Chapter 173 – The second devil
Wang Lin didn’t want to deal with all of them in one go; he wanted to force them to split up. Sure enough, under the rain of swords, the small beasts split up once more. Wang Lin went through the gaps the small creatures had left and arrived outside the tower. He stopped before the door and turned around to retrieve all of the flying swords that were flying back toward him.
At the same time, he called the devil back. The devil was too busy devouring the divine senses of the small creatures and completely ignored Wang Lin. Wang Lin let out a cold snort as his Ji Realm Divine Sense flew out.
When that snort reached the devil’s ears, it made him shiver in fear. He no longer dared to continue devouring the divine senses, so he reformed his body from the cloud of black smoke and went into the tower along with Wang Lin. While he was floating around Wang Lin, he felt like he had been wronged. He longingly looked at the divine senses of those beasts one last time before going back into the dragon tendon.
He didn’t understand what was wrong with this fiend’s brain to leave all these enemies unkilled and telling him to come back.
Wang Lin’s expression was very serious as he stared at those small creatures from inside the black tower. There was a reason why he stopped the devil from devouring them all. He thought about it and came to the conclusion that these small creatures gathered together to form these large tornados. The one thing this place had the most of were these black tornados.
This meant that there was virtually an unlimited number of these small creatures. Their main means of attack were divine sense and sound waves. Although their attacks were fairly powerful, their bodies were extremely weak.
As a result, it made destroying these small creatures very easy, especially for someone like Hunchback Meng, who only needed to throw out some poison. However, Wang Lin couldn’t forget what he saw from the top of the last black tower, when countless black tornados were gathering in one spot.
That kind of movement had purpose, which meant that these small creatures had a way of calling each other. After too many of them die, they call their friends. If he were to get trapped in that kind of cycle, then he would certainly end up dead. There were simply too many tornados.
At the same time, if he killed too many, then they might call back those black tornados that were heading toward Hunchback Meng. If that were to happen, it wouldn’t be Hunchback Meng opening the path for him but him helping Hunchback Meng by distracting the black tornados.
In that last battle, around 200 of those small creatures were destroyed by Wang Lin and the devil. His eyes sparkled as he stared at the small creatures outside. The creatures gathered together again to form the black tornado. After circling the tower a few times, they no longer cared about Wang Lin and continued to move forward.
After the black tornado left, Wang Lin let out a sigh of relief. At the same time, his heart turned cold. This earth trial was very strange. The logic here was completely opposite of what was normal. When someone notices that those small creature specialize in divine sense and sound attacks but have weak bodies, their first reaction would be to kill them as quickly as possible to prevent attracting more.
But as a result, once a certain amount of these small creatures are killed and they begin to call for help, then unless your cultivation is heavenly, the only road left is death.
Wang Lin cultivated at the top of the black tower and stared into the distance, looking at where all of the black tornados were gathering. After pondering for a while, he decided to not rush things and to wait inside the black tower.
He then looked at the devil. The devil’s face was filled with greed as he watched the black tornado leave.
Wang Lin didn’t explain but coldly said, “I don’t care how many souls you have devoured; spit out half of them for me.”
The devil struggled with the decision. If he were to escape right now, would this fiend chase after him? He hesitated for a bit before looking at Wang Lin. When he saw Wang Lin’s gaze turn hostile, he quickly began to spit out large number of those small beasts’ souls.
After spitting out 20, he pretended to look weak. He secretly thought, “No matter how powerful you are, you still have to eat what I spit out! If you have skill, then don’t eat it!”
Wang Lin didn’t know what the devil was thinking, but after seeing the pride in the devil’s face, he was about to take a guess. However, Wang Lin couldn’t be bothered with such things. All of his attention was focused on the 20 souls of those small creatures.
After carefully looking at them for a while, he grabbed the souls and walked up the tower. After finding a floor of the right size, his Ji Realm spread out and surrounded the area.
The devil followed behind Wang Lin. He wanted to see Wang Lin eating the souls covered in his drool with his own eyes. While he still feeling proud of himself, he suddenly noticed that the surroundings were covered in Wang Lin’s divine sense. This divine sense that made him feel pain worse than death, the red lightning that caused him nightmares, was moving around the room. His entire body suddenly became soft. He secretly thought, “It’s over! It’s over! It seems like this fiend is going to end me…”
Terrified, he was about to start begging for mercy when he noticed that Wang Lin wasn’t even looking at him. Wang Lin was currently silently staring at the 20 souls of the small creatures. The devil swallowed the words he was going to say and considered himself lucky.
