A Will Eternal

Bai Xiaochun almost couldn’t control his breathing as he reached out and made a grasping gesture, causing the soulhoarding pagoda to fly out of the soul cultivator’s hand and fly toward him.

As soon as he had it in hand, he sent some divine sense inside, and detected a strong spatial power that was uniquely designed to nourish souls!

Now that his speculations were confirmed, his eyes began to shine with bright light.

“So, I was right! Soulhoarding pagodas really are like bags of holding! Except, they’re specifically designed to hold vengeful souls. If you put souls into a bag of holding, they slowly degenerate and eventually just fade away. But if you put them in a soulhoarding pagoda, they’ll stay in perfect condition forever!

“Furthermore, the reason I couldn’t conjure eleven-colored flame wasn’t a lack of proficiency with the technique, nor any problems that cropped up during the process. The reason... was because the souls I was using to try to make the eleven-colored flame had already begun to degenerate!!

“Although they had only degenerated a small bit because they were in a bag of holding, a little bit of degeneration with such a large group of souls would eventually build up into a major instability!

“The instability would only get more intense until eventually... it leads to detonation!!

“So basically, if I keep the vengeful souls inside of a soulhoarding pagoda, then when it comes time to conjure flame, I shouldn’t have any problem at all. I should definitely be able to conjure eleven-colored flame!!” Having reached this point in his train of thought, Bai Xiaochun was more excited than ever, and couldn’t wait to test out his theory.

When Zhou Yixing and the two soul cultivators saw how excited Bai Xiaochun was, none of them were really sure what was going on. Zhou Yixing was a bit taken aback, but the two soul cultivators were starting to get excited, convinced that this grandmaster necromancer was going to help them.

Deciding that it was best to strike while the iron was hot, they exchanged a glance, then clasped hands and bowed deeply.

“Grandmaster,” one of them said, “there are plenty of vengeful souls in that soulhoarding pagoda. As for the extra beyond what it will take to concoct the soul medicine in question, please keep them as our means of apologizing for everything that happened before.” 

Ignoring Zhou Yixing and the two soul cultivators, Bai Xiaochun continued to examine the soulhoarding pagoda with his divine sense, and then began to count how many souls were inside.

From the number, he could tell that the Blackmountain Tribe was both anxious about the matter they had brought to his attention, and also sincere in their offer.

Feeling very pleased, he nodded and said, “Alright, I’ll help you concoct the--” 

Before he could finish speaking, though, he suddenly looked up into the sky.

Soon, a beam of light became visible, streaking through the air at incredible speed as it headed directly toward the Blackmountain Tribe.

Even before it arrived, the aura of the great circle of Core Formation erupted from inside, causing the beam of light to shine radiantly in the evening sky.

Everyone in the Blackmountain Tribe was shaken, and countless savages gasped. As for the two soul cultivators standing near Bai Xiaochun, their faces fell as they looked up.

Zhou Yixing was clearly shocked, and his pupils constricted as he realized that whoever this newcomer was, he had a profound cultivation base that was on par with his own.

Everyone watched as the beam of light reached a position above the Blackmountain Tribe, and then faded away to reveal a middle-aged man with long black hair that flowed over his shoulders. He had average features, but his murderous aura was especially strong. Furthermore, he was surrounded by a black mist, within which could occasionally be seen twisted faces that were apparently vengeful souls.

The fluctuations emanating off of the man were not the soul power fluctuations of a soul cultivator. No, this man... was a necromancer!!

Everything and everyone in the area was shaken by this lofty figure who gazed out of the corner of his eye at what was happening down below. After looking at Zhou Yixing, his gaze fell onto Bai Xiaochun for a moment, and then he noticed the soulhoarding pagoda. At that point, a cold gleam appeared in his eyes, and he looked over at the two soul cultivators.

“Are you the leaders of the Blackmountain Tribe?” he said coldly. “Step forward and offer greetings!” From his tone of voice, he seemed like the ultimate ruler of this area, as if his mere presence was good fortune for the Blackmountain Tribe.

Almost immediately, the two soul cultivators stepped forward nervously and then clasped hands and bowed deeply in formal greeting.

“Greetings, exalted necromancer,” they both echoed.

“I, Li Feng, am here to solve the problem of your Blackmountain Tribe’s five hundred portions of low-grade soul medicine. So hand over that soulhoarding pagoda!” Li Feng was clearly not making a request, and expected his words to be obeyed immediately. If not, he would raze the entire area to the ground.

