Martial World

Chapter 1553 – Refine the Soul

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These girls that had been tortured by Torchriver over so many years had already anticipated that they would die here. They had lost themselves to despair long ago and there was nothing left that could stir anything in their hearts.

But at this moment, they saw that cruel and god-like Torchriver fall onto the floor in a completely inhuman mess, on the verge of death. Then, a faint spark of hope ignited in their stunned eyes.

After being beneath the agonizing abuse of Torchriver for so many years, even if they saw him about to die, they still couldn’t believe it. They were afraid that this was all a dream.

At this time, Lin Ming floated down with his long spear in hand. Seeing Lin Ming descend like a god from heaven, the young girls were left in a daze.

“You’re free…”

Lin Ming flicked his fingers and several true essence arrows shot forth, cutting the chains that shackled these young girls. Even the energy seals within their bodies were lifted.

The moment that their shackles were cut, because many of the girls were weak and their muscles had atrophied, they fell onto the floor. The pain from this fall finally made them believe that this scene in front of them was real and not a dream!

As they felt the rough ground, they also felt the freedom that they hadn’t had for such a long time. Their bodies shivered.

It wasn’t known who started crying out first, but the girls couldn’t help but weep one after another.

They didn’t know who this young man was, but in their hearts, this young man was their god and their savior. Even if they had to take care of him for their entire lives they were willing to do so. Even if this youth wanted them all to die here they would still comply without blinking. This was because when they were imprisoned by Torchriver, they didn’t even have the ability to commit suicide. They had lived a life worse than death!

Looking at these young girls, Lin Ming sighed in pity for them, lamenting their fates. Many of them had a decent talent for cultivating martial arts, but their lives were mostly destroyed.

Lin Ming flicked his fingers again and dozens of pills flew into the hands of these young girls. Lin Ming had given them miracle pills to make up for their lost blood vitality and to wash their marrow.

These young girls were abused by Torchriver and their blood vitality had been mostly sucked dry. Each of them had a pale white face and their yin energy was lacking. If they wanted to continue cultivating martial arts in this sort of condition, it would be impossibly difficult to do so.

Normally, the lower cultivation a martial artist was, the worse their bloodline was, the easier it was to make up for lost blood vitality. The higher one’s cultivation was, the greater one’s bloodline, and the more one’s talent defied the heavens, then the more difficult it would be to make up for lost blood vitality.

But as for martial artists with low cultivation, although it was relatively easy to make up for lost blood vitality, they were simply far too weak to find the necessary blood tonics and pills to do so. Thus, for a martial artist at a low cultivation to make up for lost blood vitality was extremely difficult. For these young girls, it was simply impossible.

However, this was a simple task for Lin Ming. To him, these pills weren’t precious at all, but to these starry-eyed girls, these were unrivalled miracle medicines!

Most of these young girls were common mortals. Even if they were to walk down the road of martial arts, they would only be able to reach the Pulse Condensation, Houtian, or Xiantian realms. To them a Heaven Opening Pill would be a priceless treasure, much less these miracle pills that Lin Ming handed out.

“Take these. These are all pills with moderate properties. Even though your bodies are weak, there won't be any side effects.”

Lin Ming gently said. As these girls held the miracle pills in their hands, their fingers began to shiver.

Although they didn’t know what grade these pills were, they could approximate their value from the rich medicinal fragrance wafting off them.

Because of this, there were some girls that held the pills tightly in their hands, not willing to swallow them.

Lin Ming sighed again as he saw this. This was the life of low level, mortal martial artists. To a high level martial artist, things that they casually tossed to the side of the road were incomparably precious treasures to these low level martial artists.

Lin Ming waved his hand once more and shot out some more pills. This time, the pills were thrust right into these girls’ mouths.

“Rest well. You all may leave whenever you wish, or you may also stay here. Three days from now, I will bring you to the nearest mortal city. I suggest that you wait, because the nearest mortal city is 10,000 miles away. Here is something to tide you over for the next few days.”

Lin Ming tossed out a bottle of fasting pills. This was the limit to which he could help these young girls. Their future days and the paths they chose to take would rely on themselves. After thinking some more, he said, “You all possess talent to cultivate the martial arts. In the future, if you can walk far down that road, then perhaps the bitter and painful experiences of your youths might not be a bad thing.”

As Lin Ming finished speaking he no longer delayed. He picked up the nearly dead Torchriver and flew away.

Left behind, the many young girls watched Lin Ming’s fading back, their eyes lost in thought. The fragrance of the medicinal pills was still in their mouths, and the warm medicinal efficacy nourished their bodies, soothing their pain. In their lives, this was probably the happiest moment they had experienced…

Sometimes, setbacks and frustrations weren’t bad. These experiences could allow a person to mature at the fastest speed possible. If a person grew up without experiencing any problems, then it was hard to temper their personality and will. Xiao Moxian was similar; only in the nine years within Tragic Death Valley had she matured in mind.

Lin Ming brought the near-dead Torchriver and went to the deepest depths of Star Lake. Here, he summoned Primordius Heavenly Palace and entered it along with Xiao Moxian.

