He burst out into another chamber. Identical to the first, but larger, it sported three full pillars rather than one with two stumps. Red light bathed the chamber. In the rear, the shelf with the gems and the basins let off a shocking red light. Bai Xue approached it, glowing eyes blank. He moved jerkily, his joints stiff. He lifted a leg to climb onto the shelf.

“Bai Xue!” Hui shouted.

Bai Xue turned. Black marks crawled over his face like ants, climbing out from the red glow of his eyes. He raised his hand toward Hui.

Behind Bai Xue, the blood mist boy looked up. He glanced at Bai Xue and chuckled, a hand over his mouth and a mischievous glimmer in his eyes. Holding out a clenched fist, he uncurled it toward Hui to reveal a gem—a gem like Hui had in his ring, or like Bai Xue held at this moment.

Hui swept his hand at Bai Xue. The ducks lifted out of his dantian and whirled at the other cultivator. They burst through Bai Xue’s body, gnawing at the curse marks.

Bai Xue scowled at Hui. “Begone. This is my body, now.”

Hui flicked his hand, drawing his new talisman. “No, it isn’t.”

Bai Xue threw back his head and laughed. “You think that trifling attack can hurt me?”

Pointing the talisman at Bai Xue, Hui focused.

The red glow flickered. Bai Xue retreated a step.

A step too slow. The songbirds burst from Hui’s dantian and rushed into Bai Xue. They settled inside him, beaming gold light through his skin. Golden light blanketed his body, fighting the red glow.

A sneer crawled over Bai Xue’s face. “It’ll take more than that—”

His expression twisted. He backed up and put a hand to his chest.

“Eh, senior, didn’t you notice? Bai Xue has pure yang energy. He already has a very vigorous life force. When I combine that with my life qi, how long do you think a dead soul like yourself can hold on?”

“You!” the voice howled. A faint, translucent red shape lifted out of Bai Xue’s head, a scowl burned into its face.

Ah, so he is dead. I hoped he was. If he was nearly dead, it wouldn’t have been as powerful. Then… I would’ve had to hit Bai Xue with this talisman.

Hui leaped out of his body. In his soul form, the ancient cultivator’s form became clear. He had a melted face, his body twisted, as if he’d been melted to death. He burned with death qi and crimson blood qi, and he snarled viciously at Hui.

“A mere ghost faces me?” he snapped.

Burning bit into Hui’s forehead. He clasped a hand to it and felt black blood roll down as the third eye opened. Through the man’s twisted face, he saw another. An old man, not deformed, but tall and proud. He emanated a strange, powerful aura, centered on the middle of his forehead. There, a vertical blood-red eye gazed out. Even a glance from the eye made the earth tremble. Strange red light pooled around the eye, swirling on the air. He stared up at the sky, a defiant look on his face.

A bolt of fire struck the man. Not intentionally, but an aside, almost an accident. His body burned. His soul shriveled, mutilated. He escaped his body, vanishing into the realm he’d prepared long ago, but lost everything in the process.

“Torn apart by the Heavens as an afterthought. I, too, know what it’s like to be destroyed by a greater power callous to you and your life—a greater power that sees you as only an insect,” Hui intoned.

“If you understand, then let me have this body,” the twisted red soul demanded.

Hui’s body raised his arm, pointing the talisman at the soul. “I couldn’t escape in my life, and neither will you! Seek redemption in your next life!”

A glow burned down the talisman, lighting the symbols in gold. The ink lifted off the paper, shimmering for a second before it disappeared. Waves of power rushed out from the talisman, shaking the world around them. They smashed into the red soul and tore at it, pounding it like a stone by the shore.

“This isn’t enough!” the man howled. His body shivered, the force dispersing his soul at the edges, but the most of his soul stayed together. Though faded and weak, a candle about to blow out, the power that emanated from his soul far surpassed Hui’s cultivation. Even Hui’s strongest attack against his vastly weakened form was barely enough to injure him.

The blood mist boy stepped out from behind the man. Tipping his head at Hui, he held out the gemstone again.

Argh, more clues. ‘It’s you again.’ ‘There won’t be a third time.’ All these mysterious seniors saying mysterious things, and then the gems. They're here, in this ancient space, but also in the ancestral home of that man’s grandfather, bound in a strange illusion. The blood mist boy from that ancestral home guided me here, but why?

That boy—did he fool this man, somehow? Does it have something to do with the gem?

Hui gritted his teeth. If I use all my talismans, I might manage to injure this soul enough to drive it out of Bai Xue, or… I could try the gem, and…

It’s worth a try! He flicked his hand, summoning the red gem into his palm.

