Chapter 267: Evolution

The Yin Soul Woman’s touch was icy, her hands like cold iron plates, their chill penetrating even through Chen Luo’s clothing.

Water dripped from her hair, soaking through his robes like frigid pool water. The bone-chilling cold carried a faint, nauseating stench of poisonous insects.

“Why doesn’t Young Master speak?” Her voice echoed again, stirring the toxicity Chen Luo had suppressed using Wang Mingde’s brain. The dark curse had vanished, leaving only the potent venom.

Mixed spider venom, a combination of over seven different toxins.

Wang Mingde’s brain swiftly analyzed the invading poison and began devising an antidote. Since the two brains operated independently, Wang Mingren’s actions wouldn’t affect Chen Luo.

Spider venom? A spider Yin Soul?

Chen Luo focused his attention on the woman, a faint silver aura shimmering around him. He stood ready to summon the Silver Carapace Corpse King at the slightest sign of danger.

“When did you slip in?”

The Giant Whale’s Restriction was crafted by a Third-Tier Artifact Refiner from the Qiong Hua Sect. Under normal circumstances, it would have been impossible for such a creature to penetrate. The only explanation was that she had seized the opportunity to slip in during the Yin Soul’s self-destruction, when the Restriction shattered momentarily.

From the moment the Restriction shattered to its repair, Chen Luo’s divine sense had never left the area, yet he hadn’t detected any Yin Souls approaching.

“Young Master,” the Yin Soul Woman said, “I sense the aura of my younger sister, Xue Ning, on you. Can you tell me where you encountered her?”

“I don’t know any Xue Ning. You must have mistaken me for someone else.”

Chen Luo turned around, and the arm that had been resting on his shoulder quickly withdrew. Instead of retreating, however, the woman sidled closer, shifting her grip from a casual shoulder touch to an intimate arm link. Though her movements appeared relaxed, each step ensured she could strike Chen Luo at a moment’s notice.

“Ah!!”

A bloodcurdling scream echoed from afar—Zhao Long.

The Qiong Hua Sect Foundation Establishment cultivator piloting the Flying Boat collapsed to the ground, his face turning a ghastly purple. Clearly poisoned, he was incapacitated. Without Zhao Long’s control, the Giant Whale’s speed began to slow, and it once again showed signs of drifting off course.

“Young Master, if you don’t speak now, you’ll lose your chance. The Great Lord isn’t as lenient as I am. If he awakens…”

Before the woman could finish her sentence, a small, black stone materialized in Chen Luo’s hand. The stone cracked apart instantly, and Chen Luo, who had been linked arm with the Yin Soul Woman, tore apart like a paper doll.

A ring of murky gray energy erupted in the air.

“Demon Seed Substitution!”

Chen Luo’s figure vanished and reappeared on the other side, employing the Demonseed Sect Leader’s Demon Seed Substitute Life Art.

Each Demon Seed represented a human life, painstakingly cultivated over years. The Demonseed Sect Leader had only managed to accumulate a few dozen, nearly half of which Chen Luo had consumed in just a few days.

Yet the results were surprisingly effective. Having shaken off the Yin Soul Woman, Chen Luo raised his hand. A wisp of gray energy rippled from his fingertips—the power of curses, the most practical weapon against such entities.

As Chen Luo channeled this cursed energy, he infused it with the power of the Life-Stealing Mite and the Soul-Parasitic Gu.

After all, these two troublesome creatures had caused this mess, so they should help clean it up. With each passing moment, the clamor from the Ghost Temple below grew louder. Through the gloom, Chen Luo faintly glimpsed the Thousand-Eyed Centipede’s eyes. Two more pairs of eyes turned their gaze upward.

The Life-Stealing Mite isn’t drawing life force from that colossal thing down there, is it?

A smoky shadow materialized beside the Yin Soul Woman. Her index finger gathered a speck of starlight and precisely struck her forehead.

With a single finger’s descent, the entire area fell silent. The aura surrounding the Yin Soul Woman froze, her black hair ceasing its sway. As if glimpsing another world, she remained motionless for three seconds before shattering with a “pop.” Her body disintegrated into fine sand, scattering across the ground.

The dispersing curse energy lingered in the air, emitting eerie, childlike laughter that echoed long after her demise.

The moment the Yin Soul Woman died, the mist within the Ghost Temple below flickered momentarily before returning to stillness.

Chen Luo observed the area for a while, confirming his safety before settling down to rest. After a brief respite, he rose, gathered the remaining sand from the Yin Soul Woman’s body, and proceeded to the belly of the Giant Whale Flying Boat. With the woman dealt with, the vessel regained its stability and resumed its original course.

Following the passage, Chen Luo soon located the formation’s core.

Zhao Long and Mei Qin lay paralyzed on the ground, their faces tinged purple from poison. Nearby lay the decapitated corpse of the female cultivator who had inspected the bodies earlier, her face frozen in a mask of fury. What horrors had she witnessed before her death?

Can’t let this go to waste.

Having wasted a Demon Seed to transfer the damage, Chen Luo was now virtually unscathed, though his spiritual energy was severely depleted, leaving his legs weak and unsteady.

He crouched down and placed a hand on the dead female cultivator’s head.

Retrieve!

Gray energy surged through his arm into his body.

