"No, no! I'm not an Evil Soul Master. Don't slander me!"
Little Angel was utterly bewildered by Evil Xu Qing's rapid-fire barrage. For a moment, she didn't know what to do, and the iron sword in her hand lost its supply of Soul Power and dimmed. She hurriedly explained:
"Look, there isn't a trace of evil Soul Power on me!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I apologize. I shouldn't have said you let that Evil Soul Master get away."
"What else?"
"Uh... What else...?"
"Oh, oh, oh! Thank you...?"
Ye Guyi tilted her head slightly and looked at Xu Qing with her golden eyes, a little confused.
Was that fleeting green afterimage your Soul Skill?
"Mm-hmm. Without me, that Evil Soul Master would've taken your head with one slash!"
Xu Qing was satisfied. He nodded, then lowered his voice and continued:
"Those Evil Soul Masters are all like that. They act innocent on the surface, but who knows what they're plotting behind your back!"
"Exactly!!"
"Evil Soul Masters are born evil, so we righteous Soul Masters must suppress them completely!"
"Right, right!"
No, no, no!
"We...?" Ye Guyi mused. "You're a Soul Master with a light attribute too?"
"Doesn't it look like it?"
Xu Qing took a few steps back, rubbed his chin, and blinked. His left eye lit up with golden light at just the right moment.
At the same time, a dense aura of light began to emanate from him.
Elder Yi, carrying hard.
"Divine aura!!?"
Now Ye Guyi's little head had completely stopped working.
Only an Angel Martial Soul possessed the noble divine attribute. None of the light-type Martial Souls on Douluo Continent could possess divine aura on the same level as an Angel.
And such pure divinity...
"Phew..."
She closed her eyes, her eyelids turning slightly red. After taking a moment to collect herself, she looked at Xu Qing, who had already withdrawn the phenomenon, her voice trembling slightly:
"Do you have a Holy Angel Martial Soul? With divine aura like that, you must..."
Ye Guyi took a deep breath. Her gaze grew unusually resolute, as if she had made up her mind, and she took several steps toward Xu Qing.
"To be honest, I'm also..."
"I don't, actually, Miss Angel of Justice."
Xu Qing gently cut her off, then shifted aside. Little Angel's sincere, righteous heart was far too warm. He couldn't take it, really couldn't.
"You don't...?"
Ye Guyi was utterly confused.
She had just followed a merchant caravan to Sun Moon, all to track down the local branch of the Holy Spirit Cult! Her Holy Angel Martial Soul's instincts wouldn't let her ignore evil.
So, as soon as she'd accepted the Ordinary Alliance's invitation, she'd gone out alone to investigate the situation in Ming Capital.
Then she'd happened to spot that woman, still carrying traces of an evil aura, heading out to the suburbs.
And then she'd been discovered... Sigh. It seemed an Angel still needed to hone her ability to conceal her aura.
But fate had also brought her face-to-face with a Soul Master who possessed such a strong divine aura!
A chance to strengthen the Angel faction had been right before her eyes, but how had it suddenly turned out that he wasn't one?
Xu Qing interrupted Ye Guyi's spiraling thoughts.
"Of course I don't have an Angel Martial Soul. But you can be an Angel Martial Soul who fights evil to protect the people, and I can fight evil and do good without one. We're all here to wipe out Evil Soul Masters, after all."
"Um, actually... I don't have a Holy Angel Martial Soul either." Miss Angel's gaze darted around, the tips of her ears faintly red from lying. "I have a Bright Swan Martial Soul..."
Xu Qing's mouth twitched. What a Bright Swan Martial Soul.
A Holy Angel disguised as a swan? Why did that sound so familiar?
Had she come to Sun Moon to steal the throne?
"Fine. Miss Swan, if you don't have an Angel Martial Soul, what are you doing at the Holy Spirit Cult's front door?"
"And why are you so determined to punish Evil Soul Masters?"
Xu Qing watched Ye Guyi struggle to find an answer, then sighed silently and raised a hand.
Ice-attribute Soul Power gathered, and two cups of ice marrow drinks appeared out of thin air, complete with two thoughtfully provided straws.
