Purification

With her black cloak removed, Nana dropped to both knees and struck her forehead heavily against the floor three times.

"Sister Nana, what are you doing?"

Huo Yuyao, who had still been feeling sad and resentful, reached out in surprise to help her up, but Nana stopped her.

Ye Guyi understood what Nana meant by this and neither spoke nor intervened.

"Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for saving my parents."

Kneeling on the floor, Nana kowtowed as tears streamed down her face.

Lin Mo watched without stopping her. Seeing this, Huo Yuyao said nothing more either.

Lin Mo knew that if he did not let her kowtow like this today, she would always feel indebted to him. He did indeed want to use this opportunity to bring her into his organization, but he wanted her to join as a friend, not a servant.

"I can never repay you in this lifetime. But from today onward, my life belongs to you. In the future, even if I must climb a mountain of blades or plunge into a sea of fire, you need only say the word. Even if it means dying, I am willing. Truly, thank you so very much."

Looking at the blood and tears on the floor, and the hundreds of souls kneeling behind Nana, Lin Mo merely raised his head and closed his eyes.

Even in his previous life, learning about the shattered homes and lost lives brought about by war had never stirred much feeling in him. After all, he had never encountered people who had experienced such separations in life and death.

But today, he felt it...

Every soul here had once had a happy family, only for the beasts who had trodden these very floors to destroy it and even imprison them here all this time.

"That's enough. I don't need you to be slaves or servants. Get up."

He gripped his staff tightly, and its pallid skull emitted a gentle light, raising the kneeling souls to their feet.

But Nana did not rise.

"Get up. If you think about it, this was more of a transaction between us. You brought us here to deal with the Soul Masters and rescue your parents, while we benefited by improving our strength. Since it was a transaction, let's consider the account settled."

Lin Mo bent down slightly and helped Huo Yuyao lift her to her feet.

"That's different. I can never repay you for saving my parents."

"Then I do have a request."

Huo Yuyao rested a finger against her chin, putting on a thoughtful look as she glanced at Lin Mo beside her.

Lin Mo nodded.

"Please tell me. I would walk through boiling water and fire without hesitation."

"Then be our friend. Hehe."

"?"

Hearing Huo Yuyao's words, Nana froze on the spot.

"Honestly, Sister Nana, I think you're really cool. I'd absolutely love to be your friend! Can I? Can I?"

"Well..."

"That's our request. Can you do it?"

Lin Mo did not want to give her too much time to think. At a moment like this, the sooner she decided, the better.

Besides, they still had other things to do. They could not keep lingering here.

"I-I understand. Thank you so much!"

"Ah, about that, there's one more thing. Don't keep being so formal. What I want is for you to be an ordinary friend to us."

"Honestly, having someone older than me speak so respectfully feels a little strange."

Huo Yuyao scratched her cheek awkwardly.

"All right!"

"Thank you so much for saving our lives."

With Nana's matter settled, the hundreds of souls were next.

Good thing I learned how to send these souls back into the cycle of reincarnation beforehand.

"Brother Xiao Mo, what should we do about these souls?"

Huo Yuyao asked curiously.

"You've all suffered for so long. I can help you reenter the cycle of reincarnation. Would you be willing?"

Hearing that wandering ghosts like themselves still had a chance to reenter the cycle of reincarnation, the hundreds of souls thanked him in unison.

"Brother, you can even do that? And does reincarnation really exist?"

Lin Mo nodded.

"It does."

These words made Huo Yuyao's eyes flicker as something else immediately came to mind. But she knew there were other things to do now and could not interrupt.

"Gather together, all of you."

The hundreds of souls gathered together. Only Nana's parents lingered to give her a few parting words before reluctantly leaving her side.

Once all the souls had assembled, Lin Mo gripped the Necromantic Staff and swung it forcefully.

Though the light came from a human skull that looked utterly sinister, at this moment it seemed incomparably holy.

The light shone upon every soul, bringing expressions of perfect serenity to their faces. As the radiance faded, they vanished from the hall along with it.

