Having had his fill of attacking Hui, Chen Wuya settled down on the spiderweb beside him. The taut webbing thrummed with his weight, and he bounced a few times, black wings fluttering as he adjusted his grip.

“Senior… that’s attached to my core. It actually hurts quite a bit,” Hui protested weakly.

“Oh,” Chen Wuya said, his voice flat.

Hui sighed, resigned to his fate. I shouldn’t have brought up Senior at all. Who’d know I’d invite calamity simply by mentioning his name? Is this the so-called “speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao shall appear?”

“Do you want me to tear you open again?” Chen Wuya asked, tipping his head to regard Hui with a black, beady eye.

“No, Senior! Please forgive me,” Hui replied.

A fading sensation fell over Hui, along with an onslaught of memories. He frowned, furrowing his brows, and finally took a deep breath. He failed. Wildman… is dead.

Strung up in the spider’s web, Hui had hung, limp and motionless, until Chen Wuya’s arrival. Although he had been in the web for some time, the spider neglected to attempt to eat him and entirely left him alone after the first few days. Probably because I smell like a plant. It knows I’m not good to eat.

Though… it should still be able to absorb my spiritual energy. This spider-beast is… well, almost completely a beast. Nothing like Zhubi. Does it completely lack intelligence, even to the point that it doesn’t recognize me as a spiritual being it can absorb?

“Mmm. Not all beasts are like your Zhubi. In fact, the spiritual beasts who aren’t raised by cultivators often fail to gain intelligence or become more than mere beasts. Taking on a human form is the mark of a well-raised beast, or an extremely lucky or heaven-defying wild beast who’s reached extraordinarily high cultivation.” Chen Wuya paused and looked at the spider in the distance, disdain flickering in his black eyes. “Especially for a beast like this one. Bloating itself on the demonic qi of its master’s rotting body… there’s almost no hope for it to gain intelligence or a human form.”

“Thank you for your guidance, Senior,” Hui replied.

“How little did your master teach you? This kind of thing is common knowledge,” Chen Wuya retorted, casting a side-eyed glance at Hui.

Hui coughed awkwardly.

Chen Wuya shook his head and continued. “It’s different for demons, of course. But they’re a special case.”

“What are demons, then? I thought they were… well, a kind of subtype of spiritual beast,” Hui confessed. It varies from novel to novel, but… sometimes, the words are used interchangeably, for evil beasts, and sometimes, they’re entirely different species. Given Bao Huli being the first demon I saw, and one already at fifth stage, I simply thought she was a subtype of beast.

“Since your master’s teaching was so deficient, allow this Grandmaster to explain. You aren’t incorrect. Demons are a subtype of demonic beast or spiritual beast, a subtype that has excellent prospects for cultivation and a high chance of awakening a human form. They’re born from high-realm spiritual or demonic beasts’ bloodlines… in a word, they’re similar to blue-blood cultivators who are born into sects with great prospects or a cultivation level from birth,” Chen Wuya explained. “Fox demons are an example, born from an ancient ninth-realm fox demonic beast who had a great many children, to the point that the majority of fox demonic beasts nowadays are in fact fox demons, and even mortals know of ‘fox demons’ and tell tales of their trickery.”

“Then… is Zhubi a demon?” Hui asked.

“No. Don’t you know what he is, by now?” Chen Wuya asked.

Hui hesitated. He glanced at Chen Wuya, then shook his head, saying nothing. If my guess is correct, it might be better not to say it aloud.

Light shone in Chen Wuya’s eyes. “You’re at least bright enough to hold your tongue.”

Hui cleared his throat and quickly changed the subject before Chen Wuya could continue to insult him. “Senior, this small cultivator recently stumbled upon a soul array that reminded this small cultivator of your illustrious self. Could Senior please illuminate this small cultivator on the finer points of this array?”

“Hmph. Let’s see it.”

Hui waved his hand and summoned the bottle containing the array. He held it out to Chen Wuya. Chen Wuya fluttered closer, all but knocking his head on the bottle. Examining it from every angle, he reminded Hui of a raven investigating a bit of trash on the side of the road, and he couldn’t help but smile.

Chen Wuya turned to Hui. “You…”

“Forgive me, Senior!” Hui immediately cried, throwing up his arms.

Chen Wuya harrumphed, turning to adjust his back feathers. “Never mind, never mind. Where did you find this? It’s a very familiar working. A bit rough, but not unlike my earlier spells.”

“It was embedded in the dantian of a female cultivator who was being used to… call back some kind of soul from the afterlife,” Hui explained.

Chen Wuya clicked his tongue. “Greedy, greedy. Once a soul belongs to the Yellow Springs, there’s no use calling it back. All you’ll gain is the wrath of the Underworld.”

“Then…” Hui asked, voice trailing off.

