Evil Soul Master: The Sky is Falling!

In the dense woodland, six spirit masters shrouded in gray robes were fleeing desperately toward the deeper parts of the forest.

Spirit rings were glowing on their bodies; five of them possessed five rings, and there was even one who was a level-60 Spirit Emperor powerhouse.

Three of them, relying on winged martial spirits, had activated flight skills, leaving their slower companions far behind.

"Useless legs, hurry up! Don't let that fiend catch up!"

The five-ringed Spirit King, left behind by everyone else, cursed his companions' lack of loyalty in his heart while lamenting that his parents hadn't given him two more legs. He was now in a position where he could neither outrun the pursuer nor outpace his own allies.

Just as he was panting and clumsily activating a spirit skill to try and catch up to his companions, a brilliant radiance, as if the sun had risen a second time, flared up behind him.

"Third Spirit Skill, Angel's Glory!"

Following a crisp, ethereal shout that drifted down from the sky, a scorching golden beam of light descended straight from the depths of the high firmament.

The moment the scorching holy fire landed, it ignited the fleeing gray-robed figure, and countless cyan-black currents spewed from the man's seven orifices as he burned under the holy flames.

By the time all the cyan-black currents were incinerated by the holy fire, the gray-robed man's charred, carbonized remains crumbled in a light breeze, turning into countless specks of dust that nourished the grass below.

A few breaths later, a youth with golden wings on his back and long golden hair fluttering in the wind, wrapped in three ink-black ten-thousand-year spirit rings, swept over the dense forest.

Passing by the charred ground, which had been blasted into a spiderweb of cracks by the spirit skill, he didn't even spare it a glance, as if what he had just done was merely a trivial matter.

Before long, two more flashes of golden light flickered in the distant woods.

Clearly, two more gray-robed Spirit Kings who could not fly had lost their far-from-precious lives.

In a clearing within the mixed zone of the Star Dou Great Forest, the final three gray-robed figures, realizing that continuing to flee in such a desperate, pathetic manner would only lead to them being hunted down and killed one by one, finally stopped.

They steeled their resolve to make a stand here and settle things with the fiend hunting them.

"Why stop running? I thought you were all running quite fast just a moment ago!"

The golden-haired youth spoke with a mocking tone, flapping his golden angel wings as he slowly descended from the air, holding a longsword that radiated a rich, holy aura.

This sword was no mere ornament; it was the Angel Holy Sword, a true divine artifact, one capable of making evil spirit masters feel the sternness of a father.

"Kid, we have no grudges from the past and no enmity today; why are you hunting us down?"

Under the intimidation of the golden holy sword, which made their evil martial spirits shriek in terror, the leading level-60 Spirit Emperor pulled off his hood in a fit of self-abandonment, revealing a skin-and-bones skull face beneath the gray robe.

"..."

Seeing this, the two other gray-robed figures exchanged glances and pulled off their own hoods, revealing their hideous countenances—the two appeared to be twin brothers, possessing identical bald heads, small eyes, and bulbous noses. Their pockmarked faces were so uneven that even the croaking toads in a pond would look handsome by comparison.

To the evil Spirit Emperor's hysterical roar, the golden-haired youth merely swept a faint glance at him and his two companions. After a long moment, the youth slowly raised his head and asked in confusion, "Does killing the fallen really require a reason?"

Hearing the golden-haired youth refer to them as "the fallen" with such disdain, the evil Spirit Emperor, like a cockroach that hadn't quite died after being stepped on by a slipper, beat his chest and roared:

"Bastard! Who are you calling fallen? We are the great Holy Spirit Masters! We are the future masters of the Douluo Continent! The great Holy Emperor will..."

Before the evil Spirit Emperor could finish, the golden-haired youth, seemingly intrigued by the roar, hurriedly raised a hand to stop his futile rage and asked with a smile:

"This 'Holy Emperor' you speak of, what kind of thing is he? Is he a legend, or does he truly exist? If you tell me honestly, I might consider granting you a quick death. Otherwise... I certainly wouldn't mind letting you experience the methods of the Inquisition and the Religious Tribunal from the church era tens of thousands of years ago."

