Spirit Realm

Qin Lie sat quietly and sensed the way the Moon Tear spun inside the silver moon mark under the moonlight.

The holy artifact of inheritance the Serene Moon Race called the “Moon Tear” looked like teardrops as they glowed dimly at the center of the ancient spirit diagram of the silver moon mark.

While observing the Moon Tear, he also looked up towards the night sky of Boluo Realm again and again.

A total of nine teardrops were inside the Moon Tear. They seemed to be connected to the nine moons of Boluo Realm somehow.

An idea entered his mind, and the nine glowing teardrops flew out of the silver moon mark.

The slowly hovering and spinning Moon Tear in front of his chest looked very beautiful.

When he looked at the nine teardrops closely, he could see many tiny and obscured ancient runes above Moon Tear.

—They were unique characters of the Serene Moon Race.

He skimmed through the nine great secret arts of the Serene Moon Race in his mind. He could use Moon Moves, Sky Falls to control Moon Tear, but every other secret art and technique required the Serene Moon Race’s bloodline to execute.

He tried executing these secret arts, but the powers he formed inside his body were as useless as he expected.

“It’s worthless…” He muttered softly.

“You say it’s worthless because you don’t know the true value of the Moon Tear.”

Suddenly, a vague soul thought appeared from the nine teardrops.

Qin Lie abruptly stood up and exclaimed in surprise. “Who are you?”

Threads of moonlight flew out of the nine teardrops and gathered together to form a white, blurry figure.

The white shadow was made of pure moon energy. Its face was blurry like a ghost’s.

When Qin Lie probed it with his consciousness though, he noticed that the shadow had a soul in it.

He immediately knew that this shadow was an intelligent life.

“Who am I?” The shadow flickered like a candle flame in the wind. It looked like it would disappear at any moment. “I am the chief of the Serene Moon Race. I am the Moon God worshipped by Moon Worshipping Cult. I am the soul that was refined into the Moon Tear and turned into an artifact soul by your orb, alive.”

“You’re the Moon Demon?!” Qin Lie turned pale.

Once upon a time, this soul was the culprit who killed countless Soul Altar experts and toppled Moon Worshipping Cult in a single night. It was the demon that was once sealed inside the Moon Crown.

“Call me whatever you wish, but I am just the artifact soul of Moon Tear right now. The orb in your glabella… has imprinted many terrible restrictions all the way to my soul origin. These restrictions tied my very life to yours, so I will instantly disappear into nothingness if your soul were to be extinguished.”

The soul’s voice seemed to tremble when it spoke of the Soul Suppressing Orb. It seemed to be deathly afraid of the Soul Suppressing Orb’s terrible methods.

“You… you haven’t appeared before. Why have you chosen to come out today?” Qin Lie had secretly gathered the power of thunder and lightning in his body. The second the Moon Demon did something funny, he would immediately strike it with his powers.

Thunder was the bane of all souls. Not even the Moon Demon should be able to resist it since it was just a soul right now.

“When I was transformed into an artifact soul at the beginning, my soul was incredibly weakened… right now I am getting used to this new state of existence bit by bit.” The Moon Demon’s soul thoughts reached him. It explained slowly. “The final step of this artifact refinement cannot be considered complete unless the Moon Tear absorbs enough moon energy.”

“I see.” Qin Lie took two steps backwards and put some distance between himself and the Moon Demon. Then, he asked, “Why have you appeared of your own accord now?”

The Moon Demon fell quiet for a very long time.

Pure moonlight spilled down from the nine moons of Boluo Realm like nine streams and entered the Moon Demon’s body.

It was as if the Moon Demon couldn’t maintain its existence without them.

“My actual name is You Ye. I am the current chief of the Serene Moon Race, and I was the owner of Moon Tear until you appeared.” The Moon Demon pondered for a moment before starting slowly, “The Serene Moon Race lived in a place known as the Dark Moon Realm. It was even further away from Spirit Realm than Boluo Realm is, and it was closed to all travellers for many years already. We seldom interacted with the outside world.”

The Serene Moon Race chief who called himself You Ye began explaining how Dark Moon Realm came to perish in the past.

Dark Moon Realm was incredibly far away from Spirit Realm. Not even the God Race had built a space passage to Dark Moon Realm back when they still ruled over Spirit Realm.

For the longest time, You Ye and many Serene Moon clansmen lived in peace without being influenced by the invasion of the God Race or the human race after they became powerful.

That lasted until the day a strange, shadowlike lifeform entered Dark Moon Realm and flooded the place entirely in just a short time.

This strange race took no prisoners. The Serene Moon clansmen in Dark Moon Realm died in droves.

Their souls were devoured by this strange race and turned into food.

You Ye led his entire race to war against this race, but they were slaughtered without being able to resist in the slightest.

In the end, You Ye took his remaining people away from Dark Moon Realm and journeyed aimlessly amongst the unknown stars.

They found a dead moon star at the end of their journey. His people landed there and struggled to survive inside its caves while You Ye used a secret art to send his soul into space. Slowly, he attached his soul onto a moon and worked hard to find a new realm that could accommodate his people.

It was there he sensed a tremendous soul energy when the Moon Worshipping Cult was offering sacrifices to the moon.

He called himself the Moon God and made a connection with the Soul Altar experts of Moon Worshipping Cult. He encouraged the cult members to build a moon altar unique to the Serene Moon Race and tried to open a passage to Spirit Realm. He wanted to lead his people into Spirit Realm.

In the end, his soul successfully descended in Spirit Realm. The moon altar required a large amount of souls to power, so he slaughtered the Soul Altar experts of the Moon Worshipping Cult to fulfill the moon altar’s need.

