Questioning Heaven, Desiring the Way - Chapter 137

“Very clever!” Gu Suihan patted the Huangquan Evil Ghost’s head. “Now, go arrange everything according to what that fellow wants.”

“I didn’t even agree to this…” the ghost protested. But once it met Gu Suihan’s icy stare, it instantly gave up trying.

The ghost turned to look at the nervous warring puppets, then grinned nastily as it activated the powers that the designer had left it.

ROARR! The warring puppets let out a loud roar as they came pouncing toward the Huangquan Evil Ghost. They weren’t going to just stand there and wait to get killed.

“All of you were supposed to be my food in the first place, so why bother fighting back?” yelled the ghost. It used all the strength it had to turn its soul into invisible cones that silently flew into the soul fire inside the heads of the warring puppets. It gouged the soul fire of the puppets out even as they howled indignantly before swallowing them whole. Its spiritual sense filled the hall like a storm and its body expanded again. It soon a monster standing at around 10 meters.

“Go!” The ghost used its spiritual sense to take back all the secret keys from the others, then used its claws to fling all of them into the well.

Pfft! Xi Ran spewed a huge mouthful of blood and stumbled backward as he attempted to dodge the ghost’s sudden attack.

Unfortunately, he was drained of too much energy and he couldn’t fight those claws. He could only curse and swear as the ghost flung him into the well.

“What do we do now?” The ghost looked at Gu Suihan with an excited look in its eyes. This was its only hope of regaining freedom, so it didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize that.

“That fellow must have put some heavy protections around the place where his physical body and his spirit are sleeping. If you want the plan to work, we have to damage his body or hide it, so that it becomes too hard for him to put the two together and come back to life.” Gu Suihan snorted as he put his sword back in its sheath and hopped into the well.

“If I take this chance to activate the formation and trap this young fellow…” The Huangquan Evil Ghost’s sinister eyes kept flickering as he thought about whether it ought to kill Gu Suihan as well, but it quickly shook its head again and rejected this tempting idea. This was the only chance of regaining freedom he had seen in centuries. To give up this chance for the sake of getting back was something that only an idiot would do.

Gu Suihan landed lightly and saw that Wan Xin and the rest were trapped in a square cage, which made his eyes flicker ruthlessly. He then turned to look at the giant crystal coffin in the middle.

“That’s where his physical body is?” murmured Gu Suihan, seemingly unbothered by the fact that he was also in a cage now.

“Why aren’t you coming out?” asked the ghost in shock when it saw what had happened to Gu Suihan.

“Put the secret keys in place and activate the formation,” commanded Gu Suihan in a low voice as he licked his dry lips. “If I succeed this time, you will be able to regain your freedom. But even if I fail, it’s no loss to you.”

It was clear that Gu Suihan had realized that remaining outside the well would make it impossible to go anywhere near the physical body, given that it was protected by a formation. He had no choice but to change his plans.

“Good luck, I guess.” The ghost gave Gu Suihan a conflicted look, then leaped back out to put the secret keys in the slots around the opening.

Woong! A brilliant light suddenly illuminated the opening and runes swam about like tiny tadpoles as they slowly closed the opening to the well. A symbol lay over the opening and sealed everything within.

“Has it started?” murmured Gu Suihan to himself as he looked at the physical body in front of him that was still pinkish and healthy looking despite being dead for so long. A layer of powder that resembled ice slowly peeled off the coffin which was clearly governed by a different set of rules, revealing a dizzying mass of runes.

The sound of a mechanism whirring slowly filled the air. Gu Suihan kept his eye on the coffin in front of him that kept changing. His body suddenly made a cracking sound as he turned into a ten-centimeter gnome in an instant, thereby dodging the sharp spikes that had jabbed themselves into the cage from all directions.

“Ahh!” Xi Ran and the rest regained consciousness from the pain and tried to escape the cage, but it was made from a material that simply would not break. They tried to dodge the spikes coming toward them, but it was no use.

Li Xiaoyao’s four limbs were skewered by the spikes and he was suspended in mid-air. He noticed that the rest were in the same situation and called out to them, “What on Earth is going on?”

