Gentlemen, it's time to enter the Banner of Ten Thousand Souls.

Chapter 408 Every Venerable Lord Has Ruthless Skills

Once the thunder has struck, there is no turning back from the very beginning.

Chen Ye himself couldn't remember how many hours the endless divine lightning had been striking.

During this time, Chen Ye only paused for a moment to feed the already exhausted Princess Hongyu two life-sustaining pills, just to prevent her from screaming herself hoarse.

Besides, this hellish torture never stopped for a moment.

There was no bloodshed or flesh flying everywhere, nor a single wound, but the pain brought by the heavenly lightning was no less intense, more excruciating than any other form of torture.

Even Qu Heng felt a chill run down his spine at such a cruel method, and unconsciously took a few steps back, as if afraid that the merciless lightning might accidentally splash onto him.

Chen Ye was actually reluctant, but in order to solve the problem of the Soul Master, he had no choice but to use this method.

He told himself: I won't die anyway, I just need to be a little more ruthless.

Many people have said that Chen Ye is too kind-hearted, thinking that as a cultivator, he takes the lives of mortals too seriously. However, at crucial moments, Chen Ye can harden his heart and make the most ruthless choices.

According to Chen Ye's deduction, if Princess Hongyu was merely controlled by the demon and forced to kill someone, then her sins would not be too deep.

The reason why the pain of divine retribution persisted for so long was mostly due to her own inner turmoil.

Princess Hongyu has never let go of the past and has always felt guilty and uneasy.

The Hellish powers of the Fengdu Emperor are generally applied according to two standards of punishment.

The first layer is "human nature." If everyone in the world thought this was a sin, they would hold this sin accountable until the sin was paid off. The second layer is the sinner's own thoughts. If the sinner always believes he is guilty, this sin can never be paid off, and the suffering will never end.

Just like Mo Ci back then.

He always felt that he had gone too far in seeking revenge, killing many innocent people indiscriminately. After all, he didn't know how many outsiders were at that birthday banquet, or how close their relationship was to his enemy.

Recalling the tragedy of his family being destroyed, he made a grave mistake in a moment of anger.

Many people may think that this mistake has already been atoned for, but he himself cannot understand it, and will be tormented by it forever.

Every so often, the disciples of the Yellow Springs Sect and the City God's soldiers have to go through a boiling oil cauldron. Anyone who cannot let go of this obsession will suffer again.

The same is true for Princess Hongyu now; the simple heavenly lightning cannot wash away the guilt in her heart.

Normally, Chen Ye would give her some time to figure things out on her own, but now he didn't have that time.

With a thought, Chen Ye conjured up the bronze bell with the mouth of a beast.

"clang!"

A long, deep bell tolled, drowning out the violent thunder. The sound seemed not to affect the eardrums, but to strike directly into the soul.

The sea of ​​suffering is boundless, but turning back is the shore!
The tolling bells remind sinners drowning in the sea of ​​suffering to turn back quickly. The powers of hell were not created to harm people, but to give them a second chance to atone for their sins and be freed.

"Cang! Cang!"

The bells tolled incessantly.

The pain of thunder remained, but in the soul-piercing tolling of the bell, Princess Hongyu vaguely saw her entire life.

She saw the helpless girl trembling in the deep palace, forced to learn to read people's expressions just to survive; she saw herself, forced to commit countless wrongdoings against her will to survive, waking up from nightmares every night; and she saw her younger siblings whom she had killed with her own hands, watching their horrific state as they were refined into blood pills...

She hated the demon, hated the unjust fate, but what she hated most was herself—the one who committed such a terrible crime in order to survive.

"I... am deeply sinful..."

Regret has become a shackle, tightening its grip on her soul little by little. She feels that she deserves to be tortured to death in this boundless hell of thunder; this is the retribution she deserves.

But at that moment, a feeling of loneliness after death welled up in my heart.

Those were her memories from the time of her last death.

Her soul drifted away with the wind and then fell into complete silence. She seemed to feel nothing, but even for just a moment, Princess Hongyu felt immense fear, as if it were more cruel than the torture she was currently enduring.

