Spirit Realm

Qin Lie quietly sat atop an icy rock. His face was pale as he refined blood for himself using the Demon Sealing Tombstone’s blood energy.

As he did this, the rest of his group were accumulating spirit energy from spirit stones to maintain their shields of light.

When Qin Lie opened his eyes a considerable amount of time later, he inadvertently smiled when he saw that everyone was looking at him.

It recently felt as if he had fallen into a never-ending nightmare. Every time he replenished his soul energy and blood to a certain point, the Soul Suppressing Orb would generate a powerful sucking force.

A large majority of the soul energy and blood that Qin Lie worked so hard to replenish would then be drained from him.

However, the Soul Suppressing Orb would avoid some of the soul energy and blood in his body, refraining from causing his body any real harm.

As for the soul energy and blood that the Soul Suppressing Orb did take, they would be drained and absorbed behind the sealed door within the orb.

Each time he replenished more of his soul energy and blood, the Soul Suppressing Orb would just extract it. The cycle kept repeating.

This brought a sudden halt to Qin Lie’s cultivation, keeping him stuck at his current realm and preventing him from making any more breakthroughs in his various spirits arts.

All of his time and effort were spent on replenishing his soul energy and blood. He couldn’t afford to care about anything else.

The Soul Suppressing Orb’s drain on his soul energy and blood also led to a large decrease in his combat potential, cutting it down to half of what it would be.

His companions fared a bit better.

As Qin Lie’s group headed deeper into the Forbidden Land of Ice, the air grew colder and colder, forcing their pace to get progressively slower. Only after spending a lot of time replenishing their spirit energy with spirit stones did they dare to continue onward.

More than half a month passed by, and their group of seven slowly approached the center of the Forbidden Land of Ice.

As of this moment, they were quietly sitting among frozen trees and recovering their energy. Translucent, icy peaks could be seen in the distance, pure white snow accenting their frigid outlines. Arctic winds weaved through these mountain-tops with shrill, earsplitting howls.

“The Land of Buried Gods should be the coldest place in the Forbidden Land of Ice. That is the only place in which the remains of the deceased would never rot. In addition to that, the dispersal of the energy in their bodies would decrease to an extremely slow speed.

Xue Moyan slowly got to her feet and looked into the distance. A serious expression surfaced on her face.

“Black Voodoo Cult, Celestial Artifact Sect, Ten Thousand Beast Mountain, and the eastern barbarians…” She sighed softly. “There really are quite a few people coveting the remains of those elites. Even if we did find the Land of Buried Gods, we wouldn’t necessarily be able to obtain anything like we did in the Forbidden Land of Thunder.”

She looked at Qin Lie, a hint of worry in her eyes.

Everyone could see that Qin Lie wasn’t doing so well. If it weren’t for the constant loss of soul energy and blood, Qin Lie’s combat strength still could’ve been considered extraordinary even outside of the Forbidden Land of Thunder.

But now…

“How many soul crystals do you have left?” Song Tingyu asked gently.

“About thirty or so.” Qin Lie frowned.

For the past half a month, Qin Lie needed to continuously consume soul crystals to replenish his soul energy. Back in the Forbidden Land of Thunder, since he had taken the priceless Pure Soul Springs, he allowed the others to take the soul crystals.

They had ended up sharing them to a certain extent..

Now, however, since he required soul crystals to replenish his soul energy, Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, and Xue Moyan would give him soul crystals every so often.

Because of an urgent need for soul crystals at the moment, he naturally didn’t turn them down. As a result, he had been using up their soul crystals for quite some time now.

The number of soul crystals that each of the three girls had was swiftly decreasing..

“I’ll give you another fifty.”

Song Tingyu took numerous translucent soul crystals out of her spatial ring and gave them to him.

“I also have a lot of soul crystals. If you don’t have enough, I can give you some more.” Pan Qianqian raised her voice.

“These will be enough for now.” Qin Lie smiled and accepted the soul crystals that Song Tingyu gave to him. His eyes, however, were far from relaxed.

—He had no idea when this torture would end.

Every time Qin Lie replenished his soul energy and blood, recovering a little bit, the Soul Suppressing Orb would trigger its draining effect and steal everything he had worked so hard to accumulate.

This cycle of absorption felt like a hole in which he was freefalling and couldn’t see the bottom of..

It weighed down on his heart, causing it to sink lower and lower..

“I wonder how Chu Li is doing,” Du Xiangyang suddenly said.

“He’ll be fine,” Luo Chen interjected. “Considering how strong he is and the fact that he no longer has He Wei and those other Terminator Sect fools holding him back, no one will be able to take him down without a fight.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll definitely run into him here in the Forbidden Land of Ice,” Song Tingyu said.

Qin Lie nodded and stood up. “Let’s get going. We need to continue searching for the Land of Buried Gods.”

