Apotheosis

As soon as Zen arrived—in his corporeal form—at the Oneness Sky Palace's temple, he saw a group of disciples stationed at the entrance of the temple. They all had grim expressions on their faces.

Zen quickly deduced that they were guarding against a strong enemy.

"What's the matter?"

he demanded, going straight up to one of the disciples.

Although they didn't know who he was, they knew he had helped them before.

"Before you came, something serious happened!" said the disciple, sounding frantic.

"Tell me quickly. Did the Bearing race come to make trouble again?" Zen asked, looking around him for signs of danger.

The great loss suffered by the Bearing race should have taught them not to go against the Oneness Sky Palace. Could they have dared to make trouble again so soon after their recent failure? Or was this the work of another race?

The disciple shook his head. "There was a man, but he didn't belong to the Bearing race... We don't know where he came from. He can devour the souls of others!"

"A man who devours souls?" Zen repeated, startled.

"Yes!" The disciple sounded extremely upset. "He wanted soul crystal, and when we refused—he swallowed one of our members! We had to retreat to the temple."

The temple was protected by a variety of powerful restrictions. Apart from Zen, who could come and go as he pleased, even the strongest souls would be burnt to ashes.

"Then he left?" Zen asked.

"He went to the Bearing race. We think he went there for soul crystal too," the disciple answered.

Soul crystal was very difficult to obtain.

At the moment, there were a lot of elite disciples of the Bearing race here, but they were busy rebuilding their destroyed temple. This meant that no restrictions were yet in place to protect them. And so the man attacked them, eating at least seven souls before the rest of the members of the Bearing race fled from the Other Shore completely.

Once they were gone, the man went through the ruins of the Bearing race's temple.

However, he had come too late. The temple had already been plundered by Zen, and whatever valuables remained had also been taken away by the Bearing race. He wasn't able to find anything useful.

He refused to give up. He went next to the temple of the Divine Farmer race.

But by then, word had reached them of the danger on the Other Shore, and the temple was heavily guarded. Indeed, in the battle that ensued, the disciples of the Divine Farmer race managed to lure him inside the temple and almost succeeded in killing him. The man managed to escape the temple.

After hearing the story, Zen asked, "So where is this person now?"

"He has probably left the Other Shore. His power to devour souls is terrifying, but apart from that one ability his soul does not seem very strong.

uare didn't have a high position in the Separate Abyss race. They had made a mistake in extorting Zen. Should the leader and elders of the Separate Abyss race ever learn that they had been foolish enough to offend a person capable of coming to the Other Shore in corporeal form, they would be severely punished.

They decided it would be best to avoid further trouble and just return everything to Zen.

The Souls of Light waiting in line couldn't hide their pleasure at seeing the Separate Abyss race humbled.

They who had always been so tough, who had always acted so superior, had finally met their match!

Zen gave the members of the Separate Abyss race a cool glance. "No. One hundred million soul pills, or a hundred finger-size chunks of soul crystal."

The leader's face changed, and his companions looked worried.

The Souls of Light who were watching couldn't help but feel uneasy too. What would happen if the Separate Abyss race couldn't meet the stranger's demands? They felt that something big was about to happen.

The leader squared his shoulders and glared at Zen. "Are you joking? It's enough that we will return everything to you. Alberto, hand it over."

Alberto stepped forward and gave the soul crystal to Zen. Zen grasped it in his hand, and squeezed hard.

The soul crystal burst into pieces and splattered around. Some of the fragments shot into the Souls of Light in line, and they were extremely satisfied with this unexpected development.

Without the space ring, Zen could not store soul crystal. And he did not intend to take this finger-size chunk of soul crystal.

At the waste of the soul crystal, the members of the Separate Abyss race groaned.

Zen stared coldly at them. "Send one hundred million soul pills to Stage Twelve. If there is even a single pill missing, I will raze the Separate Abyss race to the ground."