A Will Eternal

“I got my earth-type deva soul.... My trip to the Bai Clan wasn’t without its dangers, but in the end... it was worth it!” With those thoughts on his mind, Bai Xiaochun looked around with increased vigilance. Even as he contemplated how rewards come only with risk, he realized that his thinking was yet again getting out of line, and corrected himself.

“No, no, no. I can’t start thinking like that. It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth it at all! I can’t use the deva soul to try to comfort myself.” He even smacked himself a few times to try to get some sense into his head.

“Although, on the other hand, the Wildlands is a fundamentally dangerous place for me, so I really had no choice!” With that, he pulled out the earth-type deva soul. Eyes shining with anticipation, he took a deep breath and then pushed it into his chest!

The instant it touched him, he used the secret magic he had learned in the sepulcher to merge with the soul.

Instantly, strands of yellow light spread out through his body, filling him.

It was a feeling he hadn’t experienced in quite some time, and also a feeling that virtually no one else in the world had ever experienced. And yet, he had experienced it three times already, with this being the fourth. After completely merging with the soul, and being filled with light, he slowly opened his eyes.

Although his cultivation base hadn’t improved, his battle prowess... was now far beyond what it was before. Furthermore, there were a total of four swirling vortexes hidden away inside of him, within each of which was a clone.

Each one of those clones was just as powerful as he was, both in terms of cultivation base and fleshly body power. Even their divine sense was the same. Including his true self in the mix, he was now able to essentially become five people!

Five cultivators in the great circle of the Heaven-Dao Gold Core stage, five cultivators in the third level of the Undying Live Forever Technique! Any one of them could fight toe to toe with an early Nascent Soul stage expert, and possibly even kill that opponent!

If they all fought together, they would be so terrifying that even the mid Nascent Soul stage would be like nothing to them!

Bai Xiaochun was more excited than ever, and was now feeling a lot more confident about being alone in the Wildlands.

“With my four clones, I could most likely even handle someone in the great circle of the Nascent Soul stage.... The only thing to really be scared of would be a deva. And if the Bai Clan deva patriarch tries to chase me, then I can always use my demigod soul!” He was still nervous, but at least he had options.

Of course, he knew that the Bai Clan would never let him off the hook. From now, he would have to worry about them trying to track him down. However, he was also confident that they wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever.

“Let’s just see how far they’re willing to push things. If they make me, I’ll use my demigod soul to injure their deva. Even if I only wound him, the other two clans and Giant Ghost City, as well as any other enemies they have, would surely take advantage of the situation to make a move!”

After thinking about the matter a bit more, he gritted his teeth and sped into motion, heading, not toward Giant Ghost City, but toward the depths of the Wildlands. His goal now was merely to buy time.

Meanwhile, outside the Bai Clan, the clan chief was flying along, surrounded by a murderous aura and grim coldness. Countless vengeful souls had been formed together into a huge soulship which carried him along with frightening speed.

He was moving far more quickly than he could on his own, thanks to a secret magic that was quite draining. However, as the clan chief, he had access to plenty of soul medicine to make up for the loss.

And yet, he still wasn’t happy with that level of speed, and also poured some power directly from his cultivation base into the soulship, giving it an even greater boost.

Rumbling sounds filled heaven and earth as the soulship shot along, leaving afterimages behind as the clan chief used the divine sense seal given by the patriarch to track down his quarry.

“Must go faster!!” Because of the divine sense seal, he could tell that Bai Xiaochun was picking up speed, but that he was actually very close. As long as he maintained his current speed, he would likely catch up within three days.

As those days went by, the patriarch’s orders gradually grew weak in the mind of the clan chief; his desire to kill Bai Hao became like a black hole that sucked in everything else.

At one point, the clan chief suddenly reached up and hit the top of his head, causing a violet stream of light to emerge from his forehead.

The light rapidly formed into the shape of a little flag. Then, the clan chief performed an incantation gesture, which caused the flag to rapidly grow into a huge banner which he reached out and grabbed.

“You can’t escape, you unfilial bastard!” He spit out some life essence blood onto the banner, which began to radiate scintillating light. At the same time, the clan chief produced a huge batch of soul medicine that he tossed into the banner.

Rumbling sounds echoed out, and lightning crackled around the banner as the clan chief then planted it down onto the surface of the soulship.

RUMBLE!

Lightning danced around the soulship as its speed suddenly increased exponentially!

The blinding speed with which the ship now moved surpassed anything from the Nascent Soul stage. This was clearly the power of the Deva Realm!

Of course, for every breath of time that such speed was unleashed, a huge amount of soul medicine would be drained. Not even the clan chief had access to enough soul medicine to keep it going for more than about two hours!

“Two hours. That's all I need to catch up to you!!” In his madness, the clan chief was pulling out all the stops to try to catch Bai Xiaochun.

As the clan chief shot along with heaven-defying speed, time passed, and he could sense Bai Xiaochun getting closer and closer....

“He’s right in front of me!!” By craning his neck, he was now just able to make out Bai Xiaochun off in the distance.

Bai Xiaochun was shocked; considering how fast he was moving, only the deva patriarch should have been able to catch up to him so quickly.

In fact, as soon as he realized that someone was closing in on him, he quickly pulled out his demigod soulhoarding pagoda and looked over his shoulder with a serious expression. However, when he saw that it was just a soulship with the clan chief on it, his jaw dropped. He almost couldn’t believe that the clan chief had dared to chase after him alone....

Then he noticed the huge banner, and the shocking soul fluctuations coming off it. Furthermore, he got the sensation that there was an eye looking at him from within the banner.

It didn’t feel like the eye of a deva. Instead, it felt similar to the true spirit back in the River-Defying Sect, or the true spirit in the pagoda back at the Great Wall.... Although it wasn’t as powerful as either of those other true spirits, it was similar.

“Don’t tell me it’s a counterfeit?” Although something seemed off about the situation, what was most important was that the clan chief was closing in on him with murderous rage.

“Die, you unfilial bastard!!” The clan chief shot toward him with incredible speed, apparently attempting to ram him with the soulship. Face falling, Bai Xiaochun drew upon his ability to make everything around him slow down, and yet, considering how fast the soulship was moving, it didn’t do much good.

He just barely managed to leap out of the way in time, whereupon the soulship screamed past him.

“Considering how fast he's going, and the fact that he's relying on that treasure... don’t tell me he really came alone to try to kill me?” Even as he fell back, he sent his divine sense out to check for anyone else, but to his surprise, didn’t find anything.

“I can see you, Bai Clan patriarch!” he shouted. “Show your face! And you too, clan elders! I can see everyone! Stop hiding, all of you!” At that point, the clan chief leapt off of the soulship, performing a double handed incantation gesture that summoned a horde of vengeful souls, which merged together to make an enormous evil ghost head. Roaring, the head launched itself toward Bai Xiaochun to consume him.

“I can cut you down you on my own, Bai Hao. You killed my son, so now I'm going to make you wish you could die!!”