Playboy Cultivator in the Apocalypse

Kaze, Evalyn, and the soldiers flew to Immortal Skye, nested in a forested area on the edge of Rockman Heights.

Daniel showed up in illusionary form, impersonating Mr. Rika, and the two walked into the mansion, where they led Evalyn to a room on the bottom floor.

The man wanted to speak to his niece, but she wouldn't look at him. So he gave up hesitantly and walked out of the room, heading back to his quarters.

Kaze turned to Evalyn when he was gone. "Take a shower and get some sleep.

We're meeting with the military tomorrow. You have to be there so I can make it clear that neither you nor I was at that hospital tonight."

Evalyn's eyes trembled in a crazed state, and the atmosphere cooled. Just the word [military] or soldiers triggered horrifying emotions.

"Get your emotions in check unless you want to repeat these mistakes." He snapped, breaking her out of her haze, "Your willingness to murder people is far too high, and that is not acceptable."

Her eyes widened in surprise at his declaration. Of all the things he could say, that wasn't something she expected.

"Violence is a means, not a solution. That's what we're working on tomorrow, so come prepared." The emperor ordered.

Before he walked out the door, she called out in a hesitant voice. "Can you stay, just for a few minutes."

Kaze closed his eyes. "I wish I could, but there's something that I must do. So please take a shower and get some rest. We can talk tomorrow."

Evalyn dry-swallowed and nodded, letting him walk out the door.

Once he left, he took off his mask and walked down the hall with a pained expression. His breaths became ragged, and he moved to his bedroom as quickly as possible.

He walked in, shut the door, and unbuttoned his t-shirt. It stuck to his skin, so he had to peel it off slowly.

A spider web of pitch-black veins protruded from his heart. It moved from his chest to his belly button and his shoulders. It was a grotesque sight to behold.

"Of all the things I've done, capturing the soul Qi from that many people without a soul core was by far the most foolish." Kaze chuckled with madness swirling in his eyes, "What's done is done, so let's get started."

He waved his hand, and a dome of warping space developed around him, and he sat down in the lotus position with his eyes closed.

The emperor cycled through his cultivation techniques, which he acquired as a treasure collector as the emperor of the Immortal Plane.

He carefully weighed them, attempting to find the one that was best suited to bring him to the Paradigm of Immortality.

"For soul cultivation, I'll go with Divine Transfiguration." Kaze said calmly, closing his eyes and cultivating the technique vivid in his memory.

The black veins pulsed, causing him to grimace in pain, but he pushed forward.

The veins ruptured around his shoulders. A black miasma poured out, filling the air with a toxic gas that would kill a cultivator below the Heaven Realm upon contact.

Kaze gritted his teeth, pushing out as much as possible, allowing it to move through his spatial technique. Sweat poured down his back as he worked through it.

After a few minutes, he gasped for air and closed off the veins.

"Capture." He whispered.

The emperor's eyes glowed vivid gold, and his neck, arms, and legs pulsed with golden veins that made their way to the black spider webs around his chest.

When the two collided, Kaze's eyes pulsed and he felt his soul leave his body by a foot.

Every soul in his body tried pushing his soul out. However—

"No! You won't get away from me!" Kaze yelled at full volume.

The gold veins attacked the black, pushing back and forth, the former energy trying to break free of the miasma and the latter trying to keep it contained.

The golden light shot out in the winning areas, sending golden strands to tie his soul in place and pull it back.

Kaze screamed in pain as the miasma fought against the threads.

However, he didn't slow down. More thin threads cut through the black miasma, attempting to reign them back in.

"I shouldn't have attempted to capture all 5,182 souls without a soul core." The emperor grinned, "But I absorbed the Tree of Immortality! If I can't do this much, I deserve death!"

Over five thousand souls were corrupting his body, soul, and mind from the inside out.

The miasma resulted from that. Kaze had to break through the corruption to contain his soul in the chaos and keep it from escaping.

His golden veins pulsed again, far more vivid, illuminating the space.

Hundreds of golden strands shot out of the miasma, physically shredding through his skin and veins. Yet he pushed forward without pause.

"Submit to me, you wretched fools!" Kaze roared to souls within him.

The threads wrapped around his soul's double, pulling it back to its body. When it touched the miasma, he screamed in pain as his soul shredded.

"Transconfigure!" Kaze roared.

Golden light shot into his shredded soul, using the energy from the dead souls to rebuild it.

Inside his body, his soul mixed directly with the golden energy, reshaping it into a sphere in his chest, churning clockwise.

Kaze was developing a soul core. It was a house for soul energy to be processed and recycled.

Once broken down, the soul's essence got absorbed into his body instead of the world before the soul was released.

The process was non-destructive. Like dual cultivation, it harvested energy from unrefined energy before the energy completed its cycle and was exhaled.

Therefore, he wasn't stealing the souls of the humans he slaughtered. On the contrary, he was liberating them early.

It was a benevolent action, but it had consequences. Kaze was grinding through the aftermath, fighting for his life.

For the next six hours, he fought against the souls to build his soul core. He sealed his soul into his body and developed a soul core.

However—

"How loathsome." Kaze scoffed, clicking his tongue, "It took over a thousand souls to repair mine, and I have to deal with the military's futile efforts to control me before further refinement. This couldn't get more inconvenient."

—he didn't complete his soul core and lost the energy necessary to heal himself.

Therefore, his body was still corroding when he reluctantly got up to deal with the military and faction matters. What he did was extremely risky, and he was paying the price.

Kaze didn't regret it. Even then, as his body corroded, he was scoffing at the inconvenience of the ordeal instead of worrying about the threat to his life. That was the true nature of Kaze Lexicon.

The only thing on his mind was the power it would bring him and his faction members.

Now he had thousands of souls making up his soul core and had the power to use permanent techniques in the world.

Techniques like building barriers for his faction, extracting impurities from soil to grow plants, and storing Qi in physical objects came from soul cultivation.

In short, it was the essence of treasures, something that the world was lacking.

In this life, he refused to feed upon the "generosity" of the Skye Plane cultivators to obtain them in two months when they unleashed Sky Plane prisoners and creatures on Earth.

He was determined to be prepared for the world's fate and come out on top.

More importantly, he vowed not to play into the cultivator's hands when they attempted to force him into the Sky Realm to fight the war that brought him and Evalyn together.

—

[A/N: Huge note: The next chapter was a welcome speech to Immortal Skye in the first publishing, and there was three training. That's now on chapters 51-54. Please go back if you haven't read it; I got contracted, so I have to reorganize and edit before things become permanent. Thank you for understanding.]