"No, I absolutely refuse to die this time! I must live!"

The intense will to survive even suppressed her guilt, and her face, which had been contorted with pain, miraculously calmed down. Two crystal tears slid down the corners of her tightly closed eyes.

Seeing this, Chen Ye knew that his efforts had been effective and was about to increase the power of the bell to help her completely break free from her inner demons.

But just then, a hoarse and panicked voice suddenly burst from Princess Hongyu's mouth: "Youluozi, what are you waiting for?!"

This old devil finally couldn't hold back anymore.

Chen Ye's lips curled into a smile, ignoring his cries for help. The heavenly lightning continued to thunder, showing no sign of abating, but instead becoming even more violent. This time, it was no longer Princess Hongyu who was screaming in agony, but the old demon with the hoarse voice.

However, while Chen Ye was using his Hellish Divine Power, he kept his attention on his surroundings, fearing that the old demon might shout out the other two Venerable Lords.

Although Chen Ye believed that with Qu Heng present, the two of them would not dare to take risks, the Demonic Sect was not so united; of course, it was better to watch the Soul Venerable suffer than to risk their own lives.

However, Chen Ye dared not be careless and paid close attention to his own safety.

However, the screams continued for a long time, and no matter how much the Soul Venerable shouted and insulted Youluozi, there was not a sound.

Chen Ye even suspected that this Soul Master had been sold out by You Luozi, or was simply lying, and that he had never cooperated with You Luozi at all.

Since that's the case, let's put in a little more effort.

The heavenly thunder intensified, and Chen Ye wished he could use all the power of the Fengdu Emperor to punish this old demon.

Even if the Soul Lord were to re-enter Princess Hongyu's soul, it would be useless. Princess Hongyu has almost cleansed her sins, and most of the power of this divine punishment lightning cannot be released. No matter how deeply you hide, you will still be struck by lightning.

The sins committed by the Soul Lord are too numerous to count, and the pain and torment he suffered were a thousand times greater.

Even an old demon who had cultivated for countless years and whose heart was as hard as stone could not bear the torture.

After shouting at the top of his lungs for a long time, and confirming that Youluozi was not responding at all, Soul Master finally relented and said, "I'll talk, I'll tell you everything, just stop!"

Chen Ye chuckled and waved his hand to dispel the thunderclouds.

"You old devil, you can't even last as long as a mortal girl."

Hearing Chen Ye's mockery, Soul Master revealed a resentful expression of gritted teeth, but he was helpless.

After his soul was divided, he had no power to resist Chen Ye.

Chen Ye asked, "If you're going to be quick about it, I'll make you be quick about it too. What kind of conspiracy or trickery is behind you splitting your soul into hundreds of thousands of parts?"

Soul Master took a breath and explained, "It was all part of Youluozi's plan..."

But before he could finish speaking, another bolt of lightning struck him on the head, causing him to scream in agony once more.

Chen Ye coldly reminded him, "I forgot to tell you, I cultivate the 'Great Law of Other Transformation'. I may not be able to sense what you are thinking, but whether you are lying or not, you can't fool me."

Soul Master's expression changed drastically. How could Chen Ye, who had only been cultivating for a little over two years, know all sorts of secret techniques?
He endured the tortures of hell, but the Great Law of Self-Transformation discerned truth from falsehood. Is there anyone in this world who can deceive him?

Regardless of his shock and resentment, Soul Master ultimately did not want to endure the torture he had just endured any longer, so he changed his tune and said, "Fine, I'll tell the truth. It wasn't Youluozi's plan; it was my own idea, but this witch found out before I could even carry it out halfway."

This time, Chen Ye did not unleash any more lightning; he sensed that the Soul Master was telling the truth.

Chen Ye interrupted, saying, "Don't bring up Youluozi yet. What I want to know is why you split your soul. Why would you give up being the Demon Sect Master and cripple your own power?"

