than him when refining fifth-rank pills, and the quality of their finished pills was inferior to his.] [It was precisely because of this that the Dark Soul Society set its sights on Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable.] [Under the Dark Soul Society's instigation.] [Not only was the faction Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable had established destroyed, but his wife and two sons also died at the hands of forces manipulated by the Dark Soul Society. Only his youngest daughter narrowly escaped disaster.] [Had he not, by a stroke of fate, seen through the Dark Soul Society's plan.] [He would likely have long since been serving the Dark Soul Society.] [Yet because of this, he was hunted down, ending up with his physical body destroyed and his Primordial Spirit crippled, leaving behind only a wisp of remnant soul trapped within a ring.] [Had he not encountered you by chance, he likely could only have silently faded away within that ring.] [After hearing this, you deeply sympathized with your teacher's experiences.] [Two days later, you arrived at Fire Source City and saw Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable's daughter once again.] [By then, she could no longer preserve her vital essence and had become feeble with age.] [Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable accompanied her through the final stretch of her life.] [At the age of 290, Ancient Yuan Dan Venerable's daughter passed away.] [After burying her, you left Fire Source City.] [After giving the matter some thought, you did not return to Qixia Island. Instead, you traveled throughout Minghuang Island.] [At the age of 293, you comprehended the origins scattered across Minghuang Island, and your first fourth-rank Origin Body Refining Technique broke through to minor mastery.] [At the age of 298, you broke through to the fifth level of Nascent Soul.] [At the age of 332, you remained in a Market Town to cultivate.] [Suddenly, you sensed the surrounding spiritual energy violently fluctuate before rapidly dwindling, as though something were devouring it.] [Realizing something was wrong, you flew out of your rented cave abode, intending to leave this Market Town.] [But suddenly, a massive thousand-legged monster burst out of the ground, radiating a powerful aura.]
"How could a Strange Lifeform suddenly appear in Minghuang Island's interior?"
Outside the simulation, Su Yang felt that something was amiss.
He swiftly opened the simulation screen.
He saw a gigantic insect-like monster with a thousand hands and a thousand legs floating above a large Market Town, radiating a terrifying aura.
Several thousand long legs stretched in different directions, piercing through the bodies of Nascent Soul True Lords and rapidly absorbing the mana and origins within them.
In merely a few breaths, a Nascent Soul True Lord would turn into a dried corpse.
As for the lower-cultivated Golden Core True Persons and minor Foundation Establishment and Qi Refinement cultivators—
Most were crushed to death, or even crushed apart, by the Strange Lifeform's terrifying aura the instant it appeared.
The Simulated Su Yang in the scene was also being besieged by several of the Strange Lifeform's long legs.
It appeared that he could handle them with his own strength alone.
Seeing this, Su Yang also breathed a sigh of relief.
This Strange Lifeform was merely fifth-rank, and even among fifth-rank beings, it was not particularly powerful.
It did not even compare to the two Strange Lifeforms on Fenghua Island that possessed formidable Spirit Transformation combat strength, nor did it give him the same oppressive feeling.
"Only the strength of an advanced Spirit Transformation cultivator? Then Simulated Su Yang should be safe this time."
Su Yang let out a long breath.
"No."
His pupils suddenly contracted as he noticed something different.
This Strange Lifeform did not possess the innate sacred feeling that Strange Lifeforms in his memories had carried.
A Strange Lifeform without a sacred feeling? Was it still a Strange Lifeform?
Wanting to see the result more quickly, Su Yang switched to text simulation.
[Several Deity Transformation Venerables tore through space and appeared, launching a joint assault against the thousand-legged monster.] [After an intense battle, the thousand-legged monster was directly killed, showing no sign of revival whatsoever.]
"Sure enough, this was not a Strange Lifeform. It merely looked exactly the same on the surface."
"Then how did it appear?"
"Was it offspring produced through the Strange Lifeform's own reproduction?"
"Or was it the Dark Soul Society!"
Su Yang had a premonition that this was certainly inseparable from the Dark Soul Society.
He continued reading the simulation.
[You felt that Minghuang Island had already fallen into a tremendous whirlpool.] [You decided to leave Minghuang Island.] [You arrived at the coast, holding a sea chart you had prepared long ago.] [You headed toward Zisha Island, the small island closest to Minghuang Island.] [Half a year later, you arrived at Zisha Island.] [You discovered that this island was extremely small, not even one ten-thousandth the size of Qixia Island.] [The strongest beings on the island were only several ordinary Nascent Soul cultivators, posing no threat whatsoever to you.] [You temporarily remained on Zisha Island.] [At the age of 349, you broke through to the sixth level of Nascent Soul.]
Before you continue