"..."

Hearing this, the evil Spirit Emperor narrowed his eyes. After a brief silence, he spat viciously in the direction of the golden-haired youth and blustered with a tough-guy attitude:

"Hmph! I won't tell you anything! Go to hell!"

"Is that so? What a pity! It seems I'll have to investigate it myself!"

Having said that, the golden-haired youth stepped back a few paces, raised an eyebrow at his own shadow on the ground, and teased, "Rakshasa, stop sleeping. Come out and clean up the mess!"

As soon as he finished speaking, two illusory purple-black palms suddenly reached out from the shadow cast by Qian Yuhan, pulling a blurry figure—whose features were indistinguishable, though its gender could barely be discerned—out from the darkness.

The purple-black phantom dragged a long scythe and slowly straightened its back, complaining arrogantly to Qian Yuhan, who stood calmly leaning on his sword:

"Qian Yuhan, I'm happy you thought of This Seat when there was work to be done, but I really don't like the tone you use with me. You need to change that next time... Ouch! Why did you kick me for no reason!"

Qian Yuhan raised half an eyebrow, seemingly deeply dissatisfied with the shadow's dawdling. He said, "Chattering away, are you going to kill them or not? If not, get back in there and let me do it."

"Look at you, so impatient! I didn't say I wouldn't kill them! But I have to warm up first."

With that, the Rakshasa Phantom turned its head, shouldered the long-handled scythe that radiated an ominous aura, and squeezed a "nuclear-cancer-hydrogen" smile at the three evil spirit masters who still hadn't realized the severity of the situation, cackling:

"Hehehehe, don't you three dare come looking for This Seat as vengeful ghosts after you die; if you want to find someone, find him!"

"His name is Qian Yuhan, the first Angel God."

"Oh, that's not right either. In my presence, you won't even have the chance to become vengeful ghosts."

"Third Spirit Skill, Shadow Shift."

Dragging the divine scythe, the Rakshasa Phantom vanished into the shadow beneath Qian Yuhan's feet without warning. In the panicked eyes of the three evil spirit masters, it reappeared behind the level-60 Spirit Emperor, the strongest among them, and cleaved him vertically in two with the razor-sharp Rakshasa Demon Scythe.

"Hehehe, little cuties, where are you looking!?" The Rakshasa Phantom shouldered the scythe with one hand while grabbing the struggling soul of the first dead evil spirit master with the other, kneading it into a ball. Only when it realized that playing with its food like this wasn't a good habit did it begin to tear into the "victim's" dirty but exceptionally delicious soul, gulping it down right in front of the other two evil spirit masters.

Regarding the Rakshasa Phantom devouring the souls of evil spirit masters, Qian Yuhan chose to turn a blind eye. After all, according to the Evil Spirit Master Inequality:

(Because evil spirit masters harm others for no reason and lack the humanity that normal people should possess, evil spirit masters do not equal humans.

And because, killing evil spirit masters equals saving people.)

Therefore, killing evil soul masters is equivalent to saving countless lives; it is equivalent to doing a good deed.

Based on this analysis, Qian Yuhan ultimately concluded that evil soul masters are not human and can be killed at will.

As for whether the evil soul masters—who were about to become little snacks, chewed up by the Rakshasa Phantom—cared?

Sorry, Qian Yuhan did not care, and he believed that very few people would care either.

In despair and terror, the two five-ringed evil soul masters were hammered into meat paste by the 88,000-jin Rakshasa Demon Scythe held by the Rakshasa Phantom.

Kicking the scythe into Qian Yuhan's shadow, the Rakshasa Phantom grabbed a screaming soul in each hand.

While tearing into them like a wild beast, it asked Qian Yuhan in a muffled voice: "Oi, since we're already here, do you want to take the opportunity to fill in the fourth soul rings for your two martial souls in the Star Dou Great Forest?"

