Chapter 268: The Main Culprit

Translator:Atlas StudiosEditor:Atlas Studios

Zhu Ming slowly got to his feet in a daze. Suddenly, he recalled something and looked anxiously into the array. "Mother Feng... Mother..." The figure in the array was gone and so was the grievous energy.

"Well..." He ran into the array, panicked. "What exactly happened? How did Mother Feng suddenly disappear? Where did she go?"

Yi Qing frowned and stepped forward to scan the array. "This array isn't broken. I don't think she broke the array to escape."

"Then where did she go?" Zhu Ming asked anxiously. He conjured a few spells to locate Mother Feng's aura, but dropped his hands down in defeat after awhile. "I can't detect her aura and there's no sign of any other array in here."

"Could it be that she disappeared into thin air?" Bai Ze asked.

"No." Yi Qing shook his head. "I didn't feel any sorcery earlier."

All of them fell silent. The array wasn't broken and there was no sign of any other array in there. How did she disappear?

Zhu Ming looked crestfallen and listless. He fell to the floor in a heap. "Where could she have gone?"

"Are the different parts of a soul connected?" Shen Ying suddenly asked.

All of them turned to stare at her. After awhile, they realised. "The Soul-Recalling Technique!"

"Mother Feng lost her primary soul..." Zhu Ming muttered. "You're saying somebody used her primary soul to recall the other parts of her soul? But..." He pondered for awhile, then his expression fell. "I used the array to trap her earlier. What kind of Soul-Recalling Technique can recall all the different parts of one's soul using just the primary soul?"

"There is one!" Shen Ying nodded. "Haven't you all seen it before?"

Zhu Ming paused. A moment later, he seemed to have realised something. That was when his eyes widened. together with Lonemoon, he shouted, "That array in the mystic realm!"

That array had used just Shortie's remnant soul to drag her entire being from the immortal realm into the divine realm.

"She's in her own territory!"

Zhu Ming quickly turned around and ran toward the east. Lonemoon exchanged glances with the rest. One by one, they mounted their swords and flew out.

"Mas..." Yi Qing was used to pulling Shen Ying onto his own sword. He reached out his arm halfway and for some reason, stiffened. The mixed feelings were back.

Shen Ying, on the other hand, did not seem to notice. She jumped behind Chef and said, "Go."

"Yes, Mas..." Strangely, he could no longer say that word. He looked at Shen Ying with a tortured expression. Seeing that she did not seem to realise, he focused on chasing after Zhu Ming.

Bai Ze looked at the two of them and felt his heart drop. He looked absolutely pained.

Zhu Ming flew at top speed. Lonemoon frowned and glanced at the Zhu Ming in front of him now, who was filled with panic and no longer had the calm, gentlemanly demeanour he once did. In a low voice, Lonemoon said, "Fellow Daoist Zhu, don't you think you should explain your relationship with Mother Feng to us all over again?"

He said that Mother Feng was his junior sister before, and it did not seem like they were that close. But from the looks of it, that did not seem like the truth.

The colour drained from Zhu Ming's face as he shot Lonemoon a guilty look. He closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh. "I didn't mean to hide it from you. It's just that Mother Feng is too obsessed. I was afraid that she might do something silly, so I didn't talk too much about the past. She isn't my junior sister. In fact, she's my senior sister."

Zhu Ming's expression became unreadable. "When she was alive, we were in the same sect and we grew up together. Later, she ascended to immortality earlier than I did. By the time I ascended, she was already pushed to her death by a couple of evildoers. I became a ghost immortal because of her. As ghost immortals, the price of training ourselves is losing our souls. The stronger we are, the weaker our souls get. Mother Feng got her revenge after she became a ghost immortal, but the hatred in her heart deepens as the days go by. That's why her training got more and more extreme. I was worried that if this carried on, she would lose her soul completely. I wanted to persuade her to forget about the past and enter Samsara, but she would not listen."

