Chapter 26: Soul Confusion
The patch on the gap in the membrane barely held for a moment before being directly pierced by the black needle. The black needle entered the most important region of Linley’s mind—above the Soul Sea.
*Boom!*
The entire Soul Sea surged. Countless strands of soul power flew up, merging with the azure light, and directly coiled around the black needle. The black needle had nowhere to flee.
*Crackle…*
The soul power, suffused with azure light, and the needle, wreathed in black light, remained locked in a stalemate, their energies rapidly depleting.
Mosley and the other fourteen Six Star Fiends looked up at Linley.
“Lord Mosley, what do we do now?” They all looked at Mosley.
“Continue attacking. His soul defense isn’t that strong. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have taken this long to resist my attack,” Mosley ordered. “Remember, attack his soul.”
“Yes!”
The group of experts immediately soared into the air.
Linley, his face pale, regained his clarity. At this moment, the ten Six Star Fiends of the Azure Dragon clan, including Melina and Santa, had gathered around him.
“Captain, are you alright?” Melina asked quickly.
“I’m fine.” Linley shook his head, but inwardly he was still shaken. “Fortunately, after the ancestral hall baptism, the Azure Dragon clan’s source energy grew stronger. After fusing it with my soul power, I managed to withstand it.” The Azure Dragon clan’s source energy, that azure light, was very special. It could be combined with spiritual energy to use innate divine abilities.
It could also amplify soul defense effects.
“They’re coming up!” a team member said urgently.
Linley looked down at the fifteen people flying up rapidly and immediately sent a divine sense message: “That bald, gray-robed man is a Seven Star Fiend, skilled in soul attacks. In a moment, Santa, the six of you who are best at material attacks, deal with him. The other four, come with me to kill the other Six Star Fiends.”
“Captain, can just the six of them, including Santa, handle it?” Melina asked worriedly.
“Don’t worry, I still have a trump card I haven’t used.” Linley looked at the fifteen people flying up rapidly below.
He hadn’t used his ultimate move earlier because his own people hadn’t arrived yet. He was also afraid that the enemy might be scared into fleeing. That was why he had held back this move—Soul Confusion! Soul Confusion could only be used in conjunction with the Blackstone.
Back on Miluo Island, Linley had used this move to put a large number of Highgods into a dazed state.
Even a Seven Star Fiend would be slightly affected. In a battle between experts, a slight influence was enough!
“Eleven people?” Mosley squinted.
“Ignore the others for now. Kill the leader first!” Mosley sent a divine sense message, shouting. “Killing this Seven Star Fiend will avenge your captain.”
“Kill!”
No one backed down at this point. Anyone who dared to join a family war party wouldn’t retreat. Mosley led the fourteen Six Star Fiends as they soared into the air, directly entering Linley’s Blackstone Space. These fifteen people clustered together, afraid of being picked off one by one.
The fifteen moved as a single unit, flying toward Linley.
The ten Six Star Fiends of the Azure Dragon clan stood beside Linley. Linley gave a cold order: “Go!” According to the plan, Linley and his eleven others also dove downward. After all, they were only a few hundred meters apart.
In an instant, they clashed!
“Kill!” Linley’s side ignored life and death.
“Kill!” Mosley’s side likewise disregarded death.
Linley’s gaze turned icy cold.
Within his Soul Sea, his soul power began to swirl around the Blackstone. The strange soul power instantly spread out, enveloping the entire gravitational space. Soul Confusion directly affected the fifteen on the opposing side.
*Whoosh…*
All fifteen on Mosley’s side felt a peculiar wind sound directly ringing in their minds. This wind sound made their heads involuntarily spin. But that moment of dizziness came at the most critical point of the battle—
*Slash! Slash! Slash!*
Like chopping watermelons, the Six Star Fiends of the Barbary clan, affected by Soul Confusion, were instantly killed in large numbers. Linley was like a tiger among a flock of sheep, slaughtering three Six Star Fiends in an instant.
Santa and the other five, who excelled at material attacks, targeted Mosley directly.
Mosley only felt a slight dizziness in his head, but his consciousness remained clear. As a super expert in soul attacks, the influence of this soul temptation on him wasn’t great. However, when he saw so many of his own people being killed, he became enraged.
Mosley let out a furious roar.
A transparent, fan-shaped ripple spread from Mosley toward the six attackers in front. Santa and the other five Six Star Fiends only had time to each unleash a fierce material attack.
The transparent ripple spread over Santa and the other five. Their bodies trembled, and three of them directly fell from the sky.
Three dead!
“Santa!” Melina cried out.
“Brother!” another female team member also shouted.
Among the three dead was Santa.
“Not good.” Seeing this from behind, Linley was shocked. “This man… he isn’t affected by my Soul Confusion.” On Miluo Island, he had fought against a Seven Star Fiend before, and that time, the opponent had been affected.
But…
Mosley was clearly an expert in soul attacks, with greater resistance.
*Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!*
The material attacks unleashed by Santa and the other five took the form of blades, needles, cones, lines… all directly covering Mosley. Mosley had strong soul defenses, but his material defense was average.
The gravity was too strong, and Mosley couldn’t dodge in time.
*Roar!* Mosley roared, letting out a low, deep sound.
Instantly, a long, winding black serpent phantom appeared behind Mosley. This black serpent naturally exuded a terrifying aura. Its entire body was pitch black, and it had only one eye—a vertical eye, red as blood.
*Slash! Slash!*
The material attacks tore through Mosley’s body. His armor shattered, and his body was cut open. Knowing he couldn’t dodge in time, Mosley could only try to avoid vital points, protecting his head from damage.