Wang Lin carefully observed the souls of these small creatures. They had about the same strength as an early stage Core Formation cultivator. They weren’t strong, but not really weak either. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had forcefully nurtured the devil to be like the wandering souls, the devil wouldn’t have been able to easily devour all of these souls that were similar to him.
It was due to the devil’s success that he came up with the idea of making another devil. He knew that his main weakness was that he lacked magic treasures. Even now, the only one he could use for a fight was the flying sword. As for the others, they were all too low quality to be of any use.
Aside from the flying sword, there was the devil. This devil proved to be quite useful earlier. If he hadn’t used the devil against that divine sense sword, he would’ve had a much harder time.
The only other treasures he had were the dragon tendon and the scroll. However, the aura in the scroll was too strange. Wang Lin decided that until he fully understands what the scroll is, he will not use it.
The key to raising a devil was the special nature of the soul. The first devil’s soul had the potential of a Nascent Soul cultivator. This allowed Wang Lin to raise it in such a way that it managed to gain a few of a wandering soul’s attributes. However, compared to the wandering souls of the world of decay, there were still many differences.
If it were a true wandering soul, then no matter what cultivation level the enemy is at, once it jumps on them, it will be able to devour their soul and suck away all of the essence of their flesh. Unless they meet some very powerful cultivator that can destroy them, their only natural enemies are soul devourers.
However, the devil Xu Liguo could only devour souls that were at the same cultivation level as him. If he tried to devour the soul of a Nascent Soul cultivator, then there was a chance that he would be repelled.
What attracted Wang Lin was the small creatures’ ability to fuse together. This was the first time he had seen divine sense able to fuse together to form a new divine sense.
This special ability made Wang Lin want to use it to make a devil.
Wang Lin pondered for a bit before slapping his bag of holding, causing a few soul flags to fly out and float around him. The souls inside the flags were mostly demonic cultivators of the Sea of Devils, as well as some creatures from the Sea of Devils.
He waved his right hand, trapping 19 of the souls inside a cage of spiritual energy and leaving only one of them all by itself.
Wang Lin’s eyes sparkled as he retrieved a soul from one of the flags. He threw the soul out after leaving a mark on it.
Unfortunately, just like Xu Liguo back then, the soul of the small beast didn’t know how to devour at all, so it stared dumbfoundedly at the surroundings instead. However, Wang Lin wasn’t in a rush. After having experienced raising a devil once, he knew that to make a soul have abilities similar to a wandering soul’s would take time.
However, this first step required him to be a little bit more forceful. Red lightning appeared in Wang Lin’s eyes as his Ji Realm formed a net around the small creature and slowly closed in on it.
Under the pressure of the net, the soul of the small creature began to move. Seeing that there was nowhere to go, it started to move toward the other soul.
Wang Lin was completely focused on watching the soul of the small creature only to see the small creature suddenly speed up and ram into the other soul. It didn’t devour the other soul but fused with it. Wang Lin could feel that the small creature’s soul had become a bit stronger.
He was surprised. He originally thought that he would have to spend a lot of effort to force it to devour. After all, the devil Xu Liguo took some effort back then. He didn’t expect that he would only need to push it a little and it would fuse with the other soul by itself. Although it was not devouring, the effect was the same.
Without a word, Wang Lin withdrew the red net, took out another soul, and threw it out after leaving his mark on it. This time, the small creature charged forth and fused with it without any input from Wang Lin.
As a result, Wang Lin was now very interested. His eyes lit up and he pointed at the soul flags multiple times. More than a dozen souls flew out. After leaving his mark on them, he threw them out.
At this moment, the soul of the small creature suddenly began to move, ramming into the souls one by one. Every time it collided with one, it would fuse with it and become stronger before moving on to the next one.
In less than one hour of time, the small creature finished fusing with more than a dozen souls. It looked like it was even about to break through from the early stage of Core Formation to the mid stage.
Wang Lin was even more interested now as he took one of the soul flags and shook it. More than a hundred souls flew out. After leaving his mark on all of them, they flew toward the small creature.
The soul of the small creature let out a sharp cry. This was the first time it had made a sound inside the tower. As it howled, a sound wave began to spread out. When Wang Lin saw this, he was very happy. His eyes sparkled; his attention was completely on the small creature.
