Desolate Devouring Art-Chapter 1388 - Battle of Martial Souls

Chapter 1388 - Battle of Martial Souls
The second level had descended into a brutal contest over martial souls. Even experts from the Grand Unity Sect set Liu Wuxie aside. They threw themselves into the hunt, utterly obsessed with absorbing martial souls to strengthen their soul energy and soul seas.
Liu Wuxie followed a different path. Using Ghost Eye, he locked onto more than thirty martial souls and seized control of them one after another.
He clashed with several cultivators during this process, but he relied on his controlled martial souls to kill his enemies. With each attempt, he grew more adept at inscribing soul runes, and his control over martial souls became increasingly precise.
The path to the third level was not a staircase this time but a light curtain hanging in the air. Liu Wuxie used the Great Spatial Mythical Art to appear on the light screen first, stepping through it ahead of everyone else, followed closely by other cultivators and blood fiends.
The third level was yet another desolate and lifeless world. Liu Wuxie felt instinctively that the remaining levels would be the same, with the martial souls growing stronger each time.
As soon as he entered the third level, Liu Wuxie vanished into the depths. Before long, a martial soul flew straight toward him. The martial souls here possessed strength comparable to the third- and fourth-level Void Realm.
"Human martial soul!" Liu Wuxie exclaimed.
The martial soul charging at him clearly belonged to a human and not an astral beast. As he had suspected, human cultivators had been captured by the loulan race and forged into martial souls. Human martial souls were even stronger than those of astral beasts because they still retained a wisp of their memories.
Liu Wuxie didn't need to make a move himself as the martial soul lunged over with the clear intent to possess his body. If it succeeded, it could undergo rebirth through him and escape this place alive.
"You're courting death!" Liu Wuxie growled. Instead of acting personally, he summoned three martial souls under his control to surround and attack the human martial soul.
The four martial souls clashed violently while Liu Wuxie stood to the side, calmly watching. He even activated Ghost Eye, examining the internal structure of the human martial soul.
He soon noticed that a human martial soul's structure differed from that of astral beasts. He traced his finger through the air and formed a soul rune, driving it straight into the human martial soul.
With his current soul energy comparable to the seventh-level Void Realm, he could control a martial soul of this level with ease. He continued inscribing soul runes until he completely subdued the human martial soul, then summoned it into his palm.
"This is a real treasure!" Liu Wuxie exclaimed. After his modifications, this human martial soul possessed combat strength comparable to the fourth-level Void Realm.
"There should be more of such martial souls on the third level, and I should try to collect as many as I can," Liu Wuxie said before disappearing again when he sensed people approaching.
He did not hesitate to absorb the lower-level martial souls to strengthen his soul sea, since controlling too many martial souls at once placed a severe strain on his soul energy.
Because he hadn't used any true essence on the second level, the Grand Unity Sect began to suspect he had already died. Everyone had suffered attacks from martial souls, and Liu Wuxie shouldn't have been an exception—yet he hadn't exposed his aura even once.
The plundering did not slow; it became even more frenzied than the second level.
"ARGH!" Several cultivators screamed as martial souls seized their primordial spirits. With martial souls here being much stronger, cultivators at the first-level Void Realm quickly fell under their onslaught.
Liu Wuxie was no exception in terms of being targeted; he didn't even need to look for them as large groups of martial souls rushed at him on their own. Roughly fifteen minutes later, he had already obtained over a dozen powerful human martial souls.
He then sent those martial souls into battle as bait, using them to lure even more martial souls. As for the martial souls he had gathered on the second level, he refined them all into his soul sea.
After refining more than thirty martial souls, Liu Wuxie felt his soul sea swell to the brink of bursting. His primordial spirit was on the verge of a breakthrough, and his soul energy was about to reach the eighth-level Void Realm. However, it was a pity that his cultivation remained at the fifth-level Primal Origin Realm with no sign of a breakthrough.
Soul energy and cultivation followed different paths. Some people were born with naturally strong souls, while others had weak soul seas from the start.
After devouring so many martial souls, Liu Wuxie's soul sea began to expand and contract rhythmically. Judging from soul energy alone, he was already comparable to the eighth-level Void Realm.
This made controlling martial souls and inscribing soul runes far easier. Under the combined assault of more than ten human martial souls, the martial souls drawn in from afar were swiftly suppressed and enslaved by Liu Wuxie, all within sight of several distant cultivators.
"Who is that kid, and how does he know the art of martial souls?" Many had fought desperately to capture a few martial souls for refinement.
Yet Liu Wuxie had captured dozens of human martial souls in a mere fifteen minutes, and he hadn't just refined them—he had gained complete control over them.
Liu Wuxie continued deeper into the third level. The gateway to the fourth level had yet to appear, giving him time to capture more martial souls. His goal was to push his soul sea all the way to the ninth-level Void Realm, thereby increasing his odds of surviving the Grand Unity Sect's pursuit.
In less than half a day, the gateway to the fourth level appeared, and once again, Liu Wuxie was the first to step through. The moment he emerged on the other side, a desolate and ancient aura washed over him. The space on the fourth level felt heavier and denser, already exceeding the framework of the four astral domains.
"We seem to have entered another world," muttered the cultivators who arrived after him.
Every world had its own unique laws and characteristics. The True Martial Star's laws had only resembled those of the Indigo Bamboo Astral Domain because it originated from that astral domain.