That was the weakness of material attacks—unlike soul attacks, which targeted the core directly, material attacks couldn’t easily avoid vital points. They were generally more effective in close combat.
“Die.” Mosley stared at Linley.
The long, winding black serpent behind him also fixed its blood-red single eye on Linley. “Not good.” Linley immediately activated the Blackstone Space, changing the direction of gravity, trying to affect the enemy.
*Hum…* A transparent beam of light shot from the center of Mosley’s forehead, directly at Linley.
Innate Divine Ability: Soul Annihilation!
“Captain!” The Six Star Fiends were alarmed.
“Too late.” The attack speed of an innate divine ability was too fast; the body couldn’t dodge in time. Linley gritted his teeth, preparing to endure it.
*Swish!* An arm suddenly appeared in front of Linley, blocking the transparent beam. The beam directly entered the arm. Linley turned his head and was shocked: “Skar!”
Skar was one of Linley’s ten Six Star Fiends. He usually spoke very little, but he never hesitated to follow Linley’s orders. Who would have thought that Skar would sacrifice himself to save Linley today?
Skar fell directly from midair. “Kill!” The other team members turned into streaks of light, charging one after another toward Mosley’s head.
*Roar!* Mosley roared again.
But before he could launch another soul attack, a sound of air bursting was heard. His head had been turned into pulp, and a divine spark fell.
Mosley was dead!
Linley and the others were silent for a long time. In this battle, they had killed two Seven Star Fiends and twelve Six Star Fiends. Three Six Star Fiends had escaped.
“Three got away.” Melina said, unwilling to let it go.
“It was my fault. I didn’t expect Mosley to be unaffected.” Linley spoke up. Most of the enemy’s Six Star Fiends had been slaughtered, but when Linley and his team were fighting desperately against Mosley…
Those Six Star Fiends knew there was no hope of victory and immediately fled.
“Skar, thank you.” Linley turned to look at a Six Star Fiend beside him—the one who had saved him, Skar. Skar originally had three bodies. For this battle, he had left a divine clone at the Bloodbath Valley and had another divine clone inside his main body.
When Mosley used his innate divine ability, Soul Annihilation, Skar immediately separated his two bodies and had his divine clone stretch out its arm to block the attack.
“Captain, losing one divine clone is nothing. A Seven Star Fiend is the true pillar of our clan; he cannot die.” Skar said.
“Of the eleven of us who came, three have lost their strongest divine clones.” Linley looked around and sighed. Those three were the ones killed by Mosley. “It was a miscalculation on my part.”
If the enemy had been affected by Soul Confusion, Santa and the others would have been able to kill Mosley.
“Captain, this is already a great victory.”
“Yes, a great victory!”
“Skar only lost a weak clone; it’s not a big loss. The real loss is the three Six Star Fiends. But today, we killed twelve Six Star Fiends, and especially the Seven Star Fiends.”
“Killing Seven Star Fiends—two of them! And you, Captain, didn’t die. Our losses aren’t that great.”
“I traded one divine clone for a Seven Star Fiend’s strongest clone. Worth it.”
Hearing his team members’ words, Linley’s mood calmed slightly. In terms of family battle records, losing three Six Star Fiends while killing so many of the enemy’s experts, especially two Seven Star Fiends…
It was indeed a great victory.
“In our battles with the eight great clans, the casualty ratio is usually close to one-to-one. A victory like this is rare.” Melina also said.
“Let’s go back.” Linley took a deep breath.
This was his first time experiencing such brutal family warfare, and he felt its cruelty. He noticed the other team members: “Three of our teammates lost their strongest divine clones, and they didn’t seem to care. Clearly, they’ve been through this many times.”
Linley recalled the red names on the stone pillars in the living quarters of the Thirteenth Squad.
Those names represented fallen team members.
“The Four Divine Beasts clan and the eight great clans… this is nothing but a war of attrition. We lose many, but they lose many too.” Linley sighed inwardly as he and the other seven team members rose into the air.
“Captain, your ambush was really effective. You killed a Seven Star Fiend right from the start.”
“An ambush? That only works once. From now on, the enemy won’t give us such a good opportunity.” Linley understood. Both Mosley and the Seven Star Fiend he had killed at the beginning probably had divine clones back in their lairs.
After his ambush, the enemy clan would surely know about it.
From today onward, the enemy teams would definitely be more cautious of Highgods and wouldn’t be so careless.
In a distant mountain forest, a group of bandits watched Linley and the others fly away, stunned into silence for a long time.
“Chief, what was that black serpent just now? It was terrifying.”
“That was an innate divine ability of a divine beast. I’ve seen one before. But compared to that… that black serpent was a million times more terrifying. Just the aura it gave off made it hard for me to breathe.”
The battle they had just witnessed had deeply shaken these Highgod bandits.
“And we actually dared to rob a super expert.” The bandits were all filled with lingering fear. After seeing that battle, they knew that killing them would be nothing more than a blink of an eye for Linley.
They would probably never forget this day.
Nor would they forget that they had once tried to rob a super expert.
Linley led his seven team members quietly toward the Celestial Sacrifice Mountain Range. They were very cautious along the way, afraid of being discovered by the eight great clans. After flying for a long time, Linley and his group of eight finally arrived at the Celestial Sacrifice Mountain Range.
They flew directly above the mountain range.
“Why are there so many people?” Linley was surprised to see a large crowd above the Bloodbath Valley. At the head were the Clan Leader, the Grand Elder, and others. At this moment, the Clan Leader, Galeson, even had a faint smile on his face.