Soul Emperor sat in a dim earthen house.
Countless thoughts surged into his mind.
Since breaking the seal and escaping, the various pieces of news he had received over the past few days nearly overwhelmed him, forcing him to take time to organize all the information.
Recalling that fierce battle with Xiao Yan, Soul Emperor had resorted to any means, finally sacrificing more than 90% of his clansmen to gather soul power and activate the Blood Soul Emperor-Locking Formation, successfully sealing Xiao Yan.
However, the ancient flame formation Xiao Yan used by burning his Dou Emperor body had likewise sealed Soul Emperor.
Fortunately, Xiao Yan, as the Flame Emperor at the time, did not know that before the Nihility Devouring Flame was consumed by him, it had already cultivated its own soul realm to the Emperor State.
When Xiao Yan ordered all flames in the world to return to their positions as the Flame Emperor, the original power of the Nihility Devouring Flame was able to resist Xiao Yan’s Emperor State soul.
Therefore, most of it remained within Soul Emperor’s body and was not completely drawn out.
As a result, the Ancient Flame Ruler formed by the ancient formation was not perfect.
This slight flaw went unnoticed by Xiao Yan because he had rushed his advancement to Dou Emperor.
Only because of this one missing step was Soul Emperor able to break out of the seal in just over twenty years.
Thinking back to the fierce battle, Soul Emperor had been pushed to a dead end by Xiao Yan and could only play all his cards, forcing the sacrifice of tens of thousands of clansmen.
On this point, Soul Emperor felt no psychological burden whatsoever.
As a hegemon, Soul Emperor had long since seen through everything.
The struggle between the two Emperors was a life-and-death battle; their conflict was irreconcilable.
If one side won, they would surely hunt down the other to the last man.
This situation was the same for both the Gu and Soul clans.
If it had come to the point where Xiao Yan only had the blood sacrifice as his last card, he surely would have made the same choice as Soul Emperor.
After all, losing meant direct extermination of the tribe; using every means possible still offered a glimmer of hope.
No individual would simply wait for death in a life-or-death choice, let alone in a death match between two races.
As Soul Emperor, he also did not expect that if Xiao Yan had been the victor, he would have been merciful enough to spare the Soul Clan.
The world of cultivation is one of the law of the jungle.
When both sides are facing the extermination of their entire race, would you talk about morality and boundaries with your enemy?
Truly laughable.
And the reason the Gu Clan didn’t kill off this group of Soul survivors wasn’t because they couldn’t bear to, but because they couldn’t.
Before Soul Emperor left the Soul Realm, he had left an Emperor State restriction for the commoners to preserve the last bloodline of the Soul Clan.
A restriction laid down by a Dou Emperor could not be broken by the cultivation of a Dou Saint.
Therefore, they could only redundantly add another restriction on top of Soul Emperor’s protection of the Soul mortals—it was basically a “nesting doll” situation.
This was why Soul Emperor had mocked the Gu Clan’s redundant methods when he entered the Soul Realm.
As for Soul Xing, Soul Emperor could say he truly appreciated him.
This junior certainly had low cultivation, but he had a broad mind and could endure.
Even in front of Soul Emperor, he remained neither humble nor arrogant, speaking such a passionate speech and finally even revealing his crude clan tattoo.
If he had cultivation resources, given time, this person would surely become a qualified overlord of the Soul Clan.
“It seems the situation within the clan is much better than I thought,” Soul Emperor murmured to himself.
Internal troubles were basically gone; any minor issues were easy to solve.
With Soul Emperor’s methods, ensuring 6,000 mortals in the Soul Realm were well-fed was indeed as easy as turning over a hand.
As for how to develop and recover vitality later, with a reliable patriarch like Soul Xing leading them, Soul Emperor was not worried.
“Internal troubles are gone, but what about external threats?” Thinking about the problem, Soul Emperor began pacing in circles around the room.
First was Xiao Yan’s seal.
Actually, Soul Emperor had gone to check on it the very night he broke free; after all, this was his greatest enemy.
Currently, the Flame Emperor Xiao Yan was sealed tens of thousands of feet underground in the Double Emperor Abyss.
The deepest depths, which ordinary Dou Saints could not even touch, were filled with various terrifying miasmas and toxic mists.
Even Soul Emperor had to use his full power to resist, while a Dou Saint would have to turn back halfway.
Xun’er had also gone underground several times after Xiao Yan was sealed, hoping to break the seal, but in that terrifying space, even Heavenly Flames were on the verge of extinguishing.
After several heavy injuries, all her attempts had been fruitless.
To his surprise, when Soul Emperor braved the effort to check the seal, he found that the Blood Soul Emperor-Locking Formation had formed a natural complement with the surrounding environment in that dark abyss, showing signs of becoming even more secure.
Perhaps without Soul Emperor doing anything, after a hundred years, the power of the formation alone would be enough to cause Xiao Yan to perish.
Next were the remaining five ancient races.
This part seemed even less concerning.
First, after the two had achieved Emperor status, the natural energy of this Dou Qi continent had mystically revealed to all Dou Saints the heavenly law that there would be no more Dou Emperors.
Since no one else could become an Emperor, no one could contend with him.
Secondly, after the Battle of the Two Emperors, the five races had lost countless supreme elders and countless Dou Saints and Dou Zuns, which had invisibly and significantly weakened their strength.