“Lin Ming, what do you plan on doing?”

Xiao Moxian was confused. Why would Lin Ming spend so much money to purchase information on divine runic masters from Heaven’s Secret. Moreover, he had especially chosen evil and sinful divine runic masters. Could it be that he wanted to save the common people and eliminate future scourges? However, no matter what was said, they had indeed performed a good deed today.

“You’ll know in a bit. This is the first time I’ve tried this so I don’t know whether or not it will succeed.”

Lin Ming took a deep breath. He stretched out his right hand and then a cloud of darkness began to condense over his palm. In another several breaths of time, within this halo of black light, a dark gray cube slowly appeared, exuding a deep and mystical aura.

This was the Magic Cube.

After Lin Ming took out the Magic Cube, the dying and despairing Torchriver suddenly twitched like he had been bitten by a snake. His body immediately stiffened.

He stared at the Magic Cube with wide eyes that were filled with utter panic.

“This… what is this!?”

His voice shivered and fear discolored his face. Torchriver was a spiritas. Within their bodies, the soul was the most important and integral part of them. Thus, he was extremely sensitive to this divine soul artifact, the Magic Cube!

The saints refined their bodies, humans refined their energy, and the spiritas refined their souls. In a sense, the Magic Cube was the greatest and most precious treasure to the entire soul race, but at the same time, it was their supreme nemesis! This was because the Magic Cube was able to directly pull out a person’s soul from their body and swallow it!

Now that Torchriver was in front of the Magic Cube, he was in that exact situation. He felt a terrifying force latch onto his body, faintly trying to pull out his soul!

This strength left one drowning in helplessness, filled with fear!

Torchriver had originally been on the verge of collapse. His life was at its end, and with his cultivation being crippled by Lin Ming, there was nothing in his heart but anguish. But now that he faced the Magic Cube, another emotion overcame all else. This feeling was fear. In front of the Magic Cube, he felt as if he was being thrust into the deepest pit of hell, forever unable to reincarnate!

Torchriver struggled to retreat, leaving a trail of blood on the ground. For a spiritas to see the Magic Cube was like a mouse seeing a cat, a frog seeing a snake; this was an instinctual, inborn suppression!

However, he had been locked onto by a strength and was left unable to struggle at all. He could only watch helplessly as the Magic Cube came closer and closer. This feeling was truly bloodcurdling!

“You… what are you trying to do!?”

“I am going to refine your soul.” Lin Ming smiled. But at this moment, his smile was extremely fierce. “This is a divine tool that can refine souls. Its name is the Divine Crystal Magic Cube. You might have heard of it before or you might not have, but none of that matters, because you will soon feel its strength.”

“You… what do you want to know, I will tell you anything you want, do not swallow my soul!”

Torchriver was paler than white, his voice trembling the entire time.

“I’m sorry. The things I want to know are not things you can tell me.”

Lin Ming fiendishly grinned. Then, he poured his origin energy into the Magic Cube. The Magic Cube began to spin, sucking up all of the nearby divine soul energy!

With the Magic Cube as the center, a black vortex appeared, seeming as if it could swallow the world!

“Ahhhhhh!”

Torchriver issued a heart-piercing scream. His body was twisted apart in this vortex and crushed to pieces. A deep blue divine soul was forcefully torn out from his ruined body before being sucked into the Magic Cube!

“No - !”

Torchriver’s last cry seemed to stretch to infinity within this vortex, completed distorted.

After that came pain, a pain that couldn’t be described.

A terrifying energy struck his soul form!

And forcefully tore away his spirit mark!

The souls of the spiritas were strong to begin with and their spirit marks were extremely deep. For their spirit mark to be torn out, the pain was excruciating beyond compare.

Torchriver felt as if time had slowed down to a crawl. Each breath of time seemed to last as long as a year. This endless and inexhaustible pain made him want to die but he simply didn’t possess the ability to kill himself.

Torchriver cried out again and again. Lin Ming was able to extinguish his soul from the start, but he didn’t do so. Instead, he slowly grinded away Torchriver’s spirit mark. Towards this scumbag divine runic master who had caused so much suffering, only this sort of fate could slightly make up for all his sins.

A person’s soul was composed of  pure memories and their spirit mark. This was a person’s ‘characteristic of life’. If they lost either half then the person would lose all sense of self.

A person’s spirit mark was like endless tiny filaments that thoroughly penetrated into every nook and cranny of a person’s soul. Wanting to completely erase them without damaging the memories was impossible. But, the Magic Cube could actually do this. It had the ability to pull out these tiny, imperceptible threads.

And as this ability was reflected on Torchriver’s body, it was more painful than being slowly flayed alive!

Lin Ming slowly and carefully removed Torchriver’s spirit mark from his memories. This was also because Lin Ming had never used the Magic Cube in this manner before. It was his first time using the Magic Cube to produce memory fragments on his own initiative.

In order to maintain the full body of Torchriver’s memories, Lin Ming used a full day and night to complete this laborious work. And as he was nearing the end, Torchriver’s soul had already dimmed down to nothing but an ember. His consciousness had been slowly tortured and destroyed by Lin Ming.