Aquamarine mist choked the earth and blotted out the sky. Thousands of bane-devils that had been calmly bathing in wretch energy were pulled into a tube and sucked into Yuan Zhen's core.
He was casually walking along, being spoon-fed both the wretch energy and spiritual energy of the bane-devils. His core was like an infinite space, capable of storing and consuming every last bane-devil.
Yuan Zhen only stopped when there were no more bane-devils in sight. All that remained were holes in the ground emitting green light.
Most of the holes in the area were shallow, but as he continued they got deeper and deeper.
Seeing that bane-devils were not gathering around those deeper holes, Yuan Zhen smiled and once more sent out the aquamarine mist. It diffused out of his eyes and into the shape of an oblong limb, moving swiftly.
As soon as the mist entered the pit, an enraged shout was echoed out of it. "You dare disturb me!?"
From the pit, dozens of faceless heads emerged, each of them linked by green silk threads. Those heads rose into the air, each of them facing Yuan Zhen's mist as if they had eyes to see.
"Oh? Origin Establishment?" Yuan Zhen was pleasantly surprised, not expecting to run into such a powerful enemy this early.
"Too late for regret. Perish!"
Differing voices rose from each of those faceless heads this time, creating a cacophonous choir.
Boundless soul power intermingled with spiritual energy, forming green eyes on each of the floating heads. Yuan Zhen could immediately tell that this was a soul attack.
He opened his hand, causing the mist to warp into a rectangular shape. It was like a large sheet of paper that stood between him and the oncoming soul attack.
"Soul-Constricting Devil Eye Enchantment!"
All of those eyes dimmed and brightened in a series of disorienting flashes, but Yuan Zhen remained unaffected. He could just barely see through the aquamarine mist, but didn't need to. He felt, in his soul, an incomparable weight that caused his breathing to quicken.
He put Qi Zixie down, catching his breath while glaring at the bane-devil through the mist. He still had to hear some of the brunt of that soul attack, but the mist had thoroughly blocked the enchantment.
"Still standing? Just what is this mist?"
Yuan Zhen didn't bother trying to gauge the limits of the soul art any further. He immediately took a deep breath and willed the mist into motion. It struck with unprecedented speed, latching onto a number of those heads.
The mist dissolved their very flesh and even fully eradicated the green threads that connected them.
"It cannot be! The Ghost-Devouring Soul Art? Impossible!"
Panic ensuing, the bane-devil summoned the full might of its spiritual energy, "Hell Spawn Clone!"
Explosions of spiritual energy shook the ground, following which seven similar bane-devils appeared, each of them constructed of floating heads.
"Attack him together!"
Unfortunately, before any attacks could be carried out, Yuan Zhen twisted his arm which, once again, caused the mist to take action.
It was locked onto the original still, and with a simple movement it burrowed into one of the heads and began sapping the bane-devil of its energy.
Yuan Zhen was immediately brought to a euphoric state by the feeling of almost endless energy filling his core. His soul would definitely need a while to properly absorb an Origin Establishment bane-devil.
As a result, the clones no longer had enough energy to be sustained and vanished as quickly as they had arrived.
The original bane-devil cried out in fear, shrieking loud enough to be heard throughout the heavens and the earth, "Brothers! Save me!"
With a desperate effort, it severed a fragment of its soul. Doing this would permanently damage its potential, but it did not care. All it wanted was to get away.
The mist eroded the piece of itself that it left behind, then the rest of its odd body flew away.
There were no bane-devils in the vicinity, otherwise they would have rushed to its aid. Of course, they were all sitting helplessly in Yuan Zhen's core being refined and consumed.
While the bane-devil was running away toward the depths of the inner region, Yuan Zhen had just finished devouring the last of the soul fragment it left behind.
"I believe I'm beginning to sense a taste... How odd."
He smirked, picked Qi Zixie up again then started walking just as slowly as before.
As he did so, he glanced down at her sleeping face. There was a frozen bead near her eye, seeming to be a frozen teardrop.
He carefully plucked it.
Using the magical material of his clothing, he fashioned a pocket and put the frozen teardrop into it.
"Rest up, Zixie. By the time you wake I'll have become the one and only Overlord of Bane-devil Grotto."
Soon enough, he began to meet up other bane-devils. Though they weren't nearly as powerful as the one he had encountered earlier, they still offered some resistance. He carefully tested the Ghost-Devouring Soul Art against them, getting a feel for some of its capabilities.
He came to realize that, the more he brought out and manipulated the mist, the easier it was to control. He could easier make it take certain shapes and perform certain actions.
His continually growing soul power helped this as well. The speed at which the mist moved steadily increased as he played around with it.
What for him was playful testing was, for the bane-devils, Armageddon. This was their doomsday. Their 'End of the World.' Everywhere they turned, they would see their kin being detained and sucked into the eyes of a stone-cold killer.
Yuan Zhen was quite pleased, even exposing his sharp fangs in a smile. As he was enjoying himself, and the feeling of an increasingly powerful soul, he heard deafening sonic booms in the distance.
Thunderous laughter filled the Grotto as two immense figures materialized before Yuan Zhen.
These were bane-devils and, by the feel of their auras, were at the peak of Origin Establishment. With them was a familiar and pitiful looking web of faceless heads.
It seemed the bane-devil had gone to warn the Kings of Yuan Zhen's arrival.
"You there, the beast kid. Got a death wish?"
Other than the bane-devil from earlier, two similar looking bane-devils had arrived.