"..." Qian Yuhan did not answer the Rakshasa Phantom—his second martial soul, which could detach from his body and act independently—directly. Instead, after glancing at the sky, he gave his conclusion: "It is getting late. Let us rest in the outer zone tonight, and tomorrow we shall venture deeper into the mixed zone, or perhaps search the edges of the core zone."

"That works too. After all, the legs are on you, I was just asking as a formality."

With that, the Rakshasa Phantom dissolved like a dollop of cream dropped into water, leaving Qian Yuhan alone to walk toward the outer zone of the Star Dou Great Forest.

As night fell, Qian Yuhan set up a temporary tent as a camp behind a wind-sheltered hillock at the junction of the outer zone and the mixed zone of the Star Dou Great Forest.

The iron rule passed down for tens of thousands of years—never light a fire in a soul beast forest unless necessary—still held true. Qian Yuhan leaned against a large, turtle-shaped rock and used the charcoal fire he had prepared in his stove before the sun went down to simply grill a civet cat for dinner.

After eating his fill, Qian Yuhan went into the tent alone, took out the Angel Holy Sword to stroke it gently, and took the opportunity to review the events of the day.

In the morning, as he was entering the outer zone of the Star Dou Great Forest, he first felt a powerful mental fluctuation, and then the sky, which had been perfectly clear a second before, suddenly darkened.

Following that, a thunderous roar echoed through the high sky.

At the very moment that thunder exploded, the bright sun in the sky went dark for a brief instant before casting a gray current with a strange pressure down toward the earth.

That gray current swirled in the sky for quite a while before finally landing on him.

"This thing is not ordinary." Qian Yuhan felt the gray sphere he had suppressed into the corner of his spiritual sea, which had remained motionless since then. He suddenly opened his eyes and looked at his shadow: "Rakshasa, come out and talk."

"I recall that you are a mortal now, not a god. Is it really okay to be chatting in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"

The Rakshasa Phantom poked its head out from the ground—no, from the shadow—like a mole, and questioned Qian Yuhan in a cheeky tone: "Forget it, sleep or don't! To be honest, I've been wanting to ask you a few questions for a while now, and I don't know if you're willing to answer."

"Just ask," Qian Yuhan replied.

"Then I'm asking!" The Rakshasa Phantom crawled out of the ground, sat down in a slouching posture opposite Qian Yuhan, and blurted out: "I clearly remember you died many years ago, so how did you suddenly show up at my door not long ago? How did you manage that? Did you learn some life-extending technique tens of thousands of years ago?"

Hearing this, a rare trace of confusion appeared on Qian Yuhan's calm face. He said:

"I... I am not sure either. I remember that I did indeed die, but... the day I opened my eyes, I found myself there, and then... you know the rest."

"Nonsense, of course I know," the Rakshasa Phantom rolled its eyes at Qian Yuhan, gnashing its teeth: "You impolite guy ran straight into the ruins of the Capital of Killing and dismantled the coffin I was sleeping in!"

"I did that to get the Angel Holy Sword! Who knows why my successor put it in the same place as your scythe? Besides, haven't you always wanted to escape?"

"Is escaping on my own the same as being grabbed by the neck and carried out like a chick by you?" The more the Rakshasa Phantom thought about it, the angrier it became, seemingly wanting to jump up and punch Qian Yuhan in the head.

But in the end, considering that it probably couldn't beat this tens-of-thousands-of-years-old senior who had hacked his way to godhood through faith, the Rakshasa Phantom sighed and decided to ask a question that might get it beaten, but would definitely be fun:

"I remember you didn't use to be..., how come you have such 'style' now (in the physical sense)?"

After saying this, the Rakshasa Phantom wore an extremely strange smile, seemingly wanting to take this opportunity to mock Qian Yuhan.

But Qian Yuhan's next words dealt it a massive critical hit.

Qian Yuhan looked at the Rakshasa Phantom expressionlessly and asked in a questioning tone: "You are a god, or at least closely related to a god, right?"

