Desolate Devouring Art-Chapter 1385 - Absorbing Soul Runes

Chapter 1385 - Absorbing Soul Runes
A rotten stench filled Liu Wuxie's nostrils, making every breath feel wrong.
He lowered his head and noticed faint wrinkles creeping across the back of his hands. That subtle decay told him one thing—someone had sealed this world off for a very long time.
Every step he took made the air tremble slightly. For over a million years, the airflow here had remained still. Now, with thousands of people barging in at once, it was like stones splashing into a still pond, sending ripples through an ancient, stagnant space.
When he looked back, the gate they had entered through was already gone, erased without a trace. Everything here felt strange and wrong.
The cultivators who entered ahead of him had already spread out, pushing toward the depths in search of a way to the second level.
Liu Wuxie, however, didn't rush.
From the tianlin soul's memories, he hadn't just seen the loulan race entering this gate—he had also caught vague impressions of how they moved through this world. Those fragments gave him a faint sense of direction, but it was still only speculation. He needed to test it.
A shrill scream suddenly tore through the sky. The sound rolled out in visible ripples, making countless people stiffen and snap their heads toward the source.
Nearly seven thousand human cultivators had entered the gate, along with more than ten thousand blood fiends, all scattered across the first level.
"What's going on?"
The cry had come from a cultivator at the first-level Void Realm. He clutched his head and collapsed, howling in agony.
His companions froze for a heartbeat, then hurried forward in alarm.
With a low hum, the kneeling man suddenly sprang to his feet. A strange light flashed in his eyes as he lunged and grabbed the throat of the man closest to him.
His victim didn't even have time to react before Liu Wuxie tore his throat open. Blood gushed down his chest, yet a Void Realm expert wouldn't die that easily. As long as his head and soul sea remained intact, timely treatment could still save him.
Everyone nearby stumbled back in panic, drawing their weapons and pointing them at the attacker.
"Sha Gu, what the hell are you doing?!" one of his companions roared.
The man called Sha Gu stared at them with those eerie, glowing eyes and let out a chilling laugh that no longer sounded human.
Liu Wuxie stood about a thousand meters away and saw the entire scene clearly.
"A martial soul... a sealed martial soul," he murmured.
Using Ghost Eye, he caught a thin strand of soul energy drilling into Sha Gu's soul sea and occupying it. He couldn't tell what kind of creature it originally belonged to; he had never seen this type of martial soul before.
When a martial soul's master died, the soul itself became ownerless, but the soul runes binding it kept it trapped. The only way it could regain its freedom was to seize a new body and undergo rebirth.
Liu Wuxie had done something similar before—using a portion of the White-Armored Earth Dragon's primordial spirit to create a martial soul. If he died, that martial soul would become ownerless too, but the dragon would still be caged inside the soul runes, unable to escape.
"It really does look like the art of martial souls originated from the loulan race," Liu Wuxie muttered, now much more certain.
He could tell there had to be many martial souls wandering this world—souls created long ago by the loulan race. Their owners had either died or left, leaving these souls trapped, ownerless.
Even after so many years, they hadn't dissipated. Now that thousands of living beings had poured into this world, those martial souls finally had a chance to break free.
The tianlin soul he had refined earlier was also a martial soul, sealed within the statues.
There were advantages and drawbacks to this. If he refined these martial souls, he could strengthen his own soul sea. That wouldn't raise his cultivation, but a stronger soul would mean better control over the mythical arts and more terrifying soul techniques.
The other path was to control the martial souls rather than devour them.
If he could take command of all the martial souls in this place, he would become nearly invincible here. But only those who understood the art of martial souls and could inscribe soul runes had any hope of truly controlling them.
Liu Wuxie's mastery of the art was still half-baked. Even he didn't know whether he could suppress all the martial souls roaming this world.
"Kill him quickly!" Sha Gu's companions shouted when they saw him cackling madly and lunging again.
All five drew their weapons at once, unleashing a barrage of brilliant mythical arts that shredded Sha Gu's body into pieces.
Even after killing him, their hearts continued to pound in fear.
They hadn't encountered a single visible enemy on the first level, yet someone had just died in such a bizarre fashion. A heavy gloom settled over the crowd.
Liu Wuxie, on the other hand, summoned the Ancestral Tree and sent its roots spreading out through the earth in search of astral crystals.
In the tianlin's memories, he had seen members of the loulan race hauling heavy black chests through the gate. If they had died here, then somewhere in this world, those chests—or their remnants—should still exist.
As for the gateway to the second level, he wasn't in a hurry. The laws of time here clearly flowed differently from the outside world, and even the spatial laws diverged from those of the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain.
That only reinforced his suspicion that the loulan race hadn't originated from the four astral domains at all, but from another world entirely.
As the Ancestral Tree spread further, Liu Wuxie suddenly sensed a strong surge of soul energy.
"A martial soul," he thought.
Not far ahead, a twisted, octopus-faced martial soul hovered in the air, staring straight at him from about ten meters away.
"What is that thing supposed to be?" he murmured, brows furrowing.