The group continued on their journey once more.

Another five uneventful days passed by until, suddenly, Pan Qianqian shrieked in surprise.

“There’s a body here! Someone froze to death!”

Lying amidst the numerous icy trees was a young man. He was garbed in eastern barbarian clothing, and his white skin bore many exquisite tattoos. His body was encased in ice, having first been frozen and then covered in snow.

“At first I thought he was an icy rock. It was only after I pushed the snow out of the way that I realized there was an eastern barbarian inside of it,” Pan Qianqian explained.

Everyone in the group gathered around the corpse of the white eastern barbarian and swept the all of the snow aside, carefully inspecting it.

“I don’t see any wounds or traces of combat. Nobody killed him,” Du Xiangyang said firmly.

“Judging from his appearance, this person probably froze to death. He was most likely in the early stage of the Netherpassage Realm. Perhaps he rushed here without replenishing his spirit energy and was overwhelmed by the frigid air. His nerves would have then gone numb, leading to him being frozen alive.”

After she took a moment to examine the man, Song Tingyu paused. A serious expression appeared on her beautiful face.

“I believe we should take this as a warning. We need to make sure we have as much spirit energy as possible at all times. Otherwise, if we encounter unforeseen circumstances and expend too much, the frigid air may overwhelm us! We might suffer the same fate as him!”

“Mn. We need to be more careful,” Du Xiangyang said, his expression becoming more serious as well.

“Black barbarian… scarlet barbarian… white barbarian…” Xue Moyan muttered a few words to herself, her brow deeply furrowed. Then, as a realization occurred to her, she spoke up, her voice filled with worry. “The eastern barbarians may prove to be even more of a problem than we originally thought.”

All eyes immediately turned to her.

“The barbarians we encountered in the Forbidden Land of Thunder, Sen Ye and his men, all had dark skin. All of them were black barbarians of the Black Barbarian Tribe,” Xue Moyan explained grimly. “I initially thought that they made up all of the eastern barbarians in the Graveyard of Gods. However, this white barbarian we’ve stumbled across means that the black barbarians weren’t the only eastern barbarians to enter the Graveyard of Gods. There are probably white barbarians and scarlet barbarians here as well. The number of eastern barbarians in the Graveyard of the Gods might exceed our expectations… by an obscene amount. Similar to how each of our nine great Silver rank forces sent people here, each of the eastern barbarians tribes may have sent their own.”

“Compared to us, the eastern barbarians are definitely more united. They also despise us to their very cores. This Trial… may actually prove to be rather difficult.” Du Xiangyang started to feel a headache coming on.

The appearance of a white barbarian made them realize that Sen Ye and his men were just a portion of the eastern barbarians in the Graveyard of Gods.

“Let me think…” Du Xiangyang said. “Those scarlet, white, and black barbarians most likely entered the Graveyard of Gods through an opening in their territory. The must’ve come through on the opposite end, meaning they probably showed up in the Forbidden Lands of Metal, Earth, and Water. All of us were at one end of the seven great forbidden lands while they were on the other end, and now everyone is headed toward the Forbidden Land of Ice at the center.”

Du Xiangyang paused for a moment, sucking in a deep breath, then spoke in a grim tone, “If I’m correct, the fact that Sen Ye and his men were in the Forbidden Land of Thunder means that the eastern barbarians have already passed through the Forbidden Lands of Metal, Water, and Earth!”

“You mean to say that… we’ll probably encounter all three eastern barbarian tribes here in the Forbidden Land of Ice?” Qin Lie frowned.

“I am one hundred percent certain that we’ll meet them in the Land of Buried Gods!” Du Xiangyang explained softly. Then he said, “That is, of course, if we manage to find the Land of Buried Gods.”

“Even if we do encounter them, it doesn’t seem like the best idea to enter the Land of Buried Gods with our current strength… does it?” Pan Qianqian asked timidly.

As soon as she said this, everyone went quiet.

When they realized that there were probably a few hundred eastern barbarians in the Graveyard of Gods, a heavy weight suddenly pressed down on their chests. It was almost a struggle for them to breathe.

The eastern barbarians clearly understood more about the Graveyard of Gods than they did.

The white and scarlet barbarians could already be on their way to the Land of Buried Gods. In fact, they might have already reached it! Sen Ye and his black barbarians were probably headed there as well.

Qin Lie’s group could be counted on two hands, and they would have to face several hundred members of the three great eastern barbarian tribes, all of which were in the same realms as them. Even if they did know where the Land of Buried Gods was, would they really want to go inside?

“If we enter the Land of Buried Gods, won’t we just lose the soul crystals we acquired from the Forbidden Land of Thunder? The eastern barbarians could even shoot us to death!” Pan Qianqian cried.

No one said anything in response, and the group fell silent.

……