"Yes, otherwise what? Have I become so low-key that people can't tell I'm related to a god?" The Rakshasa Phantom didn't understand the connection between what Qian Yuhan said and what it had asked, scratching its head in confusion.

"Gods have no fixed form! Since I am a god, there is nothing wrong with appearing in other identities!"

The veteran of the God Realm, Qian Yuhan, struck a reminiscent pose and gave the Rakshasa Phantom a little shock from the God Realm:

"As far as I know, there have been several senior male deities in the God Realm who secretly transformed into female forms to engage in romance with other male forms taken by female deities... indulging in such debauchery that they forgot the world existed..."

Rakshasa Phantom (trying hard to pretend it knows nothing): "◑.◑", wait, let me sort this out... that, is the God Realm you are talking about the same one I know? Have those guys been playing so wildly all these years? Oh my, the morals of the gods have truly declined!

"Stop pretending with me. According to my friends in the God Realm, the reason you use a female image now is because back then, in order to..."

"!!"

Realizing that its dark history was about to become part of the 'God Realm gossip literature', the Rakshasa Phantom broke into a cold sweat, intending to 'preserve its innocence in the mortal world'.

It scrambled toward Qian Yuhan and begged in a low voice:

"Enough, enough, brother, stop talking! I was wrong, I won't ask where your style came from, okay?"

"Just not asking?" Qian Yuhan's lips curled slightly as he draped his left arm over the Rakshasa Phantom's shoulder, his right thumb and index finger rubbing together in a gesture of counting money:

"If there isn't some benefit to seal my lips, I feel this matter might be a bit difficult to handle!"

Rakshasa Phantom: "⚆ᗝ⚆"

No, Qian Yuhan, are you really the Angel God? Why are you asking me for hush money!

Logically, a righteous god like you doing things for others shouldn't be so... unprincipled? Just like that recognized honest man, Qian Daoliu.

If Qian Yuhan knew that the Rakshasa Phantom was frantically complaining in its heart that he didn't look like a righteous god, and even comparing him to the honest man Qian Daoliu, he would probably burst out laughing.

Just kidding, when was it that he achieved godhood through faith?

The Church Era!

Back then, the Martial Soul Hall had yet to emerge. There was only its predecessor: a church that struggled to gain recognition and expand by purifying soul beasts with evil bloodlines.

The Douluo Continent of that era was chaotic and tumultuous.

It was a place where the water was shallow but the turtles were many; every street corner had a "big brother" in charge.

In those days, you could not only see countless evil soul beasts running rampant and wreaking havoc, but also many fledgling sects using all sorts of underhanded methods to frantically expand their power.

On top of this "you hack me, I hack you" blood-soaked landscape, you could even see the two great empires and a nest of kingdoms and duchies playing out legion-scale clashes while simultaneously plotting to seize each other's cities.

A pure, good-hearted person?

Such a creature wouldn't even survive until the next day to eat a hot breakfast.

The reason Qian Yuhan was able to unify the entire church and suppress every power on the Douluo Continent back then was due to "three iron principles."

Namely: the Iron Banner, the Iron Law, and the Iron Fist.

The so-called Iron Banner meant holding high the banner of human supremacy, firmly occupying the moral high ground, and slaughtering the evil soul beasts that threatened the noble human race.

The Iron Law meant defining bottom lines and regulations, reshaping the rules of a Douluo Continent that had become a chaotic mess.

As for the Iron Fist? That is easier to understand. To put it colloquially, it was one word: fight. Fight until everyone was convinced, fight until everyone understood they had to maintain a bottom line and follow the rules—otherwise, they would certainly be beaten to death by him!

No one knew how explosive Qian Yuhan's state of mind was in that era, where "immortals" were as common as hemp, as he faced that group of vermin.

And no one would ever understand how much hardship and effort Qian Yuhan poured into his path of sweeping across the Douluo Continent and establishing foundational rules, all while unifying the three powers of Pope, Chief Inquisitor of the Inquisition, and Commander of the Angel Legion single-handedly.

They would only remember that when Qian Yuhan drew the Angel Holy Sword to suppress evil, he destroyed a seal that was, in reality, completely unimportant.