Actually, the entire reason he had come here was because he had been passing through the area and had heard the news that the Blackmountain Tribe was offering a soulhoarding pagoda in exchange for a large batch of low-grade soul medicine.

The prospect of getting a soulhoarding pagoda was very enticing to Li Feng. After all, soulhoarding pagodas were relatively commonplace among necromancer clans, but Li Feng was a rogue cultivator. To him, paying the price of five hundred portions of low-grade soul medicine to get a soulhoarding pagoda would definitely be well worth it.

As soon as he'd heard the news, he'd hurried over to the tribe’s headquarters. Unfortunately, as soon as he saw that the soulhoarding pagoda was in Bai Xiaochun’s hands, he realized that he had probably arrived a bit too late....

And yet, it was too important of an opportunity for him to just give up. And besides, he was still confident that he could get the soulhoarding pagoda for himself, regardless of whether or not he had come late.

Bai Xiaochun simply stood there, blinking a few times but withholding any comment.

The two Blackmountain Tribe soul cultivators were a bit stunned. Before Bai Xiaochun had shown up, they would have been ecstatic at Li Feng’s arrival. But now that there were two necromancers to deal with, they weren’t sure what to do. Obviously, they didn’t want to offend either one of them.

After a long moment of hesitation, one of them said, “Um... exalted one, this other grandmaster already agreed to help us. Er....”

In response, Li Feng’s gaze sharpened, becoming something like sword light that shot toward Bai Xiaochun.

“The affairs of this region have nothing to do with you,” he said. “Furthermore, I want that soulhoarding pagoda. Give it to me immediately.” His glare was terrifying to behold, and his words were spoken with the utmost arrogance. From the cold look in his eye, he would obviously fly into a complete rage if Bai Xiaochun didn’t do exactly as he said.

There was also a certain disdain in his coldness, a disdain birthed from supreme self-confidence.

Bai Xiaochun glared back up at Li Feng in irritation. As far as he was concerned, he had done the right thing by refraining from going around bullying people, and yet, here someone had come to try and bully him. That was especially true considering that the soulhoarding pagoda was at stake. That pagoda was very important to him, and was not something he would simply abandon.

“What are you looking at?!” Li Feng said, his eyes flickering icily.

“I’m looking at you!” Bai Xiaochun replied, popping his neck. “Got a problem with that?!” As he stared, he mused that, in his entire life, he had never been bested in a staring contest. Considering that, he actually made his gaze look even more fierce as he stared up at Li Feng.

The two soul cultivators from the Blackmountain Tribe looked at Li Feng and then Bai Xiaochun, and finally just sighed. By this point, they knew that they couldn’t do anything about the situation, and would just have to wait and see how things played out. Besides, as long as they got what they were looking for out of the deal, it didn't matter to them who won out in the end.

After a few breaths worth of time, Li Feng suddenly laughed out loud. However, it was an icy, disdainful laugh that seemed to say he didn’t want to lower himself to the level of speaking at length with Bai Xiaochun. With that, he extended his right hand, within which appeared... a ten-colored flame!!

Almost immediately, the ten-colored flame caused the fading evening light to grow even dimmer. The Blackmountain Tribe savages almost immediately began to cry out in surprise.

“Ten-colored flame!!”

“Heavens, he’s... he’s at the peak of the master necromancer rank!!” The savages all began to drop to their knees to kowtow.

The savages weren’t the only shocked ones. The two soul cultivator’s minds were reeling, and they immediately rushed forward to kowtow, feeling completely shaken.

“The peak of the master necromancer rank! Necromancers like that are very rare. With only a bit of progress, he’ll reach the terrestrial rank!!”

“A necromancer like that agreeing to concoct soul medicine for us is good fortune for our tribe!!”

“I can’t believe that this Li Feng is at the peak of the master necromancer rank!! Wonderful, wonderful! Looks like we have a chance to survive after all!” 

Off to the side, Zhou Yixing was feeling very excited at the chance to gloat at Bai Xiaochun’s misfortune. If Li Feng could crush this Necromancer Bai in battle, then Zhou Yixing would finally be free of his current situation. “Come on,” he thought, “start fighting. Take him out!”

Li Feng was very pleased at the crowd’s reaction. The truth was that he had only recently succeeded in conjuring ten-colored flame, so the feeling of being virtually worshipped for showing it in public was quite new to him. Looking down at Bai Xiaochun with a cold sneer, he said, “Screw off!”