“I say that, but actually, it’s quite possible to do so—at least before the soul has entered the cycle of reincarnation. There’s plenty of revival techniques available to cultivators with enough resources and the will to walk the demonic path to the end. Once you reach immortality, in fact, summoning a soul back from the brink of the Yellow Springs will be child’s play.”

“Really?” Hui asked, eyes sparkling. Revival techniques? Could I play dead in even more extreme ways in the future? Truly dying, then fully reviving myself before I cross over the Yellow Springs…

Chen Wuya hopped into the air and rapped Hui’s forehead with a fisted claw. “Were you listening? Do you have resources to reach the heavens? Do you have the will to bleed entire sects dry to bring yourself back? It is simple, and yet not so. Don’t foolishly rely on revival techniques, even with your twisted path. Every time you revive, you’ll lose some amount of your cultivation, and if you revive enough, your Dao may become entirely cut off. Is that what you want?”

“Eh… no,” Hui admitted. He paused. “But… this man only attached this array to a banquet’s worth of people, and he didn’t seem to be wasting an immense amount of resources, either.” True, he was pissed when I stopped him, but… compared to what Senior Chen Wuya is describing, the banquet seemed quite the paltry expenditure.

“Were you listening? Even this crow heard! He’s wanted for the slaughter of entire sects. He’s already sullied his karma and gathered an immense amount of blood qi. Just because you didn’t see the slaughter, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!” Chen Wuya snapped, raking at Hui’s face with his claws. “Besides, he’s a Wandering Immortal… but I felt his aura. I’m willing to bet that he was not originally so. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had sacrificed his path to immortality in order to bring back this person.”

“Cutting off his own immortality?” Hui murmured, horrified. What a price to pay! I’m not sure I could put my immortality on the line for anything.

“It only shows how desperate he is to raise this person,” Chen Wuya continued.

Hui awkwardly raised his hand to his chin, thinking it over. I didn’t sense him putting any blood qi into the array. Could it be… it hadn’t passed the critical point at which he had to step in himself, yet? Then that means Han Qin is still fully charged, ready to attempt to summon… whoever back again. The only thing holding him back is finding a vessel, and I’m completely unclear on what that means. He threatened to put it in me, so clearly I qualify, but what counts as a qualifying vessel?

“If it is a person,” Chen Wuya muttered.

“Eh? What does Senior mean?” Hui asked.

Chen Wuya laughed and took to the air. Ragged wings beat the sky, and he vanished, rapidly dwindling to a black dot.

Hey! Come back! Hui thought. He sighed. “Right when we were getting to the good part… Wait, hold up! I never asked him for clues on how to adapt the soul array to transfer the sect’s souls back into their bodies!”

Frustrated with himself, Hui shook his head. He looked at the smaller soul array, then took a deep breath. First couldn’t make a breakthrough with this array. He couldn’t sufficiently comprehend it. But… he didn’t dare to plant it inside himself. Naturally. He carries the sect’s souls in our ghost banner—ahem, soul flag, and he’s studying the original array. He can’t afford to make mistakes.

On the other hand, aren’t I in a unique situation here? Han Qin can’t lock this area down. He can only visit in his clone form. His powers are severely limited, for whatever reason.

If I want to study the array closer, why don’t I implant it in myself? As long as this clone remains here, he can’t use the array to summon back whoever, and I can always remove the array before I leave.

Hui hesitated another moment, then grit his teeth. There’s no gain without loss! Argh, I’ve already lost two clones, but… but if this is the key to unlock the sect’s survival, I can’t overlook it! He extracted the array from the bottle, and in the space of a breath, branded it onto himself.

Immense pain lashed over his body, surging from the array inside him. Hui held his breath and curled his hands into fists. Ow, ow, ow—come on, focus. Study it!

As the array bonded to him, he closely watched the process. The array first synced with his soul, the two pulsing in kind, then circulated around. The outer marks twisted back and forth, almost like a combination lock, then snapped into place. The array settled in, feeding off his soul to maintain itself, and slowly faded away.

Sync… and that lock sequence. If I can do that with all the souls inside the ghost banner, then… isn’t that half the problem, solved? Once they’re all locked onto, I’ll be able to handle them all at once. Then it’s just a matter of matching them back to their bodies and reviving them.

Hmm, let me study this and the rot qi a bit longer. He cast a longing look at the spider beast in the distance, and a thought came to him.

For practice, what if I set an identical array on the spider beast’s soul? It wouldn’t be a true beast contract, nor would it allow me to control it at will, but if I pulled it off, it could serve as a basis for extracting my sects’ souls… and for gaining control of the spider beast!

Excited, Hui’s eyes sparkled. He delved into his soul again, carefully studying the array. This time, he began casting his own versions next to the existing soul array, adjusting the two as he did so. Once I can perfectly cast this array… spider beast, watch out!