# Chapter 3492: Soul Devouring
Two flame-shaped strange glints flashed briefly in Chan Mingya's eyes, and a thought had already been silently transmitted beyond the heavens.
About one light-year away from the starry sky above the No Return Forest, a pitch-black rift appeared in space, and a wisp of three-colored corpse qi drifted out from the crack.
One light-year, tens of trillions of miles, immeasurably vast, but not too distant for the most top-tier existences in the Infinite Realm.
Feng Tian, who was sitting cross-legged on a leaf of the Blood Leaf Parasol Tree, sensed it instantly, and the veil on her face fluttered.
"Suppress Shentu!"
As aloof as an iceberg snow lotus, she transformed into a particle of light and vanished into space.
...
Heavenly Fate Department, Heavenly Watch Platform.
An old man with tree roots growing from his chin was counting the scriptures on the bookshelf. He suddenly frowned, moved to the mottled and yellowed window sill, and muttered to himself: "What a formidable Three Evil Emperor, is this a provocation?"
"Whoosh!"
The old man transformed into strands of light, rushed out of the window, and disappeared into the sky.
...
Zhang Ruochen had already reached the end of the Fate Stream. He only glanced toward the starry sky beyond before fixing his gaze forward.
Ahead was a cliff wall, and further up was the location of the main hall of the Destiny Temple.
One could imagine the spectacular and bizarre scene from back then, when the Fate Stream flowed backward like a reverse waterfall, flooding into the temple.
The cliff wall was dark red, densely covered with vein-like patterns on its surface, as vivid as flowing blood.
The originally tens-of-zhang-wide blood-colored Fate Stream had widened considerably here, forming a circular small lake about a thousand zhang in diameter. However, the lake water was not calm but flowed rapidly, forming a massive whirlpool.
A faint, elegant fragrance wafted, and footsteps came to a stop behind Zhang Ruochen.
Chan Mingya saw through Zhang Ruochen's thoughts and said, "This is the most sacred place of the Destiny Temple. You cannot sneak in."
Her voice was ethereal and gentle, capable of captivating souls. Even though Zhang Ruochen had absolute resistance to beautiful women, half a jin of his bones felt softened.
Zhang Ruochen directly flew into the air and landed toward the center of the whirlpool.
Chan Mingya's eyelids slightly contracted. Then, her entire body radiated the light of fate, rushing into the water to pursue him.
The water of the Fate Stream was comparable to sacred springs, possessing all sorts of miraculous effects.
Zhang Ruochen had initially thought that since the Fate Stream water was precious, it wouldn't be too deep here. But the deeper he dove, the more astonished he became. By depth calculation, he had already descended to a position lower than the foot of the Fate Divine Mountain.
With his eyesight, visibility was also getting lower and lower. The surroundings were cold, chilling him to the bone.
Zhang Ruochen saw Chan Mingya catching up. In the water, her colorful gauze was practically nonexistent. Her smooth, jade-white beautiful legs, her slender waist without an ounce of excess fat, and her firm, towering chest peaks made her look like a water spirit.
There was no deliberate seduction, yet the allure was irresistible.
"Didn't you say this is the most sacred place of the Destiny Temple?" Zhang Ruochen said.
Chan Mingya said, "I am the sacredness of the Destiny Temple."
They dove down for who knows how much deeper, and various crushing forces came from all directions. This force did not originate from the Fate Stream water but from the rules of heaven and earth, along with the aura of Fate Esoterica.
Still, they had not reached the bottom.
But Zhang Ruochen suddenly stopped.
Chan Mingya's skin emitted a faint jade-colored radiance, illuminating the darkness. She followed Zhang Ruochen's gaze.
Ahead, there was nothing.
Just as she was puzzled, Zhang Ruochen summoned his divine sword.
With a flick of his finger, the divine sword shot out with a "whoosh." Ten zhang away, dense black light marks manifested, blocking the divine sword.
"Someone has been here. Who set this up?" Chan Mingya said.
From Zhang Ruochen's fingertip, an endless stream of divine qi flew out, driving the divine sword. The sword tip released divine flames, gradually eroding the black light marks.
"Boom!"
