Restless Souls

Restless Souls

The morning after the freshman assessment, Huo Yuhao was already waiting at the entrance with his pack on his back for Chi Qiu.

After the assessment, Chi Qiu remained in Zhou Yi's class, while Wang Dong had chosen the agility attack department and gone to Mu Jin's second freshman class. The previous night, while Wang Dong had gone out to fetch water and bathe, Huo Yuhao had quietly packed his things and hidden them under the bed. He had slipped out at dawn that morning. When he left, Wang Dong was still fast asleep.

There wasn't much in his pack: a towel, a nearly empty tube of toothpaste, an old toothbrush, a worn set of clothes, a Storage Soul Tool, and some Silver Soul Coins.

He had earned some money selling grilled fish during the half semester, but buying a Storage Soul Tool had cost him most of it. Chi Qiu had a little money left, and the two of them could probably scrape together enough for the journey.

As he thought, he spotted a faint golden figure in the pale morning mist.

"Wang Yan is the assistant homeroom teacher." Chi Qiu came up beside him. "He's easygoing about leave requests."

"That's good. I was worried Zhou Yi might give you a hard time." Huo Yuhao pulled the strap of his pack back onto his shoulder. "No time to waste. Let's go."

The towering statues in Shrek Academy's plaza had begun to catch the first rays of morning light. Without another moment's hesitation, the two of them set off for the Star Dou Great Forest.

All along the way, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm chattered on in Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness.

"Yuhao, don't take this the wrong way, but are you really going to let the little Auspicious Beast girl come with us to our destination?"

"Brother Sky Dream, it's not that I want her to come..." Huo Yuhao chuckled. "If I don't let her come, she'll worry I might run off. Don't forget, I only escaped being kept there because I promised her I'd return to the Star Dou Great Forest regularly."

"Oh." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm seemed to have something to say, but stopped itself. It plunged its plump, translucent head into the Sea of Consciousness, leaving the rest of its jade-white body dangling outside, wriggling uneasily.

"What's wrong?" Huo Yuhao asked. The silkworm's sudden dive had left him a little dizzy. "Aren't we going to get my Second Soul Ring and shape my Martial Soul? Qiu'er knows all about that. Why can't she come along?"

"Well... uh..."

Huo Yuhao's tone suddenly turned serious. "Brother Sky Dream, are you hiding something from me?"

"How could I..." The plump silkworm's body trembled. "If anything happened to you, I wouldn't survive either. I'd never harm you, no matter what."

"Mm." Huo Yuhao nodded knowingly. "So you are hiding something from me, but it won't hurt me."

"Hey! Yuhao, reading for a few months has made you quite a bit sharper." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm let out a mournful cry. "Since you've put it that way, if I don't come clean, there'll be a crisis of trust between us brothers. The thing is..."

Then the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm recounted, with tears and anguish, the ten-thousand-year love and resentment between it and the Ice Empress. Huo Yuhao listened as his temples throbbed.

"Wait, wait, Brother Sky Dream. You mean our target is the Ice Empress you mentioned—the one with three hundred and ninety thousand years of cultivation?!"

"Of course." The Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was still lost in the tragic romance it had worked itself into. "My beloved Bingbing... If we can get this far, we can spare her the suffering of her heavenly tribulation..."

"..."

In the end, Huo Yuhao didn't interrupt the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm as it worked through its feelings. After a while, when the silkworm seemed to have exhausted itself with its own sentimentality, Huo Yuhao spoke. "But Brother Sky Dream, that's the Ice Empress. What makes you so sure you can convince her to join us?"

The little eyes of the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm turned. "I only had a sixty percent chance to begin with. Whether it works depends on how you act and whether you can earn her trust. But... I just had a thought. If the Auspicious Beast is willing to help, we'll probably have a ninety percent chance."

"You mean I should ask Qiu'er to help."

As he spoke, Huo Yuhao glanced at Chi Qiu, walking on his right. She was concentrating on finding their way, but noticed his gaze and looked back at him questioningly.

They were nearly there, at the boundary where the Star Dou Great Forest met the outlying villages of the Heavenly Soul Empire. The Soul Masters here were all on edge, constantly afraid of a Soul Beast attack. But for Chi Qiu, the place felt as familiar as home.

She had told Huo Yuhao that she could tell which part of the Star Dou Great Forest they were in from the way the plants and trees grew.

"Is there something you want to say?" she asked.

Huo Yuhao unconsciously touched his ear. "I have a favor to ask."

The two of them spent a night in the Star Dou Great Forest. At dawn, Chi Qiu held a funeral for the Secret Technique Soul Bone. A mournful dragon's cry rang out as she pointed the Golden Dragon Spear skyward. A strand of Soul Power shot up like a golden thread into the purplish-red sky, then burst into specks of light and crackling sparks before fading into the boundless heavens.

Conflict between humans and Soul Beasts seemed unavoidable, but the slaughter caused by the hunt for Soul Bones like this was still too much.

Huo Yuhao silently dug a grave. It reminded him of burying his mother, on another dawn when no one else knew.

Chi Qiu turned around. In the fading light of the sparks, her expression was difficult to make out. "There's no need to bury it. Since things have come to this, you may use that Soul Bone."

