Home Is No More

"What?"

Yan Shaozhe looked sternly at the disciple before him.

"Teacher, I mean, isn't there still a Soul Tool Department student on the main team?"

"Just kick out that Soul Tool Department student. Soul Engineers are weaker in combat than traditional Soul Masters anyway. The Soul Tool Department is nothing but people our Martial Soul Department rejected. With me here, there's no need for any Soul Engineers! I'm definitely far more useful than those people who can only rely on external tools!"

"Xiaotao, do you even know what you're saying?"

"The academy has supported the Soul Tool Department for many years. They've only ever had one spot on the main team in every previous tournament, yet you actually want to replace them!"

"If we really did that, the Soul Tool Department would definitely report me to Sea God Pavilion. By then, not only might we fail to get that spot, we could even lose the six spots originally belonging to our Martial Soul Department. That would be far too great a loss for too little gain."

Did Yan Shaozhe truly care about what the Soul Tool Department thought? Clearly not. Or rather, throughout all of Shrek Academy and Sea God Pavilion, there were very few who genuinely cared what happened to the Soul Tool Department.

Nearly every elder of Sea God Pavilion came from the Martial Soul Department. Shrek Academy was also centered around the Martial Soul Department. Moreover, despite existing for so many years, the Soul Tool Department had never produced a single Rank 9 Soul Engineer.

Nor had anyone shown them the absolute battlefield dominance of high-level Soul Tools. As a result, Soul Tools were unwelcome at Shrek Academy, and they could only recruit students rejected by the Martial Soul Department.

If a conflict truly arose between the Martial Soul Department and the Soul Tool Department, the elders of Sea God Pavilion would undoubtedly choose the Martial Soul Department. Therefore, Yan Shaozhe did not actually need to care about the Soul Tool Department at all, even if its dean, Xian Lin'er, had been his lover in his youth.

What Yan Shaozhe cared about more was Ma Xiaotao. In her current physical condition, she could not unleash her full strength at all. Otherwise, the evil fire might cloud her mind, and one misstep could turn her into a true Evil Soul Master.

That was something Yan Shaozhe absolutely did not wish to see, and something he absolutely could not tolerate.

If Ma Xiaotao were a normal Soul Master and could properly represent Shrek Academy in the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament, Yan Shaozhe would be delighted. Why would he stop her?

In fact, if Ma Xiaotao were in a normal state right now, she would not even need to say anything. Yan Shaozhe would definitely take the Soul Tool Department's spot for her himself.

Why not replace one of the Martial Soul Department's students instead? What a joke. Every student in the Martial Soul Department was an elite and trained so diligently. How could they be replaced? If anyone had to be replaced, it would be those students who could only depend on external tools.

"Xiaotao, I understand that you want to participate in the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Soul Dueling Tournament and that you don't want regrets in your life. But you must also consider whether your current condition allows you to fight."

"With your current state, the moment you dare to go all out, the suppressed evil fire will inevitably retaliate. If you can't fight at full strength, then you'll only be a burden to the entire team."

"Teacher, I understand the situation."

Ma Xiaotao bit her lower lip tightly, her face full of desolation and grievance. If she could, she did not want to be tormented by the evil fire of the Evil Fire Phoenix either!

Why had her ancestor, Ma Hongjun, clearly evolved his Martial Soul into the Ten-Headed Fire Phoenix, yet the Martial Soul she inherited was the Evil Fire Phoenix? Why wasn't it a pure Fire Phoenix?

"But I still want to compete. I already missed that tournament five years ago. If I have the ability to participate five years later and still don't go, it will definitely become a regret in my heart. It won't be good for my future cultivation!"

"Xiaotao—you!"

"Fine, fine. Go. If anything happens, your teacher will bear it. Once the next term begins, follow the current main team as a substitute for a while."

"I'll find a way to get the academy's Profound Ice Bed for you to help suppress your evil fire. But if you feel even the slightest discomfort, you must tell me immediately!"

"Follow the training standards of normal team members in your daily training. If we confirm that there are no problems with your body, then shortly before departure—roughly before this reserve team is finalized—I'll arrange a qualification match. All you need to do then is kick out that Soul Tool Department student."

"Teacher—"

"What? You're still not getting up? If you keep kneeling, then pretend your teacher never said any of that."

"Thank you, Teacher! You and Mistress can just wait and see. This disciple will definitely continue the academy's glory of ten thousand years!"