He knew that he had found a treasure. For some reason, this small creature’s soul was very strange. It seemed like it was made to be made into a devil. With almost no forcefulness needed, it would start fusing with other souls on its own. In addition to this, what surprised Wang Lin the most was the sound wave attack. He originally thought that the creature would require a body to use this attack, but it could be used with just the soul.
When Wang Lin took a closer look, he realized that this sound wave was designed to attack the soul. After the sound wave spread out, all of the souls that were charging toward it slowed down and seemed to be dying.
Just at this moment, the soul of the small creature charged out. In less than half an hour, it completely devoured these more than 100 souls. Shortly after, the soul exploded into a red mist about 10 feet wide and slowly fell down.
Wang Lin’s eyes lit up as he waved the soul flag. The remaining 19 souls of the small creatures were sucked into the flag before it was placed back inside his bag of holding. He then turned around and stared at the red mist. He could feel the slivers of divine sense he had marked the souls with slowly fusing with the soul of the small creature.
The devil stood on the side and stared dumbfoundedly at everything that was happening. He secretly thought, “Violent! This little brother is too violent! Looks like I’ll have to start working harder, or else this fiend might feed me to this little brother!” The devil’s body trembled as he backed away. He floated in the air and began to quickly digest the souls he had devoured.
This wait lasted three days. During these days, there was no change to the red mist at all. Aside from observing the red mist, he saw countless black tornados pass by. One of the black tornados was more than 10,000 feet tall. It was like the king of black tornados had passed by the black tower.
As the biggest tornado passed by, it paused for a moment as countless divine senses surged forth. Their target wasn’t Wang Lin but the red mist.
However, the moment those divine senses hit the black tower, they were bounced back. The king-like black tornado lingered around the black tower for a bit before leaving.
Wang Lin could clearly feel that when the divine sense from the black tornado came, there was an abnormal fluctuation inside the red mist. This surprised Wang Lin and made him observe the red mist even more carefully.
Gradually, more and more black tornados appeared. They were all heading toward one direction. Wang Lin sneered; there was no need to guess if that direction was where Hunchback Meng was.
Hunchback Meng’s face was very gloomy. In truth, when he killed the first wave of the small creatures and was immediately surrounded by a second wave that had ten times more than the first wave, he realized he messed up.
His actions were based off the experience in the world of ice. In that trial, there was also a type of creature that lived there and appeared in massive groups. One had to kill them as quickly as possible or else they would attract more.
However, this damn earth trial was the exact opposite. This thought made Hunchback Meng let out a bitter smile. But since he had already reached this point, even if he no longer attacked them, those small beasts would continue to attack him with sound waves and divine sense attacks.
Eventually, Hunchback Meng’s demonic side began to show. He gave up on restraining himself and threw out large amounts of poison. As a result, the small creatures began to call for help more and more, to the point that even though he was inside a black tower, the amount of small creatures that had gathered had reached a point that made even his mind go blank.
He was currently standing inside the black tower and looking out at the endless black tornados. At the same time, the number of small creatures kept increasing as they called for more back up. He had attempted to use the tower as a base and throwing poison out from inside it, but the tower had a powerful restriction on it. While it prevented the small creatures from attacking, it also prevented people inside the tower from attacking what was outside.
Hunchback Meng wasn’t sure what would happen if he were to leave the tower. He was sure that he would receive the combined divine sense and sound wave attacks of 100 million, or even 1 billion, of those small creatures the moment he walked out.
Even though he was a Soul Formation cultivator that could cause 10 million cultivators to tremble with a single stomp from his foot, there was no way for him to take the combined divine senses and sound wave attacks of more than 1 billion of those small creatures.
After pondering for a bit, he touched the toad on his shoulder and revealed a vicious expression. Without a word, he pointed at the toad. The toad then jumped down from his shoulder and began to croak.
Hunchback Meng’s heart ached as he looked at the toad. He let out a sigh and then put it away. After pondering for a bit, he took out a 100-foot-long python. On the head of the snake there was a single horn. The moment it appeared, the air around it became hot.
“If I use the toad, then I won’t get injured, but the toad will die for sure. Ah, this one-horned python is a mid quality spirit beast. Although I can still use this, I will receive some injuries,” Hunchback Meng muttered to himself as his index finger slashed his middle finger to draw out a drop of blood. He chanted some strange words and the drop of blood rapidly became lighter in color until it was milky white. The white drop of blood landed on the head of the python.
