Zhu San’s mouth gaped hideously. Ignoring the surrounding cultivators, she stared straight at Su Wenjing.
“I’m going to… eat you!!”
Zhu San’s body swelled, turning a fiery red.
Min Juan and the others cried out in shock, immediately teleporting everyone below the tribulation stage to a distance far away. Their alertness surged to the maximum. “She’s burning her divine soul!”
This was a move used by cultivators of any rank only when driven to their absolute limit.
None of them had expected that Li Yunxian’s battle with Zhu San within the torrent of time had already pushed the other race to such a desperate state.
Facing Zhu San directly, Su Wenjing went on high alert, instantly unfolding layers of space around himself.
In the next instant, Zhu San’s figure surged through the overlapping spatial folds intended to trap her.
Nothing could stop a tribulation stage cultivator determined to take their enemy down with them.
Li Yunxian bit her lip, instantly abandoning her decision to continue absorbing spiritual power to recover.
Her spirit sword flew out.
“Your opponent is me!” Li Yunxian said coldly.
The familiar spirit sword, the familiar sword intent — Zhu San’s body instantly recalled the time in the torrent of time when it was pierced countless times by this very blade.
In the next moment, Zhu San’s divine soul flinched to avoid the sword.
With that single pause, the killing moves of Min Juan and the other tribulation stage cultivators guarding the area arrived.
Was this what they called a nemesis?
As long as this nemesis was present, not a single thing she tried to do could be accomplished.
“I didn’t actually intend to ascend,” Zhu San said. “You forced my hand.”
As the words fell, Li Yunxian felt her body tighten.
The spider silk that Li Yunxian had originally cut with her spirit sword suddenly seemed to come alive, reconnecting to Zhu San once more.
Relying on this relatively light force, Zhu San shifted her position, dodging the crowd’s killing moves in a flash.
But because of this force, she crashed straight toward Li Yunxian with irreversible speed.
Li Yunxian saw Zhu San’s hideous, gaping mouth, as if the creature intended to swallow her whole.
The starfire sword struck again, but this time, Zhu San did not dodge.
The starfire sword pierced straight through Zhu San’s divine soul. Li Yunxian felt the burning divine soul enter a state of collapse following this strike.
But Zhu San was still laughing, still screaming.
“…I caught you,” Zhu San said.
Li Yunxian felt an extra divine soul enter her body.
Zhu San’s collapsing soul forced its way inside, biting down hard on Li Yunxian’s divine soul.
If only she could devour Li Yunxian’s soul.
No matter how tough or difficult it was, if she could just eat the soul of Li Yunxian, her nemesis, her current soul state could recover.
She might even… ascend.
As long as she ascended and left this world, these people surrounding her, trying to kill her, would no longer pose any threat!
However…
*Bang!*
Zhu San felt as if she had bitten into a steel plate.
No, it was more than just a steel plate.
Her teeth were sharp enough to bite through any steel.
What was this?
Zhu San’s divine soul, which had devoured the souls of many other race tribulation stage experts, was bewildered. Then, it belatedly sensed something seeping into its soul like thin threads.
…This was Zhu San’s final shred of consciousness.
Li Yunxian, whose soul had been bitten, let out a muffled groan.
Her divine soul, which had been tempered and forged by merit golden light, was on a completely different level of strength compared to a normal tribulation stage soul once it had been restored to completion.
It was perfectly normal that Zhu San couldn’t make a dent in it with one bite.
But that might not hold true if she took several more bites.
Li Yunxian’s mind raced as she considered how to counter an internal soul-based attack.
Soon, however, Li Yunxian also felt something was wrong.
Her eyes widened.
‘The merit golden light… what are they doing??’
Li Yunxian was shocked.
After leaving the torrent of time and returning to reality, Li Yunxian had recognized where she was at a single glance.
The Wandao Sea, on the dao star.
But Li Yunxian hadn’t cared at the time. No matter where it was, her first reaction had been to quickly absorb spiritual power to recover.
As for the merit golden light that flooded into her body along with the spiritual power — and even faster than it — Li Yunxian hadn’t paid it any mind.
Her previous deduction that building new cities throughout the interstellar era would allow her to gain merit golden light had indeed been correct.
The reason she hadn’t felt an increase in merit golden light when she went to Kuixing to retrieve her Heaven-grade Spirit Sword was simply because Kuixing, as a planet guarded by a tribulation stage cultivator, did not have or need remodeling.
Now that Li Yunxian’s divine soul had recovered, things like merit golden light were useless to her.
At least, that was what she had thought.
But now…
She felt the merit golden light seeping deep into her body, faintly swirling around her divine soul.
Once Zhu San’s soul entered, it was as if the light had found something new to work on. It cheerfully seeped into Zhu San’s soul. Li Yunxian’s heart tightened again.
Could her luck really be bad enough that her own resources would help an enemy recover?
Li Yunxian recalled how she had used the merit golden light to repair her shattered divine soul.
And now that Zhu San’s soul was also shattered, Li Yunxian felt her deduction was quite reasonable.
However, the reality was…
Li Yunxian felt the merit golden light seeping into Zhu San’s soul, seemingly binding and fixing it directly to her own soul.
They imitated the actions of their merit golden light predecessors within Li Yunxian’s body, treating Zhu San’s shattered soul as something that needed to be patched.
They were directly using Zhu San’s soul to fill Li Yunxian.
Li Yunxian gasped.
‘I don’t want to eat this mess!!’
But Li Yunxian could not stop this foolish, perhaps even mindless, merit golden light.
Under the gaze of the crowd, they saw the divine soul of Zhu San, which had only one breath left, suddenly dive into Li Yunxian’s body.
They saw Li Yunxian’s eyes go wide. A few moments later, she collapsed, her body limp.
“Yun Xian!” Su Wenjing’s figure blurred instantly. Before Li Yunxian could hit the ground, he caught her in his arms.
“Wake up!!” Su Wenjing shook her body, trying to rouse her consciousness.
But Li Yunxian gave no response.
“Does anyone have a magic tool related to the divine soul?” Su Wenjing asked Min Juan and the others immediately.
Min Juan hadn’t expected the situation to change so drastically either. In just a few blinks of an eye, it had turned into this.
They looked at each other, unable to provide an answer immediately.
As cultivators on the path of righteousness, who among them would cultivate or use something that specialized in attacking the divine soul?