"Goodbye, Dad, Mom..."

Nana shed one final tear, then looked at the somewhat weary Lin Mo and asked a question.

"Um, Lin Mo, about that organization you mentioned, the Spirit Pagoda... is there anything I could help with?"

"If you mean as a laborer, I don't need one. But if you're coming to help as a friend, I'd be delighted."

"I want to help, because we... are friends."

"Wonderful. Welcome aboard, Nana."

No sooner had he spoken than the ancient, heavy doors were blasted open.

Huo Yuyao: ∑(O_O;

"Waaah!"

Lin Mo: (⊙_◎)

"Huh?"

Nana: (°o°;)

"W-what?"

Ye Guyi: -`д´-

"An enemy attack?"

All four reacted differently.

The people charging inside were familiar to all four of them.

Leading them were Jing Hongchen and Ye Yulin, both wearing expressions of urgency and fury.

"You bastards actually dared reach your hands into Mingdu and slaughter hundreds of civilians! What outrageous gall!"

"Lin Mo, Huo Yuyao, Ye Guyi!"

"Brother Little Mo, Little Yao, Sister Guyi!"

Xiao Xiao was behind the two men, under their protection.

Their arrival was precisely what Xiao Xiao had arranged, and it was also part of Lin Mo's plan.

The Holy Spirit Cult had extended its reach into Mingdu. There was no way he could simply conceal this. Having two neutral figures handle the Holy Spirit Cult's affairs instead could not have been better.

That was why he had asked Huo Yuyao to speak to Xiao Xiao, leaving someone behind to contact them afterward.

He had also deliberately delayed the timing by twenty minutes, specifically to keep the two men from seeing the methods he had just used. Sometimes, explaining things was the greatest headache of all.

Good thing Teacher stepped in and took that Soul Saint away.

Indeed, when he had performed the purification spell, Electrolux had appeared and taken the Soul Saint whose soul was under his control directly into the Half-Plane.

Otherwise, explaining it would have been even more troublesome. After all, they were inside a Holy Spirit Cult base. No matter how one looked at his soul-controlling technique, he would have seemed like the Evil Soul Master.

The two men who rushed in found neither the fierce battle they had imagined nor their students being held captive.

Instead, there was not a single Evil Soul Master in the hall. Only their four students remained.

"?"

The two men hurried over to the four of them.

"What exactly happened? Didn't you say there were Evil Soul Masters? And you were far too reckless! Every one of you must think your abilities reach the heavens! Even Ye Guyi, the strongest among you, was only at level forty, while your report said this place was crawling with level-forty enemies!"

Listening to Jing Hongchen's relentless scolding as he approached, Lin Mo scratched his cheek awkwardly.

He then spent some time explaining what had just happened.

Naturally, he made it all up.

The original story became one in which Huo Yuyao had used Simulation to sneak them inside undetected. Nana had then naturally approached the three strongest enemies. Before they could summon their martial souls, Lin Mo had used a recently developed soul skill to briefly restrain and weaken them, after which Ye Guyi had killed them all.

The story left the two men rather bewildered. They did not find it particularly convincing, but they had no other explanation for how the students had killed their enemies.

Ye Yulin asked about the bodies. Ye Guyi answered that, due to the properties of her martial soul, both their souls and their bodies had been destroyed by the Holy Angel's flames.

"Damn it."

Jing Hongchen looked around. There was no mistaking that cold, sinister aura. Ye Yulin began searching the entire palace and discovered the altar where the souls had previously been imprisoned.

"I will definitely report this to Elder Kong."

"Did you find out how many souls the people in this branch imprisoned? And where did those souls go?"

At this question, everyone else turned toward Nana. After all, she was the sole surviving member of the former Holy Spirit Cult group here.

"Yes, I know. They murdered more than fourteen hundred people and imprisoned over three hundred souls. As for those souls, they turned them all into weapons to fight back with. In the end, Ye Guyi dealt with them before they could even unleash their soul skills."

Hearing this, Xiao Xiao, Jing Hongchen, and Ye Yulin all clenched their fists.