Red light poured from the gem in Bai Xue’s hand and from the three illusory gems on the shelf. A heavy thunk rocked the room, and the shelf became real. The three gems leaped off the shelf and rotated in the air, swirling between him and Bai Xue.

The red soul laughed. “You had a chance, until you drew that gem out! Activate, my gem formation!”

The gem struggled to escape Hui’s hand. He held tight, refusing to release it. Opposite him, Bai Xue let go, and the fourth gem circled with the other three, circling around his hand. All at once, the gems stopped. They quivered for a few seconds, then formed the points of a five-point star. Their red light grew brighter and reached out, merging into the other gems as qi began to flow between them.

Still laughing, the red soul shook its head at Hui. “Release that gem or don’t! This body is now, unequivocally, mine!”

“You dimwitted fool. Have you forgotten who your master is?”

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A haughty voice rang from the gem in Hui’s hand. It glowed with a burst of black light, and the other four gems froze in the air and trembled, as if afraid.

The red soul, too, trembled, but with anger instead of fear. His face twisted into a horrifying scowl. “You!”

“And you, the one who stole this gem… Consider this a momentary loan, on credit.”

Hui stared, horrified. “Not credit! Not a loan! Allow this small cultivator to refuse!”

The haughty voice chuckled. “No.”

Gritting his teeth, Hui tried to throw the gem away, but it stuck to his hand. Fear and anger swirled in his gut. Not a debt! I don’t want to owe debt again! I already owe it to Sect Master, and now, now…

Ah! Damn that blood mist boy! I should’ve known better than to trust him!

This gem... it must be a fake. I don't know why it was placed in that home, but I now know what its purpose was! It was absorbing cultivators to gather enough power to enter this spell array and reverse it! This fake gem's power... is greater than that of the other four gems! To call it fake is almost rude. It should properly be called a spell array reversal gem!

The four gems rearranged around the gem in Hui’s hand, flipping the five-pointed star. Before, the star had been upright, and Hui's gem had been at the bottom right. Now, the star stood on its head, and his formed the topmost point of the star. As the star flipped, the spell array's qi reversed.

In the spell array reversal gem, the discarnate souls howled. The gem tore them apart, exchanging the power of the ruined souls for a sinister qi Hui had never felt before. Instantly, Hui felt the shape of the spell array, and realized that he alone could control it. The red soul no longer possessed the rights to control the spell array!

Automatically, the formation locked onto the red soul, pinning it in place. It writhed, half-in, half-out of Bai Xue's body, but couldn't escape.

Hui sunk back into his body. He tightened his grip on the gem, focusing on the formation. I can worry about the debt later. For now, let’s save Bai Xue!

The formation gripped Bai Xue’s soul along with the red soul. Sending his qi into the formation, Hui sensed its original intention—to tear out a body’s soul and replace it with the red soul. However, with the formation reversal gem he held, he could replace Bai Xue’s soul with yet another soul, swapping the red soul out for any other soul! Instead of replacing a body's soul with the red soul, this spell formation could now replace a body's soul with any other soul in the world!

The discarnate souls in the gem screamed. They faded away, dying with every moment to power the spell. In the space of the breath, the gem devoured a quarter of the soul fragments.

Hui’s breath caught. If I tried to power the spell, I wouldn’t last a single breath!

I don't have long. Focus! Instead of swapping anyone's souls, I want to capture the red soul! He reached past the formation and the formation reversal, all the way to the bottom of the gem he held in his hand. Deep under the higher spells, the absorption waited, hungry, not a property of any formation but of the gem itself. The gem had been refined to its absolute peak, enhanced until it was a treasure of itself, a treasure of absorption with the power to absorb even souls and entire cultivation bases.

Hui’s eyes flashed. He lifted the gem and reached out with his life qi at the same time. The birds slammed into the red soul from inside Bai Xue, shoving it completely out of Bai Xue’s body. At the same time, he reached inside the gem with his death qi, taking control of the discarnate souls. Their screams ate at his mind, wearing away at his mental energy, but he ignored it, pushing his death qi further, further. The souls struggled. Frowning, Hui fed in a strand of life qi.

A golden glow joined the red and black glows emanating from the gem. The discarnate souls screamed louder than ever as they fled the life qi. Sweeping the life qi at them, Hui gathered them into a corner, then clamped down on them with his death qi, the same as he killed his qi. With the souls compressed, there was nothing to block the gem's power of absorption. Like an unblocked drain suddenly cleared draining all the water at once, the gem began to absorb wildly.