Zhu Ming clenched his fists and his expression turned pained. "Later, she lost her primary soul by accident and forgot the past. I hoped that I would be able to persuade her to reincarnate and find her primary soul back in time. That would be better than completely losing her soul. I never thought that the hatred in her heart would continue to intensify. Now, even without her primary soul, she can remember what happened."

"Fellow Daoist Lonemoon..." Zhu Ming looked at him somberly. "I sincerely apologize. I was afraid to talk too much about it in front of Mother Feng because I did not want her to get upset. That was why I didn't go into too much detail before. Now, her soul is extremely weak. She might lose the last bit of it at any time. If we don't send her to Samsara soon, she might never get the chance to reincarnate."

Lonemoon looked at him, speechless. He stopped asking anymore questions and Zhu Ming sped off.

Mother Feng's abode was not far away. In less than ten minutes, the group arrived. They saw a red light coming from the abode and travelling souls running around in all directions. The place where her house once stood was now covered in a red array. Faintly, they could see the entrance to the mystic realm.

"Mother Feng!" Zhu Ming screamed. He ran toward the entrance of the mystic realm.

"Zhu..." Lonemoon tried to stop him but it was too late.

He turned around and shot the group a look. After reminding them to set up their own defensive arrays, he followed Zhu Ming in.

Red light filled his entire vision. It was still the same small mystic realm that was filled with the array. Now, though, it there was also overwhelming yin Qi all around. The array that Shen Ying destroyed earlier was now whole again, and it looked stronger than before. Mother Feng was trapped right in the middle of the array, and she looked like she was in extreme pain. Her figure got fainter and fainter, as if she was disappearing.

On top of the array, a person was floating. He was covered in black Yin Qi. They could not make out his looks, but they could tell that it was a male.

"Sect Master, it's the ghost immortal that chased me!" Xuan Tong shouted.

All of their expressions darkened. This person is finally making his appearance. "The array down there can devour souls. Don't get too close, everyone," Lonemoon reminded them but it was too late. Zhu Ming was one step ahead of him, rushing in the direction of the array without hesitation.

"Mother Feng!"

Before he landed, there were a few flashes of red light that hit him squarely in the chest. Zhu Ming's body hovered in the air for awhile. Then, a silhouette appeared. Zhu Ming's soul was being split apart.

"Chef!" Lonemoon immediately shouted.

Yi Qing summoned a gust of God Power and sent it toward Zhu Ming, pulling him back up.

Bai Ze stepped forward and conjured a seal to stabilise Zhu Ming's soul.

Yet, Zhu Ming cared nothing for his injury. He turned around to look at the person controlling the array that Mother Feng was trapped in. "Stop! Who the hell are you? What have you done to Mother Feng?"

The black figure did not reply. Instead, he intensified the array so that the red light became more blinding. They felt the frightening aura coming from the array. Their souls felt unsettled, even though they were standing outside of it. Thus, they had no choice but to retreat a couple of feet.

The group started. What kind of array was this, that even divine beings could not come near to it?

Lonemoon's heart jumped. The remnant souls that Chef and the others had lost could be in this person's hands. He turned to Shen Ying. "Shen Ying, you..."

He was just about to ask her to do something when Shen Ying seemed to have noticed something. She turned to Bai Ze and asked, "Furball, what's the use of the Soul Stabilizing Pearl?"

Bai Ze hesitated, then answered, "Of course it's mean to stabilize divine souls..."

"Is that it?" She pointed down.

They looked down and saw that indeed, a pearl was circling around the black figure. It disappeared and reappeared intermittently. They had not noticed before because of the thick Yin Qi. Now, upon closer inspection, they saw that the pearl was releasing faint God Power. It was the Soul Stabilizing Pearl! Any person who could use God Power to stabilize souls could not be a ghost immortal.

Could it be that the person was...

"Qian Yue!"

The four of them shouted at the same time.