A flood of lingering obsessions poured into his mind. The female cultivator’s brain was remarkably intact, containing over twenty distinct fixations. Chen Luo quickly scanned them before dismissing them as worthless.

Two wisps of spiritual energy flew from his fingertips, landing on Zhao Long and Mei Qin. In that brief moment, Wang Mingde’s brain had already devised an antidote. As the spiritual energy fused with their bodies, the purple discoloration on their faces rapidly faded, though they remained unconscious.

Chen Luo sat at the edge of the core Formation, observing the burning spirit essence.

The Giant Whale Flying Boat glided silently through the air. After an unknown amount of time, the vessel suddenly lurched, and a beam of sunlight pierced through the clouds.

The Flying Boat had finally traversed its first major danger point, marking the halfway point of their journey.

“Thank you, Senior Brother Chen,” Zhao Long and Mei Qin called from behind. The recent ordeal had been far more perilous than anyone anticipated. No one could have imagined encountering such a massive swarm of yin spirits, let alone the formidable Yin Soul Woman who had appeared at the end. She was clearly no ordinary foe, having instantly killed the Foundation Establishment female cultivator who accompanied them.

“How much further to the sect?” Chen Luo asked. “Will the remaining spirit essence last until we arrive?”

His primary concern remained the Giant Whale Flying Boat.

“Once we cross the Ten Thousand Demon Mountain, we’ll reach a sect outpost,” Zhao Long replied. “We’ve already covered half the distance. The Bridge of Helplessness spans a vast area, but beyond that, the remaining two sections are relatively small. We should be able to traverse them in less than an hour.”

Zhao Long, too, kept a close watch on the spirit essence supply. This mission had been disastrously costly, depleting his years of accumulated reserves.

The circular formation spun like a massive gear. At its core, a furnace forged by the sect’s Third-Tier Artifact Refiner burned only spirit essence. Spirit stones were useless here, treated as impurities and incinerated by the furnace’s flames.

“Rest well,” Chen Luo said. “We’ll be safe once we reach the sect.”

He rose and left, eager to study the changes in his two Gu Insects. The Life-Stealing Mite had borrowed a sliver of ‘life’ from the Ghost Temple, and he needed to claim his share before the spoils vanished.

“I’m heading back too,” Mei Qin said to Zhao Long, rising to follow Chen Luo. Zhao Long found himself alone by the Giant Whale’s core furnace, the silence closing in around him.

Turning to watch Chen Luo’s departing figure, Zhao Long let out a long sigh of relief. During the earlier battle, he had personally witnessed Chen Luo repairing the Flying Boat’s breaches.

The repair was no simple feat, requiring expertise in Restrictions, Formations, and Artificing. The fact that Senior Brother Chen had completed it so quickly demonstrated his profound mastery in all three disciplines. Based on this alone, Zhao Long had already classified him as someone absolutely not to be trifled with.

Senior Brother Chen will likely reach Core Formation soon, Zhao Long thought, a flicker of envy crossing his eyes. He hadn’t even glimpsed the path to Core Formation, while Chen Luo was already suppressing his cultivation, striving for the higher realm of Golden Core.

The wooden Giant Whale Flying Boat continued its journey. Below, the cold, grayish-white landscape gradually transformed into a fiery red expanse, strewn with jagged rocks. Long-tailed flying serpents darted through the crags, hunting for prey.

Inside the cabin, Chen Luo sat cross-legged, retrieving the two culprit Gu insects from his Pest Control Pouch. Both were now engorged. The dark golden patterns on the Life-Stealing Mite’s surface had thickened, making it nearly the size of his thumb. The Soul-Parasitic Gu’s abdomen had also swollen, strands of gray energy swirling within.

The Ironclad Beetle and Silver Centipede remained docile, confined within the pouch and still gnawing at the Restriction seals. Chen Luo glanced at them and casually reinforced their confinement before turning his full attention to the Life-Stealing Mite.

This whole mess was caused by this little critter.

It didn’t even give a warning before it started stealing life.

“Has this thing always been such a pain?” Chen Luo muttered, tapping into the Immortal Sect Leader’s mind.

The Life-Stealing Mite is about to evolve! Now’s the perfect time to refine it!

The moment the Immortal Sect Leader’s mind saw the plump mite, this thought sprang to mind. Different minds saw the same thing from entirely different angles.

Evolve?

Chen Luo stared at the rotund Life-Stealing Mite and pressed his index finger against its tiny belly, trying to coax it into sharing some of the ‘life’ it had devoured.

Borrowed life must be repaid, but that required the other party to come looking for it. The Thousand-Eyed Centipede within the Ghost Temple remained dormant, so any reckoning was likely millennia away.

The mite was stubbornly plump. As Chen Luo’s finger pressed down, all eight of its silvery-white legs braced against his fingertip, refusing to yield a single drop of life force.

“Hoarding all the good stuff? This bad habit needs to be nipped in the bud!”

Chen Luo pinned the mite down with his index finger and began rubbing it against the table.

As he rubbed, the mite’s body grew increasingly hot. A wisp of white light emerged from its abdomen, and it writhed as if trying to shed its skin.

It’s starting to evolve!

The Immortal Sect Leader’s mind, which had been constantly monitoring the mite’s condition, immediately registered the change and alerted Chen Luo.