“N-no!” the red soul shouted. The gem pulled at him, sucking him toward it. He grabbed at Bai Xue, but the golden life qi that cloaked Bai Xue burned his hands.

Hui narrowed his eyes. The discarnate souls screeched in his head, eating at his sanity. Not full souls, but only pieces of them, they could only scream madly, unable to form a single word. He felt his mind wavering, and with it, his control on his death qi. Sensing weakness, the mass of discarnate souls rushed at his death qi. Ferociously, he suppressed them, closing his mind off. Only a single thought remained, pounding away in his head. I won’t let you escape. Be compressed! No one escapes my grasp!

At the same time, the gem drew at the air, drawing in its surroundings with more force than it ever had. Hui felt his own qi bleed into the gem. Even killing it down to the minimum only managed to slow the bleed of his qi. He clenched his jaw and held on, narrowing his eyes as he fought the gem. Hui reached out to the spell array reversal and pointed the gem's power of absorbtion through that, closing off its draw to point only at the red soul the array had locked onto. A truly shocking draw burst out of the gem and locked onto the red soul, pulling at it.

“No! I won’t allow it! This indignity—”

Unable to hold on any longer, the red soul hurtled toward the gem. Hui held on. The discarnate souls howled. The gem shuddered, sucking at his qi. Just a little longer!

The red soul slammed into the gem and vanished. The second the red soul vanished into the gem, Hui let out a sigh and released the discarnate souls.

The discarnate souls swirled around the red soul, screaming wordlessly. The red soul struggled to escape the gem, but the gem’s absorption powers restrained it. As if a black hole existed in the heart of the gem, the red soul barely drew away from the gem’s heart before the force pulled it back into the depths of the gem.

With the red soul inside it, the gem’s external absorption diminished. All the suction focused on the red soul. On top of holding it in the depths, the gem’s forces tore at the soul, threatening to tear it, too, into a discarnate soul.

Hui watched from the outside, ready to destroy the gem if the red soul showed signs of escaping. The gem held it handily. In fact, he felt that the gem could handle something much stronger, perhaps even something at a realm above the red soul!

Hui gulped. How powerful is the voice who owns this gem and created the reversal formula? I don’t want to owe anything to any more powerful seniors!

He glanced at the other gems, but even as he looked over, they crumbled into red dust. Nothing escaped the gems’ destruction, not a discarnate soul nor a scrap of qi. This fake really is much more powerful than the original spell array! How frightening.

“For now… keep that gem. I’ll be back for my due soon enough.”

“Senior… this small cultivator… doesn’t deserve senior’s attention.”

Black light pulsed from the gem, and in the same breath, sudden pain throbbed through his head. Hui took a step and fell to his knees, a hand pressed against his face.

A chuckle rang through the air. “I’ve had my eye on you for a long time.” The haughty voice faded away. Silence replaced it, broken only by Hui’s short breaths.

Is that voice… perhaps… is it the fellow senior Zhu Diyu mentioned? So much for not bothering me!

Sensing weakness, the discarnate souls rushed at him, slamming into his mental energy. The red soul charged at their forefront, screaming in rage. Another throb beat into his skull. Hui gestured, sending the gem back into his storage ring. The pain abated, but not his exhaustion.

“That damn Zhang Zhou! When I get out of here, I’m going to beat his head in. He dares try to trap this grandmaster with that red gem?” Bai Xue snapped. He glowered at the room, then noticed Hui, and his eyes widened. “Ah? Hui, when did you get here?”

Hui gestured. Gold light streamed out of Bai Xue and back into him. As the life qi returned, it bolstered his life force. The pain abated, his exhaustion melted, and Hui managed to climb back to his feet. He shook his head, still catching his breath. “A… minute ago.”

“Eh… As soon as you appear, you bathe in my golden shower? Xiao Hui, I didn’t expect you to be so bold,” Bai Xue said.

Hui narrowed his eyes at Bai Xue. Holding his other hand out, he called the ducks back to him, and they poured into his second dantian, strengthening his cultivation base and staving off the pain from the discarnate souls’ screaming. “That’s not even at the level of bad phrasing. You’re just saying it outright!”

“Yes, but it is funny to watch you squirm,” Bai Xue replied, grinning without a morsel of shame.

A pained cough rang out from the corner. They both turned.

Huang Muwen slumped down the wall, skin pale as death, soaked in his own blood. Bai Xue sighed, then ran to his side. Pulling out a pill, he crushed it to powder between his fingers, then directed the powder into the gash. The cut closed, and Huang Muwen’s color improved instantly.

Bai Xue looked around, standing and brushing off his robe. “As long as we’re here… shall we plunder this cave?”