Huo Yuhao was startled and hurriedly waved his hands. "That wouldn't be right."

"It's nothing," she said calmly. "As a human, you can understand how we feel. That alone is already..." She bit her lip slightly and stopped herself.

"In any case, don't feel burdened. Use it. I've already said my farewells to them."

Huo Yuhao was silent for a moment, then carefully put the Secret Technique Soul Bone into his Storage Soul Tool. A thought occurred to him. "Actually, my mother's grave isn't far from here."

"Do you want to visit it?" Chi Qiu asked.

"Mm," Huo Yuhao said. "After I see my mother, we'll go to the Extreme North."

Back then, the Duke's Mansion hadn't even been willing to give Huo Yun'er a proper burial. In the end, Huo Yuhao had set up her gravestone himself. Her grave was in such a remote place because she hadn't even been worthy of being buried beside the Dai Family's ancestral graves.

When they reached the grave, Huo Yuhao bowed and kowtowed three times. Then his eyes stung, and all the hardships he had endured at Shrek came flooding back. No matter how strong he had been lately, he was still a child. In front of his mother, he couldn't help letting his weakness show.

His voice hoarse, he called out, "Mom, I'm leaving."

"When I was little, you told me all sorts of things about this continent. I've realized that a lot of them weren't quite right. On the way here, I thought about it, and I'm sure it's because you spent your whole life going back and forth within the Duke's Mansion."

"So your son is going out to see what the world is really like."

"Don't worry. Your son has grown up and can take care of himself. Besides, I'm about to become a Level 20 Soul Grandmaster."

"So... I'm leaving."

Huo Yuhao slowly stood up and gently brushed the dirt from his knees. Just as he was about to step back, a familiar, aged voice sounded in his Sea of Consciousness. "Little Yuhao, wait."

"It's you?" Huo Yuhao froze. "Is something wrong?"

"I sensed a wisp of divine consciousness trying to take something from this grave. But another fluctuation covered it before it could succeed, leaving only a mark behind."

"Take something?" Huo Yuhao furrowed his brows.

"If my judgment is correct, that divine consciousness wanted to take your mother's soul."

Huo Yuhao's gaze sharpened at once.

"Who... who wants to take my mother away?"

"That is not someone you can fight at your current level." The old man's voice was gentle but authoritative, suppressing the anger rising in Huo Yuhao's heart. "You'll have a chance to settle the score only after reaching a higher realm. Don't let hatred lead you down the wrong path."

"But..."

"I know what you're thinking," the old man said calmly. "You're worried that your mother's soul might be harmed again after you leave. I'll give you some protection. Lend me your strength."

Chi Qiu had been standing several meters away, silently watching Huo Yuhao pay his respects to his mother. Her expression suddenly changed. An aura that seemed not to belong to this world burst from Huo Yuhao. It was pure death, making every living thing it touched feel as though its soul were about to be guided away.

A leaden-gray Soul Ring rose from beneath Huo Yuhao's feet, leaving layer upon layer of afterimages. For a moment, it was impossible to tell how many Soul Rings there were. Chi Qiu guessed that it was the inconspicuous gray orb in Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness, yet the power surging through the air still left her breathless.

It might have been Soul Power, but it moved in a completely different way.

At that moment, Huo Yuhao's deep emerald eyes had turned an ethereal gray. He slowly raised one arm and traced a line in the air with his index finger. Faint gray marks flowed with his movements, gradually forming an astonishing incantation that belonged to another world.

As he finished the last stroke, his hand swept through the air. A pale golden rim flickered around the edges of the string of unfamiliar gray characters, then they vanished as if erased.

"I removed the mark that was tracking it," the old man said. Then he crossed Huo Yuhao's hands together.

Huo Yuhao was beyond shocked. He felt as though he were witnessing a miracle.

All five senses remained intact, and his mind was clear, yet the old man seemed to have taken control of his body with ease. At the same time, his Soul Power and spiritual power were moving in ways unlike anything he had experienced before.

The Soul Power in his meridians was flowing backward. Normally, that would have been enough to kill a Soul Master, but Huo Yuhao felt no discomfort at all. The old man must have been controlling the flow himself.

He watched a gray magic circle appear in his palm. Its intricate patterns were exquisitely detailed, with the beauty of a cycle in which all things came to an end and all things were reborn. He could hardly believe that something like this had been made using his own power.

"Using this kind of magic brings back memories for me," the voice said, sounding deeply moved. "It even reminds me of certain things... such as the title I once bore."

"Holy Necromancer, Scourge of the Undead, Electrolux."

As that name, heavy as a thousand jun, fell, he guided Huo Yuhao's finger toward the magic circle. Gray light instantly enveloped the grave before them. A moment later, it faded away as if it had never existed.

"I've done all I can," Electrolux said, his voice gradually fading. "For the next ten years, no one will be able to disturb the souls beneath this land. Even gods have their specialties. Clearly, he is no specialist in death and souls, so breaking through this magic won't be easy for him."

"Whether you can reach the level needed to challenge him within ten years is up to you. I've used up quite a bit of strength, so I need to rest inside that green eye of yours."