Blood Pool Soul Examination

Upon hearing the words of Blood Blade Douluo, Lin Yun finally nodded and agreed to follow him.

"However, I must send her out first."

Lin Yun looked at Zhang Lexuan, who had fallen unconscious during the recent turbulence, and spoke.

"No, no, no, all three of them must come along!"

Inside the carriage, Blood Blade Douluo remarked.

"There is no need to feel dissatisfied. Isn't it quite nice to have those two follow you? For you, it means having two delicate flowers by your side, which saves you from many worldly distractions and makes it easier to advance further."

Lin Yun took a deep breath, ultimately choosing not to continue the confrontation, and asked calmly.

"Then where are you planning to take me?"

Blood Blade Douluo replied.

"To the headquarters of our Holy Spirit Cult, of course. As for the specific location, you will know once you have become one of us."

Lin Yun nodded, stopped looking at Blood Blade Douluo, and turned his gaze toward the carriage window.

The powers on the Douluo Continent were generally quite rotten, and the Holy Spirit Cult was no better than the so-called Shrek Academy; in any case, Lin Yun was no ignorant native.

Everywhere was merely a place for development, and in the end, what he did would depend on his own choices.

He just wondered how the upcoming Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Tournament would proceed now that Ma Xiaotao and two of the elders were gone.

According to Blood Blade Douluo, the Shrek Seven Devils of this generation had already been culled, leaving only Chen Zifeng, Dai Yueheng, Ling Luochen, and Xixi.

With three members missing before the competition had even begun, Lin Yun was somewhat looking forward to seeing how Shrek Academy would handle it.

About ten days later, in a deep mountain range within the Sun Moon Empire.

Zhang Lexuan looked at Lin Yun, who had brought her a glass of water, with a complex expression. Her eyes filled with struggle and pain as she asked.

"Are you really going to join the Holy Spirit Cult and become an Evil Soul Master?"

Lin Yun reached out to brush Zhang Lexuan's bangs and said.

"Then tell me, what should we do? Should we die for a vague, ethereal sense of justice, only for the villains in the Holy Spirit Cult to continue their ways regardless, while two lives capable of reaching the Title Douluo realm are lost forever?"

"To put it more crazily, doing so would be a loss to this world."

Lin Yun's words left Zhang Lexuan silent. Lin Yun then soothingly stroked her cheek and said.

"At the very least, we are alive now. And as long as we can secure some rank or position within the Holy Spirit Cult, we can restrain our subordinates from committing too many evil deeds. That is absolutely more calculated than dying in their hands for nothing."

Zhang Lexuan closed her eyes and leaned slightly into Lin Yun's palm. Her tightly clenched hands slowly relaxed; she was clearly persuaded.

At that moment, the door, which could only be opened from the outside, was flung open. Blood Blade Douluo said.

"Alright, the ritual prepared for you is ready. Come with me."

Lin Yun looked at a youth who appeared significantly younger following behind Blood Blade and pointed at him, then said.

"Senior Blood Blade, please guard this place. I shall leave with this senior instead."

Blood Blade became interested, curling his lips as he said.

"You little brat, you actually trust this old man that much?"

Lin Yun turned back abruptly, a yellow diamond-shaped crystal appearing above his head. A pressure that forced evil martial souls to bow in submission suddenly poured out toward Blood Blade Douluo.

Lin Yun's voice changed, becoming cold and resolute.

"It is not a matter of trusting you, but of trusting my own strength. I have absolute certainty that I can take you down with me."

The crystal Lin Yun had obtained in Flying Star City was the remnant soul of the "Holy Spirit" itself—the first two words of the Holy Spirit Cult.

It was the latter half of the cult's slogan: "Let the Holy Light shine upon the earth, let the Holy Spirit descend upon the world."

This so-called Holy Spirit was actually, like Electrolux and the Evil Eye race, an extraterrestrial visitor that had arrived on the Douluo Continent from another plane.

When the Holy Spirit first arrived several thousand years ago, it could not control its own power, radiating a light that interfered with the human psyche and caused special mutations in the martial souls of certain soul masters.

The specific manifestation was the ability to influence a person's emotions and personality. For example, those with certain dark-attribute martial souls were prone to extremes and evil, while soul masters with the Taotie Martial Soul were prone to gluttony.

All of this was caused by the influence of the "Holy Spirit" divine light on their genes to varying degrees.

This was why the Bone Dragon martial soul of Bone Douluo or the Ghost Martial Soul of the Ghost Douluo in the first era did not cause them to become madmen who only loved killing.

Yet, by the second era, there were many cases of Bone Dragon soul masters committing evil, along with most of the evil cultivation methods for martial souls.

For instance, Blood Infant Douluo's consumption of infant blood was all caused by the interference of the Holy Spirit light.

As for why the Holy Spirit became like this, or why it was still called a "Holy Spirit" when it was in such a state, only the ghosts knew; the remnant soul in Lin Yun's hand did not remember.

However, this remnant soul was truly effective at critical moments, promising that it could act once if Lin Yun burned seventy years of his lifespan.

In an environment where he could not truly fight and needed pure deterrence, it was indeed useful.

Blood Blade Douluo was the most cowardly of the Evil Soul Masters; other Evil Soul Masters killed because they wanted to, but he killed because if he didn't, his martial soul would kill him instead.

He belonged to the group that could not survive without fighting.

Because his foundation was one of cowardice and a desire to preserve his own life, he naturally fell for Lin Yun's bluff.

Lin Yun followed the youth, who had remained silent and expressionless like a statue the entire way, into a grand hall of the Holy Spirit Cult.

On the right side of the hall, Ma Xiaotao was bound by chains, submerged within a blood-red pool.

"Do I have to soak in that too?"

Lin Yun narrowed his eyes, speaking for the first time to the stone-faced youth leading the way.

The youth paused, then replied, "Yes, this is the Martial Soul awakening Dark Resurrection ritual. However, since you are here voluntarily, there is no need to apply the Blood Chain to erase your memories, nor do you need to soak for as long."

Lin Yun nodded; no wonder the Holy Spirit Cult had so many members capable of absorbing Soul Rings beyond their rank—it turned out they had their own special methods.

Very well, he would treat this as learning from all schools of thought.

Thinking this, Lin Yun was led to the very center of the hall.

"What do I need to do?"

The stone-faced youth said, "Just walk right in. If you want a stronger sense of ritual, taking off your clothes won't hurt. Sit down in the center of the pool, then don't think about anything; just let your body handle the rest."

Lin Yun nodded, stepped into the pool, sat down slowly, and closed his eyes.

A surge of intense Soul Power poured into Lin Yun's body, and at that moment, he felt a cold gust of wind blow past him.

The instant he opened his eyes again, he saw a thousand-foot-tall Three-Headed Bone Dragon standing silently before him; the cold wind he had felt was the breath exhaled from one of its lowered heads.

It was the true form of the Skeletal Bone Dragon. At this moment, all six of the Skeletal Bone Dragon's eyes were fixed on Lin Yun, projecting a singular, shared will toward him:

"We crown thee Emperor!"