Spirit Realm Chapter 512-513

Chapter 512: Great Danger

Qin Lie quietly sat atop an icy rock. His face was pale as he refined blood for himself using the Demon Sealing Tombstone’s blood energy.

As he did this, the rest of his group were accumulating spirit energy from spirit stones to maintain their shields of light.

When Qin Lie opened his eyes a considerable amount of time later, he inadvertently smiled when he saw that everyone was looking at him.

It recently felt as if he had fallen into a never-ending nightmare. Every time he replenished his soul energy and blood to a certain point, the Soul Suppressing Orb would generate a powerful sucking force.

A large majority of the soul energy and blood that Qin Lie worked so hard to replenish would then be drained from him.

However, the Soul Suppressing Orb would avoid some of the soul energy and blood in his body, refraining from causing his body any real harm.

As for the soul energy and blood that the Soul Suppressing Orb did take, they would be drained and absorbed behind the sealed door within the orb.

Each time he replenished more of his soul energy and blood, the Soul Suppressing Orb would just extract it. The cycle kept repeating.

This brought a sudden halt to Qin Lie’s cultivation, keeping him stuck at his current realm and preventing him from making any more breakthroughs in his various spirits arts.

All of his time and effort were spent on replenishing his soul energy and blood. He couldn’t afford to care about anything else.

The Soul Suppressing Orb’s drain on his soul energy and blood also led to a large decrease in his combat potential, cutting it down to half of what it would be.

His companions fared a bit better.

As Qin Lie’s group headed deeper into the Forbidden Land of Ice, the air grew colder and colder, forcing their pace to get progressively slower. Only after spending a lot of time replenishing their spirit energy with spirit stones did they dare to continue onward.

More than half a month passed by, and their group of seven slowly approached the center of the Forbidden Land of Ice.

As of this moment, they were quietly sitting among frozen trees and recovering their energy. Translucent, icy peaks could be seen in the distance, pure white snow accenting their frigid outlines. Arctic winds weaved through these mountain-tops with shrill, earsplitting howls.

“The Land of Buried Gods should be the coldest place in the Forbidden Land of Ice. That is the only place in which the remains of the deceased would never rot. In addition to that, the dispersal of the energy in their bodies would decrease to an extremely slow speed.

Xue Moyan slowly got to her feet and looked into the distance. A serious expression surfaced on her face.

“Black Voodoo Cult, Celestial Artifact Sect, Ten Thousand Beast Mountain, and the eastern barbarians…” She sighed softly. “There really are quite a few people coveting the remains of those elites. Even if we did find the Land of Buried Gods, we wouldn’t necessarily be able to obtain anything like we did in the Forbidden Land of Thunder.”

She looked at Qin Lie, a hint of worry in her eyes.

Everyone could see that Qin Lie wasn’t doing so well. If it weren’t for the constant loss of soul energy and blood, Qin Lie’s combat strength still could’ve been considered extraordinary even outside of the Forbidden Land of Thunder.

But now…

“How many soul crystals do you have left?” Song Tingyu asked gently.

“About thirty or so.” Qin Lie frowned.

For the past half a month, Qin Lie needed to continuously consume soul crystals to replenish his soul energy. Back in the Forbidden Land of Thunder, since he had taken the priceless Pure Soul Springs, he allowed the others to take the soul crystals.

They had ended up sharing them to a certain extent..

Now, however, since he required soul crystals to replenish his soul energy, Song Tingyu, Xie Jingxuan, and Xue Moyan would give him soul crystals every so often.

Because of an urgent need for soul crystals at the moment, he naturally didn’t turn them down. As a result, he had been using up their soul crystals for quite some time now.

The number of soul crystals that each of the three girls had was swiftly decreasing..

“I’ll give you another fifty.”

Song Tingyu took numerous translucent soul crystals out of her spatial ring and gave them to him.

“I also have a lot of soul crystals. If you don’t have enough, I can give you some more.” Pan Qianqian raised her voice.

“These will be enough for now.” Qin Lie smiled and accepted the soul crystals that Song Tingyu gave to him. His eyes, however, were far from relaxed.

—He had no idea when this torture would end.

Every time Qin Lie replenished his soul energy and blood, recovering a little bit, the Soul Suppressing Orb would trigger its draining effect and steal everything he had worked so hard to accumulate.

