"Stop!"

Xi Zheng's eyes widened abruptly, as a blood-colored giant wearing a Flat Heavenly Crown and a bright yellow robe appeared behind him.

The giant was as large as a mountain, exuding an air of supremacy and unmatched nobility, as if the Heavenly Emperor had descended to the mortal realm, looking down on all creatures. To him, humans seemed as insignificant as ants.

Yuan Ming's will was momentarily captivated by the blood-colored giant, but his resolve was strong, and he soon broke free.

However, at that moment, the blood-colored giant suddenly turned its head toward him.

Yuan Ming's vision was immediately flooded with a vast expanse of hallucinatory smoke, and then everything blurred, and he found himself in a grand and spacious hall of the Golden Throne.

He was shackled, his hands and feet weighed down by heavy fetters, kneeling there.

A golden figure sat deep in the hall, appearing to be the blood-colored giant he had just seen, whose awe-inspiring gaze came his way, eliciting a profound reverence from the depths of his heart.

Yuan Ming involuntarily felt a sense of submission, merely wanting to kneel before the golden figure, to serve him, even if it meant dying in battle.

"Such a powerful illusion technique, capable of not only disturbing the senses but also affecting the mind!" He closed his eyes and focused, forcibly regaining his senses.

He was not surprised to be dragged into an illusion.

His main soul was sealed, and all he could use was the little soul power within his Nascent Soul. Facing the illusion attack of a Soul Cultivator, he was utterly defenseless.

However, Yuan Ming had prepared for this, quickly activating the Ju Mang Spirit Technique.

The Undying Tree in his Dantian exuded strands of black fog, enveloping the Nascent Soul within.

This Undying Tree Black Fog possessed the effect of devouring divine senses. When Yuan Ming had once used the Nightmare Divine Power as a Half-step Witch on the Three Immortals Island, it was instantly thwarted by it. His lifebound spirit plant was still far inferior to the Undying Tree Demon of the Three Immortals Island, but it was more than sufficient to break Xi Zheng's illusion.

Sure enough, Yuan Ming's vision quickly blurred, and he was freed from the illusion.

At that moment, Xi Zheng's palm shone with a white light, enveloping Ximen Rui's head, seemingly treating his divine soul. The formidable blood-colored giant had already vanished.

Seeing how quickly Yuan Ming had escaped his illusion, Xi Zheng was immediately shocked.

The illusion just now was no ordinary technique, but a great divine power he had created by combining Body Cultivation and Soul Cultivation; its power was astonishing, and it should have been impossible for even a cultivator of the same level to escape so quickly.

Xi Zheng was about to cast again, but Yuan Ming had already made the first move.

In the space of the White Lotus Platform, the main soul flew over for the third time and was severely injured by white flames.

The backlash of the Shared Life Divine Power took effect, and Ximen Rui's divine soul was severely damaged again. He didn't even scream, his body trembled, his eyes turned dull, and his breath rapidly faded.

"Young Master Ximen!" Xi Zheng exclaimed in shock, hastily channeling soul power to attempt to revive him.

However, Ximen Rui's divine soul had already collapsed; although Xi Zheng's secret technique could heal injuries to the divine soul, it could not save a collapsing divine soul.

Xi Zheng soon stopped his efforts, stood up, and turned toward Yuan Ming, a thick murderous intent emerging in his eyes.

With Ximen Rui perishing before him, not only was the marriage alliance between the Xi Family and the Ximen Family hopeless, but he had also unnecessarily offended the Nine Yin Venerable, making his already somewhat precarious position within the Wuyue Sect even more dangerous.

For the moment, the only solution was to simply take down the killer and hand him over to the Nine Yin Venerable, which might slightly appease the latter's anger.

Xi Zheng reached out with one hand toward Yuan Ming, a black shadow rushing straight at him, only to suddenly disappear silently into thin air halfway.

Seeing this, Yuan Ming's expression shifted slightly. Underneath him, Lei Yu's surroundings exploded with dense lightning, and both the man and the bird vanished into thin air, later reappearing several meters away.

Almost at the same moment, his original standing spot sprang a gray ghost claw, naturally grabbing at nothing.