They looked like hairless ape-men hybrids, each of them having a large scroll in hand. On one scroll was the word, 'seal' while the other one had the words 'spirit' and 'lock.'
Yuan Zhen remained cautious, but waited before bringing out the mist.
"Perhaps I do have a death wish. What? Are you here to grant my wish like a lowly servant?"
The bane-devils chuckled, but the faceless heads spoke up. "My lords, this beast easily devoured piece of my soul despite being in the Spirit Manifestation realm."
"I heard you the first time, so quiet."
The ape bane-devils both nodded toward each other and began to unfurl their scrolls. "Why have you come here?"
"Are you a friend of the beast that came here back then? Ji Xie, was it? Did he send you?"
Yuan Zhen's brows twitched. It was undeniable that Ji Xie had personally come to the Grotto to secure the gains. Yuan Zhen needed to information.
"I'm here to kill you all, so be a good monkey."
At the same time that Yuan Zhen said this, the two bane-devils' aura exploded outward. The green wretch energy around them all began to rush into their bodies. They, in turn, began to shine and glow a bright green color.
The scrolls in their hands were fully unravelled, the words written in them transforming into streams of runes.
"To dare refer to us Kings of the Grotto as mere monkeys!?"
"You will feel our wrath, you scum of Yuan Zhen's garbage race!"
With a sneer, Yuan Zhen waved his hand, spurring the mist on. The stream of green runes also performed an odd action.
Each rune landed on the body of one of the two Bane-devil Kings. At that time, powerful soul power erupted from their eyes.
"Seal of Soul-Locking! Release!"
Immediately, two raging flames emerged on their bodies. That was the moment that the mist reached them. The raging flames on their bodies were their Origin Souls, a staple of the Origin Establishment realm.
With their Origin Souls virtually perfectly formed, the soul power they could utilize was beyond imagining.
As fate would have it, however, soul power was what the Ghost-Devouring Soul Art dealt with most effectively.
Like a moth drawn to a flame, the very fires of their Origin Souls dimmed as their soul power went against them. In a mad scramble, their released souls tried frantically to escape them and be devoured by the aquamarine mist.
"What the fuck!?"
The Bane-devil Kings were beyond what the word 'shocked' could describe. They dropped their scrolls and channeled spiritual energy into their hands. Once they did that, they grabbed onto their Origin Souls and began a high stakes tug of war game.
It had to be known that, when cultivators filled their soul with pure energy of the world, in this case wretch energy, their souls would them become almost perfect. Origin Souls were inextricably linked to a cultivators life force, destiny and karma.
So, it went without saying that if you lost your Origin Soul you would lose countless years of cultivation.
It was even worse for bane-devils. These were beings who were nothing but souls to begin with. For such a being to develop an Origin Soul, they had to destroy their selves and reforge their bodies. This was the first step toward becoming physical beings that could contain a soul.
In this crucial time, if they lost their Origin Soul, they would instantly perish and become raw power to be consumed.
The aquamarine mist of the Ghost-Devouring Soul Art was relentless and quite obviously stronger. No matter how the Bane-devil Kings tried, they could not stop their Origin Souls from slipping.
As for the faceless head bane-devil, he had long entered the void of Yuan Zhen's core. If even the Kings were struggling against the suction force, them there was no way it would be able to resist.
"You! Just- Agh! Just who are you!? How do you have this fiendish technique!?!?" While pulling fiercely on his Origin Soul, one of the Kings shouted over to the relaxed Yuan Zhen.
"Fiendish technique? You mean the Ghost-Devouring Soul Art? I got it the last time I was here. I also shattered Crimsonwave's soul that day." Yuan Zhen put Qi Zixie down, silently preparing.
"Ghost-Devouring Soul Art... Ghost-Devouring Soul.. Why does that sound so familiar..."
The Kings thought about it for a while before one of them cried out, "Ghost-Devouring Soul Art!!"
Yuan Zhen frowned, "Yes. That's what I said."
"But how-- You couldn't-- There's no way!"
Suddenly, a sweltering heatwave struck them. In Yuan Zhen's hand was the dark violet flame, flickering weakly.
He waved his palm, sending it through the air. The Bane-devil Kings were still holding onto their Origin Souls, too afraid to let them go. To them, the choice of whether to defend themselves against the fire or hold onto their Origin Souls was an easy one.
They would hold onto their Origin Souls no matter what.
As such, the fire slowly floated toward them and landed on their bodies. As for the mist, the instant the flame began to burn them, it was able to suck in their Origin Souls.
"Not so fast."
Like the sadistic beast he was, Yuan Zhen spared a bit of his spiritual energy to keep the Bane-devil Kings alive. In doing so, he had them live just long enough to be tortured in the flame. Piece after piece of their bodies was burnt away into ash, but he would carefully insert his spiritual energy to prevent them from being completely engulfed.
"When you get to the Netherworld, tell King Crimsonwave that Yuan Zhen has returned."
Their suffering ended the second he stopped supplying them with spiritual energy.
Looking around at where he was, he smiled.
"Now I can really get to work."
Yuan Zhen carefully placed Qi Zixie in a more shallow pit, then he entered the deepest one he could find.
Once he was at the bottom, he placed his hand on the glowing green earth within the hole. Without a word, he took a breath and an aquamarine mist poured billowed of his eyes.
It permeated the green earth, connecting to a spiritual vein deep beneath the earth. Once the mist reached it, he could feel the steady flow of wretch energy. With a smile, he decided to test exactly where the Ghost-Devouring Soul Art drew the line.