Unfortunately, the combined resistance of a dozen or so Moon Worshipping Cult Soul Altar experts actually dealt him a severe blow.

Even his soul was sealed away by the Moon Worshipping Cult’s holy artifact, Moon Crown. He failed to escape Spirit Realm.

After Moon Worshipping Cult was gone, and after Helian Zheng and He Qian came up with a devious scheme to kill Lu Yi and rob him of the Moon Crown, he gathered a small number of former Moon Worshipping Cult cultists and founded Turin Cave.

After that, Helian Zheng and He Qian tried to unseal the Moon Crown.

After You Ye’s soul was released from the Moon Crown, he learned from his past mistakes and adjusted his methods. Plus, Helian Zheng and He Qian were too weak. Even if he did kill them, their souls weren’t powerful enough to activate the moon altar.

That was why he didn’t kill He Qian and Helian Zheng.

Instead, he taught Helian Zheng some fragmentary Serene Moon Race secret arts and encouraged him and his people to gather the souls of experts for him.

La Pu fell for Helian Zheng, He Qian, and Dong Cheng’s trap because of his orders.

Lu Yi was Turin Cave’s next target, but because Qin Lie had the Soul Suppressing Orb You Ye was absorbed into the spirit artifact despite having absolute advantage on top of possessing the Moon Tear.

Inside the Soul Suppressing Orb, he vaguely sensed that his soul and the Moon Tear were being tempered by the spirit artifact.

When he awakened and regained full consciousness, he finally realized that he had become Moon Tear’s artifact soul and Moon Tear had become a Divine Grade spirit artifact.

“You’re saying that… Moon Tear wasn’t originally a Divine Grade spirit artifact, and it didn’t have an artifact soul?”

Qin Lie instantly grasped the strangest thing of the matter after You Ye was done with his explanation.

—Moon Tear was evolved into a Divine Grade spirit artifact after it was tempered by the Soul Suppressing Orb!

“That’s right. Moon Tear was just a holy artifact of inheritance at the beginning. In reality, its powers are quite limited, and it is at best a Heaven Grade spirit artifact if we were to grade it by the artifact grading standard of Spirit Realm.” You Ye said confidently. “After the orb had been refined, and my soul had merged into one with Moon Tear, it evolved into a Divine Grade spirit artifact.”

“What realm were you back then?” Qin Lie asked again.

“I was one step away from constructing the seventh level of my Soul Altar,” You Ye said proudly.

“Pitiful…” Qin Lie ridiculed him.

You Ye’s soul seemed to tremble with agitation under the night sky.

However, he quickly regained his cool.

“I want to make a deal with you,” You Ye suddenly said.

“Speak.” Qin Lie replied calmly.

“Help the Serene Moon Race. Help transfer my trapped clansmen to the Serene Moon Race in Boluo Realm, and teach the secret arts and inheritances you can’t use to the Serene Moon Race branch in Boluo Realm so they may survive that Black Jail Race’s invasion.” You Ye made his demands before saying, “In return, I will persuade the Serene Moon clansmen to make an ancient oath to submit to the God Race and obey their every whim.”

“Submit to the God Race?” Qin Lie looked astonished.

“The God Race’s blood runs within you. If it wasn’t so, I wouldn’t even bother negotiating with you in the first place.” You Ye explained, “I hope to return to Dark Moon Realm one day, and the God Race may be the only race that can fight against this terrifying shadow race. We cannot avenge our people in the future without the God Race’s help.

You Ye’s shadow twisted continuously as he uttered in agitation, “Those shadow lifeforms are leaving the Dark Shadow World and invading the realms bit by bit. They leave behind only death in their wake, and they devour all lifeforms that possess a soul.

“The speed at which they corrupt the stars is incredibly high. It is only a matter of time before they find Spirit Realm. When that happens, all life in Spirit Realm will have their souls devoured just like Dark Moon Realm.

“That will be the judgment day of all life in Spirit Realm.

“Right now, the powerful ancient races living in Spirit Realm are powerless against those things because neither they nor the human race know anything about them. Out of all races in this vast galaxy, the God Race that had developed countless worlds and explored countless realms may be the only one who know about their origin and weakness.”

When You Ye spoke of that race, he was obviously scared to death.

And he used to be a late stage Void Realm expert with a six-level Soul Altar.

“Dark Shadow World…” Qin Lie’s expression slowly turned serious.

From the God Race’s Chaos Blood Realm, he learned that the chief of the Demon Dragon Race, Abrit, was trapped in an unknown realm. That place had no suns, moons, stars or light. There was only eternal darkness and some shadow lifeforms. That place… was the Dark Shadow World.

Three hundred years ago, before he was “killed” in the Central World of Spirit Realm, his father Qin Hao was also once trapped inside Dark Shadow World. His father was a Genesis Realm expert and one of the strongest martial practitioners in the Central World of Spirit Realm.

“Dark Shadow World and this shadow race are flooding the world. From what I know… Dark Shadow World has the ability to corrupt other realms and transform them into a part of Dark Shadow World. This means that all those worlds that are consumed would become as lightless, lifeless, and desolate as the Dark Shadow World. There would be no light, stars, moons, or stars. There would only be eternal darkness,” You Ye said in fear.

“What? The Dark Shadow World can corrupt other realms too?” Qin Lie exclaimed.

“I believe so. That’s because Dark Moon Realm underwent such a change not long after the shadow race arrived. All of the moonlight in our world had disappeared.” You Ye sighed deeply. “I hope I was wrong. If I wasn’t, then Dark Moon Realm was gone forever.”