Xi Zheng also charged at Yuan Ming like a shadow, slightly moving his hands, as a vast expanse of gray claw shadows spontaneously appeared, moving to encase Yuan Ming as if to shred him into countless pieces.

Lei Yu hurriedly used Thunder Escape again to dodge the intensive attack of claw shadows.

Yet at that moment, the gray claw shadows suddenly burst in midair, countless wisps of gray mist sweeping outwards, instantly covering a few miles around, and when Lei Yu reappeared, he was still within the range of the gray mist.

The gray concealed a phosphorescent gleam, and divine sense, upon contact, disintegrated, unable to unfold further.

"Let's break out!" Yuan Ming's body lit up with a layer of azure light, keeping the gray mist outside, he said to Lei Yu.

Before he finished speaking, a black silhouette flew out from the nearby gray mist, headed straight for him.

The silhouette appeared human-shaped, draped in a black robe, headless and faceless, with limbs skinny as skeletons, its identity unknown, yet its speed was incredibly fast, arriving within ten meters of Yuan Ming in the blink of an eye.

Despite his surprise, Yuan Ming remained unflustered. With a grasp into the void, five streams of Soul Destroying Sword Energy burst forth, blocking the black shadow's path.

Lei Yu also opened his mouth to emit a thick silver thunderbolt, striking toward the shadow.

The black shadow did not dodge, continuing to charge forward, allowing the Soul Destroying Sword Energy and the silver thunderbolt to strike it, piercing through creating several large holes.

It seemed to feel no pain; the Soul Destroying Sword Energy and the silver thunderbolt did not inflict much damage, as it continued to charge, its speed unabated, instantly coming within three meters of Yuan Ming.

The black cloth over the shadow's face split open, revealing what seemed like a ferocious, gaping maw.

A bizarre suction enveloped Yuan Ming, causing him immediate discomfort, readily draining away his positive emotions and leaving behind only gloom, negativity, and despair.

Yuan Ming's heart chilled as he wanted to resist, but waves of negative emotions surged toward him, and his will to resist seemed to sink into a quagmire, sinking deeper with each attempt, and his arms froze mid-air.

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The shadow continued to suckle, quickly draining Yuan Ming of all his positive emotions.

Yuan Ming's gaze turned into a pool of dead water, the Protective Spiritual Light around his body suddenly dissipated, and he let his arms hang down, seemingly resigning himself to his fate.

Beneath him, Lei Yu did the same, its massive body becoming rigid and falling downwards.

A black shadow closely followed, closing in on Yuan Ming's face with a gaping maw, continuing to exert its absorbing force.

Yuan Ming's Divine Soul trembled incessantly, and even his negative emotions were rapidly sucked away.

His lifeless eyes quickly became vacant, resembling a wooden puppet.

"This shadow can extract the Power of Seven Emotions? This is bad! If the Power of Seven Emotions is completely drained, the Divine Soul in the Nascent Soul might be in danger of collapsing!" Inside the Stealing Heaven Tripod, Yuan Ming's main soul wore a grave expression.

The Power of Seven Emotions is an essential component of a normal Divine Soul. If depleted, a Cultivator's Divine Soul might not collapse and die, but they would become an ignorant, unaware puppet.

But his main soul was sealed inside the Stealing Heaven Tripod and could not influence the outside, making him extremely anxious.

At that moment, an unexpected scene occurred!

The branches of the Undying Tree within Yuan Ming's Dantian suddenly started to sway, affected by the shadow's capability to devour the Seven Emotions.

The branches of the Undying Tree released a surge of Black Mist, protecting itself.

Yuan Ming's Nascent Soul was also in the Dantian, enveloped in the same Black Mist.

The Black Mist of the Undying Tree had the ability to isolate Divine Sense, and since the shadow's ability to devour the Seven Emotions was also a Divine Soul-class Divine Ability, it was largely blocked.

Yuan Ming's vacant eyes regained a bit of clarity, and he immediately activated the Ju Mang Spirit Technique, urging the Undying Tree inside his Dantian.

A dense Black Mist poured out, wrapping around the Nascent Soul layer by layer, and even spreading outward, completely isolating the shadow's devouring Divine Ability.