After receiving permission, Ma Xiaotao feared that Yan Shaozhe might change his mind. She immediately stood, thanked Yan Shaozhe, and left the room.

Watching Ma Xiaotao's brisk and impetuous manner, Yan Shaozhe did not know what to say for a moment. Yet the smile at the corner of his lips proved how important Ma Xiaotao was to him.

"Ah, this girl, with that fiery temperament... I really don't know who will want her in the future."

Maple Leaf City was a major city located on the border between the Heaven Dou Empire and the Sun Moon Empire. As a major city, it naturally had other affiliated cities of varying sizes scattered around it.

At the foot of a mountain near one such city, the settlement was not too far from the city. Traveling merchants could often be seen passing through, so even though most of the villagers nearby were ordinary people, they still had some sources of information about the outside world.

Jiang Yue walked along this somewhat familiar yet unfamiliar path, his heart filled with complicated emotions.

Ever since he had left this place at the age of six, he had never returned. After all, no one remained in the entire village. Whether he came back or not made no difference. Wherever he went alone was his home.

But this place was his root in this world. Jiang Yue felt that, after so much time had passed, he still needed to return and pay his respects.

Six years had passed, yet the location of the village from his memories remained vivid. Jiang Yue might forget other things, but he would never forget this.

Over those six years, lush shrubs and weeds had completely swallowed the original dirt road. Blue Silver Grass made up most of them, leaving only faint traces of the path visible and severely slowing Jiang Yue's progress.

Feeling that the weeds were truly in the way, Jiang Yue raised two fingers in a sword gesture. Four swords—Joy, Anger, Sorrow, and Thought—flew out from behind him. As they danced casually through the air, the sword light they shed cut down every weed.

After absorbing his fourth soul ring, Jiang Yue had naturally condensed another Emotion Sword. The bright yellow longsword corresponded to Thought among the Seven Emotions.

The four Emotion Swords of different colors circled Jiang Yue. The weeds blocking his path were effortlessly chopped into scraps, and his speed abruptly increased by a great deal. Before long, he could see familiar things in the distance.

Collapsed thatched huts and the few remaining broken walls had been completely overtaken by all kinds of plants due to years of neglect. The power of nature worked gradually and silently. In another decade or two, there would likely be no sign that anyone had ever lived here.

The ruins before him overlapped constantly with the village in his memories. Who would have thought that overnight, the original village had vanished without a trace?

Before Soul Masters, ordinary people had no ability to resist whatsoever, even if their opponent was merely a two-ring Soul Grandmaster.

Seeing the place where he had once lived, Jiang Yue's thoughts could not help returning to the days before the Evil Soul Masters had come. Life had not been wealthy then, but there had been no problem with food or drink.

Even when Jiang Yue had learned of Soul Masters and Martial Souls from the adults who traveled outside the village, he had felt no urgency at the time. Back then, Soul Masters were simply far too distant from him.

Returning to what had once been his home, the wooden door, broken into two pieces, stubbornly clung to its frame and swayed precariously. As if sensing someone's arrival, it could no longer hold on and crashed into the ground with a bang, kicking up clouds of dust.

Jiang Yue ran his hand over several simple pieces of furniture covered in dust. He was now the only person who remembered that a village had once existed here, and what had once happened here.

He dusted off his hands, turned, and left, heading toward the place where he had buried the remains of all the villagers.

Back then, Jiang Yue had merely dug a large pit and simply but orderly buried everyone in the village inside it. That made things easier for him now; he did not need to inspect them one by one.

But the closer he got to that place, the more problems Jiang Yue discovered.

For some reason, the surrounding trees, though it should have been the season for them to flourish again, looked as though they had already died. Every tree in this area stood bare and leafless.

Even the weeds on the ground looked malnourished. Moreover, it seemed that some large group had passed through the area. Even the stems and leaves of tenacious Blue Silver Grass had been trampled flat, so their numbers could not possibly have been small.

Normally, that vast patch of Blue Silver Grass should have recovered long ago. Yet for some reason, more than half of it had already withered away.

As he approached the Blue Silver Grass, Jiang Yue's expression grew grave. The Blue Silver Grass, which should have been brimming with vitality, now had curled, scorched leaves and looked ready to die at any moment.

Jiang Yue could not understand what had happened here. It could not be that he had casually picked a place, only for its feng shui to be disastrously bad, could it?