A drink could ease the tension. Social skills: mastered.
"Here. One for me, one for you."
"Oh... Thank you."
The heat eased as Ultimate Ice cooled the air. Ye Guyi's agitation at having her secret exposed gradually subsided as she drank her icy beverage.
She cupped the cold drink in both hands, and the humid air inevitably darkened a patch of her goose-yellow sleeves.
"So this was the Holy Spirit Cult's front door? No wonder that Evil Soul Master stopped as soon as she got here..."
Ye Guyi looked troubled, but in the end she decided to follow her heart. A pure Angel couldn't lie.
Besides, even if this man didn't have an Angel Martial Soul, he was still a kind-hearted Soul Master with a light attribute... probably.
"All right. Actually, I do have an Angel Martial Soul."
A pair of sacred wings slowly appeared behind her. Flecks of luminous feathers drifted through the air, and holy light encircled her robes.
She looked incomparably noble, sacred, and untouchable.
The vision lasted only a few seconds before she withdrew it.
Ye Guyi's cheeks were faintly red, apparently embarrassed about going against her senior sister's instructions.
"Such a powerful and beautiful Martial Soul," Xu Qing said sincerely.
The Holy Angel Martial Soul. This Martial Soul had originally been a god-level Martial Soul: the Six-Winged Angel.
But it had all come to an end in the divine war ten thousand years ago.
During the battle at Jialing Pass, the Angel Godhood was shattered. The Six-Winged Angel Martial Soul lost the ten levels of Soul Power and innate domain bestowed by the gods.
Its rank fell, and it became the two-winged Holy Angel.
Even with only two wings, it was still the bane of Evil Soul Masters.
With its noble divine attribute, unless there was an overwhelming difference in strength or numbers, the Holy Angel could cut through evil like slicing melons and chopping vegetables!
But after a thousand years of being hunted down by Evil Soul Masters, Ye Guyi was probably the only Holy Angel left in the world.
As for Yu Mengdi, who would appear later during the Soul Master Tournament, she merely had an ordinary Angel Martial Soul.
"Hehe, thanks for the compliment."
Ye Guyi wrapped her lips around the cool straw and took a gentle sip. The sweet ice marrow mingled with ice water as it entered her mouth, so refreshing she could hardly bear to pull away.
So good... This person's actually pretty nice.
"My name's Ye Guyi. By the way, what's your name? And what's your Martial Soul?"
You already knew my Martial Soul, but I still didn't know yours. That wouldn't do!
"My name is Elec..."
[Hey!]
Another warning from Elder Yi.
Xu Qing shook his head, dispelling the faint dizziness. Looking into those clear, unclouded golden eyes, he raised an eyebrow and said:
"My name is Xu Qing, and my Martial Soul is..."
He nodded toward the ice cup in Ye Guyi's hand:
"Ice cubes."
"?"
"Thanks to the Holy Emperor's blessing. Heh heh heh, who would've thought this old man would find such a weak Holy Angel right on his own doorstep!!!"
A shrill, grating voice suddenly exploded through the air!
Then countless tendrils of black mist surged out of nowhere, instantly swallowing the entire alley and cutting off Xu Qing and Ye Guyi's escape.
Tap, tap, tap...
A figure slowly emerged from the alley's shadows. It was the head of the Holy Spirit Cult's branch in Ming Capital—the Great Holy Spirit!
He wore a black robe riddled with holes. Dark-red bloodstains dripped from his cuffs, and his protruding teeth and gaping mouth made him hideous beyond words.
Yet the Soul Power radiating from him unmistakably belonged to a seventy-eighth-level Evil Soul Saint!
"To think I'd even get a Soul Master with a light attribute thrown in for free! This must be a revelation from the Holy Emperor and Holy Maiden!"
But it wasn't over yet!
Another grating voice rang out, like fingernails scraping hard across a blackboard.
It was enough to make an ordinary person let out a shrill scream.
"Geigeigei, Great Holy Spirit, what a wonderful turn of events!"
"...Miss Swan, looks like we're in big trouble."
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