This cycle of absorption felt like a hole in which he was freefalling and couldn’t see the bottom of..

It weighed down on his heart, causing it to sink lower and lower..

“I wonder how Chu Li is doing,” Du Xiangyang suddenly said.

“He’ll be fine,” Luo Chen interjected. “Considering how strong he is and the fact that he no longer has He Wei and those other Terminator Sect fools holding him back, no one will be able to take him down without a fight.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll definitely run into him here in the Forbidden Land of Ice,” Song Tingyu said.

Qin Lie nodded and stood up. “Let’s get going. We need to continue searching for the Land of Buried Gods.”

The group continued on their journey once more.

Another five uneventful days passed by until, suddenly, Pan Qianqian shrieked in surprise.

“There’s a body here! Someone froze to death!”

Lying amidst the numerous icy trees was a young man. He was garbed in eastern barbarian clothing, and his white skin bore many exquisite tattoos. His body was encased in ice, having first been frozen and then covered in snow.

“At first I thought he was an icy rock. It was only after I pushed the snow out of the way that I realized there was an eastern barbarian inside of it,” Pan Qianqian explained.

Everyone in the group gathered around the corpse of the white eastern barbarian and swept the all of the snow aside, carefully inspecting it.

“I don’t see any wounds or traces of combat. Nobody killed him,” Du Xiangyang said firmly.

“Judging from his appearance, this person probably froze to death. He was most likely in the early stage of the Netherpassage Realm. Perhaps he rushed here without replenishing his spirit energy and was overwhelmed by the frigid air. His nerves would have then gone numb, leading to him being frozen alive.”

After she took a moment to examine the man, Song Tingyu paused. A serious expression appeared on her beautiful face.

“I believe we should take this as a warning. We need to make sure we have as much spirit energy as possible at all times. Otherwise, if we encounter unforeseen circumstances and expend too much, the frigid air may overwhelm us! We might suffer the same fate as him!”

“Mn. We need to be more careful,” Du Xiangyang said, his expression becoming more serious as well.

“Black barbarian… scarlet barbarian… white barbarian…” Xue Moyan muttered a few words to herself, her brow deeply furrowed. Then, as a realization occurred to her, she spoke up, her voice filled with worry. “The eastern barbarians may prove to be even more of a problem than we originally thought.”

All eyes immediately turned to her.

“The barbarians we encountered in the Forbidden Land of Thunder, Sen Ye and his men, all had dark skin. All of them were black barbarians of the Black Barbarian Tribe,” Xue Moyan explained grimly. “I initially thought that they made up all of the eastern barbarians in the Graveyard of Gods. However, this white barbarian we’ve stumbled across means that the black barbarians weren’t the only eastern barbarians to enter the Graveyard of Gods. There are probably white barbarians and scarlet barbarians here as well. The number of eastern barbarians in the Graveyard of the Gods might exceed our expectations… by an obscene amount. Similar to how each of our nine great Silver rank forces sent people here, each of the eastern barbarians tribes may have sent their own.”

“Compared to us, the eastern barbarians are definitely more united. They also despise us to their very cores. This Trial… may actually prove to be rather difficult.” Du Xiangyang started to feel a headache coming on.

The appearance of a white barbarian made them realize that Sen Ye and his men were just a portion of the eastern barbarians in the Graveyard of Gods.

“Let me think…” Du Xiangyang said. “Those scarlet, white, and black barbarians most likely entered the Graveyard of Gods through an opening in their territory. The must’ve come through on the opposite end, meaning they probably showed up in the Forbidden Lands of Metal, Earth, and Water. All of us were at one end of the seven great forbidden lands while they were on the other end, and now everyone is headed toward the Forbidden Land of Ice at the center.”

Du Xiangyang paused for a moment, sucking in a deep breath, then spoke in a grim tone, “If I’m correct, the fact that Sen Ye and his men were in the Forbidden Land of Thunder means that the eastern barbarians have already passed through the Forbidden Lands of Metal, Water, and Earth!”

“You mean to say that… we’ll probably encounter all three eastern barbarian tribes here in the Forbidden Land of Ice?” Qin Lie frowned.

“I am one hundred percent certain that we’ll meet them in the Land of Buried Gods!” Du Xiangyang explained softly. Then he said, “That is, of course, if we manage to find the Land of Buried Gods.”