Yet they forgot that after drawing the Angel Holy Sword, Qian Yuhan spent a full one hundred and twenty years slaughtering the evils of the Douluo Continent over and over again.

He killed until the entire continent dared not fall into depravity, and no one dared to secretly harbor or support evil.

It was a beautiful era, an age where even an ordinary person without awakened soul power could sleep soundly at night, without fear that a soul beast or a fallen one would break into their home and chew them up, skin and bone.

Because in that era, there truly was a burning golden holy sword hanging high above everyone's heads, ready to strike at any moment.

Whenever he thought of this, Qian Yuhan would recall the memoir written by his divine successor, that girl named Qian Renxue, which made his blood pressure soar.

Failing to beat the Asura God—fine, he wouldn't hold that against her; after all, it was normal for a Tier 1 God to lose to a God King. But to be nearly killed by a mortal, and then beaten black and blue by the Sea God—who was also a Tier 1 God—only to have to rely on her mother to settle the score? That was a bit inexcusable.

The original Sea God of that time was not weak, but at most, he was a match for him, a 40-60 split (with him, Qian Yuhan, being the 60).

How did it end up in her hands that each generation was worse than the last, getting suppressed by others?

And according to a review of the memoirs and historical records.

Qian Yuhan was astonished to discover that the high-ranking members of that so-called Martial Soul Hall were, at a glance, all war criminals!

Qian Renxue's own issues were arguably the least among them all!

Qian Daoliu, this Great Priest of the Martial Soul Hall who inherited his martial soul, hadn't inherited a shred of his divine ancestor's character: to love and hate boldly, to fight fearlessly, and to strike back at any provocation.

The Clear Sky Sect had indirectly killed his own son, yet he was still there, wallowing in self-righteousness while keeping his word?

Did anyone even appreciate his keeping of that promise?

Was a promise something to be kept in such a manner?

If he, Qian Yuhan, had been sitting in that position, he would have drawn his sword and wiped out the entire Clear Sky Sect; not doing so would have been a mercy, provided he didn't have someone kick the wheels off his carriage on the way there.

Qian Xunji had decent personal ability, but lacked the bearing and ruthlessness of a leader of a major power.

Because he couldn't bear the sunk cost of training a successor, he resorted to petty schemes. This was worth criticizing: if the successor wanted to elope, kill her! If you couldn't bear to kill her, then cripple her cultivation!

To resort to petty schemes without crippling her cultivation—was he waiting for the backlash?

It was just a pity that if he hadn't resorted to those petty schemes, he might not have raised Qian Renxue, a descendant who would eventually become a god.

Regarding this, Qian Yuhan felt... it was hard to comment.

Bibi Dong, this one was a heavyweight among heavyweights.

Qian Yuhan found it hard to imagine that a heaven-sent pride, carefully nurtured by the top power of the Douluo Continent and destined to become a god by her own merit, would actually fall for a piece of trash who only broke through to level 30 at the age of fifty, and even obsessed over eloping with him.

Qian Yuhan's assessment: an abnormal brain is a type of illness; it must be treated as early as possible.

Finally, there was that Hu Liena. Damn it, is the Martial Soul Hall your family business? You just sit there squandering assets and leaking secrets.

It was one thing for Qian Renxue to squander things; at least Qian Renxue was the heir to the Angel martial soul and the Angel godhood, and her parents were both Popes—she had a legitimate right to inherit the Martial Soul Hall.

Are you proud of yourself for squandering someone else's family fortune?

Whenever he thought of this, Qian Yuhan would pull Hu Liena's soul bone from his storage soul tool with a dark face and roll it in his hands like a trinket.

And watching Qian Yuhan coldly grip Hu Liena's external soul bone as if it were a piece of jade, the Rakshasa Phantom instantly realized that Qian Yuhan—who had locked away his "mood swings" from his days as a grumpy young girl, only to be reborn as a grumpy old man—was unhappy again.

Running into his line of fire at this moment was clearly not a wise move.