The black light marks broke open a hole, and a cyan-colored light stream flew out from inside.
Zhang Ruochen reached out and grabbed it. When the light stabilized, a cyan-colored ruyi manifested.
It was about a foot long, shaped like a lingzhi mushroom or an auspicious cloud.
"Hiss!"
Divine flames emanated from Zhang Ruochen's palm, refining the power that Xionghai Shenzun had left in the ruyi, along with the rule divine patterns on its surface.
"He actually found it!" Chan Mingya murmured.
Before long, Zhang Ruochen had completely refined the power on the surface of the Auspicious Ruyi. He wanted to test whether this legendary divine artifact was truly that miraculous, but then he noticed something.
So, he separated a divine thought and entered the inner space of the ruyi.
The inner space of the Auspicious Ruyi was not large, only about ten thousand zhang square, which was quite small compared to other divine artifacts.
Inside, there was a five-legged, five-eared bronze cauldron.
Below the cauldron, seven divine sources were suspended, all burning.
Something was being refined inside the cauldron, and wisps of colorful dan qi were drifting out from within. Zhang Ruochen's divine thought, after being bathed in the dan qi for an instant, rapidly grew stronger.
Zhang Ruochen suddenly understood. Xionghai Shenzun had risked death to sneak back to the Fate Divine Mountain, perhaps not necessarily for the Auspicious Ruyi, but possibly for what was inside the ruyi.
The Auspicious Ruyi could not be kept; it would definitely have to be handed over to Feng Tian.
But this cauldron inside the ruyi had to be taken away secretly.
Zhang Ruochen glanced at Chan Mingya beside him. With such a pair of eyes watching, how could he steal the cauldron?
Chan Mingya's long hair floated in the water, her colorful gauze flowing with the current. Her curvaceous, graceful figure appeared exceptionally beautiful, her navel at her waist seductive and charming, every curve of her body seemed to be tempting Zhang Ruochen.
In an instant, she had drifted to less than a step away from Zhang Ruochen, her gaze falling on the Auspicious Ruyi. She said, "Has the Shenzun examined it? Did Xionghai Shenzun hide the wealth and cultivation resources of the Auspicious Divine Palace from back then in the inner space of the ruyi?"
Zhang Ruochen hesitated slightly, then nodded.
"How about we split it?" Chan Mingya said.
Zhang Ruochen laughed: "That wouldn't be good, would it? If Feng Tian finds out, the consequences would be severe."
"Feng Tian only cares about the Auspicious Ruyi! Besides, no matter what we do here, Feng Tian won't know."
As she spoke, her crystal-clear, rosy lips were already less than an inch away from Zhang Ruochen's lips. Their eyes met at extremely close range, and leaning forward just a little, they would kiss.
Zhang Ruochen still wore a smile, saying, "For cultivation resources, even a dignified Shenzun is so proactive?"
Chan Mingya's slender, fair jade arms slowly climbed up to Zhang Ruochen's neck, gently embracing him. Their noses touched, and she said in a low voice, "That depends on who it is. For a man like Ruochen Shenzun, even without cultivation resources, he has a fatal attraction for Mingya."
Zhang Ruochen felt the softness and elasticity coming from her chest, and also felt Chan Mingya's slender fingers caressing the back of his head. He said, "Although the heavenly secrets are heavily isolated here, as long as you make a move, the fluctuations will inevitably spread out. Besides, even in the current situation, it's still impossible for you to kill me. Don't bring trouble upon yourself."
Her red lips moved even closer to Zhang Ruochen's, and she said, "Legend has it that Ruochen is romantic and passionate. Why so boring today? Is Mingya not beautiful enough?"
The colorful gauze on Chan Mingya's body slipped off layer by layer, revealing her plump, full light-blue inner garment. Her twin peaks were like inverted jade bowls. Without even reaching out to touch, one could tell they possessed astonishing elasticity and smoothness.
And her slender hand also gradually slid down from Zhang Ruochen's ear, slowly untying from his collar, reaching inside, and continuing downward...
Zhang Ruochen kept staring into her eyes, feeling that smooth hand slide from his chest to his abdomen, and then continue downward.
"Whoosh!"