“Even if we do encounter them, it doesn’t seem like the best idea to enter the Land of Buried Gods with our current strength… does it?” Pan Qianqian asked timidly.

As soon as she said this, everyone went quiet.

When they realized that there were probably a few hundred eastern barbarians in the Graveyard of Gods, a heavy weight suddenly pressed down on their chests. It was almost a struggle for them to breathe.

The eastern barbarians clearly understood more about the Graveyard of Gods than they did.

The white and scarlet barbarians could already be on their way to the Land of Buried Gods. In fact, they might have already reached it! Sen Ye and his black barbarians were probably headed there as well.

Qin Lie’s group could be counted on two hands, and they would have to face several hundred members of the three great eastern barbarian tribes, all of which were in the same realms as them. Even if they did know where the Land of Buried Gods was, would they really want to go inside?

“If we enter the Land of Buried Gods, won’t we just lose the soul crystals we acquired from the Forbidden Land of Thunder? The eastern barbarians could even shoot us to death!” Pan Qianqian cried.

No one said anything in response, and the group fell silent.

……

Chapter 513: Weak

Qin Lie’s group headed deeper into the Forbidden Land of Ice.

As they ventured further into the snowy landscape, they discovered the corpses of eastern barbarians who had frozen to death. From what they could identify, most of the chilled bodies were scarlet barbarians and white barbarians, and none had any obvious wounds or other signs of combat.

—All of them appeared to have died due to lack of strength or caution, having hurried on their journey without fully recovering their spirit energies.

The numerous corpses they discovered were like a layer of shadow on everyone’s minds. The pitiful fates of these barbarians weighed down on them, making them feel lethargic and morose.

“Pssh!” A foot plunged into the snow.

Every time someone took a step, they would be knee deep in the thick layer of icy snow on the ground. This rough terrain made the group move slower and slower.

At this moment, Qin Lie’s group stood at the foot of a snow-covered mountain.

They had decided on climbing up to the peak of this mountain and survey the land. They wanted to see if they could figure out the approximate direction that the Land of Buried Gods would be in.

The seven of them were already deep inside of the Forbidden Land of Ice.

Here, the freezing cold went bone-deep, and massive chunks of snow flew through the air. Bitter, frigid winds would even batter them from time to time.

Whenever wind swept across the land, the crisp sound of something cracking would resonate from an unknown place. It was the terrifying sound of something being frozen.

“Some of the scarlet barbarians and white barbarians we came across froze to death because they didn’t have enough spirit energy to protect themselves from the cold,” Qin Lie said. “The others… they were swept away by the freezing winds.”

Qin Lie sucked in a deep breath and stared off into the distance, eyes glittering. “The bitter, freezing winds of the Forbidden Land of Ice are several times more terrifying than those of the land underneath the Arctic Mountain Range. I can also feel how frightening this extreme cold is. Forget those scarlet barbarians and white barbarians with weak realms… even we may not necessarily be able to endure for long!”

Qin Lie’s words shocked the entire group, making everyone become more cautious.

During this period of time, Qin Lie’s group become acutely aware of the terrifying wind sweeping throughout the Forbidden Land of Ice in the form of strange frigid airflows.

These cold winds seemed to come out of nowhere, threatening to sweep across all eight of them with bone-chilling cold.

However, thanks to how amazingly perceptive Qin Lie was, he could predict which direction the cold winds would blow in advance. He would then tell them how to avoid the winds and let them know when to rush out of each gust of wind’s path.

Even though they were able to avoid the winds and remain unaffected, everyone was still greatly alarmed.

“Ugh…”

Just as he was about to speak, a soft groan escaped from Qin Lie’s lips. He sat on the ground, face twisted in pain.

Waves of blood energy and soul energies emanated from Qin Lie’s body.

Everyone exchanged glances and inwardly sighed. They understood what was happening.

—The Soul Suppressing Orb was absorbing Qin Lie’s soul energy and blood again.

Fifteen minutes later, Qin Lie got up sluggishly. His face was a pale white, and his eyes were a dim gray. Sweat poured from him as if he were suffering from a dire illness.

“Let’s go,” he said. “We need to get to the peak of the mountain as soon as possible.”

“Qin Lie, shouldn’t we… take a break? Why don’t we wait for you to recover before climbing any farther?” Du Xiangyang asked sincerely.