"What an appalling scale!"

"Still, thankfully nothing happened to you this time. If anything really had happened, we would have had no way to answer to Elder Kong. You are the pillars of the future, the ones who will someday rise to the very peak of this continent."

"Sorry, Dean. We were just so angry at the time that we acted on impulse..."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry."

Nana was the only one who did not apologize. She hardly dared look at the two men. After all, her affiliation was still with the Holy Spirit Cult.

"I've already learned about your situation from Xiao Xiao. I'm deeply saddened by what happened to your family. As for your current status, given that you committed no wrongdoing and helped wipe out a Holy Spirit Cult branch, you may return to normal school life starting tomorrow. Your sole identity will be that of a student at the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy. Is that acceptable?"

"Yes. Thank you so much!"

Jing Hongchen nodded, then looked at Ye Guyi, who stood to one side.

"You had only just broken through to level forty when I saw you a little while ago. To think you've reached level fifty in the blink of an eye! It seems you gained the most this time. You truly live up to your reputation as a genius."

"You flatter me, Dean. I must thank Lin Mo for telling me about this. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had such a good opportunity."

"In that case, head back soon and consolidate your soul power level. Once it has stabilized, you may come to me whenever you like. I'll send someone to accompany you to obtain your fifth soul ring."

At the mention of obtaining her fifth soul ring, Ye Guyi glanced at Lin Mo beside her. Seeing that he said nothing, she agreed and expressed her thanks.

And so, this incident came to a close. Jing Hongchen took them all back to the academy, while Ye Yulin first assigned people to investigate the site, then immediately headed to Kong Deming's sleeping quarters.

Kong Deming usually stayed in the imperial palace when he had nothing else to do. The reason was simple: the palace was heavily guarded and very quiet, and his own residence was in an even more secluded area.

"You really have some nerve! Do you know how terrified I was when I heard about this?"

On the way back, Jing Hongchen could not help scolding them again.

"And you, Xiao Xiao! Something this serious happened, and you waited until then to tell me?"

"Huh? That's my fault too?"

Xiao Xiao pouted in displeasure.

"Right, speaking of you, I just remembered. Your parents arrived in Mingdu recently. They should come to see you in a few days."

"Wonderful! Mom and Dad are finally here!"

And so, a peaceful night quietly passed.

Peaceful?

I didn't know.

While everyone was returning to the academy, a tall, straight-backed figure appeared in a distant, shadowy corner.

"To think that reducing our personnel in Mingdu to avoid attracting attention still resulted in discovery-and they were wiped out by a mere boy with two rings."

"Forget it. It's just as well that people who prey on ordinary civilians were eliminated. Sigh, how am I going to explain this to Xishui?"

"If she learns about this, she'll absolutely fly into a rage."

The middle-aged man let out a long sigh, then vanished into the shadows.

"How strange. Why has the prescribed course deviated so far? And what exactly is this mist? Damn that planar will."

Tang San stared fixedly at the map of the Douluo Plane, which seemed to be covered in a thin layer of mist.

"Still, with the strength of this mist, you can only hold out for a day or two. But why is the star of destiny's path changing so quickly? He should still be at the White Tiger Duke's Mansion right now, yet he has already appeared on the Sun Moon Continent."

The feeling that everything was slipping out of his control displeased him greatly. He clenched his fists, and two figures suddenly appeared before him.

"It looks like I'll have to find Da Ming and Er Ming. This rising star is the most crucial piece for bringing the planar will under my control. I absolutely cannot lose him. I must have them raise Xiao Qi's level ahead of schedule so she can enter Shrek Academy disguised as a boy and join the Tang Sect early."

The portraits of several people appeared before him.

"I'll have Xiao Qi enter Shrek Academy and the Tang Sect first, then participate in the tournament and become acquainted with the rising star. To obtain a mental attribute soul ring, this rising star will definitely go to the Star Dou Great Forest. When that happens, I'll only need to control the soul attached to the Three-Eyed Golden Lion and have it erode him."