On Sixth Heaven and inside a palace built to resemble Jade Peak Palace, Daoyi sat in front of the soul essence sphere. "How many souls were used to refine this?"
"At least thousands, and each one should be at least in the Core Formation Realm or above," Tianyi said as he appeared next to Daoyi. "Had it not been for the Heaven Continent War, anyone accomplishing would have raised someone's attention. Plus, the act of refining souls into soul essence would incur larges amounts of karmic sin. But since the fragment of the Spectral Rising Jewel did most of the work, the karmic sin incurred was minimal."
"Do you want to absorb the soul essence?" Daoyi asked. "The souls have already been refined, so there's no point in wasting it. I already absorbed and refined a part of it, and I can already feel my comprehension increase."
Tianyi shook his head. "The effect it would have on me is minimal. What about you? Can you absorb it all?"
"I can, eventually," Daoyi said. "Why?"
"I'm thinking of using the soul essence to upgrade your divine avatar's soul. Strengthening your avatar's soul only has benefits and no drawbacks."
Daoyi nodded. "I'll strengthen my soul to the limit first."
After she finished absorbing twenty-five to thirty percent of the soul essence, Tianyi took the rest of the soul essence and integrated it into the five-colored egg. After the egg absorbed all the soul essence, there wasn't a qualitative transformation, but the five-color light became more subdued.
"Here," Tianyi said as he handed the fragment of the Spectral Rising Jewel to Daoyi.
Daoyi took it and sat in a lotus position. She held the fragment between her hands in front of her dantian. Soon, a frown emerged on her face. "Someone purposely shattered it."
"The fragment can reunite with the other fragments, but on its own, it can be considered complete. However, instead of the complete Law of Death, it only holds some concepts now. It's still powerful but far from its peak," Daoyi said.
"Why would anyone do that?" Tianyi asked. "It seems kind of shortsighted to me. Breaking it into smaller pieces might give some benefits now since it's more usable, but restoring the Spectral Rising Jewel to its former state would cost far more."
"Currently, all I can tell is that it's been optimized to refine souls into essence," Daoyi said. "The Great Detacher of Emotions must want to collect a large amount of soul essence for some reason, to the point that he wouldn't mind fragmenting a divine artifact, incomplete as it is."
"Well, I don't know what his plans are, but I doubt it's good for the Buzhou Immortal Sect," Tianyi said. "Can you sense the rest of the fragments and how many there are?"
"It shouldn't be greater than ten, but I do have a vague direction as to where they are," Daoyi said.
"Then let's go," Tianyi said. "Before that. Do you want to keep it or let your avatar absorb it right now?"
"Absorb it. There's no point in keeping it since my avatar can sense the position of other pieces."
Tianyi nodded and sent the fragment into the five-colored egg. After making sure there was nothing wrong with Daoyi's gestating avatar, he and Daoyi left the Nine Heavens Universe to search for the rest of the divine jewel fragments.
They discovered that most of the fragments were held in major cities of the Thousand City Alliance, and each one had a similar formation. Most of them did have the same size as the soul essence sphere in Nucleopolis, but the total number of souls should have reached at least a hundred thousand.
Cultivators were already rare. Few mortals were born with the necessary prerequisites, but the sheer number still surprised Tianyi and Daoyi. Even more, one of the soul essence spheres was barely a tenth of the one in Nucleopolis, but its purity was far higher. The soul used to refine it should have come from true immortals.
That was the fourth fragment of the Spectral Rising Jewel that Tianyi and Daoyi had obtained. Now, they had accumulated about fifty percent of the second Spectral Rising Jewel. While flying towards the next one, Daoyi suddenly said. "Stop."
"What's wrong?"
"The locations of the fragments have disappeared," Daoyi said. "Wait, they seemed to have reappeared, but it's more distant, like farther from the continent's center. I can sense them more clearly now. They seemed to have gathered together."
Tianyi hesitated. Should he follow after them? The one most likely to take action was the immortal monarch behind the Thousand City Alliance.
He had yet to fight anyone ever since his spar with War Hall Head Elder Huang Feihong. Tianyi had the confidence to kill anyone in the Pathfinding Immortal Realm, even if they were immortal lords, but immortal monarchs were another story.
"Let's see what they are up to," Tianyi finally said. "It would be best if we could take it before they reached wherever they planned to take it."
"It could be a trap," Daoyi said.
"Well, I have the confidence to stay alive and even flee from immortal sovereigns. And besides my mother, there are no other immortal sovereigns. When the battle starts, I'll teleport you into my inner universe."
Daoyi nodded, and the two followed after the source of the divine jewel fragments. As time passed, they noticed that the divine jewel fragments had left Heaven Continent and into the Endless Seas.
Still, what shocked Tianyi even more was that the speed of the carrier of the divine jewel fragments exceeded his. After mastering the Law of Spacetime, although Tianyi couldn't say he was the fastest, his speed should rank among the top in all of the Huang Realm.
