Qin Chuan turned that sour feeling over and over in his mind, savoring it.
As a spirit-control-type Soul Master, he needed to understand the exact mechanics and limits of every mental attack. This wasn't being overly sensitive; it was basic training.
Flowers Falling in a Dream struck at "parting." Memory Kill struck at "the past."
The two Soul Skills worked in completely different ways, but they had the same goal—to tear through the mind's defenses.
Flowers Falling in a Dream attacked from the outside in. It created a false scene of sorrow, stirring your emotions and exposing weak points in your mental defenses.
Memory Kill exploded from the inside out. It didn't need to create any false scene. It went straight for your deepest secrets. Your own memories were the best weapon.
If he used the two moves together...
Qin Chuan ran it through in his mind.
First, he'd use Flowers Falling in a Dream to throw his opponent's emotions into disarray and create the first crack in their mental defenses. Then, right after, he'd unleash Memory Kill, slipping through that crack to dredge up the memories his opponent least wanted to face.
A double blow. Their mental defenses would collapse completely.
The corner of Qin Chuan's mouth twitched. He lowered his head and looked at the Lovesickness Heartbreak Butterfly in his hand.
The butterfly had stopped struggling. Its wings were half-spread as it rested on Qin Chuan's fingers, like a petal blown down by the wind. Its tiny black eyes watched him, shining brightly.
"Your Memory Kill is even more powerful than the Sorrow Bird's Flowers Falling in a Dream." Qin Chuan's voice was soft.
The Lovesickness Heartbreak Butterfly fluttered its wings, no longer as panicked as before.
Qin Chuan fell silent for two seconds.
The last time he'd crushed a Sorrow Bird to death, he'd said, "I'm sorry."
He wanted to say it this time, too. But when the words reached his lips, he swallowed them.
Say "I'm sorry" too many times, and it became a way to comfort yourself. Killing was killing. No matter how many nice things you said, it couldn't change that.
Qin Chuan's fingers tightened.
"Lovesickness Heartbreak Butterfly." His voice was flat. "You're a Soul Beast with a story. Your Soul Skill can make people remember the past they least want to face."
The butterfly's wings trembled faintly.
"I'm sorry for the trouble. I need your power."
As the words fell, his fingers suddenly tightened.
A faint, tiny crack sounded—quieter even than when he'd crushed the Sorrow Bird.
The Lovesickness Heartbreak Butterfly's body went limp. The two Beauty's Eye patterns on its wings slowly faded. Colorful scales sifted through his fingers, dusting the purple flowers in the bushes like a sprinkling of gold dust.
A white Soul Ring slowly rose from the butterfly's corpse.
The Soul Ring was small and thin, its white glow so gentle that its edges were almost impossible to make out. In the afterglow of sunset, it looked like a circle of rippling water.
Qin Chuan gently laid the butterfly's corpse on a flowering branch in the bushes.
Then he closed his eyes and sent out his mental power, wrapping it around the white Soul Ring. The absorption was astonishingly quick.
Less than ten seconds.
The energy within the Soul Ring flowed peacefully into his mental world, merging with his Illusion Bell Martial Soul. There was no resistance, no pain, no discomfort of any kind.
Qin Chuan opened his eyes.
At a thought, the Illusion Bell appeared in his palm.
Four Soul Rings lit up one after another.
White, white, white, white.
Four white rings slowly revolved from bottom to top, their glow gentle and quiet.
Shadow Hypnosis, Sinful Haze, Flowers Falling in a Dream, Memory Kill.
Four white Soul Rings. Four spirit-control Soul Skills.
No Soul Master would think much of this combination.
But Qin Chuan knew that when these four moves worked together, their killing power was even greater than that of a fifty-thousand-year Soul Skill.
Qin Chuan put away the Illusion Bell and walked out of the bushes.
He still needed one final Soul Ring.
Qin Chuan rolled his shoulders and turned toward the heart of the Star Dou Great Forest.
The sun was sinking in the west. Only a streak of orange-red afterglow remained on the horizon, filtering through gaps in the canopy. The forest had grown considerably cooler, and a damp chill seeped in through the trees with the wind.
Qin Chuan hurried onward for quite some time before reaching the depths of the forest.