"It's him! He knows how to engrave martial souls!" Shouts erupted behind Liu Wuxie before he could get far, and he saw more than thirty cultivators rushing toward him.
The weaker cultivators had already been weeded out in the sevenfold heaven, either falling to martial souls or dying at the hands of their own companions. The blood fiends had paid a heavy price as well, and they had stopped fighting with the humans. At this point, both humans and blood fiends shared a single goal: capture more martial souls.
"Elder Shi, I'm pretty sure that he's Liu Wuxie," said a Grand Unity Sect disciple after watching Liu Wuxie disappear.
He had participated in the Myriad Race Ceremony himself and still vividly remembered Liu Wuxie. Even from the build alone, he found an uncanny resemblance between the two.
Mo Hong had not entered the sevenfold heaven and instead remained on the Blood Fiend Battlefield to guard the exit, completely unaware of what was happening inside. The gateway to the sevenfold heaven had already vanished, and peace returned to the Ancient Loulan City as many latecomers wandered its streets in confusion.
"Fifth-level Primal Origin Realm, he should be Liu Wuxie," the Grand Unity Sect experts discussed quietly. Even the weakest among them had already stepped into the Void Realm, so Liu Wuxie's cultivation realm made him stand out immediately. Unwilling to hesitate any longer, they ignored whether their speculation was accurate and launched a full pursuit.
"Damn it!" Liu Wuxie cursed as he accelerated. If his guess were correct, the fourth level would contain martial souls comparable to the fifth-level Void Realm.
Light spheres shot from his hand as he sent more than ten martial souls back to intercept the Grand Unity Sect. A battle erupted instantly. The martial souls displayed formidable strength comparable to the fourth-level Void Realm and fought without the slightest regard for their own survival, catching the Grand Unity Sect off guard.
Then, an even more terrifying scene unfolded. The martial souls still retained fragmented memories of their former lives and remembered ancient cultivation arts.
In ancient times, mythical arts were far more abundant, and many of those techniques had long since vanished from history.
While the martial souls intercepted the Grand Unity Sect, Liu Wuxie had already fled far away, leaving the Grand Unity Sect elders screaming in frustration as they clashed with the martial souls.
Without warning, the martial souls suddenly detonated, unleashing power comparable to that of spiritual talismans. The explosion caught the Grand Unity Sect's experts off guard; they had planned to subdue the martial souls and force Liu Wuxie's martial soul art out of them.
No one expected the martial souls to self-detonate. The sheer force of the explosions formed a mushroom cloud that soared into the sky, flattening everything within a 1,000-meter radius.
One could imagine the destructive might of a self-detonation from a cultivator at the fourth-level Void Realm, let alone a simultaneous explosion of more than a dozen martial souls. Over twenty disciples of the Grand Unity Sect died on the spot, and only those at the higher levels of the Void Realm survived, all bearing varying degrees of injuries.
Elder Shi and Elder Li's hearts bled as they stared at the scattered remains on the ground. These disciples had once represented the Grand Unity Sect's future, and they had brought them here to temper themselves under the protection of several elders at the pinnacle of the Void Realm.
They had accounted for every danger they could imagine—except Liu Wuxie's mastery of the art of martial soul.
"Liu Wuxie, I'll tear you into pieces!" Elder Li roared. One of the dead disciples was his own son. Tears streamed down his face as he cradled his son's mangled corpse in his arms.
The other cultivators watching from afar exchanged glances, fear flickering deep in their eyes.
"This Liu Wuxie is too monstrous, relying on over a dozen martial souls to kill twenty-three experts from the Grand Unity Sect, including two at the fifth-level Void Realm!" Many felt secretly delighted, since the disaster did not directly involve them.
The Grand Unity Sect's reputation had already plummeted, and plenty of people did not mind seeing them trampled further into the dirt.
"Wait, doesn't that mean that whoever can capture Liu Wuxie will be set for life? If we can obtain the art of martial soul, we'll be invincible here!" The surrounding discussions grew louder, and some people became so engrossed in the conversation that they momentarily forgot about hunting martial souls altogether.
They had already noticed that each level was opening faster than the last, which meant the fifth level wouldn't take long to appear. The martial souls they encountered would only grow stronger the higher they climbed, and their only hope of survival was to strengthen their own soul energy so they wouldn't fall prey to the martial souls.
The crowd soon dispersed again to search for martial souls, leaving the Grand Unity Sect to clean up the battlefield alone.
"Elder Shi, what should we do now?" Elder Wang asked, his expression filled with defeat. They had come with a formidable force, yet they still couldn't kill a mere junior at the Primal Origin Realm. Just thinking about returning home like this made him feel humiliated.
"Spread out! Kill anyone who is in the Primal Origin Realm!" Elder Shi growled.
"Understood!" With that order, everyone immediately scattered in different directions.
Meanwhile, Liu Wuxie had already reached the depths of the fourth level. He stood atop a lone mountain and watched as a tide of martial souls surged toward him.
These martial souls had hidden inside a massive cave, and over a hundred of them poured out the moment Liu Wuxie appeared. Each martial soul radiated an overwhelming aura comparable to the fifth-level Void Realm, and they came in a mix of astral beasts, humans, and monsters.
Liu Wuxie drew in a sharp breath at the sight. Even he wasn't confident he could handle so many martial souls at once.
Back on the third level, he had only managed to inscribe runes on some of the martial souls, and he had already used half of them to deal with the Grand Unity Sect.