He wasn't afraid. With the Heavenly Dao Book, the Soul Forge Art, and his own soul runes, martial souls alone couldn't threaten him.
Judging by its aura, this octopus-faced martial soul wasn't powerful. Its power had clearly worn down over countless years, just as the tianlin soul had.
The martial soul suddenly lunged, baring its fangs and whipping its tentacles forward, trying to bind his primordial spirit.
Liu Wuxie traced a line through the air with his finger. He had no intention of refining this one. He wanted to control it.
If he could subdue this martial soul, he could treat it as a weapon and, at the same time, study its construction to improve his own soul runes.
A soul rune blossomed at his fingertip and shot into the octopus-faced martial soul. Its speed faltered instantly as it writhed and twisted in mid-air, trying desperately to break free from his control.
"It works," Liu Wuxie thought, delighted. He hadn't expected his soul runes actually to function on loulan-crafted martial souls.
The octopus-faced martial soul fought back ferociously, forcing him to tighten his restraint. It clearly refused to submit.
He didn't rush to press more soul runes into it. Instead, he poured his soul energy into its core, probing the structure of the loulan race's runes. If he could understand their technique, he could use it to perfect his own.
With Ghost Eye, the martial soul became transparent. Layers of soul runes appeared in his vision, floating like luminous sigils.
"Brilliant... absolutely brilliant." A genuine smile tugged at his lips.
"They used only three soul runes to control a martial soul at the Void Realm level. The loulan race really weren't simple," he said, then let his divine sense withdraw.
His expression grew solemn.
There were only three runes, yet after several attempts, he still couldn't replicate them. If he were the one inscribing them, he would need at least ten or more soul runes to maintain the same degree of control over this martial soul.
He didn't force it. Instead, he imprinted those three loulan runes into the Heavenly Dao Book, letting it analyze them slowly.
The moment his control faltered, the octopus-faced martial soul tore free and rushed at him again.
"Soul Fire." A ball of pale flame surged into existence, wrapping around the martial soul.
The octopus-faced martial soul struggled violently, then dissolved into a stream of soul energy that flowed straight into Liu Wuxie's soul sea.
His soul strength rose slightly.
Compared to the tianlin soul, the gain was tiny. This martial soul was pathetically weak. No matter how many such souls he devoured, the improvement would be limited.
Even so, a small benefit was still a benefit. He could make up for quality with sheer quantity.
"What are these damned things? Undead?" Cries of alarm echoed around him as martial souls attacked the other cultivators and forced them to fight.
"These are martial souls! They're all martial souls!" an old man at the pinnacle of the Void Realm shouted. He clearly recognized them from ancient texts. Most superpowers preserved records about martial souls, but such knowledge lay far beyond ordinary cultivators' reach.
"What's a martial soul?" many people shouted, utterly confused.
"Martial souls are a rare form of soul art. You fight using soul energy, guided and shaped by soul runes. I don't know the fine details. This is the first time I've seen them in person," the old man replied. He had only read about it, and it was his first time seeing one with his own eyes.
"What do we do then?"
The martial souls had begun to swarm toward them, trying to invade their soul seas.
The people who had come in had scattered across the first level in countless small groups. Even the blood fiends were under attack from martial souls. No one knew how many souls lurked in this world—not even Liu Wuxie. He only knew there were a lot.
"Attack them! Use your soul energy! Don't let them enter your soul sea!" the old man roared.
He unleashed a soul technique, his soul energy surging out like a tidal wave. Every martial soul that rushed at him shattered under the impact and dissolved into streams of gentle light that fed back into his soul sea.
"Hahaha! So these things can strengthen my soul as well!" he laughed.
The crowd erupted into an uproar. One by one, cultivators began hunting for martial souls.
The weaker ones were unlucky. Their soul energy lacked the strength to crush the martial souls and was quickly overwhelmed.
Most of the martial souls on this level hover around the first-level Void Realm in strength.
But this was only the first heaven.
If they ran into martial souls at the pinnacle of the Void Realm later, would they still be laughing?
That was the state of the first level—some people died, while others made rapid gains.
Liu Wuxie increased his pace.
He needed more samples, more martial souls to dissect and feed into the Heavenly Dao Book. Its analysis clearly wasn't finished yet; it needed more data to unravel the loulan runes.
In the distance, several blood fiends never took their eyes off him. The dense, refined energy in his body was irresistible to them.
"Astral crystals," Liu Wuxie murmured.
The Ancestral Tree had just sent back a strong pulse, indicating a cluster of astral crystal aura nearby.
He immediately performed his footwork and sped toward it. In this warped world, he had no landmarks to navigate by and could only rely on his instincts and the Ancestral Tree's guidance.
Following its direction, he moved farther and farther from the main crowd and eventually stepped into a vast canyon, cut off from the outside world by high, jagged walls.
"This should be the place," he said softly.
He activated Ghost Eye, letting it pierce through the rock walls around him.
He hadn't gotten far into the canyon when five blood fiends appeared at the entrance behind him, blocking the way out.