Yuan Ming's consciousness fully recovered, and his eyes revealed an exceedingly cold murderous intent.

"How is this possible!" Xi Zheng, witnessing this scene, showed a look of shock and immediately lunged forward.

Just then, a shadow-like Sword Qi burst out from within the Black Mist—it was the Soul Destroying Sword—heading straight for the shadow.

The shadow shrank its body and moved sideways to dodge.

The Soul Destroying Sword suddenly emitted a loud sword cry, lighting up nine runes, and its speed abruptly more than doubled, easily intercepting the shadow and chopping down directly onto its head.

With a light "schlick," the shadow was split in two, and then transformed into specks of black spiritual light that dissipated.

The shadow was slain, and Lei Yu also regained consciousness, hurriedly flapping its wings to stabilize its form.

From the time the shadow attacked to the moment it was killed, although the process was quite convoluted, it only lasted a few breaths.

Seeing this, Xi Zheng halted his advance.

The shadow that had attacked Yuan Ming was actually his Divine Soul Transformation, possessing the peculiar ability to devour an enemy's Seven Emotions; once it got close, even highly Cultivated individuals had no choice but to await their demise, and it had never failed over the many years.

The shadow attacking Yuan Ming appeared to be singular, but was actually a union of over a dozen Divine Soul Transformations, and yet it was shattered in a single encounter!

Who exactly was this Yuan Ming?

The Black Mist parted, and Yuan Ming slowly flew out.

"Worthy of being Venerable Xian Kong from the Wuyue Sect, your methods are remarkable; I am impressed!" Yuan Ming said.

"Exactly who are you?" Xi Zheng asked gravely.

"It's not necessary for you to know, my lord. Having witnessed the methods of Venerable Xian Kong, it would be impolite not to return the favor. Venerable Xian Kong, receive my strike!" Yuan Ming clasped his hands in a spell gesture, and a hundred-zhang-long gigantic Sword Qi appeared on the Soul Destroying Sword, emitting a piercing scream that seemed to pierce the skies.

Under the cover of the staggering Sword Qi, three major runes—Curse, Annihilation, and Blood Frenzy—were quietly activated.

Three strands of invisible force surged out, silently enveloping Xi Zheng.

Xi Zheng raised an eyebrow, twitched his wrist, and around his body, four streaks of silver light emerged, forming a silver door.

He stepped into it, his figure disappearing into thin air and reappearing tens of meters away, evading the assault of the runes Curse, Annihilation, and Blood Frenzy.

Xi Zheng's hands moved rapidly like spinning wheels, forming all kinds of spells. A dazzling blue light materialized in front of him and exploded violently.

A dense barrage of blue Ice Cones shot out, emitting a piercing screech, enveloping Yuan Ming and a large area around him.

The blue Ice Cones contained astonishing cold, causing the temperature within tens of miles to plummet abruptly, and snow started falling from a clear sky.

Yuan Ming furrowed his brow, knowing that Xi Zheng, also a high-level Soul Cultivator practicing the same Moonlight Technique, was already challenging enough, and could moreover detect the attacks of the Curse, Annihilation, and Blood Frenzy runes. He could no longer hold back in this battle.

With a wave of his sleeve, a yellow mountain peak several tens of meters high appeared before him.

The mountain emitted a bright yellow light, faintly displaying Spiritual Patterns, appearing to be a Magic Treasure, although many parts of the yellow mountain were quite rough, seemingly only halfway through its refinement process.

The blue Ice Cones struck the mountain and shattered into pieces, leaving many shallow pits on the mountain, but it seemed otherwise undamaged.

Yuan Ming nodded slightly; this yellow mountain Magic Treasure was none other than the Houtu Mountain Stone he had obtained from the secret realm of the Three Immortals Island, which he had begun to refine into a Magic Treasure on his way to the Southern Border, unfortunately only managing to complete half due to time constraints.

Although incomplete, the immense Houtu Mountain Stone contained immeasurably deep Earth Spirit Power, its power surpassing ordinary forged Spiritual Treasures, especially in terms of defense which was extremely formidable. None of Yuan Ming's many Magic Treasures could break through it.