Hunchback Meng quickly formed seals with a serious expression on his face. He slowly pointed at his own forehead and pulled something out. A crystal, silk-like thread was pulled out from his forehead. The thread was then slowly pressed against that milky white spot on the python’s forehead.
After a very long time, Hunchback Meng took a deep breath, stood up, and then casually threw the python on the ground. The moment the python landed, it coiled up and remained still.
Hunchback Meng’s eyes became fierce as he walked out of the tower without any hesitation. The moment he walked out, the howling of the black tornados increased countless fold. All of the small creatures fused their divine senses and unleashed a torrent of attacks upon Hunchback Meng.
At this moment, even the sky changed colors, and the restriction that was placed at the top of the earth trial began to shake.
Wang Lin wasn’t very close to that place, but even he felt the pressure. He opened his eyes and looked toward where Hunchback Meng was.
At the same time, an abnormal fluctuation happened in the red mist. This pulled his attention away from what was going on with Hunchback Meng. He reached out with his hand and a blue flame appeared.
If the devil that comes out of the red mist wasn’t under his control, he would use his Ji Realm and the blue flame to completely destroy it. If it could be controlled, then it would be for the better.
When the powerful divine sense attack came, Hunchback Meng didn’t dodge but waved his sleeves. A large amount of black smoke poured out of them.
The black smoke gathered and became a cloud. This cloud began to spread out. Any of the small creatures that touched the black cloud immediately fell from the sky and began to twitch. Its body would then turn into black smoke, which would soon after join the black cloud.
Right after he finished pouring out the smoke, the series of powerful divine sense attacks arrived. Hunchback Meng let out a miserable groan. His body then became more and more illusionary until it was replaced by a 100-foot-long python with a horn on its head. The snake rolled around for a bit before being completely disintegrated by the divine sense attacks. Even its core was turned to dust.
At the same time, the python that was inside the tower became blurry and soon turned into Hunchback Meng. His face was pale and he coughed out a mouthful of blood. He revealed a bloodthirsty smile as he muttered, “My heaven-destroying poison is considered the number 1 poison in the Sea of Devils, and I have used it all up. I don’t believe that I can’t kill all of you!”
The black cloud covered the area around the tower. As soon as it touched a tornado, the tornado would collapse into countless small creatures. Soon after, those small creatures would turn into black smoke and become part of the black cloud.
As result, the black cloud became larger and larger. The speed at which it expanded rapidly increased.
As for Wang Lin, his expression was very serious as he stared at the red mist. The fluctuations in the red mist became much more frequent until the red mist began to slowly condense again. Wang Lin didn’t even blink. The sound of fire burning could be heard coming from the blue flame in his hand.
At this moment, red lightning appeared in his eyes and the restrictions he had set using his Ji Realm became even more sturdy. Even the devil Xu Liguo regained his senses. After looking around for a bit, he became very happy and secretly thought, “It seems this little brother will not be so easy to control. It is best that both of you heavily injure each other so that I can devour you both. Haha, now that is a good idea!”
The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. His eyes sparkled endlessly. Although the devil Xu Liguo had recovered a bit of his memory, it was only but a sliver. The remaining memories vanished when he became a devil. He didn’t consider himself a cultivator at all; he only thought of himself as a devil.
Time slowly passed. The red mist became smaller and smaller until finally, all of the rest mist suddenly condensed into a red, glowing orb. After a few crackling sounds, the orb shattered, releasing a dark red gas. The gas quickly took the shape of the head of the small creature with its sharp beak and emitted a cold aura.
The moment it appeared, it disappeared. Although Wang Lin was secretly shocked, his face remained calm as he turned to the right and shot his Ji Realm out.
The red creature appeared in the direction Wang Lin turned to. It was shocked and quickly disappeared again. This was the first time Wang Lin’s Ji Realm had missed.
This showed just how fast the new devil was. Wang Lin remained calm. Not only did he not panic, but he became even more calm. His eyes became cold as his Ji Realm shot out behind him.
A miserable scream came from behind him. The moment the devil appeared, it collided headfirst with Wang Lin’s Ji Realm. It wasn’t able to dodge it in time, so the Ji Realm filled its body.
Its body involuntarily floated into the air and moved before Wang Lin. It looked at Wang Lin with a terrified expression as it let out miserable cries.
The devil Xu Liguo took a deep breath and quickly discarded the idea of rebelling. He didn’t think that the fiend could so easily defeat his little brother. After pondering for a bit, he realized what had happened and secretly cursed, “Evil!”