The cultivator who looked like a shopkeeper was being battered by waves of astonishment. He had heard of techniques that could make time run backward. But in most cases, they were used to trace an event backward to observe what happened in the past. Such techniques weren’t used to change anything. That was something only powerful Void Returning experts could do.

But now… despite having taken steps to kill himself, including using a deadly poison, detonating warding spells in his fleshly body, and igniting his soul, he was still alive when he should have been dead. And… it was all done by the wave of Xu Qing’s hand. That alone caused everything to reverse, and made time go back to seven breaths earlier. His mind reeled as the terrifying Xu Qing floated in front of him, and his soul trembled. Even his eyes stung.

“This isn’t possible!”

The cultivator shot backward and tried to do something else to kill himself. This time, he wasn’t fast enough.

Xu Qing stepped forward, and instantly, he was in front of the shopkeeper. Reaching out, he grabbed the man’s chin and squeezed, causing all of his teeth to fall out along with numerous poison caplets.

The cultivator’s eyes gleamed with terror as he struggled to free himself.

But then soul threads emerged from Xu Qing, which stabbed into the man’s flesh like sharp swords. All of the warding spells within him were destroyed before they could be activated.

The disguised cultivator grunted. At the same time, his soul seed seemed to turn traitor as it swiveled to face his own soul and suppress the flames that had been about to burst out. Every one of his plans had been thwarted by Xu Qing before they could even be used. It all happened in the time it takes a spark to fly off a piece of flint, and the entire time, Xu Qing’s face remained completely expressionless.

To this cultivator, everything that just happened seemed outrageous and gruish.

To Xu Qing, it was all very simple. Having thwarted the cultivator’s plans, he didn’t feel like engaging in banter. This person’s reaction earlier did more than enough to confirm his suspicions.

Without any hesitation, he clamped his left hand down onto the cultivator’s head and sent divine will into him… in a soulsearch! In the cultivation world, a soulsearch was a very cruel and ruthless act. It was something that only high-level cultivators could use on low-level cultivators, and was often a punishment. When used carefully, the subject’s soul might dim, but nothing more. In serious cases, it could result in both spiritual and physical aspects of the soul being destroyed.

When one was trying to get information, the soulsearch needed to be even more thorough, and could involve methods of slicing and extermination. That was what Xu Qing was doing.

This cultivator disguised as a shopkeeper had a soul that immediately began to show signs of collapse as soon as the soulsearch began. Cracks spread out on its surface, and the cultivator screamed miserably. It was like the wailing of ghosts and howling of wolves. Any mortals who heard it would have nightmares for years afterward, and even cultivators who saw something like this would feel a chill running down their spine.

Thankfully, they were 5,000 kilometers in the air, with no one around. It was a perfect situation in which no one could hear this man scream.

As Xu Qing slowly wiped his soul out of existence, he saw all the man’s memories, and before long, a picture emerged of this man’s life. His background and identity became clear. But at the same time, his life was so complex that Xu Qing didn’t bother trying to understand it. He simply skipped to the part about half a month ago. That was where he found the information he sought. Half a month ago, in a mysterious building, a black-cloaked individual spoke.

Xu Qing wanted more details, but before he could get them, the image disappeared. The cultivator’s soul was thoroughly destroyed, and could never be restored. The only thing left behind was a lifeless, unmoving lump of flesh. Xu Qing frowned slightly.

This guy’s soul is inherently defective… ensuring he couldn’t sustain this level of soulsearching.

Xu Qing thought back to what he’d seen of the man’s life.

Years ago he joined an organization that was a mystery even to him. They gave him a new lease on life, but at the same time, completely controlled him. As for the details….

Xu Qing’s eyes narrowed as he rifled through the man’s bag of holding and found a black kettle. After scanning it with divine will, he scowled. There were hundreds of thousands of souls inside….

After some thought, Xu Qing blurred into motion. Vanishing from where he’d been, he shot in the direction of some of the locations from the cultivator’s memories. Each of those places was a location he had set up for use in soul harvesting. However, after his companion was discovered, and security everywhere increased, the cultivator had gone into hiding and not activated any of the other extraction locations.

Xu Qing went to them one by one and destroyed them, though he kept a record of their existence to use as evidence. freёwebnovel.com

After he was done, he left that part of the 97th ring. Naturally, he took the body of the disguised cultivator to use as evidence.

Five days later, he reached Ninestate County in the Daoheaven Region.

This was one of the seven main regions controlled by humans, and it wasn’t particularly far away from the Imperial Region. Because of that, Xu Qing could use teleportations and other methods to get there fairly quickly.

It was late at night when he arrived.

Xu Qing had passed through this county on his way to the imperial capital, though he hadn’t stayed here long. Now that he was back, his killing intent burned as he stepped off the teleportation portal. He immediately vanished and headed in the direction of the soul seed.

Of the initial group of three operatives, one had been killed by the governor of Heavenbright County. The other had been exterminated by Xu Qing. That left one more, and he… was right here. Other people would find it very hard to track him down, but because he had that soul seed, Xu Qing could see every trace of him very clearly.

It was time to clean house and find out what was going on. Xu Qing was planning to cut the weeds and eliminate the roots, but at the same time, he needed to do another soulsearch to try to identify that black-cloaked figure.