Soul Venerable sneered, "It's all because my good disciple tricked me. Back then, during the battle at Burning Incense Sect, I almost forced Lu Xingzhou to ascend. If it weren't for your Yellow Springs Sect's intervention, I would have already possessed the body of Demon Venerable Wujiu and achieved the Dao Integration Realm."

"But you still ran away."

"Do you really think Lu Xingzhou is a piece of trash? It's already a miracle I survived him, and then your grandmaster tricked me, severely damaging my soul. If I had any other choice, I wouldn't have taken this risk!" The Soul Venerable grew angrier with each word, roaring, "Speaking of which, it's all your Yellow Springs Sect's fault, it's all your fault, you brat! Count how many Venerables have indirectly died at your hands! The Nirvana Sect was destroyed by Zhang Qi's sword because you disrupted the blood sacrifice; the Azure Dragon was torn apart outside Fengdu City, and you killed it in the Ruins of Return; the Tiger's Lair was injured by your sword energy at the Cloud Peak Immortal Sect, and was eventually found by Fei Lian, forced to self-destruct. We, the righteous and demonic paths, haven't even started our war yet, and you've already killed so many Venerables! Do you think you're Zhang Qi?!"

Chen Ye didn't think much of it. It was just about using someone else's strength against them. He wasn't talented in combat, but he was an expert at leveraging others' strength.

Qu Heng, on the contrary, couldn't help but sigh. These achievements hadn't been spread, otherwise they would have scared the righteous cultivators out of their wits.

The powerful demonic sect, which had endured a thousand years of hardship and was preparing to launch a counterattack on the surface, ended up being ruined by Chen Ye alone.

His achievements are only slightly less than those of Zhang Qi back then; over the past thousand years, no one has surpassed Chen Ye in skill.

The Soul Lord was truly unlucky.

He had mastered the Eight-Nine Arcane Arts and possessed the Time Arrow, a divine power that could seize the very essence of heaven and earth. He should have been the most powerful among all the Venerable Lords. However, when the great war began, he was the first to suffer severe injuries, a fact that still fills him with sorrow.

After the battle at the Incense Burning Sect, Soul Venerable tried many methods but could not recover from his injuries. In addition, with the Demon Sect Lords falling one by one, Soul Venerable naturally panicked, and splitting his soul was a last resort.

Urged on by Chen Ye, the Soul Master could only continue explaining: "You didn't give me any time to recover, so I had no choice but to take the risk. You've also learned the Eight-Nine Arcane Arts, so you should know that the most difficult hurdle in mastering it is how to stabilize the soul. The Eight-Nine Arcane Arts are ever-changing; even if it's shattered, it can reassemble itself, completely unaffected by damage. The biggest problem is, after being cut apart, which piece is the true self..."

Chen Ye had also encountered this problem; he almost lost his soul and couldn't piece it back together. This even alerted the precious Ksitigarbha Sutra, which was preparing to save Chen Ye once again.

"But if you cultivate to my level, you can not only transform into all things, you can even directly convert your physical body into your divine soul. Then you will be far more powerful than any Nascent Soul cultivator..."

Chen Ye gave a strange look.

He could indeed transform his physical body into a divine soul, but this was an illogical path, which blocked Chen Ye's path to further cultivation. If it weren't for Sheng Huai'an's swordsmanship giving him a glimmer of hope, Chen Ye would have wanted to start all over again.

Soul Lord didn't care about Chen Ye's expression at all. In order to stop being tormented by Chen Ye, he could only continue to confess: "I am only one step away from the immortality of Demon Lord Wujiu. If I could have another innate treasure to help me cultivate, I could also take that last step."

"Unfortunately, I didn't have that option, so I had to choose another way. I used the Eight-Nine Arcane Arts to transform my physical body into a divine soul, and then differentiated it, but not by simply cutting myself apart. I have already broken the limitation of the Eight-Nine Arcane Arts that maintains a single nature, and the hundreds of thousands of divine souls that I differentiated are actually all myself."

Chen Ye frowned and said, "Aren't you afraid of being swallowed up by hundreds of thousands of versions of yourself?"