Gu Yuan was dead, Gu Dao was away traveling, and the remaining group of juniors was simply not up to much.
In another few decades, the bloodlines of the Yan and Lei clans would likely be severed on their own; Soul Emperor wouldn’t even need to lift a finger.
The only thing to worry about was the few descendants of Xiao Yan’s line, who had directly reached the 9-star Dou Saint level due to bloodline awakening.
However, they hadn’t been practicing for long and were temporarily no threat.
Furthermore, with Soul Emperor’s status, he disdained taking action against a few juniors he didn’t even respect.
“Hmm, it seems neither internal nor external threats are much of a problem.
The problem…
might be myself,” Soul Emperor thought, carefully scanning himself with his divine sense.
In the Battle of the Two Emperors, Xiao Yan had sacrificed his Dou Emperor body to seal Soul Emperor, who had then spent over twenty years inside the seal of the Ancient Flame Ruler.
Soul Emperor’s Dou Qi cultivation had now plummeted to the level of a 7-star Dou Saint, and his soul realm had also fallen back to the Heaven State.
Worst of all, because he had used the forbidden Blood Soul Emperor-Locking Formation at the end, Soul Emperor had lost a lot of his original power.
However, the good news was that the Nihility Devouring Flame was unaffected.
Although he was currently only at the 7-star Dou Saint level, Soul Emperor had absolute confidence that he could cultivate back to the Dou Emperor level within a few years.
Although no one else could become an Emperor in this world, Soul Emperor had merely suffered a drop in cultivation; he wasn’t trying to become an Emperor for the first time.
To put it plainly, if the human body is like a warehouse, an ordinary Dou Saint’s warehouse can only hold 100 boxes, while Soul Emperor had already expanded his warehouse to hold 200 boxes.
It’s just that there are currently only 100 boxes inside the warehouse.
Therefore, Soul Emperor did not need to find Source Qi to break through to the Emperor realm again.
Having figured this out, what Soul Emperor needed to do next was simple: find a place to recover his strength and then reclaim his Emperor status.
Once the thought was formed, Soul Emperor’s figure flashed, and he suddenly appeared before Soul Xing and the five elders.
“Patriarch!” Soul Xing’s group was about to kneel in haste when they were stopped by Soul Emperor.
“Is there any problem with the matter I instructed you five to handle?” “No problem at all.
Currently, no one in the Soul Clan except the five of us knows that you have returned.” Soul Emperor nodded and looked at Soul Xing as he continued: “From now on, you five shall not call this seat ‘Patriarch.’ The matter of this seat breaking the seal and appearing must be kept strictly secret.
As for the Soul Clan, the patriarch is you, Soul Xing, and no one else.
Soon, this seat will leave the Soul Realm.
Before leaving, I will do some things for the remaining clansmen; consider it…
compensation for you all.” Soul Emperor paused and continued: “Actually, this seat left a restriction here before the Battle of the Two Emperors, so you should know that your survival was not because of the Gu Clan’s mercy, but because they had no way to kill you!
Do not harbor any illusions!
Soul Xing, as the leader of a clan, you must be decisive.
Hesitation only harms everyone.
This seat consumed a large amount of cultivation when breaking the Flame Emperor’s seal.
I can feel that the seal left on the Soul Realm has also weakened due to my lowered cultivation.
Therefore, it is urgent that I enter secluded cultivation to protect you all.
Once this seat’s cultivation returns to the Dou Emperor level, no one in this world will be able to stop me!” Soul Xing listened carefully to Soul Emperor’s words, his heart filled with mixed emotions.
Actually, deep down, he did not agree with Soul Emperor’s methods of sacrificing clansmen back then, but Soul Emperor’s words today told him that he had indeed saved the final bloodline of the Soul Clan.
Humans are complex creatures; as the saying goes, “Do not advise others to be kind if you haven’t suffered their pain.” The young Soul Xing was currently unable to see the problem from Soul Emperor’s perspective.
Although he had doubts in his heart, this former King of the Soul Clan was clearly protecting his people.
With complex emotions, Soul Xing looked at Soul Emperor and nodded.
Soul Emperor remained expressionless as he reached out and handed Soul Xing a jade slip, then continued: “This jade slip is for you.
Crush it in times of danger, and this seat will appear to aid you.” As Soul Xing received the jade slip with both hands, Soul Emperor, whose calm face was always like an unruffled pool, suddenly revealed a faint smile: “Soul Xing, lead the clansmen well, and live on.” Before leaving, Soul Emperor wiped away the perpetual red tint of this small world within the Soul Realm, changing it to blue sky and white clouds like the outside world.
He then used Dou Emperor means to change the climate within the small world and spent considerable effort to gather a massive amount of spiritual energy to inject into it.
Having finished this, Soul Emperor stood in the void, took one last look at the world of the Soul Realm, and then, with a flash of light, his somewhat lonely black-robed back disappeared into the void.
“Yearning for the old nation and its mountains from afar, the west wind is chilly; in this place, there are no old friends left.” And at this very moment, within the Gu Clan’s assembly hall: “A few days ago, someone broke the seal I placed on the Soul Realm!!” “What?!
How is that possible?” “There shouldn’t be any Soul Clan members with Dou Saint cultivation left in the world!
Could it be some rogue Dou Saint?” “The seal mark of our Gu Clan is obvious.
Which rogue Dou Saint would dare to break it at will??” “Gather the men!
Go and investigate immediately!”