Chapter 26: The Coiling Dragon Ring
The night was as still as water, with only a gentle breeze passing by. Linley's figure was already dozens of miles away. Although the Dawson Chamber of Commerce's branch in the great canyon was thousands of miles from Dragonblood Castle, before Linley as he was now, a distance of thousands of miles meant nothing.
The wind stopped, and Linley's figure solidified and became clear.
Looking down at the continuous mountain valleys below, especially the conspicuous great canyon, within which lay an important branch of the Dawson Chamber of Commerce. Relying solely on his perception of the wind, Linley sensed a large number of people in the canyon.
"Slaves being transported?" Linley sneered coldly.
He now knew that the Dawson Chamber of Commerce was purchasing a massive number of slaves for that Deity-level expert to refine souls.
"Although the Coiling Dragon Ring is only a damaged soul-defense Sovereign artifact, at least I only need to defend the gap." After nurturing it for over a day, the 'patch' formed by his spiritual energy at the gap in the transparent membrane, shaped like a scale, had become quite resilient.
Looking down, with a stir of the wind, Linley transformed into a gust of wind and dove downward.
Inside the great canyon, in a gloomy torture chamber.
The floor of this torture chamber was stained with dark blood. A bald man with a bare chest, holding a butcher's knife, stood in the chamber. Behind him, on the wall, hung a crystal ball, inside which was thick mist.
A slave, blindfolded and with his hands bound, was pushed in by the guards.
"Pfft." The bald man cruelly thrust the butcher's knife into the slave's heart. "Ahh~" a hoarse, dry scream lasted for a second or two before fading away.
Fast, accurate, ruthless!
Killing the slave instantly, the slave let out a dry scream for only a second or two before collapsing weakly. Guards immediately carried the corpse out.
The thick mist inside the crystal ball churned slightly, having gained another soul!
"Next." The bald man licked the blood off his butcher's knife, looking extremely excited.
The bald man loved this job. Ever since he was assigned to it six years ago, he had become addicted to the feeling of killing. In six years, he himself wasn't sure how many people had died by his hand.
"At least a million, definitely." The bald man thought to himself.
Killing for six years, hundreds of people each day, sometimes over a thousand, he had killed over a million in six years. And in the great canyon, there were many others doing the same work. Although the bald man didn't know the exact number, he personally knew six other butchers.
"The mist in this crystal ball should be thick enough by now." The bald man turned to look.
He was experienced. He knew exactly how many people he needed to kill each day to reach a certain mist density in the crystal ball. But when he turned his head, he found—
The crystal ball had become completely clear, without a trace of mist.
"Ah!" The bald man was so frightened that cold sweat broke out on his forehead and back. "What happened? How is it all gone? Impossible, impossible. No one has been near here." No matter how bold the bald man was, his heart trembled with fear now.
Yes, the souls in the crystal ball were all gone.
And it wasn't just the bald man's torture chamber. In all the other torture chambers, the collected souls in the crystal balls had also vanished.
Linley had already descended into the great canyon, standing on a tree branch.
"What, what's going on?" Linley was astonished. Through the 'Coiling Dragon Ring,' he clearly sensed over twenty locations within a mile radius where large numbers of souls were gathered. Yes, he sensed them through the Coiling Dragon Ring.
"So many souls?"
Linley frowned. He understood that this must be the work of that Deity-level expert, continuously killing people to collect souls.
"Hmph. Killing this many in a single day. Over several years, how many has he killed?" Just thinking about that number made Linley shudder. "How many methods did this Deity-level expert use to collect so many souls?"
Linley truly didn't know. The Grand Warlock had not only sent his nine Silver-robed Guards to collect souls but had also controlled the three most powerful chambers of commerce on the Yulan continent. The three chambers worked together to continuously send slaves over, killing them and collecting souls.
After all, there were still many slaves on the Yulan continent.
With the combined efforts of the three chambers, it wasn't too difficult to gather tens of millions of slaves over six years.
"Huh?" Linley felt that the Coiling Dragon Ring seemed to have a strange power binding the souls in those twenty-odd crystal balls. He had a feeling that with just a thought, he could plunder all those souls into the Coiling Dragon Ring.
Linley attempted to plunder.
In an instant!
The massive number of souls originally in the crystal balls disappeared, all appearing inside the Coiling Dragon Ring.
"So many souls? Over ten thousand, right?" The souls from over twenty crystal balls totaled more than ten thousand, and the Coiling Dragon Ring directly absorbed them. What shocked Linley the most was... the Coiling Dragon Ring, after absorbing these souls, automatically refined them.
The countless souls were refined back into a large amount of golden mist.
Linley's spiritual energy merely touched this golden mist and naturally began to absorb it.
"Sss~" A large amount of golden mist traveled along Linley's spiritual energy directly into his soul space.
"Sessler said that if one's research on souls reaches a certain level, they can refine souls and absorb them to strengthen their own soul." Seeing this scene, Linley began to understand. "This Coiling Dragon Ring can absorb souls and naturally refine them."
When the golden mist approached the sword-shaped soul, the sword-shaped soul, like drinking water, naturally absorbed the golden mist.