The most important thing for a person is self-awareness. If there is someone exactly like you, with identical memories, appearance, and personality, what difference would there be between the two? They might even turn on each other, fighting for that unique identity.

The Soul Master sneered, "It is precisely through mutual devouring that we can break through. I have gone astray and cannot break through in a normal way. Otherwise, we must destroy and rebuild. Only in this way can the re-fused souls possibly reach the realm of Dao Integration. Even if we fail, some of these hundreds of thousands of fragmented souls will survive, and I will be able to escape this calamity. In the future... there will always be a chance to rise again."

Chen Ye gasped in shock; this devil was ruthless.

It should be noted that the Soul Master he is currently conversing with is only one of these hundreds of thousands of clones. It is still uncertain who will devour whom in the future. He has put himself in a fierce battle that is almost certain to kill him, all for the sake of breaking through to the realm of Dao Integration.

Those cultivators who can reach the Void Returning Realm are all exceptionally talented individuals. After careful consideration, Chen Ye realized that the Soul Venerable's method was quite ingenious.

Moreover, Chen Ye also understood why the Soul Venerable chose to plant the Time Arrow on mortals, while only his strongest fragment of soul merged into Princess Hongyu's body.

The reason is simple: they will all devour each other in the future, so whoever has higher cultivation will have the advantage.

Princess Hongyu is powerful and influential, and has a foundation in cultivation, so she will have a significant advantage in future battles.

Chen Ye could still imagine that the Soul Master in front of him was the consciousness that remained after he had cut it into hundreds of thousands of pieces. In the end, he still wanted to leave himself a safety net.

If Chen Ye were unaware of the situation and actually took in all those tens of thousands of people and placed them in the same city, that would have been a great help to the Soul Master.

In a few years, this city will probably be left with only one person, the Soulfire Venerable, who is at the Dao Integration Realm.

Chen Ye felt a wave of fear. He had almost become an accomplice to evil, but fortunately, he was blessed with good fortune and was able to get what he wanted in the end, thus avoiding a major mistake.

Chen Ye said to the Soul Master, "Since that's the case, why don't you just leave on your own, or suffer some more punishment?"

"Leave? You still dare to dream of saving this woman?" The Soul Master let out a hoarse and manic laugh, mocking, "Chen Ye, have you ever seen two glasses of water poured together and then perfectly separated?"

The Soul Master said with pride, "The reason I chose the Arrow of Time as the foundation for my soul is that its essence lies in the passage of time! In the long years driven by the arrow, my divided soul and her divine soul have long since merged into one, becoming one from the root, and are no longer separate!"

"Once the Arrow of Time takes effect, it is an irreversible possession, an assimilation that cannot be undone! This is the desperate path I devised, risking everything for a glimmer of hope, so why would I leave you a way to break it?"

Chen Ye frowned. He carefully sensed with the "Transformation of Freedom Technique" and found that the Soul Venerable did not seem to be lying at all.

If what he said is true, then all those who were planted with the Arrow of Time had already "died" in that fleeting, illusory period of time. The Soul Master's divided soul had completely devoured and merged with the original owner, merely wearing their skin and inheriting their memories, appearing flawless.

Could it be that Mo Suixin's divination had ultimately come true? Was everything he had done in vain, and he couldn't save Princess Hongyu at all?

Two glasses of water poured together... are they really impossible to separate?
Chen Ye fell silent. Just when Soul Master thought he had completely shattered Chen Ye's confidence, Chen Ye's tightly furrowed brows slowly relaxed, and he actually revealed a smile.

"I almost fell for your fallacies again." He spoke calmly, his voice not loud, but it sounded quite confident.

The Soul Master sensed something was wrong, but immediately retorted sarcastically, "If you don't believe me, then continue to torture me with your hellish powers. But don't expect to hear a single word about a solution, because I myself don't have that method."

"Besides, I have hundreds of thousands of clones outside. Even if this body dies, it won't make much of a difference to me. Think about it, if I had even the slightest way to separate, why would I have to suffer such torment as being devoured by ten thousand lightning strikes? Otherwise, I could just break free and let you kill me with one sword. That would be much more quick and painless."