Qin Lie shook his head and said, “It’s fine. This location is exposed. Those extremely cold winds will constantly sweep through, so we definitely can’t afford to stay here. Besides, you guys just replenished your spirit energy. We should hurry while you’re able to. Otherwise, once you’ve expended your spirit energy, we’ll have to stop and rest again anyway.”

“But you…” Song Tingyu frowned.

“I’m fine. At least I don’t need to expend spirit energy to resist this cold. Also… if I replenished my soul energy and blood, they’d only get drained again.” Qin Lie smiled helplessly.

“Alright.” Du Xiangyang nodded.

“Then let’s walk shoulder by shoulder,” Song Tingyu said softly, walking up to him and holding him by his shoulders. “You just had your blood absorbed and are at your weakest. Don’t force yourself…”

Qin Lie smiled. “Okay.”

The sight of Qin Lie and Song Tingyu being intimate no longer surprised the rest of the group.

Two hours later, Qin Lie’s group reached the peak of the snow-covered mountain and looked into the distance.

Through the swirling wind and snow, they could see enormous, interconnected glaciers of ice and the peaks of snowy mountains. The white, silver land around them seemed to stretch on endlessly.

Here, even Qin Lie’s soul perception was greatly impaired. He couldn’t scan the area for life signatures.

In light of this, the group could only rely on their eyes to search for the tiniest of movements, confirm that there weren’t any living creatures nearby, and figure out which direction the Land of Buried Gods might be in.

“Over there! There’s a shadow over there!”

On another icy, snow-covered mountain, Su Yan stood behind a gigantic boulder of ice, carefully observing her surroundings from her hiding spot. She immediately spotted Qin Lie on a snowy peak in the distance.

Behind Su Yan were several man-made caves. Celestial Artifact Sect’s Feng Yiyou, Ten Thousand Beast Mountain’s Yu Men, Black Voodoo Cult’s Huang Zhuli and Ye Yihao… everyone was there.

All of them were gripping spirit stones, absorbing spirit energy from them to recover their strength.

“Have the eastern barbarians caught up to us again?” Ye Yihao asked grimly.

Sen Ye and his black barbarians had caught up to them not longer after they had entered the Forbidden Land of Ice. He and his eastern barbarians attacked them repeatedly as they ventured deep into this freezing land.

When they finally made it to the peak of this mountain, the three forces thought they had thrown the black barbarians off their trail. Instead of black barbarians, however, they encountered white barbarians and scarlet barbarians and were forced to fight even more.

Up to this point, they lost many subordinates.

After a long pursuit riddled with numerous battles, most of the martial practitioners of Black Voodoo Cult, the three great families, Celestial Artifact Sect, and Ten Thousand Beast Mountain, had either been killed or frozen. The number of those who remained had become dangerously low.

At this moment, these people were like birds that could be startled by just the soft twang of a bow. Even when they recovered their spirit energy, they had to leave one person on guard duty to prevent the eastern barbarians from ambushing them again.

As a result, they always chose to rest high up on a mountain, providing a better position with which they could observe their surroundings.

“It isn’t the eastern barbarians,” Su Yan said, peering into the distance from her hiding spot. “I-It looks like Qin Lie’s group!”

“Qin Lie!”

“Qin Lie!”

Shock appeared on everyone’s faces.

“Qin Lie and those other people definitely reaped a good harvest back in the thunder lagoon!” Feng Yiyou said, gnashing his teeth hatefully.

“The Pure Soul Springs!” Yu Men’s eyes were ablaze with fervent desire.

“Back in the Forbidden Land of Thunder, Qin Lie’s thunder spirit art allowed his combat power to increase to the maximum. It was like a god went out of its way to help him, and we weren’t able to do anything because of that.” Huang Zhuli’s beautiful face was grim. “However, this is the Forbidden Land of Ice. He definitely won’t be a match for us here!”

Every martial practitioner present in these caves had been harassed by the eastern barbarians until they were dizzy and lightheaded, yet when someone mentioned the Pure Soul Springs, they acted as though their minds had been thoroughly refreshed.

“Let’s go get them!”

With their opinions united, the surviving martial practitioners of the three forces left their caves, figured out which direction Qin Lie’s group was in, and secretly made their way toward them.