Just this fact alone made Tianyi have some reservations about the Great Detacher of Emotion. He had already suspected that the Great Detacher of Emotion might be the immortal monarch behind the Thousand City Alliance, but this information changed his thoughts.
The Great Detacher of Emotions might be someone on par or even greater than the Thousand City Alliance's immortal monarch instead of an immortal lord, as Daoyi once suspected.
"Daoyi, can you gain a clearer sense of the fragment's source?" Tianyi asked.
Daoyi shook her head. Tianyi sighed. He would have teleported directly to the location if he could sense the location, but he couldn't, so he could only rely on Daoyi. He wanted to prevent the carrier from reaching his destination since it would only spell bad news, whether it was a trap or not.
Tianyi and Daoyi continued to fly after the carrier of the remaining divine jewel fragments. It was a chase that lasted over six months.
"The fragments are no longer moving. Wherever the person carrying intended to bring them, he seems to have reached his destination," Daoyi said.
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Hearing this, Tianyi slowed down a bit. Now, it didn't matter if he chased at full speed or not, but whether he could reach the location before the fragments were brought away again and what action Tianyi took upon reaching them.
It only took another week for Tianyi to reach the location of the fragment.
"Strange, I sense the fragments right here, but there's nothing," Daoyi said as she stared at the endless water in front of her.
"The location has been hidden in layers of space. Hold on a moment, I'll rip apart the formation," Tianyi said.
"I guess you can't sneak like the past?" Daoyi asked.
Tianyi's answer was two giant hands seemingly formed from the cosmos, and within them, countless stars glittered. The hands reached forward and grabbed the space in front of them. As if reality had turned into a picture, the hands tore away the fabric of reality, revealing the island hidden by space.
Tianyi's pupils turned into needle points as a familiar lotus fragrance entered his nose.
"Isn't that the pillar from when the Sovereign Nine Yin Lotus appeared?" Daoyi asked as she stared at the silver pillar.
Tianyi narrowed his eyes. He could never forget that scene. Even if it didn't shock him when he first saw it, the consequences of the battle for the Sovereign Nine Yin Lotus had made him etch the silver pillar into his memories.
"Yes."
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Emperor Soulfish frowned as he flew onto the island before activating the spatial formation, cloaking it from prying eyes. "There, unless the other party is an expert in time, they should not be able to find me, even if they can sense the fragments."
He had been content to allow the other fragments of the Spectral Rising Jewel to remain. After all, he already had the necessary amount to collect soul essence, but someone had been hunting them down, and he couldn't find out who.
Left with no choice, Emperor Soulfish had to collect the fragments ahead of time. He already knew that his actions had been exposed since the Buzhou Immortal Sects had already started to search for anyone harvesting souls. So, the person or force hunting down the fragments was from the Buzhou Immortal Sect.
'The Buzhou Immortal should only have one immortal monarch that mastered the Law of Space, so I should be able to fend them off in case anything happens. Wait, I recall Master mentioning that they had a second one who called himself Nine Heavens Immortal Monarch.' Emperor Soulfish thought. Whatever the reason, he was an immortal emperor, so he had the confidence to defeat them.
However, that was on the basis that he was unfettered. The revived soul and the Sovereign Nine Yin Lotus had reached a critical point, and he could not allow anything to happen to them.
Emperor Soulfish flew to a temple he had built on the highest mountain on the island. The island was over a thousand kilometers in diameter. The strongest cultivator on the island was in the Acupoint Opening Realm, so no one could hinder him.
Inside the center of the temple, there was a pond. The pond was the result of him altering the spiritual veins of the island to direct everything to this point. Laying atop of pond was the Sovereign Nine Yin Lotus.
In the center of the lotus center was a young girl older than fifteen but less than twenty in terms of appearance. She had short brown hair and a homely if plain appearance and lacked any clothes.
"Chun," Emperor Soulfish muttered. "Don't worry. I'll bring you back to life soon. Then we can return to the time before the destruction of Begonia Tower."
The girl lying atop the Sovereign Nine Yin Lotus did not respond, but Emperor Soulfish hadn't expected her to. Her soul had yet to be restored.
Emperor Soulfish waved his hand and five fragments of the Spectral Rising Jewel. Each one was at least half the size of the first one Tianyi found in the Nucleopolis, but one stood out. The size exceeded the one Tianyi found, and its color was that of purity.
This was the Spectral Rising Jewel fragment Emperor Soulfish had constantly carried with him. Unlike the others that refined the souls of mortal cultivators, Emperor Soulfish had personally captured true immortals and refined them into soul essence.
A string appeared from each of the soul essence spheres and attached itself to the girl's chest. As time passed, the Sovereign Nine Yin Lotus also reacted as it released a silver-white glow that turned into a pillar as time passed.
The Sovereign Nine Yin Lotus turned smaller and smaller, and in contrast, the girl's body grew larger, resembling a normal girl her age instead of a delicate little doll.