How could there be such a coincidence in the world? Besides, Douluo Continent did not have such a thing as corpses transforming because of feng shui, did it?

He reached out and plucked a stalk of Blue Silver Grass. As its leaves brushed Jiang Yue's fingers, an emotion of pain entered his mind.

Brushing aside the Blue Silver Grass blocking his view, he saw that the earth, which should have been yellowish-brown, was covered by a layer of gray-black miasma. Something faint yet utterly nauseating lay there.

That aura was very similar to the aura of the Living Blade before purification—the Fierce Blade Soul Devourer—though it was not as aggressive. Death energy. It was death energy. This Blue Silver Grass had been tainted by death energy. No wonder it had ended up like this.

The death energy might not have been much, but to these ordinary plants, it was an extinction-level disaster.

The question was, why had death energy appeared here?

Death energy was not something normal living creatures should possess. Forget rare Soul Beasts—there could not even be a hundred-year Soul Beast here. It could only have been a human, but what kind of human would carry such a thing? Unless it was a rare Soul Master with a death attribute, only Evil Soul Masters could possess it.

Leaving aside how rare death attributes were, even if one truly existed, during the era of the Unrivaled Tang Sect they would still be classified as Evil Soul Masters.

Jiang Yue clenched the lifeless Blue Silver Grass in his hand. Sword qi ground it into powder that slipped through his fingers. He rushed toward his destination at nearly his fastest speed, but just as he was about to reach it, he halted, somewhat afraid to face the reality that had likely already occurred.

He took a deep breath. After steeling himself somewhat, Jiang Yue lifted his leg and advanced step by step, slowly revealing the sight ahead.

A complete mess. Pit after pit appeared before Jiang Yue, the soil around their edges clawed into disorder without a single intact patch. These pits had likely been there for some time. The stagnant water gathered at their bottoms had turned murky black, and scraps of cloth, scattered dry yellow strands of hair, and dense little black dots floated on the surface.

Corpses. They were the corpses of insects. Not only had the flowers, grass, and trees around them died, even the earthworms and ants in the soil had all perished. All life had vanished from this area.

Besides the foul water at the bottoms of the pits, countless tiny insect corpses lay scattered around them, their bodies shriveled and blackened. Stepping on them produced sharp popping sounds.

Tiny gray-black bubbles continuously rose from the water's surface. Each time one burst, a cloud of murky, pungent stench mixed with the smell of rot and mold drifted up from below.

The soil within a certain distance of the pits felt sticky and slick beneath his feet. After only a few steps, dark brown mud had clung to the soles of Jiang Yue's shoes.

He bent down and picked up a blackened hard object from the ground. Gently brushing away the dead insects covering its surface, its true form reappeared in the world.

It was a finger bone. A human finger bone. Perhaps because it had not been exposed to the open air for long, the instant Jiang Yue held it in his hand, roaring cries surfaced beside his ears.

Anger, resentment, pain, and countless other emotions were mixed together. Other than those, there was nothing else.

A cold wind swept through, pouring fiercely into those pits and producing a chorus of different sounds, as though accusing Jiang Yue of the brutal tragedy that had once occurred here.

At the sight before him, Jiang Yue's body trembled without end and his mind went blank. He did not know what reaction he should have had. Rage? Hysterics? Yet he only clenched and released his fists. The finger bone in his hand constantly reminded him of the tragedy that had happened here, until his arms finally fell limply to his sides.

Wiping away tears that had appeared without him noticing, Jiang Yue's eyes no longer held their former confident, flamboyant light. He lowered his head and tried to leave.

The moment he took a step, his weakened legs stumbled, nearly sending him crashing to the ground. He steadied himself again and forced his legs to move, leaving the devastating scene in a nearly disheveled state.

When he returned to the village, the lush flowers, grass, and trees there were utterly different from that place. What should have been a comforting view instead sent chills through Jiang Yue's entire body.

An abandoned, dilapidated village was already frightening enough, but Jiang Yue had not been afraid. This had been his home. How could a wanderer returning home feel fear?

That night, Jiang Yue simply sat quietly on his own doorstep, watching the moon rise and fall in the sky.

By the time the sun rose again and illuminated the mountain village, sunlight fell upon Jiang Yue's face, and he had returned to how he had been before.

"Then I'm leaving."

He tightened his collar and quietly bid farewell to the village.