Meanwhile, at the mountain peak where Qin Lie’s group was, everyone carefully observed their surroundings. Their gazes swept across the myriad mountain peaks in the distance, but no one saw anything out of the ordinary.

—They didn’t notice Su Yan hiding behind a boulder of ice.

“All of us have used up quite a bit of spirit energy, so let’s quickly go and recover,” Song Tingyu reminded the others.

Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

In order to recover, Qin Lie took out the Demon Sealing Tombstone so that he could absorb its aura of blood energy and replenish his blood supply.

However, the moment that the Demon Sealing Tombstone appeared, its surface suddenly shone with the seven rays of brilliant, divine light.

Qin Lie’s group immediately looked at the Demon Sealing Tombstone.

It floated into the air as it glowed, seemingly moving in a specific direction.

Qin Lie’s expression changed into one of understanding as he hastily jumped onto the Demon Sealing Tombstone and dragged it back to the icy ground in front of him.

“I think I know where the ice spirit is!” he exclaimed.

The eyes of the other lit up in surprise.

“Now I understand.” Qin Lie continued to restrain the Demon Sealing Tombstone and keep it from flying away as he explained, “Back in the Forbidden Land of Fire, the Demon Sealing Tombstone flew off on its own and led me to the fire spirit. That means it can sense the seven spirits…”

The others nodded in understanding.

“Here, in the Forbidden Land of Ice, the Demon Sealing Tombstone hasn’t reacted to anything despite the the fact that I’ve taken it out to recover the blood in my body.” Qin Lie thought to himself for a moment before continuing, “It probably couldn’t detect the ice spirit because it’s too far away. Such a function is like that of the tokens. The tokens can be used to sense other tokens and transmit messages within a hundred meter radius. In the same vein, the Demon Sealing Tombstone can only detect the seven spirits when they are nearby!”

“Does that mean that we’re currently close to the ice spirit?” Du Xiangyang asked, growing excited.

“That should be the case!” Qin Lie seemed to have regained his spirits as well. “If I let go of it right now, I believe that the Demon Sealing Tombstone will float away and lead us to the ice spirit!”

“Before you do that, we need to recover our strength!” Luo Chen exclaimed.

“Then let us quickly recover our spirit energy using the spirit stones!” Du Xiangyang agreed.

“Okay!”

Keeping a hand on the Demon Sealing Tombstone to prevent it from flying away, Qin Lie continued to absorb blood energy from it and use the Blood Spirit Art to recover his blood supply.

He extracted soul energy from a soul crystal in his other hand.

Since the Soul Suppressing Orb had begun to drain soul energy and blood at regular intervals, Qin Lie had learned from all the times he needed to replenish himself and gradually became able to multitask. Now he could absorb blood energy from the Demon Sealing Tombstone and extract soul energy from a soul crystal at the same time.

He would sometimes even have the leisure to examine the inside of the Soul Suppressing Orb with his soul consciousness.

As he replenished his energies this time, his soul consciousness entered the strange, borderless space inside of the Soul Suppressing Orb once more.

And he looked at the frost concept painting.

Just like a spirit diagram, several crisscrossing, icy threads and silver lines made up the frost concept painting. It faintly depicted a land covered in icy crystals that looked extremely cold. When Qin Lie examined it with his mind consciousness, he felt as if he were in a freezing land.

A wisp of his mind consciousness entered deep into the frost concept painting, intermingling with the thin icy threads and experiencing painting’s aura of frost.

Qin Lie sought use the frost concept painting to understand power of frost on a more profound level.

“S-So cold!”

“It suddenly became a lot colder!”

“It feels as if the Forbidden Land of Ice’s aura of frost secretly converged on us, causing the temperature to drop sharply.”

Luo Chen, Du Xiangyang, Xie Jingxuan, and the others shivered as they were recovering their spirit energy with spirit stones.

They were still inside of their shields of light.

All of them opened their eyes as they continued to replenish their spirit energy and observed their surroundings with a frown.

Wisps of white, frosty mist surged to their location from every direction and slowly floated toward Qin Lie. They shrouded him like thin, white clouds.

This caused the air around Qin Lie to suddenly become several times colder.

The intense chill that everyone felt obviously came from Qin Lie.

“This guy really is a freak,” Du Xiangyang yelled after a moment of disbelief. “I think all of us should stay away from him for now… just in case something bad happens.”

Luo Chen was the first one to walk away.

….