The layer of rotting leaves was thicker here, and the air smelled different. The fresh scent of resin and plants from the outskirts had faded, replaced by a heavy, fermented, sickly-sweet stench.
The forest's middle region.
The Soul Beasts here were clearly a level stronger. From the sounds around him and the fluctuations of Soul Power he sensed against his skin, Qin Chuan could tell that at least six or seven thousand-year Soul Beasts were lurking nearby. One had a notably heavier aura, likely around ten thousand years old.
Qin Chuan ignored them. He had nothing to worry about.
After weaving through the trees for another few dozen minutes, he heard rustling from the bushes ahead and to his right. It was heavy, accompanied by the sharp crack of branches being crushed.
A black shadow emerged from behind the bushes.
It was a Dark Iron Centipede about the size of a water buffalo. Its entire body was pitch-black, its carapace gleaming like metal. Hundreds of legs, like rows of curved blades, pressed neatly against the ground with a scraping hiss.
Its two antennae stood high and swayed toward Qin Chuan, while the giant pincers on either side of its mouth opened and closed, dripping pale-green venom through the gaps.
Qin Chuan glanced at it and didn't break stride.
The Dark Iron Centipede let out a sharp hiss. All its legs drove forward at once, sending its body charging toward Qin Chuan like a black train.
It was fast, carving a shallow trench into the ground as it ran.
Qin Chuan didn't even look back.
He raised his left hand slightly, palm facing behind him.
"Shinra Tensei."
Boom! An invisible repulsive force burst outward.
The Dark Iron Centipede came to an abrupt halt three meters from Qin Chuan, then shot backward as if it had been launched by a spring.
"Bang!"
Its body slammed into a tree trunk, cracking several plates of its carapace. Pale-green fluid seeped from the cracks.
The tree fared little better. The impact left a head-sized dent in the middle of its trunk, scattering wood chips everywhere.
The Dark Iron Centipede rolled twice on the ground, its legs flailing. It took a long while to right itself.
It raised its head and swayed its antennae toward Qin Chuan twice, then turned around and dragged its cracked carapace into the nearby bushes at high speed, vanishing from sight.
Qin Chuan continued forward. A Steel Demon Eagle with a wingspan of over three meters perched on a thick branch, its golden eyes fixed on him. Its talons clutched the branch, the hooked claws digging deep into the bark.
Qin Chuan met its gaze for two seconds.
The Steel Demon Eagle let out a piercing screech, spread its wings, and swooped down.
Qin Chuan still didn't stop. He furrowed his brow.
"Bansho Ten'in!"
The Steel Demon Eagle froze in midair, then was pulled toward Qin Chuan against its will. It beat its wings desperately, trying to break free, but the pull held firm, leaving it no chance to resist.
Just as it was dragged in front of him, Qin Chuan released the force and swung his right hand.
The Zhu Xian Sword appeared out of thin air, its edge slicing across the Steel Demon Eagle's chest.
Clean and decisive.
The Steel Demon Eagle's body split in two, blood splattering across the ground. Its two gray wings drifted through the air before falling into the bushes below.
A black Soul Ring appeared.
Qin Chuan put away the Zhu Xian Sword and glanced at the Soul Ring's age. It was about eleven thousand years old.
An ordinary Soul Master would have treasured a black Soul Ring like this.
But Qin Chuan left it behind and continued exploring.
After the time it took to drink a cup of tea, a Jade Horned Python just over twenty thousand years old blocked the path ahead. Its body was as thick as a water vat, coiled between two trees. Its head was raised high, its forked tongue flicking in and out.
A jade-green horn grew from its forehead, its tip wreathed in a dense cloud of green poison.
"There sure are plenty of high-year Soul Beasts deep in this forest." Qin Chuan spoke as the Samsara Eye silently revolved once deep within his pupils.
The Jade Horned Python's slit pupils contracted sharply.
Then it did something unexpected—it withdrew the poison cloud from its forehead and slowly moved its body off the path, coiling around the other side of a tree and clearing the way.
A Jade Horned Python with twenty thousand years of cultivation had moved aside of its own accord.
"Good. You know what's good for you!"
Qin Chuan continued searching for a target.