Suddenly, Chan Mingya's hand gently patted Zhang Ruochen's Xuan Tai position.
A talisman imprint detached from her palm, seeped into Zhang Ruochen's flesh and blood, and sealed his Xuan Tai.
Just as Zhang Ruochen was about to activate the power of his blood and physique, two flames appeared in Chan Mingya's pupils. In an instant, they rushed into his pupils and entered his body.
The two flames merged into one, flying and weaving inside Zhang Ruochen's body, devouring his divine soul.
A strange voice, indistinguishable as male or female, sounded from within the flames: "You are very cautious, but you have no idea who your opponent is. That determines your outcome!"
Zhang Ruochen gathered his divine soul thoughts and fled frantically within his body, saying, "Then who exactly are you?"
"Your calmness surprises me. You are worthy of the title of Young Ancestor. But this physical body is even more rare, and the First-Rank Divine Path is unprecedented. Let me go and prove the Ancestor Path for you!"
The flames chased even closer!
Whenever a divine soul thought was caught, it would be burned and refined by the flames.
But it would not harm Zhang Ruochen's physical body.
At this moment, Zhang Ruochen and Chan Mingya still maintained their embracing posture, motionless, floating in the water.
"You have possessed Chan Mingya? Which senior expert might you be?" Zhang Ruochen said.
The flames forced Zhang Ruochen's divine soul to a position near the Xuan Tai, leaving no retreat. It said, "Telling you won't hurt! This seat sensed you while still alive, knowing that you traveled from this era to the past, knowing that there is a figure like you in later generations."
"What formidable spiritual power!" Zhang Ruochen said.
Other experts could at most calculate good or bad fortune, but this person could transcend time and space to calculate Zhang Ruochen's origins.
"Haha! If this seat's strength were not formidable, how could I be an opponent to Yan Tingqiu?"
The flames directly pressed onto Zhang Ruochen's divine soul and began to burn and refine it.
"It's you. You are the ancient giant of the Destiny Temple?" Zhang Ruochen said.
Yan Tingqiu was the name of the Second Confucian Ancestor.
On Zhang Ruochen's journey from the River of Time to the past, the Gate of Destiny had appeared and was shattered by the Second Confucian Ancestor.
But Zhang Ruochen had specifically checked and found no powerful expert from the Destiny Temple in the era of the Second Confucian Ancestor. Now it seemed that this person had calculated Zhang Ruochen's origins back then and erased his own traces.
Zhang Ruochen said, "You were able to possess Chan Mingya and have full confidence to possess me. I suppose you are a special kind of life form?"
"You want to know so badly? Telling you won't hurt either. After all, after possessing you, we will be one."
The voice in the flames sounded, filled with pride: "This seat calls himself Xi Zhan. I know you have never heard this name, but you must have heard of the Soul Devouring Lamp, right?"
How could Zhang Ruochen not have heard of it?
He had known about it back in the Kunlun Realm.
It was because of the existence of the Soul Devouring Lamp that all the top-tier war weapon artifact spirits in the Kunlun Realm had hidden themselves in the Dao Soul Platform, afraid of being devoured.
It wasn't until the Dragon Lord woke up that the Soul Devouring Lamp was cleared away, and all the artifact spirits of the Supreme Sacred Artifacts and divine artifacts returned to their original bodies. Zhang Ruochen only learned about this later.
And when the Hell Realm enfeoffed the Heavens, Zhang Ruochen learned that the Soul Devouring Lamp in the Kunlun Realm was just a residual flame left by the Soul Devouring Lamp's main body. And the main body of the Soul Devouring Lamp, the word "Soul Devouring," was prominently listed among the Twenty Heavens.
As a divine artifact, it was ranked among the Heavens.
However, to Zhang Ruochen, the Soul Devouring Lamp was still very mysterious, and he had never seen it appear.
That wisp of flame said, "The previous generation artifact spirit of the Soul Devouring Lamp was this seat. I used my supreme spiritual power to break free from the constraints of the artifact, changed my fate, and sought to prove the Ancestor Path. Unfortunately, I ultimately lost to Yan Tingqiu."
"Actually, there are no regrets. As long as I possess you, there are still infinite possibilities in this life."