Thirty years passed in the blink of an eye.

During this time, neither Great Sage Tian Qi nor Lieyan Yuan had shown their faces or done anything unusual.

The shadow beings hadn’t attempted a second invasion either. Qin Lie and Qin Hao had killed so many of them that they realized that it was pointless to try until they were ready.

For once, the universe was able to enjoy a time of peace.

Spirit Realm continued to quietly develop itself during this time, and they eventually replaced the Spirit Race, the Soul Race and the God Race as the center of the universe.

Every day, countless foreigners visited Spirit Realm from every corner of the universe.

The opposite was equally true. For the first time, the ancient experts of Spirit Realm were able to step out of Spirit Realm for real and explore the vast universe outside. The travel was done through the realm entrance at Sky Bearing City.

The martial practitioners the Qin Family, Sky Mender Palace, and the Ji Family often traveled to different Abyss levels to temper themselves. The realm entrances they used had even been built by the Abyss Devils themselves.

Many human martial practitioners were killed by the Abyss Devils in combat.

Similarly, some of the Abyss Devils were killed by the human martial practitioners.

Those who were killed were weaklings who were eliminated by the cruel laws of natural selection.

But the humans who survived improved tremendously in both cultivation and battle power.

Many human martial practitioners who traveled to the Abyss were able to achieve a breakthrough, master new powers, and comprehend new laws.

Countless Soul Altars had been built during these thirty years of peace.

Thanks to these trials and the power and knowledge obtained from Sky Bearing City, the human warriors were quickly able to become as strong as the powerful experts of foreign races.

Within the same realm and bloodline rank, any human refined by the cruel battles in the Abyss was as strong as a foreign race expert.

Even better, the human race had a gigantic population. As a result, the high level experts of the human race gradually grew famous throughout the universe.

Countless foreign patriarchs traveled to Sky Bearing City personally to ally with Spirit Realm.

The Qin Family treated them all equally. Anyone who provided them with three lifeblood essences was allowed to enter the alliance.

More and more foreign races became allies of Spirit Realm because of this.

Qin Lie also benefited greatly from this arrangement.

At Flaming Sun Purgatory.

Qin Lie was currently submerged inside the Origin Sea in his Abyss Devil form. After thirty years of bloodline refinement, his body had grown to nine thousand and nine hundred meters tall!

Another hundred meters, and he would reach ten thousand hundred meters!

Once he reached that size, he would become a true Abyss Master just like the King of Flame Devils and Castor!

And since he had the Perfect Blood, his power would surpass any previous Abyss Master.

“Whoosh!”

The Soul Altar in his mind flew out from his eyes and hovered in front of him. He stared at it quietly.

He could see that everything was still normal with the purple crystal embedded inside his Soul Altar.

But he also couldn’t sense the Soul Suppressing Orb.

Ever since his battle with Castor had ended, Qin Lie had tried to enter the dead soul domain with his soul consciousness. He wanted to know how the battle between Castor’s main soul and the Soul Suppressing Orb was going.

Unfortunately, his soul consciousness was blocked out of Castor’s domain every time.

Thirty years had passed, and he still didn’t know what was going on inside the purple crystal’s domain.

That wasn’t the only thing that was troubling him. He had a steady supply of bloodline essences, and he absorbed them all into his Perfect Blood.

However, his body showed no signs of growth after hitting the nine thousand and nine hundred meter mark.

Every day, he gained new knowledge studying the powers, truths, and abilities in his bloodline.

Unfortunately, they weren’t enough to push him past the bottleneck.

He had a feeling that this final step had something to do with his soul.

More accurately, the key to his breakthrough lay in that domain of dead souls and the Soul Suppressing Orb.

Every time he studied a bloodline secret or a Soul Race secret art, he would be attacked by the strange feeling that his soul was incomplete.

It looked like he was missing a part of his soul.

Also, it felt like his missing soul was inside the Soul Suppressing Orb, waiting for him to obtain it.

“Let’s try this again.”

“Crackle!”

He focused his soul, gathered a great amount of lightning bolts and stabbed the purple crystal again like a sword.

“Zzzt!”

The sword his soul had transformed into kept attacking the purple crystal like an awl.

Traces of purple smoke flew out of the purple crystal. Suddenly, he had a feeling that his attempt would succeed this time.

He continued to gather more soul energy to attack.

An unknown amount of time later.

“Rip!”

His soul consciousness finally dug through the tough shell that was the purple crystal and pierced through like a lightning bolt!

His soul turned into a shadow once he was inside.

He had successfully entered the dead soul domain!

The domain was completely devoid of phantoms or wraiths. There was only bluish smoke inside.

Eight Nether Rivers intersected with one another to form a huge and mysterious ancient spirit diagram. It was suspended quietly inside the dead soul space.

He couldn’t feel Castor’s soul.

The Soul Suppressing Orb was at the center of the ancient spirit diagram.

It shone oddly like a pitch black eye.

When his gaze met the Soul Suppressing Orb, he suddenly realized that the missing portion of his soul… was inside the sacred relic.

It was an indescribable feeling.

“My soul is actually incomplete? And it’s inside the Soul Suppressing Orb? But how?” He was completely confused.

He slowly flew toward the Soul Suppressing Orb.

Suddenly, he felt a reaction from the Galaxy Mirror. The sacred relic that controlled space and time seemed to have discovered something.

When his soul approached the Soul Suppressing Orb, he could feel that the Soul Suppressing Orb was looking forward to him.

He also felt like the missing portion of his soul was waiting for him in silence.

It had been waiting for several million years already...

Suddenly, a series of images leaped out of the Galaxy Mirror and into his soul sea.

He saw a blazing flame burning a star region at a distant, desolate place.

The dead stars close to the fire were consumed by it one after another.

A violent flame was burning, and it looked like it could burn the universe to dust.

“Lieyan Yuan!”

He suddenly realized that Lieyan Yuan had been working toward the ultimate realm all this time.

And now, Lieyan Yuan had reached a critical point of his breakthrough.

“Stop him!”

The strange voice actually came from both his own soul and the Soul Suppressing Orb.

He immediately returned back to his body without hesitation. It was as if stopping Lieyan Yuan was his life’s mission.

He didn’t try to rush things with the Soul Suppressing Orb. He emerged from the bottom of the Origin Sea, and a spatial rift automatically appeared to welcome him.

He left Flaming Sun Purgatory while gripping the Galaxy Mirror.