"Indeed..." Linley felt an extremely comfortable sensation. His soul was slowly growing. Soon, the golden mist refined from over ten thousand souls was completely absorbed by Linley's sword-shaped soul, which only increased in volume by a tiny bit.
Just that tiny bit made Linley feel much more comfortable.
"This Coiling Dragon Ring." Linley was deeply shocked.
Refining souls was a very complex process. Among Lower Deities, only a very few powerful individuals could do it. Even most Middle Deities couldn't. It depended on their level of understanding of souls. Even the Grand Warlock was extremely careful during the refining process.
"This ability somewhat matches the status of a Sovereign artifact, even if it's damaged." A hint of a smile appeared on Linley's face.
He carefully sensed it. The Coiling Dragon Ring could only plunder souls that had no physical protection. If a person wasn't dead, their soul was very difficult to plunder. The crystal ball's ability to bind souls was clearly weaker than the Coiling Dragon Ring's plundering ability.
The plundering ability was stronger than the binding ability, so the souls in the crystal balls were all taken.
"The range is only about a mile. Beyond that, I can't sense anything." Linley also noticed that when he flew down from above the canyon, he only sensed the collected souls when he was about a mile from the chambers.
He took a deep breath to calm himself.
"Release my spiritual energy to find that Deity-level expert. I must kill him in the shortest possible time." Linley flipped his hand, and the Violet Blood Soft Sword appeared. Linley knew very well that the moment his spiritual energy discovered the opponent, the opponent would also discover him.
He had to attack the opponent in the shortest possible time, giving him less time to prepare.
"Let's begin."
Linley's gaze sharpened.
In the dim chamber.
The Grand Warlock, shrouded in a black robe, solemnly took eight more crystal balls from his spatial ring. Including the one in front of him, there were nine crystal balls in total. Inside each of these nine crystal balls were hazy mist and golden liquid.
The Grand Warlock extended his hands, and the nine crystal balls floated in front of him.
"Sss~"
The golden liquid from eight of the crystal balls flew out, heading toward the central crystal ball. The golden liquid emitted hazy mist, filling the entire chamber with thick fog. This mist was actually the essence of souls.
If an ordinary person were here, just taking a deep breath would likely inhale the essence of two or three souls.
The eight streams of golden liquid flew through the air, and as they entered the ninth crystal ball, the mist they released probably contained the essence of over a hundred souls. But the Grand Warlock didn't care about this small amount of soul essence; the golden liquid was what mattered most.
Finally, all the golden liquid gathered in the ninth crystal ball.
"Haha..." The Grand Warlock let out a hoarse, unpleasant laugh. "Just three days. In three days, these twenty million soul essences will form another Soul Gold Pearl." The Grand Warlock was extremely pleased. How could the Gebados Planar Prison have such a good environment?
In the Gebados Planar Prison, someone of his strength was only a mid-level figure.
Two Soul Gold Pearls, a total of forty million human souls.
Over the past six years, the Grand Warlock, through the three chambers of commerce and his nine Silver-robed Guards, had tried every means to collect souls. But the real driving force was the three chambers. They were deeply rooted on the Yulan continent, secretly taking people from each city without anyone noticing.
Over six years, combined with all the slaves from the slave markets, gathering forty million souls was possible.
"Refining is hard, and absorbing is slow. This one Soul Gold Pearl will probably take several months to fully absorb." The Grand Warlock sighed, but his tone carried a hint of pride. One Soul Gold Pearl could not only heal all his soul injuries but also strengthen his soul several times over.
If he had to cultivate, who knew how many tens of thousands of years it would take?
"Hmm? Someone!" The Grand Warlock's green eyes shot upward. He clearly sensed a surge of spiritual energy sweeping through the area below. "A Deity-level expert."
"Not Muba." The Grand Warlock judged from the spiritual energy that it wasn't someone he knew. "Which Deity-level expert is this?" As he thought, a large black scythe appeared in his right hand, and he moved to put the crystal ball containing the twenty million soul essences into his spatial ring.
But—
"What!" The Grand Warlock's face changed instantly, his eyes filled with shock.
The crystal ball, which had contained the golden liquid of twenty million soul essences, was now completely empty. The entire crystal ball was perfectly clear!
"Where are the soul essences? Impossible, impossible!" The Grand Warlock felt that this was too bizarre.
Although he had already successfully refined one Soul Gold Pearl, the soul essences that had just disappeared were the result of years of painstaking effort, gathering twenty million souls and carefully refining them. How could they vanish in an instant?
Before he could figure it out, the sound of a sword's hum rang out.
The sword's hum was pleasant to hear. The Grand Warlock felt a sense of comfort upon hearing it. But as someone with deep research into souls, he instantly reacted: "What a powerful soul attack."
At this moment, the Grand Warlock couldn't bother investigating why the twenty million soul essences had suddenly disappeared. He was facing a great enemy!
With the sword's hum, a strange purple light suddenly descended. Wherever the purple light passed, cracks appeared directly in the space... The terrifying aura contained in the purple light shocked the Grand Warlock to his core. He chose to retreat without hesitation: "Who is this? Could it be the War God of the O'Brien Empire?"
As he guessed this, while retreating, a wave of gray mist surged from his body, sweeping toward Linley.