“I don’t know. But it looks like…we’re being sacrificed?” Wan Xin’s white dress was already dyed a bloody red even as more blood dripped continuously from her body, hitting the bottom of the cage and disappearing.

“This fellow is trying to revive himself?!” said Zhang Yan in disbelief as a thought struck him, making him widen his eyes.

“What material is this? Why doesn’t it budge?” Li Xiaoyao was dismayed as he looked at the spikes that had pierced his body and did not dare to move at all. The pain was so severe, he could feel it in his bones. At the same time, he could clearly feel that any sword qi he unleashed or spells he cast would be absorbed silently by this cage.

A long spike entered the cage where Gu Suihan’s shrunken body was and stabbed into his body.

“You’re too late!” Gu Suihan’s expression didn’t even flinch, as if he didn’t feel any pain at all. His lips curled into a sinister smile.

“The dantian shall be like a womb with child, the spirit shall solidify,” he muttered quietly as he completed the set of hand seals. All of a sudden, a tremendous aura that seemed able to weigh the world down burst from his body, causing the others who were howling in pain to look at him. They stared at Gu Suihan as though he was some monster.

The origin core that glowed inside his subconscious seemed to sense something calling to it from below, so it fell into his chest where the weak and tiny little nascent soul inside his chest opened his little mouth to swallow the spirit. His heavily damaged heart-soul within his dantian instantly absorbed all the qi inside the body, trembling as it slowly rose to sit just beneath the nascent soul.

“Peak Divine Soul!” Gu Suihan slowly opened his eyes again. He filled the whole area with his spiritual sense, breaking through the subconscious of the others and forcibly swallowing their souls.

“Noooo!” A shrill voice suddenly shrieked. Gu Suihan turned to see where that voice had come from, only to see that it was Shuang’er. Her body was curled up in one corner of the cage and a thin layer of someone else’s spiritual sense had surrounded her and prevented the spikes from coming close to her.

“You’re the descendant of a Divine Soul cultivator? Too bad you’ve only kept part of your soul inside her, so you’re only as powerful as someone at Peak Origin Core.” Gu Suihan’s spiritual sense leaped toward Shuang’er like an ocean wave.

Bam! The sword qi that the spiritual sense protecting Shuang’er possessed shook and flickered as if it was having trouble holding up. The sound of something shattering could be heard next, as the shield around the girl broke like glass.

“How dare you!” A powerful sword will shot out from Shuang’er’s subconscious, deflecting Gu Suihan’s spiritual sense and gathering to form the faint illusion of a middle-aged man.

He glared angrily at Gu Suihan and did not hide his intention to kill the younger man. Even though he was just an illusion created by his spiritual sense, he was like a giant sword, since the sword will he possessed was enough to stir up a storm.

Xi Ran and the rest were now bodies with no souls, so the cage closed in on them and crushed their bodies, causing their blood to flow down. At the same time, the runes on the coffin suddenly glowed brightly and the bloody smell in the well actually started giving off a pleasant smell.

The blood from the bodies eventually covered the transparent crystal coffin with a layer of red, creating a very strange atmosphere within the well.

“What is this?” The illusion of a Divine Soul cultivator that had come out from Shuang’er frowned as he looked around with a puzzled look on his face.

“You can’t tell?” Gu Suihan threw him a glance before gathering his spiritual sense again, turning them into invisible sabers that hacked the cage grilles.

The cage that Li Xiaoyao and the rest could not break no matter how hard they tried was sliced into pieces by Gu Suihan as if it were merely made from tofu.

This cage was made from the already extinct qi-consuming magic steel. It could consume qi of any sort and the more it consumed, the tougher it became. But it was no use to those cultivators who had solidified their cores and spiritual sense like Gu Suihan.

“Wait, he’s refining souls in order to reincarnate?” The middle-aged man paled and the illusion of his body kept flickering.

“His physical body…has come back to life!” Gu Suihan looked at the peaceful shell of a body in the coffin. He could sense that almost unnoticeable sound of a heart beating within.