This soul seed has been in one spot for quite a few hours without moving.

Xu Qing teleported into Ninestate County in the middle of the night. About an hour later, he reached a remote mountain range. The mountains were pitch black, and the only sounds were the calls of the beasts and birds. There was also a wind that stirred the plants and vegetation. Other than that, everything was quiet.

After looking around, he burst into motion again. Next, he became visible in the depths of the mountains, right outside a gigantic natural cave.

He frowned. On the way here, he had sensed that something unusual was going on. Now that he was standing here, he could sense it even more clearly. Eyes glittering coldly, he waved his right hand, causing numerous hidden warding spells in the cave to deteriorate via mutagen. After they were disabled, he stepped into the cave.

There was a spell formation on the ground, and it was currently operational. There was a person laying in the middle of the formation. It was a middle-aged man with vigorous life force, except he wasn’t moving. He was completely naked, and there was a spot on his belly that wriggled and writhed; that was the location where Xu Qing’s soul seed was.

On the ground just outside of the spell formation was a jade slip.

Xu Qing examined the formation, then the jade slip. After scanning it with divine will to make sure it was safe, he picked it up. When he looked inside, an ancient voice entered his mind.

“Whoever you are, the fact that you found this place indicates that you are like me, and are investigating the dao seeds of the Xeno-Immortal School. Well, I’ve already reached a conclusion in that regard. This person couldn’t stand up to a soulsearch, and collapsed. But I used this spell formation to keep him alive, and prevent his soul from completely dispersing. He won’t last much longer, so feel free to do whatever you wish with him.”

After a moment of thought, Xu Qing coolly said, “Parlor tricks. Little Shadow, spread out. Lock down the entire area, and use whatever methods necessary to locate anyone hiding in the area.”1

Little Shadow immediately sent out fawning fluctuations, while simultaneously spreading out in all directions. It soon covered the entire mountain range, and then extended even further beyond the mountains. Every single bird and beast in that area trembled as the shadow possessed it. It took over everything.

Xu Qing, meanwhile, looked at the person in the spell formation. He didn’t believe the message in the jade slip. It seemed much more plausible that the person he was after had used some mysterious method to extract the soul seed from within himself and implant it into this person. In that manner, he could slip out of a predicament like a cicada sloughing its skin.

It was possible this tactic wasn’t specifically targeting Xu Qing. After all, his quarry had no idea that it was Xu Qing who was chasing him. But it could be something used to deal with all potential investigators. The message in the jade slip was probably deliberately mystifying.

What was most important in this situation was that he had somehow extracted the soul seed without Xu Qing realizing it. That said, he could think of a way to do that. And that was… to not actually extract the soul seed at all. There was only one way to do that while also achieving this result.

It’s a clone!

Xu Qing looked at the unconscious person in the spell formation, and his eyes glittered with cold light. If a clone was the one that originally absorbed the dao seed, and the true form accompanied the clone the entire time, then it could easily lead to this very situation.

The biggest flaw that jumped out to Xu Qing was that… no one else could have reached this location as quickly as he had. And that meant that whoever set up this situation had anticipated that the clone would be dead before anyone showed up, while the formation provided cover for the rest of the story. Not even using a time-reversal technique would reveal any clues. The culprit really did soulsearch his own clone, then set up the formation so that the clone’s soul wouldn’t collapse, and the clone would stay alive for a time. However, by the time anyone came around and found the clone and the formation, it would be too late.

Xu Qing thought about it for a short time. If his speculations were correct, then his arrival this early was definitely outside of what the culprit had predicted. By extension, that implied that this hadn’t been set up very long ago.

I can confirm it fairly easily.

Xu Qing sent his soul threads flying out, then used them to weave… his third-level god state. Rumbling sounds echoed out, wild colors flashed in heaven and earth, and winds screamed.

A terrifying figure appeared behind Xu Qing, which he merged with to become a single entity. It was like the arrival of a god. The surroundings blurred, mutagen erupted, and the cave walls began to crumble. The mountains became like a graveyard. The plants and vegetation became skeletons, and the cave became a gigantic skull. It was all an illusion, yet few people would be able to see the reality.

Within all the blurriness strode a figure. He had long, violet hair that draped on the ground behind him. He seemed fiendish to the extreme, with bones like crystal, and countless blood vessels filling his flesh. Violet feathers of flesh formed two huge wings on his back, and behind him was a violet moon. Shocking personhood roiled.

It was none other than Xu Qing.

Hē stepped over to the formation and extended his hand.

The unconscious figure flew up, and he grabbed him by the top of the head. This time, he didn’t use a soulsearch. He used the power of his personhood to assess the unconscious person’s life force, and follow the threads to his true form. He had sent Little Shadow out in case the hiding culprit got spooked and tried to teleport away.

“Life force traces, activate!” a godly voice said, shaking everything.

1. In the past, “Little Shadow” was almost always referred to as just ‘the shadow’ or ‘Xu Qing’s shadow.’ There were a couple times where Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior called it Little Shadow. Starting at this point, it becomes more common for Xu Qing to use ‘Little Shadow.’ ☜