“You really have no way, you’re not lying about that,” Chen Ye said with a calm smile. “But you’ve got one thing wrong from the very beginning.”

"You underestimated the resilience of Princess Hongyu's soul, and you overestimated the power of your Time Arrow. If they were truly fused together like two cups of water, there would only be one consciousness left in the world, and then what would be the difference between you and me?"

Chen Ye's gaze sharpened like a sword as he said, word by word, "You are not water, you are salt. When salt is added to water, it seems to disappear without a trace, but in reality, salt is salt and water is water, and there is always a chance that they can be separated."

Soul Lord listened to Chen Ye's words but didn't believe them at all.

He had no idea how effective the fusion of souls would be; such a fusion was so profound that even a deity could not separate it.

"So what if it's salt? The result is the same! If you want to extract salt from water, you'll have to boil it dry! Are you planning to completely incinerate this little girl's soul and force out this wisp of my soul? What difference is there between that and killing her!"

"No need." Chen Ye shook his head, his tone radiating unparalleled confidence.

"Salt is salt after all. No matter how finely it dissolves, its essence is not water. Ordinary people cannot distinguish it because their eyes cannot see it. Even immortals cannot do anything about it because they cannot even distinguish which part of their soul belongs to you and which part belongs to Princess Hongyu."

Chen Ye slowly stood up, and the phantom of the Fengdu Emperor behind him became more solid than ever before. The gaze beneath his crown seemed to pierce through reincarnation and see through all things.

"But I can," Chen Ye said confidently.

"Since my Hellish Divine Power can accurately lock onto this wisp of your soul, it proves that I can 'see' you! No matter how deep you hide or how subtle you become, in my eyes, your 'salt' and Princess Hongyu's 'water' are two completely different substances."

"And now, all I lack is a means to filter salt grains out of the water."

At this point, Chen Ye changed the subject and said to the Soulfire Venerable, "It's quite a coincidence that I just had a mishap while cultivating the Eight-Nine Arcane Technique, and ended up achieving the effect you described, where the physical body transforms into the soul. As a result, the two are now indistinguishable, making my cultivation a mess, and I can't figure out whether I'm cultivating the physical body or the soul."

Soul Master felt something was wrong. How could Chen Ye have reached this level? He had only been cultivating for a short time.

Moreover, judging from his tone, he's about to say "but" soon.

As expected, Chen Ye continued, "However, I happen to know a senior who taught me a special sword technique that can solve this problem for me."

Chen Ye stretched out his right hand, and his entire arm instantly became illusory, his physical body transforming into a divine soul state in an instant.

A longsword formed entirely of soul material appeared, traced a mysterious path, and then rested on the Soul Master's shoulder.

Sensing the sword formed from the soul, the Soul Venerable's eyes widened instantly.

He couldn't help but marvel again at how many secret techniques this kid had learned. How could he know everything?! Even the Soul Master himself couldn't solve the problem, yet Chen Ye had a way to counter it?
Is there no reasoning at all?
Is this what the Yellow Springs Sect calls karma and retribution?
Soul Master could only close his eyes in despair, fearing he would die at Chen Ye's hands today.

However, after waiting for a long time, the sword did not move at all. Soul Venerable couldn't help but open his eyes and saw that Chen Ye's expression was a bit strange. He didn't know what tricks Chen Ye was playing.

Could it be that his swordsmanship was fake?

Soul Master was about to say something sarcastic to test Chen Ye's strength, but before he could speak, he saw Chen Ye take out a sword manual and start flipping through it.

Even Qu Heng couldn't stand it anymore and asked, "Haven't you been practicing for a long time? Don't tell me you haven't learned this sword technique after all this time?"

Chen Ye smiled wryly. It wasn't that he hadn't learned the whole sword technique; he hadn't even mastered the first move.

Damn my talent for swordsmanship! I only regret not having it when I need it.

(End of this chapter)