As time passed, the pillar started to thin out, and little soul essence remained, but the girl had almost returned to her former size. A flash of joy flashed in the soul emperor's eyes as he saw the girl's eyelash twitch.
However, that joy turned into severity as he turned around. "WHO?!"
The space formation that he had great confidence in shattered in less than a minute under the actions of two disembodied hands. The soul emperor observed the newcomer. He wore a black attire that contrasted against his snow-white hair and hid his face behind a half mask. "You are Monarch Nine Heavens? I suggest you leave now. Otherwise, don't blame me for being impolite."
Emperor Soulfish's expression sunk when he saw a terrifying ball of energy condensed in Monarch Nine Heavens' palms. The terrifying ball resembled that of a miniature sun. The miniature sun separated into countless suns, and with a wave of his hand, the countless suns shot towards the temple.
"No!" Emperor Soulfish shouted as he formed several hand seals, and a barrier appeared in front of the temple. He gritted his teeth and reinforced the formation to withstand the barrage.
When the smoke cleared, Emperor Soulfish saw numerous copies of Monarch Nine Heavens formed of starlight outside the temple. A moment later, they all started charging.
Emperor Soulfish snorted, and a wave spread out in the air. Half of the starlight incarnations instantly shattered, but the remaining half barely held on and continued their charge. 'What? Incarnations are made of spiritual sense, and I should be able to easily destroy the incarnations of an immortal monarch as a soul emperor.'
The first incarnation arrived right outside the temple, but the barrier Emperor Soulfish had set up blocked its advancement. The starlight incarnation didn't take any other action and started to glow brightly. A moment later, an enormous explosion that destroyed nearly ten percent of the mountain occurred.
"No!" Emperor Soulfish shouted. He could sense the spiritual vein connecting to the pond was disrupted. He waved his hand and started to input his own immortal qi into the pond to make up for the deficiency.
While he was doing this, the starlight incarnation continued to barrage the barrier, intent on destroying it. Emperor Soulfish could only defend since the girl's revival had reached a critical point.
"Didn't you want the divine fragments, then I'll give it to you!" Emperor Soulfish shouted as he sent the five jewel fragments flying out. He had already used up all the soul essence, so they were no longer useful.
The moment he sent out the jewel fragments out of the barrier, the space around them twisted, and the next second, they appeared in Monarch Nine Heavens' hands before disappearing again.
However, the starlight incarnation continued to barrage the barrier. Emperor Soulfish gritted his teeth and endured. 'Just you wait. Once I fully revive Chun, I'll make you pay!'
Time passed, and when the girl finally reached her former size, the silver pillar and Sovereign Nine Yin Lotus had disappeared completely, but Emperor Soulfish's expression darkened. He could sense a vast amount of karmic sin descending.
Even if he used the Spectral Rising Jewel fragments to refine countless cultivator souls, he also collected vast amounts of mortal souls as well. Such a large amount of soul, how could karmic sin be blocked simply because of a shattered divine artifact?
As the largest beneficiary, the girl, Chun, would receive the largest amount of karmic sin.
"No, since I'm the one committing those heinous acts, let me bear the karmic sin!" Emperor Soulfish shouted. When he saw that the karmic sin was still descending on the girl, he activated a technique, causing the karmic sin to fly toward him.
Above the island, black clouds gathered, and tribulation lightning roared. Emperor Soulfish's act of redirecting karmic sin was like forcibly altering an emperor's judgment. How could the Heavenly Dao allow this? Naturally, there must be punishment.
Coupled with the heavenly punishment, Monarch Nine Heavens was still attacking Emperor Soulfish. Emperor Soulfish glared at Monarch Nine Heavens. "I can't protect Chun from the heavenly punishment and you at the same time. Since it's time for this, blame your own actions!"
Emperor Soulfish took out a shattered ruler from his spatial ring and activated it. Instantly, the space in ten thousand kilometers was sealed, and as if sensing something wrong, Monarch Nine Heavens immediately fled while his incarnation continued their kamikaze attack.
Emperor Soulfish sneered. "It's too late."
The broken ruler shot out like a dazzling arrow towards Monarch Nine Heavens. The moment the ruler made contact, the spacetime around Monarch Nine Heavens started to twist, and not even Emperor Soulfish expected such a large reaction. He reinforced the barrier to prevent the spacetime distortion from affecting the girl.
Then, the black clouds above the island increased and struck. But instead of striking Emperor Soulfish, it struck Monarch Nine Heavens.
Time seemed to crawl to a stop, yet millennia seemed to pass in an instant. When the spacetime distortion disappeared, Monarch Nine Heavens also disappeared.
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On Jade Peak inside the Buzhou Immortal Sect, Ba Shifang opened his eyes. There was a trace of confusion in his eyes before it turned to stupor. "Main Body was sent to another timeline?!"